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Australians Joust over Knights and Dames Revival · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

When monarchist Tony Abbott became Australia’s Prime Minister in September 2013, he promised no surprises. However, he seems to have ambushed friend and foe alike with his reinstatement of knights and dames as part of the honours system.
Twitter faced meltdown, down under, on 25 March 2013. The #auspol Tweetdeck feed was moving so fast that it was impossible to read. Not only were the hashtags #KnightsandDames and #Dames trending in Australia for hours after the announcement, but #KnightsandDames and Australia also hit the Worldwide top ten.
Many of the responses were satirical, with the inevitable medieval political jousting:
Knights and Dames twitter trends 25 March 2013
What Abbot sees …… and what we see! #knightsanddames #auspol pic.twitter.com/6ILrbjMx5T
— Tory – Earl of Bogan (@DopedByMurdoch) March 26, 2014
Tony Abbott wants to restore jousting and witch-dunking as pastimes for his vassals #auspol #WorstGuvmintEver
— Lord Judge 'n Jury  (@sprocket___) March 25, 2014
Some see it as a nostalgia trip:
#Knighthood – wonderful decision #PM Tony Abbott. Please could we have pounds, shillings and pence back, too?
— Bear (@s8s8s8222) March 25, 2014
Supporters of the PM are also looking to our past:
I'm so glad we have a Prime Minister who is not ashamed of Australias European heritage.Unlike ALP who pander to Greens. #auspol #Knighthood
— ME (@stevesownnacc) March 25, 2014
Probably the greatest of all generasl in WW1, John Monash was recognized by The King knighting him on the battlefield pic.twitter.com/qTi85v4c60
— David Flint (@profdavidflint) March 25, 2014
Images have also been popular:
Tony Abbott announces changes to the Australian flag, to fall in line with #knightsanddames pic.twitter.com/632IKX8Fio
— Poet Laureate (@notGareth) March 25, 2014
A Rational Fear featured a series of photos of well-known Aussies in its tumblr post ARISE: Which Knight of Abbott’s round table are you? Each has a suitable punny name such as Sir Cumference for the portly Clive Palmer, Sir Mon for Cardinal George Pell and Sir Loin for the Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce.
Even politicians have joined the visual lampooning. Opposition parliamentarian Tony Burke is ready for combat on his Facebook page:
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce – Sir Loin Image: Tumblr – A Rational Fear
Tony Burke ready for combat – Facebook photos
References to Monty Python’s movie The Holy Grail have been popular:
#knightsanddames #auspol #auspythons pic.twitter.com/thcI79D94R
— Lauren Bok (@bokla) March 25, 2014
My thought about Tony Abbott's #Knighthood plans can be best summed up by Monty Python… "I fart in your general direction" #AusPol
— Peter Holden (@BrekkyDJ) March 25, 2014
Former PM John Howard, a close political ally of Tony Abbott, is on everyone’s shortlist for a tap of the sword:
Oh now I get it. Well I guess John Howard had to get his knighthood somehow eh?
— Susan Fahey (@susanfahey) March 25, 2014
At this stage there will only be four members of the #KnightsandDames. If comedian Barry Humphries gets the nod, Australia could have two for the price of one:
Australia's First Couple. No not Abbott and Margie. Sir Les and Dame Edna. #knightsanddames #auspol pic.twitter.com/ErtpuKB9Lt
— Lord Geek of Oceania (@geeksrulz) March 25, 2014
This comment was inevitable, given the date:
Someone needs to tell the Abbott Government they're a week too early #AprilFool #KnightsAndDames #auspol
— Sir Barossa Observer (@BarossaObserver) March 25, 2014

author: Kevin Rennie


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Blogging about Russia’s Crimea Annexation? You Could Be an Extremist! · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Moscow city council member Inna Svyatenko warns against “extremist” blogging about Crimea. Images mixed by author.
Russian lawmakers are toying with the idea of levying extremism charges against bloggers who “incite xenophobic attitudes” when writing about the Crimea. Inna Svyatenko, a Moscow city council member, has proposed using Russia’s infamous anti-hate-speech criminal code, Article 282, to punish Internet users responsible for unpatriotic “provocations” about Russia’s newest territory. People convicted of violating Article 282 face fines up to 14 thousand dollars or as many as four years in prison.
“Intelligence agencies can’t gain complete control over bloggers,” the councilwoman acknowledged, saying this police shortcoming necessitates punishing “offenders” more visibly.
News of Svyatenko’s proposal first appeared in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaia Gazeta, which cited as examples of Crimea-related extremism LiveJournal posts by two anonymous bloggers, valdt and leisurebocker. While penalizing individuals writing under pseudonyms presents its own challenges, it’s also hard to understand why anyone singled out these bloggers as perpetrators of extremism, given that the content highlighted is far from xenophobic or violent. (Nezavisimaia Gazeta’s text does not make it clear if the examples are its own or Svyatenko’s.)
Valdt’s crime, it seems, was suggesting that acquiring Crimea would drain the Russian budget, enriching only a handful of oligarchs. Leisurebocker, meanwhile, declared (outrageously!) that the annexation’s one benefit could be that the subsequent international sanctions might arrest Russian capital flight. (As it happens, leisurebocker was actually quoting a blog post that appeared on Echo of Moscow’s website, authored by journalist Aleksandr Minkin.)
The idea of criminalizing such blogging comes on the same day that Russia’s Ministry of Finance revealed a plan to allocate almost 7 billion dollars to sustaining and developing Crimea. The lion’s share of that money would come from the private investments the government froze last year in the Russian pension system. (See here for a detailed explanation of that reform.)
If the two bloggers named above in the Nezavisimaia Gazeta article are guilty of inciting extremism against Crimea, it could mean open season on prosecuting Russia’s most prominent bloggers. Indeed, the country’s top political blogger, Alexey Navalny, was quick to draw attention today to the Finance Ministry’s plan to redistribute Russian pension wealth to its newest citizens, criticizing the move as the latest in a series of massive thefts orchestrated by state officials.
Do Svyatenko and the Moscow city council have the legal authority or the police capacity to charge bloggers writing about Crimea with violating the hate-speech criminal code? Even at the federal level, as Svyatenko herself admits, the Russian government’s ability to control the Internet is dubious. Given that deficiency, conspicuous prosecutions are the next-best tactic. With Russia now on a war footing, even if Svyatenko isn’t the person to spearhead the effort, expanded legal actions against bloggers writing politically sensitive texts will almost certainly rise.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Lebanese Launch Campaign in Support of Syrians Facing Racism · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

The Campaign in Support of Syrians facing Racism (Arabic: الحملة الداعمة للسوريين بوجه العنصريّة) was launched on the 21st of March, 2014, on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, “in rejection of all violence towards Syrians [in Lebanon], racist political rhetoric and the associated media hype.” In other words, it aims to tackle what is perceived as growing discrimination against Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. Lebanese politicians are being accused by activists of using rising tensions between Syrians refugees and Lebanese inhabitants of some areas of Lebanon for politically-motivated purposes.
After the “I am not a Martyr” campaign in honor of Mohammad Chaar and the “I am not naked” campaign first in support of Olympic skier Jackie Chamoun and then against Domestic Violence, the anti-racism campaign is using the same (and now-familiar) method of online protest featuring average citizens posting selfies and carrying a message.
Speaking to leading French language Lebanese newspaper “L'Orient-le Jour”, one of the activists participating in the campaign said:
Les politiciens n'arrivent même pas à résoudre le problème de l'approvisionnement en électricité, des transports en commun, des violences à Tripoli, dans le Hermel, de la violence conjugale, de la cherté des télécommunications… Ces problèmes existaient avant l'arrivée des réfugiés syriens, et nos politiciens ne les ont pas résolus. Ils ne veulent rien résoudre, ils ne l'ont jamais voulu
Politicians can't even solve basic problems such as of providing us electricity and public transportation, stopping violence in Tripoli and Hermel, domestic violence, expensive telecommunication… These problems existed before the arrival of Syrian refugees and our politicians did not solve them. They never want to solve anything, they never did.
Here are a few examples of those participating:
“And our house is your house if you're willing to accept us parents to parents, brothers to brothers
I once met a Syrian who made us both proud
Above: The Humanist. Below: The Racist
He didn't escape death [in his country] to die of humiliation [in your country]
Not every Syrian is a criminal and not every Lebanese is innocent
The Syrian refugee is like us: he can't live. Direct your anger towards the corrupt ruling class.
I'm a human before being a Syrian.
Say no to racism. Lebanon is a small country, but with a big heart.
90% of our houses are built by Syrians. Stay a racist and leave your house.
Some even went further to criticize colonial legacy.
Whoever divided these grounds for ‘immigrants’ to cross borders to another country… I won't say ‘welcome’ because this is not just my country.
And they even hanged a sign over a highway:
Dear Syrian, Welcome! Welcome to the heart of Lebanon

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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MENA: Hijab and Western Discrimination · Global Voices
Eman AbdElRahman

Egyptian blogger Nadia El Awady wrote a blog post in which she questions if women wearing Hijab face discrimination in western countries or not. Nadia, as an Egyptian who grew up in the US and lived prolonged periods in Europe, adds from her personal experience in regards to reactions she received in both Eastern and Western countries when it comes to wearing the Hijab or even taking it off.
She writes:
During all those years, I have been without the hijab, with the hijab, wearing a very long hijab (called a khimar), wearing a face veil (called a niqab), back to wearing a shorter hijab and finally, now, no hijab at all. I’ve done it all. I’ve seen all the reactions. The way I have dressed over the years may have been accepted by some in my inner circles and criticized by others; this is true. How a woman dresses is a highly contentious subject no matter where you are in the world. When I donned the face veil, my own father was against it. When I took off my hijab, I lost at least one good friend and was tsk tsked by many others. These are normal reactions and they are to be expected. I do not categorize these reactions as discrimination. Friends and family have definite ideas of how they expect me to live my life. They believe they know what is best for me.

author: Eman AbdElRahman


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‘NATO Air – Just Do It’ Meme Opens Old Wounds for Serbia and Kosovo · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

Post-strike bomb damage assessment photograph of the Sremska Mitrovica Ordnance Storage Depot, Serbia, used by Joint Staff Vice Director for Strategic Plans and Policy Maj. Gen. Charles F. Wald, U.S. Air Force, during a press briefing on NATO Operation Al. Image by United States Government, public domain.
On March 24, 2014, the fifteenth anniversary of the beginning of the 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia, NATO spokesperson and former BBC correspondent Oana Lungescu retweeted (reposted) a tweet by Kosovo Minister of European Integration Vlora Citaku.
The tweet in itself was controversial because it contained a meme with the altered, but still widely recognizable Nike logo, bastardized versions of the Nike brand, Nike Air, and trademarked Nike slogan “Just do it”. Minister Citaku's original tweet included the meme, which is what a few Twitter users, both of Serbian and other nationalities, took issue with:
15 years ago NATO intervened to stop genocide in Kosovo! Will never forget! pic.twitter.com/V6euDfgBoi
— Vlora Citaku (@vloracitaku) March 23, 2014
However, what opened a flood of angry and disappointed comments from Twitter users from around the world, including many Serbs, was Ms. Lungescu's reposting of the original tweet on the official NATO Twitter account for press relations. The NATO spokesperson's retweet of this image, much more than Minister Lungescu's comment that accompanied it, was met with outrage and deemed inappropriate and “a dumb move” by many.
Minister Citaku was also criticized by some Twitter users but defended her stance on the matter by tweeting several comments related to the 1999 NATO bombings, including this tweet to a Serbian critic:
@JelenaLilic2 bombing helped Serbia liberate from Milosevic! Self victimization not helpful! Reflect on the past!
— Vlora Citaku (@vloracitaku) March 24, 2014
Minister Citaku also added:
@Solisio we never denied Serbian victims! But we should not lose the track of history.We all know how/when/why it started and why NATO acted
— Vlora Citaku (@vloracitaku) March 23, 2014
This did not soothe critics after Minister Citaku's tweet went viral on several social networks through NATO representative Oana Lungescu's promotion of her tweet on official NATO communication channels. While many supported Minister Citaku's stance and tweet, others still found some of it inappropriate.
The majority of critics on Twitter responded to Ms. Lungescu's retweet, not Minister Citaku's original tweet. Andrej Fajgelj, a civil servant and member of Treća Srbija (Third Serbia) political party, was among those who directed their response to the @NATOPress Twitter account that Ms. Lungescu runs:
@NATOpress Your idea of a tombstone for our children you have killed? I hope we'll know to respect them better @vloracitaku
— Andrej Fajgelj (@fajgelj) March 24, 2014
Lily Lynch, a US journalist who lived in Serbia for several years, also responded, taking issue with the image included in the tweet:
@NATOpress @vloracitaku NATO, this is some bad PR. And I'm American. Using the Nike sweatshop logo to rally support for a bombing?
— Lily Lynch (@lilyslynch) March 24, 2014
Nebojša Krstić, a public relations professional from Serbia, was among those who wondered how a NATO public relations official could publicize such a comment and controversial image through an official channel.
In one of several long discussions on Twitter about this matter, an NGO program director and board member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Serbia Darko Runić also drew attention to what most have called inappropriate use of a well known brand by a government official and a NATO representative:
@Petrit @NATOpress @vloracitaku no need to educate me on jazz, my point is the deeply inappropriate (ab)use of Nike logo by a govt official
— Danko Runić (@DankoRunic) March 23, 2014
After users mentioned this matter to Nike on Twitter, the sportswear company replied from its official @NikeSupport account and made this statement:
… Thank you for contacting us and raising your concern. This is not an official Nike ad nor was Nike involved in the creation or posting of this image. We take misuse of our Brand and slogan seriously.
Nato spokesperson Ms. Lungescu stood by her retweet and made a statement later in the day to defend her action:
NATO's spokesperson, however, maintains that it was appropriate for her to retweet the image on the same day. Late on Monday, Lungescu defended the gesture by saying that the retweet “in no way had the goal of disrespecting the victims of the 1999 conflict.”
Instead, said she, it was “a retweet of a tweet thanking NATO for saving civilians from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. NATO reacted quickly to protect people in Kosovo in 1999 and our peace mission KFOR continues to provide a safe environment for all people in Kosovo based on UN Security Council Resolution 1244.”

author: Danica Radisic


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Russia’s Media Crackdown Spills into Academia · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Andrei Zubov, left, confronts academic repression reminiscent of the USSR. Images mixed by author.
The crackdown on Russia’s free press is as old as Vladimir Putin’s presidency. In the last two years, since Putin returned to the Kremlin for a third go, the process has accelerated. Media centers of opposition reporting and opinion, like Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru, and Kommersant, have lost leaders who could maintain those outfits’ independence. TV Rain, Russia’s only opposition television station, is all but finished, thanks a successful and coordinated campaign to bankrupt it.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its looming invasion of Eastern Ukraine has of course only exacerbated things, and the censorship so widespread in journalism is now spilling into academia.
Three days ago, on March 24, 2014, MGIMO University in Moscow fired Professor Andrei Zubov for so-called academic misconduct. His unspecified crime was a March 1 op-ed published in Vedomosti newspaper, where he compared the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine to Hitler’s land grab in the Sudetenland. MGIMO’s management claimed that Zubov’s political activism (he has spoken out about Ukraine on several other occasions in recent weeks) harms the university, so they let him go.
In interviews, Zubov has not shied from likening his termination to the political firings that occurred in Soviet academia. “Yes, you can compare it with the Soviet Union, when it was the same thing,” he told The New Times earlier this month. Zubov added, however, that Russians have become a “different people” since communism, as evidenced by the outpouring of public and private support he’s received since rumors first started flying about his position at MGIMO. Indeed, back on March 4, a professors’ union published an open letter of support for Zubov within hours of the news that he was being fired. Now that his employment at MGIMO is officially over, Zubov says he is fielding multiple job offers from universities both in Moscow and abroad.
While the interviews with journalists and invitations from other schools certainly suggest that Russia today is much changed from the Soviet Union, it’s harder to judge how accurate Zubov is when he says the Russian people are so different.
Former MGIMO faculty member Ela Kolesnikowa doesn't disguise her political beliefs. Here is her Facebook profile picture, showing her against a Ukrainian flag background.
Consider the experience of another MGIMO faculty member, lecturer Ela Kolesnikowa, who quit her job in protest against Zubov’s firing. On March 25, Kolesnikowa posted a long message to her Facebook account, describing her final day on campus. Kolesnikowa says students gave her a farewell standing ovation, but colleagues in the linguistics department refused even to speak to her. “I never thought I’d become a ghost,” she wrote.
On Facebook, where she has catalogued the experience of resigning from MGIMO, Kolesnikowa has no shortage of supporters. The post mentioned above has almost seven thousand “likes” and nearly six thousand “shares.” Prominent liberal journalists like Ilya Klishin and Filipp Dzyadko have registered their sympathy, as well.
In both cases, people’s public and professional attitudes differ drastically. But which reactions are more significant? The applauding students? The encouraging Facebook users? Or the people who turned a cold shoulder to a colleague of several years? For Zubov, whose prominence grants him ample career alternatives, the public reaction is enough to suggest the emergence a new nation that’s shaken off the worst of the Soviet legacy. Kolesnikowa’s far less certain future, however, is perhaps the better test of how much life in Russia has and has not changed.


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Saudi Arabia: 2014 A Promising Year for Women  · Global Voices
Eman AbdElRahman

Saudi Arabian blogger Hala Al-Dosari shares on her blog an interesting piece from an annual publication by the Wislon’s Center on women in the MENA Region. The publication suggests that 2014 might be a potentially promising year for women status in Saudi Arabia.


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The Challenges Facing Data Journalism in West Africa · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

The launch of news website FiveThirtyEight, which aims to popularise the concept of data journalism, has been an important source of interest and excitement in the world of American media. Creator Nate Silver is an American statistician who rose to fame during the 2008 elections thanks to his accurate predictions of the presidential vote in 49 out of 50 states and the Senate vote in 35 of the races.
Explaining that data journalism is much more than election predictions, Silver wrote on the website:
It usually involved more preliminary steps in the data journalism process: collecting data, organizing data, exploring data for meaningful relationships, and so forth. Data journalists have the potential to add value in each of these ways, just as other types of journalists can add value by gathering evidence and writing stories.
In Europe, many initiatives of this type have already been established, such as OWNI in France and The Guardian's Data Blog in the United Kingdom.
Data journalism is no longer the novelty it was a few years ago for the majority of media around the world.
Including in emerging countries, the value of data journalism is widely recognised. However, a model of practice is yet to be established. Bertrand Pecquerie, CEO of the Global Editors Network, thinks that legal barriers are still playing an important role in the access to open data in most emerging countries:
Clearly, data journalism is at an early stage in emerging countries. The real barrier is access to open data, and the laws are still friendlier in, [for example], Sweden and Norway than in Nigeria or Pakistan.”
On the African continent, data journalism is experiencing a surge, but faces issues such as access to and reliability of existing data. Cheikh Fall, the founder of Sunu2012 [fr] in Senegal, and Nicolas Kayser-Bril, the co-creator of Journalism++ and leader of a data journalism training workshop in Dakar, have discussed the needs regarding reliable data there [fr]:
L’accès aux données est largement insuffisant. Nous avons 100 personnes qui relaient l’information sur le terrain et une communauté de quelques 1 000 personnes qui suivent le site. Pour nous, l’enjeu principal est de démocratiser le mode de traitement de l’information et que celui qui habite à 500 kilomètres de Dakar puisse avoir accès à l’information [..] Ils vont chercher les données à la base et ne se contentent pas de vérifier un chiffre sorti de la bouche d’un politique. L’intérêt du fact-checking est de pouvoir vérifier et contester les données officielles. On sait qu ’il y a un problème de données, donc l’enjeu est d’en chercher de nouvelles. »
There's a real lack of access to data. We have 100 people who relay information in the field and a community of a few thousand people who follow the website. For us, it's a question of improving access to data so that someone who lives 500 kilometres from Dakar can have access to information […] They should be able to search for fundamental data and not have to settle for verifying statistics coming from the mouth of a politician. Fact-checking is concerned with verifying and contesting official data. We know that there's a data problem, so it's a question of finding new data.
Infographics about the size of the African continent – public
Nicolas Kayser-Bril discusses his vision for data journalism in the following French-language video. He explains that the goal of the data journalism projects in Africa is to develop innovative platforms that fills a concrete need for development:
Internet Sans Frontières (Internet Without Borders) was also involved in organising the same training workshop in Dakar with workshop co-creator Kayser-Bril. The group leaders, Julie Owono and Archippe Yepmou, talk about the workshop in the following video, explaining that it is more of an exchange of know-how rather than a top-down training session:
In Cameroon, Dorothée Danedjo Fouba noted that the country is a reference model for Africa in terms of online journalism, but she highlighted that it still lacks regulation [fr]:
Au Cameroun, la classification des journaux en ligne devient plus complexe du fait d’une absence de nomenclature dans le domaine du webjournalisme. Des propositions de nomenclature non encore validées par le législateur présente la presse en ligne sous le nom presse cybernétique constituée de « cyberjournal » ou « journal multimédia ».
In Cameroon, classifying different online news platforms is becoming more and more complex because of the absence of nomenclature in the field of online journalism. Classification proposals which have yet to be approved by legislators mean that the online press continues to be called ‘cyber journalism’ or ‘multimedia journalism’.
But important initiatives are currently being set up in Cameroon. Gaétan IZANE, an engineer based in Douala highlighted a new project on Twitter :
Mini data journalisme sur les dernières sénatoriales au Cameroun #mediawebcmr pic.twitter.com/TejTNDIuvY
— IZANE Gaétan (@IzaneFG) May 11, 2013
Mini data journalism during the last Senate elections in Cameroon.
The presentation shown above  was presented at a workshop on media journalism [fr] supported  by the Goethe Institute in Cameroon.  The graph highlighted the projection of the senatorial elections by region and by  political party.
Another initiative, Feowl, has provided existing data to highlight the problems of power cuts in Douala, the largest city in Cameroon. Infographics were created using the collected data to heighten awareness of the issue:
Power cuts in Douala, Cameroon via Bantu Politics
The Feowl project wasn't able to continue due to lack of funds, underlining yet again the difficulties involved in establishing data journalism projects in West Africa.
In Ivory Coast, blogger Yoroba believed that this field will be the future of journalism:
« Est-ce un métier pour l’avenir ?» me demandait un journaliste au sortir d’un atelier que je donnais sur le même thème. « Non, lui ai-je répondu, c’est un métier pour aujourd’hui ». […] Le web journaliste doit tenir compte de l’environnement web dans lequel évolue désormais la profession. Un environnement de pluralité de sources. Le journaliste se retrouve parfois avec des versions différentes sur un sujet. Des informations complémentaires ou même contradictoires. Aux journalistes de faire le tri, de recouper et de vérifier ses sources.»
“Will it be a profession in the future?” a journalist asked me when leaving a workshop where I had spoken on the topic. “No,” I answered, “it's a profession today.” […] Online journalists should be aware of the online environment in which this profession is currently evolving. An environment of multiple sources. From time to time, journalists find different versions on the same subject, both complimentary and contradictory. This new breed of journalists must recycle, cross-check and verify their sources.”

author: Rakotomalala


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Thrive Show: On Living Well With Chronic Illness · Global Voices
Solana Larsen

Bedridden with a chronic illness called myalgic encephalomyelitis, online media virtuoso Jen Brea is launching a new interactive video series using Google Hangout called Thrive Show on how to live well with invisible and chronic illnesses.
The first episode is today, March 27, and features a conversation with Eva Hagberg, the author of the book It's All In Your Head.
Brea is the director of a forthcoming film about M.E. called Canary in a Coal Mine that raised more than $200,000 on Kickstarter. She was also a Global Voices editor for stories from Francophone regions until 2010.

author: Solana Larsen


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15 Free (or Very Cheap) Things to Do in Bogotá, Colombia  · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Bogotá and its price points tend to get a bad rap. This is a very valid point when you consider that the average monthly salary in the city as of 2013 was just over 1 million pesos (about $500 at the current exchange rate), and that it has the biggest inequality gap of any city in Colombia, with Estrato 6 (the wealthiest economic level) making 4.8 million pesos per month on average, nearly 14 times the average income of about 350,000 pesos for people in Estrato 1 (the poorest level).
In her blog A Year Without Peanut Butter, Natalie lists 15 of her “favorite free (or very cheap) activities and places in Bogotá,” including free concerts in parks, public art exhibits, free museums, street performers, and the ciclovía (on Sundays and holidays certain streets are closed to vehicles so that pedestrians and cyclists can use them) :
You can’t really get to know this town until you stroll one of the main streets when it’s packed with bikers, rollerbladers, skate punks, kids on tricycles, dogs lounging in baskets or trotting alongside their owners, juice vendors, roadside bike repairmen and just about everything else. All you need to enjoy Ciclovía is a pair of shoes, some water and a serious appreciation for the best people-watching in central Colombia.

author: Silvia Viñas


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‘Anonymous International’ Leaks Kremlin’s Instructions to Russian TV · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Pulling back the curtain on Putin's propaganda machine. Images mixed by author.
A Russian Internet group called “Anonymous International” has leaked what it claims is a “tyomnik”—a list of prepackaged news stories prepared by the Kremlin for Russia’s central television news stations. The group does not name its source for the document, but the whistleblower says Vladimir Putin’s administration is the author.
The tyomnik (see below for a translation of the first two sections) instructs TV journalists to justify Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea, to laud President Putin’s efforts to develop the region, and even to advertise Crimea’s tourist season, on which the local economy desperately relies. (Russian journalist Ilya Barabanov joked that the talking points for Crimean vacations—“nearby, safe, among our own people”—are oddly similar to the slogan for the Sochi Olympics: “hot, cool, yours.”) The document also coaches television news stations to propagate an apocalyptic description of events in the Ukrainian heartland, where criminals and fascists supposedly run wild.
Russian television has long been infamous for parroting the Kremlin on political issues. It is still rare, however, that the public glimpses this propaganda system’s internal workings. If Anonymous International’s leak is genuine, Russians are getting to peek behind the curtain today.
The first page of Anonymous International's “tyomnik” leak.
Тема – Крым
Главное:
1. Следует разъяснять, что за 23 года нахождения в составе независимой Украины Крым по вине киевских властей в основном деградировал. Цель российской власти сейчас – обеспечить становление новой жизни на полуострове, привести Крым к общероссийским стандартам в качестве жизни.
Разгрести “авгиевы конюшни”, оставленные украинской властью, в одночасье не получится; но работа в этом направлении ведется, и результаты крымчане будут ощущать ежедневно.
На прошлой неделе по поручению В.В.Путина Крым и Севастополь посетил ряд министров силового блока. На следующей неделе ожидается поездка ряда других членов кабинета.
2. Просьба активно включиться в работу по пропаганде летнего отдыха в Крыму: близко, безопасно, у своих.
Topic — Crimea
Main points
1. It should be clarified that 23 years within an independent Ukraine largely degraded Crimea, and the authorities in Kiev are to blame. The goal of Russian authorities now is ensuring the emergence of a new life on the peninsula, bringing Crimea up to Russia’s national standards of quality of life.
Cleaning the Augean stables left by Ukrainian authorities cannot be accomplished overnight, but the work is underway, and Crimeans will be seeing it every day.
By order of Vladimir Putin, a number of key ministers will visit Crimea and Sevastopol. Next week, several other members of the cabinet are expected to make the trip, as well.
2. Please make an active effort in your work to promote the summer vacation season in Crimea: it’s nearby, safe, among our own people [“у своих”].
Тема – Украина
Основные линии информационной работы:
– атмосфера беззакония, нарастающий хаос: нацисты на ключевых государственных постах, МВД парализовано страхом (все грозные слова после гибели А.Музычко остались только словами), разгул криминала, дуреющего от собственной безнаказанности, рост преступности под видом “майдана”;
– экономика катится в пропасть: денег как не было, так и нет; объявлены уже в самом ближайшем будущем рост тарифов, снижение социальных выплат и секвестр бюджета;
– на этом фоне особенно цинично выглядит нарастающая грызня за власть.
Topic — Ukraine
The bottom line for informational work:
– there is an atmosphere of lawlessness and growing chaos: nazis occupy key government posts, the Interior Ministry is paralyzed by fear (all the tough talk after the death of [Right Sector general] Aleksandr Muzychko has remained only words), crime is rampant, stupefied by its own impunity, and rising under the guise of “Maidan” activism;
– the economy is spinning out of control: money that was drying up before [Maidan] is still absent; a rise in taxes in the very near future has been announced, along with cuts to welfare benefits and a government budget sequester;
– in this context, bickering over power looks especially cynical.


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China Strengthens Censorship on Foreign TV Online  · Global Voices
Abby Liu

China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) has started to crack down on online TV shows by introducing a policy of “censor first, broadcast later” for local Internet companies.
According to the new rule, online companies will have to employ government-approved censors to monitor content before all streaming videos go public. Investors and operators from the companies who stream content that has not been officially approved will be warned, fined or punished with a ban on streaming content for up to five years.
Until now, online companies like Youku and Tudou have been relying on in-house censors.
According to Hollywood Reporter, SAPPRFT said:
Service companies broadcasting Internet audio and video programs, such as online dramas and microfilms etc., should have qualified personnel examining the content, who meet the requirements for checking and have been trained by state or provincial Internet video and audio programs industry associations. They should have a solid editing and censorship management system for program content, and need a legally obtained license to stream video and audio programs, issued by the SAPPRFT, and should strictly follow the permission to develop business within the permitted business scope, purchased content will be treated the same as self-produced content.
Earlier this year, legislation required that anyone who uploads videos, including microfilms (or short films on the Internet) and other user-generated content, must be registered with their real names, and all microfilms must be censored before posting them.
American TV shows have gained great popularity in China over the past few years.
China’s online video viewers reached 450 million earlier this year, and the number is still growing. The new rule is aimed mainly at American TV shows and microfilms. American TV shows such as House of Cards and the Walking Dead have gained great popularity during the past year, but according to the new rule, these shows aren't likely to be approved.
To circumvent the censorship, some American companies have reportedly come up with two versions of the shows to make sure they don’t lose the huge market in China. Although several video providers have not been informed of the specific rules of this crackdown yet, they have already slowed down their purchasing of American shows with sensitive content.
Rumor has it that supernatural-themed shows and horror stories are most likely suffer from the new policy, and that 80 percent of American shows will be pulled online. Many video sites have already shifted some of their focus to Japanese and South Korean TV soap operas.
The news has triggered anger and complaints among many netizens. According to Sina Weibo poll, over 120,000 netizens voted against this censorship rule, compared to 6,000 who were in favor.
One netizen joked:
美剧首先中枪，估计接下来黑镜这种神剧也会被禁吧？然后就是日剧，情爱棒子剧，最后大家就坐在电视机看30几套电视台放杀鬼子的电视来弘扬民族精神
American shows are the first to go, and next [British] shows like Black Mirror will be censored as well. Then Japanese shows, romance-centric Korean shows, and in the end everyone will sit in front of the television watching over 30 channels broadcasting shows about killing Japanese invaders to promote national spirit.

author: Abby Liu


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Creator of Quirky Movement Defends Kremlin Propagandist · Global Voices
Andrey Tselikov

A “Monstration” demonstrator in Novosibirsk, in 2011.
Artyom Loskutov, creator of the popular counter-culture art movement “Monstration” [see Global Voices report], made waves on RuNet by signing a letter in support of Dmitry Kiselyov, a journalist who many consider to be Putin's chief propagandist. Loskutov was one of several dozen Russian journalists who signed the letter [ru], which asks pointed questions about recent EU sanctions imposed against Kiselyov, and whether such sanctions constitute an attack on free speech.
Loskutov works for TV Rain, an opposition TV station currently facing financial difficulties because of censorship, and so seems like an odd candidate to voice support for Kiselyov. Popular photo-blogger Rustem Adagamov even tweeted [ru] that he wants to cancel his subscription to TV Rain and get his money back because of Loskutov's position. Loskutov defended himself in a Facebook post [ru], saying that his signature was not in support of Kiselyov, but rather in support of the principle of free speech and the rights of journalists. Many of his readers argued that free speech should not apply to “propagandists” like Kiselyov, launching personal attacks against Loskutov and continuing a long tradition of Russian liberal intelligentsia seeking out fifth columnists in their own ranks.

author: Andrey Tselikov


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Displaced and Duty-Free in El Tamarindo, Colombia · Global Voices
NACLA

This article, written by Luke Finn , was originally published on the NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America) blog Red Hot Burning Peace. Luke Finn is a writer and international accompanier with Fellowship of Reconciliation Peace Presence in Colombia. He graduated from the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester. Follow @Peace_Presence and on Facebook.
The community of El Tamarindo lies about three kilometers outside the Barranquilla, Colombia’s fourth-biggest city and the largest conurbation and port on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. It was formed of 120 hectares of land in the municipality of Galapa, and is home to approximately 130 families, who have lived and worked on the land for anywhere between five and twelve years. Before they arrived, the region was wasteland: no one lived on the land and no one was listed as owning it. They have been occupying the territory in good faith.
Chris, FOR Peace Presence, with Luis, of El Tamarindo
Prior to their arrival in El Tamarindo, the majority of these families had lived not in Barranquilla, but elsewhere on the Caribbean coast, and even further abroad. They had been displaced by violence. One leader of the community had been born and brought up in the Chocó on the Pacific coast, had been displaced by violence in the 1980’s to Apartadó in Urabá Antioqueño, and then in 1995 displaced again by the wave of violence that overran the gulf region, finally arriving in Tamarindo 12 years ago.
Now she is being displaced again.
El Tamarindo has in recent years been the subjected of severe harassment, both judicial and physical, in a government attempt to force the Tamarindo community off the land they now call their home. They are currently on their 43rd tutela, a legal notice to demand they leave their land, a strategy designed to intimidate and deplete their financial resources. They have made numerous official complaints to the Fiscalia and the Defensoria del Pueblo, and have made denouncements to the President’s office.
The reason for the current actions against the community is the expansion of the Barranquilla Zona Franca, a duty-free zone of the type proliferating around the Caribbean Sea (see also: Colón, Panama, Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, and Urabá, Colombia), very close to El Tamarino. There are tax exemptions on income tax and import and export duties, making it an attractive location for businesses all along the Magdalena River. The result of this development means the previously ignored scrap of land along the motorway leaving Barranquilla has now increased in value.
The people trying to buy up this land are some of the most powerful families in the region, occasionally called the “Cartel de las Tierras”—the families Char Abdala, Tarud, and Muvdi, who between them make up the economic and political elite of Barranquilla (always a useful index of power in Barranquilla—the Queen of the Carnaval in 2012 was Andrea Char, in 2013 Daniella Tarud). The Mayor of Barranquilla up until 2011 was Alejandro Char Chaljub, whose brother is a Senator and Diplomat in London, and whose father Fuad has been, amongst other things, Senator, Governor of Atlantico, Ambassador to Portugal, and owner of Barranquilla’s football team Junior.
As such, the Tamarindo community has been facing serious opposition from Barranquilla’s judiciary and police force. Two people have been murdered, including the young son of a community leader last year [es], and many more injured.
In January and February of last year, bulldozers arrived and tried to clear the plantain and yucca plantations that make up the subsistence crop of the community, and were only stopped when members of the community stood physically in front of the bulldozers, putting their own bodies on the line. When they refused to let the bulldozers past, armed men in civilian clothes threatened members of the community with knives, and a shot was fired. The leader of these men was Lexman Parra Gonzalez, whose brother Libardo was a high profile paramilitary, currently in jail in the United States. On other occasions the bulldozers have been more successful, destroying homes and killing animals under their caterpillar tracks. When the community staged a protest, blocking a road, there were 14 injuries, with baton and teargas attacks from the police.
Also involved has been the private security company 911 [es], owned by notorious Enilce López, known as “La Gata” (the cat), who had close ties with the Uribe presidency and the paramilitary group the AUC, and is currently under house-arrest in Manangué. Most recently, in February of this year a communiqué from the paramilitary group Los Rastrojos detailed a list of rewards for killing many of the people who have extended official support to El Tamarindo, ranging from 10–50 million pesos ($5,000–$25,000). The communiqué concluded with the words: “They will leave the country, or we will finish them.”
The community has responded by forming a legal organization—The Association of the Displaced and Campesinos of Tamarindo, or ASOTRACAMPO—issuing official complaints and requesting official protection. They have also developed a network of concerned supporters including the National Movement for Victims of State Crimes [es], the UN Refugee Agency, the regional Defensoria, and the organization I work for, FOR Peace Presence. Church, student, and trade union networks in Barranquilla have also taken up the banner and have offered Tamarindo support and at times sanctuary from violence.
However, the campaign against them continues: Last month, unknown armed men arrived to threaten them, and this last weekend they were officially evicted from 50% of their land.
The worsening situation in Tamarindo has not gone unnoticed (though the current elections have diverted significant media attention) and the community is becoming an emblematic case: families who have been forced from their land by powerful economic interests not once, but multiple times. They have been subject to threats and violence repeatedly, with little or no assistance from the local government, highlighting the weakness of Colombia’s tenancy laws, and the malleability of Colombians’ rights. They have gone like so many before them from rural life to a peri-urban one, and now will have to look for somewhere else and some other way to live.
As is so common in Colombia, the people of Tamarindo are treated not as citizens with a voice in a representative democracy, but instead as obstacles in the way of the march of development and the enrichment of a hereditary and kleptocratic political class. As one of their leaders told me: “el pobre no vale en Colombia” (“the poor aren’t worth anything in Colombia”).

author: NACLA


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Global Voices Author Raza Rumi Attacked By Unknown Gunmen In Lahore · Global Voices
Rezwan

Notable Pakistani, columnist, TV anchor and blogger (also a Global Voices author) Raza Rumi was attacked by unidentified gunmen near Raja market on Ferozpur road in Lahore, Pakistan. At 8:55PM tonight he tweeted:
Was fired at near Raja Market. My driver is wounded. I was dreading this day
— Raza Rumi (@Razarumi) March 28, 2014
According to reports, Rumi escaped with a minor injury after unknown gunmen opened fire at his car and he managed to take the injured guard and driver to the hospital. His driver succumbed to his injuries and the guard is fighting for his life.
Netizens’ reactions are pouring in:
Strongly condemn attack on journalist,TV anchor @Razarumi a bold and courageous voice against  bigotry and intolerance.
— Nafisa Shah (@ShahNafisa) March 28, 2014
liberal journalist Raza Rumi who opposes blasphemy law is shot at in Lahore, survives attack but his driver is killed http://t.co/Ig6i6CKaLE
— Ex-Muslims Forum (@CEMB_forum) March 28, 2014
Shocked & saddened by attack on Raza Rumi & death of his driver. Govt must provide proper security & bring killers 2 justice.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) March 28, 2014
The attack on Raza Rumi is an attack on freedom of expression and democracy. Policy of appeasement has emboldened the terrorist.
— zahid Hussain (@hidhussain) March 28, 2014

author: Rezwan


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GV Face: How to Make Videos for Advocacy and Change with Witness and Rising Voices · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

Are you using video to make your campaign a reality? Are you telling stories or filming actions with cameras – or your phone?
On this episode of #GVFace , Matisse Bustos Hawked and Bukeni Waruzi from Witness and Laura Morris from Rising Voices discuss key points when using video for advocacy, and how to overcome common problems that arise for citizen journalists, including working in low bandwidth areas and how to best reach your audience in both low- and high-tech ways.
They also discussed the importance of content verification and best practices and taking your questions via the Q and A app.

author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


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How Police Have Turned Rio de Janeiro’s Maré Favela Into a Battlefield · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Community of Maré, Rio de Janeiro. Image by the Agência Pública for the documentary “I died in Maré” under Creative Commons licence BY-ND.
[All links lead to Portuguese-language pages unless otherwise noted.]
It was the night of June 24, 2013. The world was following the wave of protests [en] which had begun at the beginning of the month and were spreading across several cities in Brazil. That night in Rio de Janeiro, following a group armed robbery in the Bonsucesso district after a protest, agents from the military police's Battalion of Special Operations (BOPE) invaded the Maré favela complex.
The police officers claimed to have entered the community to chase the thieves, but at around 7 p.m. tear gas bombs began to be thrown at residents. One of them struck the premises of the Favela Observatory, a community news organization. Nobody knew what was happening in the midst of the confusion, and the gunfire continued on into the early hours of the morning. Come morning, 13 were dead. The favela awoke to find itself occupied by the BOPE, the Riot Police and the National Security Force.
The incident led to protests against the violence committed by the state and drew attention to the lives of those who live in the Maré slum. A mini-documentary “I Died in Maré” was launched by investigative journalism platform Agência Pública on March 11, 2014 to look at the consequences of the battle waged between drug traffickers and police there as seen through the eyes of those most affected: children. Marie Naudascher and Patrick Vanier, two French journalists living in Rio, were behind the project, made possible thanks to a crowdfunding campaign which reached 808 collaborators.
In the documentary, the coordinator of the Favela Observatory, Jailson de Souza, criticised the actions of the police:
É uma ação irresponsável que trata a favela como arena de guerra. Não tem nenhum sentido a polícia agir como agiu hoje pela madrugada, hoje pela manhã e está agindo durante o dia. Não tem nenhum sentido a polícia permanecer aqui com essa força bélica e monstruosa.
It is an irresponsible action which treats the favela like a battlefield. It makes no sense for the police to act as they did in the early hours of that morning, throughout the morning and throughout the whole day. It makes no sense for the police to stay here with this horrendous, warlike force.
The Pacifying Police Unit
The Maré favela complex is one of the largest in Rio de Janeiro. With more than 130,000 residents, it is split between three of the city's main drug trafficking factions – Friends of Friends [en], Red Command [en] and Third Command [en] – as well as militia groups. And it doesn't have a Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) [en], the special police force dedicated to retaking neighborhoods from drug dealers. For the government, the presence of the UPPs and the pacification of the favelas has been one of the main achievements in the preparations for this year's World Cup, for communities and police, they are far from unanimously welcomed.
In mid-March 2014, following a wave of violence sparked by the police occupation of the Vila Kennedy favela – where the 38th UPP will be established – international newspapers began to report on the contradictions inherent in the pacification plan. An article in Spanish daily newspaper El País [es] said that Rio now found itself “at a worrying crossroads”: it has to choose between maintaining the security policy “which is beginning to display black holes, or readopt the old (and failed) strategy of pursuing and destroying armed drug traffickers”.
The project is even questioned from within police. This year alone, four agents were murdered in UPP areas. Danillo Ferreira, a collaborator with Global Voices, explained in a text published on the blog Police Approach that “neither the police nor the communities can see a precise alignment between what the government's propaganda says and what they experience in practice”. He added:
Sob a pressão para a realização ordeira da Copa do Mundo e das Olímpiadas é bem possível que o governo do Rio de Janeiro mantenha os esforços de financiamento da política das UPPs, que até 2016 pode servir de medida emergencial de contenção das favelas.
Under pressure to ensure that the World Cup and the Olympics take place in an orderly fashion, it is very possible that the Rio de Janeiro government will maintain efforts to finance the UPP policy, which could serve as an emergency measure for containing the favelas until 2016.
Networks of resistance
The organisations Maré Development Networks and Favela Observatory teamed up with Amnesty International to record daily experiences of state violence within the favela. The work carried out by journalists and professional photographers, in collaboration with residents, “aims to show the facts from the perspective of those who live, work and bring up their children in the largest favela complex in Rio de Janeiro”.
In an article titled “Why must the police be so violent?” published as part of the project, Eliana Sousa Silva, director of the Networks, called for the action used until now by the public security forces to be reconsidered:
Nos primeiros 55 dias de 2014, tivemos pelo menos 45 mortos em operações policiais em favelas do Rio de Janeiro, sem contar feridos. São números que propõem a toda sociedade, com urgência, o desafio de refletir e questionar as ações de segurança pública no Rio, especialmente nas favelas.
Como alguém que se constituiu no mundo a partir da Maré, busco compreender as práticas das forças policiais na favela a partir do olhar dos agentes diretamente envolvidos nessa problemática: policiais, integrantes dos grupos criminosos armados e moradores. Meu esforço é pensar caminhos para ampliar o diálogo com as autoridades, que muitas vezes não conseguem envolver no debate a população diretamente atingida pela falta de políticas abrangentes de segurança pública.
In the first 55 days of 2014, we had at least 45 deaths during police operations in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, without counting those who were wounded. These are numbers which challenge the whole of society to urgently reflect upon and question the actions of the public security forces in Rio, especially in the favelas.
As someone who grew up in Maré, I seek to understand the practices employed by the police forces in the favela through the eyes of those directly involved in this issue: police officers, members of armed criminal groups and residents. I endeavour to think of ways to increase dialogue with the authorities, who do not often succeed in including in the debate those people who are directly affected by the lack of comprehensive public security policies.

author: Fernanda Canofre


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Obama’s Visit to Saudi Arabia Shows Off King’s Desert Retreat  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Although they did not discuss human rights, President Obama met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia today during his visit to absolute monarchy. The visit gave Saudis a glimpse into the King's desert retreat after an American journalist tweeted photographs from Rawdat Khuraim.
POTUS did not discuss human rights issues, but he will meet w/ a leading advocate against domestic violence at hotel tmrw
— Carrie Budoff Brown (@cbudoffbrown) March 28, 2014
On Twitter, reactions poured in throughout brief meeting.
Satirist Karl Sharro quips:
Obama and I are alike in that we both have to travel to Saudi Arabia for work.
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) March 28, 2014
Saudi activist Tamador Alyami asks [ar]:
السؤال: لماذا يسمح بتواجد صحافيات أمريكيات في روضة خريم ولا يسمح بوجود صحافيات سعوديات؟ #زيارة_أوباما_للسعودية
— تماضر اليامي Tamador (@TamadorAlyami) March 28, 2014
Question: Why are American women journalists allowed at Rawdat Khuraim (the king's desert retreat) while Saudi women journalists are banned?
And there was a challenge for Obama:
Hi @BarackObama, will you appoint a women as your official driver in #SaudiArabia tomorrow? http://t.co/ydeNDyqQKV pic.twitter.com/PaR0Pli4b2
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) March 28, 2014
Journalist Kim Ghattas picks up the thread and asks:
What are chances a woman will drive 1 of cars in Obama motorcade in Saudi? @amnesty says pdt shud make it a point http://t.co/60AIHo9gUo
— Kim Ghattas (@BBCKimGhattas) March 28, 2014
In other news, Bayan notes:
White House reporter @cbudoffbrown gets almost 10,000 followers in a day, just for covering Obama trip to #Saudi. #SaudisLoveTwitter
— Bayan (@BintBattuta87) March 28, 2014
And Carrie Budoff Brown tweeted away scenes Saudis were shielded from such as these:
Scene from a bilat pic.twitter.com/FszCg7e4s5
— Carrie Budoff Brown (@cbudoffbrown) March 28, 2014
Time is a big thing here pic.twitter.com/BkYl62okoD
— Carrie Budoff Brown (@cbudoffbrown) March 28, 2014
Chocolate centerpieces and lush flowers — just about everywhere at King Abdullah's desert ranch pic.twitter.com/1uUcd6QyYZ
— Carrie Budoff Brown (@cbudoffbrown) March 28, 2014
Nice view pic.twitter.com/8dnZeGtXr5
— Carrie Budoff Brown (@cbudoffbrown) March 28, 2014
A surprised Brown comments:
Power of Twitter in Middle East: I got 7,000 new followers since landing in Riyadh 5 hours ago, all cause of photos from Abdullah's retreat
— Carrie Budoff Brown (@cbudoffbrown) March 28, 2014
And Otaibi explains why:
on behalf of Saudis, thanks for letting us see what inside King Abdullah's retreat. It has been a such a big secret.. @cbudoffbrown
— Otaibi (@A_A_2001) March 28, 2014

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Should Africa  Learn From the Crimea Referendum?  · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

“Is Crimea referendum a good model for Africa?” asks Richard Dowden:
Africa’s arbitrary borders, mostly drawn by people who had never set foot in the continent, have always been an obvious target for renegotiation. But Africa’s first rulers, who foresaw chaos and disintegration if the nation states were reconfigured, ruled it out. “Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each State” was one of the founding principles of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the forerunner of the African Union. Despite all the wars, internal and external, this principle has been pretty much adhered to by both presidents and people.
Loyalty to an African state is not always related to the ability of that state to make the lives of its people better. Patriotism, an emotional thing, does not take these benefits into account, even in countries where the majority of citizens are marginalised or oppressed by the government. Even in the catastrophic recent meltdown of South Sudan after just two years of independence, no one is advocating return to rule from Khartoum. In the dying days of Mobutu’s Zaire (now the DRC) I was astonished to find that people felt it to be a great country. I asked why Katanga, the rich south east province, didn’t secede – as it had in 1960. My suggestion was greeted with shocked surprise.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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The “Happy Voting” Project Encourages Young Europeans to Vote · Global Voices
Marie Bohner

Drawing on the Pharrell Williams worldwide hit “Happy” and the associated equally renown music video (over 143 million views on YouTube), the Brussels-based film company Full Tunes Production has recently launched on facebook an enthusiastic project  called “Happy Voting” that strives to encourage voting for the next European elections.
The project can also be found on their website and on twitter (@HappyVoting).
Because of  the economic and financial crisis that undermines consumer confidence since 2007 in Europe and the political struggle that the European Union experiences to assert its political relevance on international issues such as the crises in Syria and in Crimea, many observers fear that voters’ participation will reach new low in the next European elections. Raphael Da Silva for Rue89 Strasbourg blog notes [fr] that in the 2009 European elections, 59.5% of French voters did not vote. The Happy Voting Project claims to be an independent initiative that only aims to promote voting, specifically amongst the european youth. Over 12.9 thousand people have already been invited to participate via facebook. The idea is to collaboratively produce a remake of the original “Happy” clip and help buzz the release of the video. Here is the teaser of the Happy Voting video:

author: Marie Bohner


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The Spanish Newspaper ABC Takes a Beating on Twitter after Publishing an Article against Masturbation · Global Voices
Lourdes Sada

The beginning of the controversial article as it appeared on ABC. Screenshot by the author.
“How can masturbation be prevented?,” an article published January 28 in the “Sex Ed” section of the Spanish newspaper ABC, has been a trending topic on Twitter all day long. The article, which offers “some advice that might help in the decision not to begin masturbating or to end the vicious cycle,” opens with a paragraph that makes its standpoint quite clear:
Lo primero es tener claro por qué la masturbación no es ni buena ni necesaria para la salud, dos puntos abordados en otras preguntas de esta sección de “respuestas a un click” (www.educarhoy.org). Ayuda a fortalecer la decisión de no masturbarse el recordar que es necesario protegerse de la erotización del entorno actual.
The first step is to be aware that masturbation is neither a good thing nor necessary for health. These two points are addressed, among other issues, in this section of “Answers at a Click” (www.educarhoy.org [es]). In order to strengthen your resolve not to masturbate, it's essential to protect yourself from the eroticization of your environment.
After offering various guidelines that will supposedly help prevent masturbation—among others, exercising greater control over use of the Internet and television and talking with your friends about “bioethical problems of our time, such as abortion, cloning, euthanasia and the responsiblity that we all have regarding world hunger”—the article concludes:
En resumen: para evitar la masturbación o salir de su círculo vicioso hay que empezar por decidirse a hacerlo sabiendo que es posible y sano. Pero además, hay que poner medios concretos para fortalecer esa decisión: protegerte de la erotización, tener un estilo de vida saludable, ocupar constructivamente tu tiempo libre y elegir bien tus amistades. Así estarás preparándote para el amor sólido, que pasa por ser dueño de tu sexualidad, y no permitirás que la masturbación le quite calidad a esa capacidad de amar.
To sum up: in order not to begin masturbating or to stop the vicious cycle, you must in the first place know that your decision is both possible and healthy. But you'll also have to take concrete steps to ensure your success: protecting yourself from erotic stimuli, leading a healthy lifestyle, occupying your free time constructively and choosing your friends wisely.
The article, which disappeared from ABC's website a few hours after its publication, was saved and reposted [es] by the website educarhoy.org [es]. According to its about page,
La web www.educarhoy.org forma parte del proyecto de investigación Educación de la afectividad y de la sexualidad humana desarrollado por el Instituto Cultura y Sociedad de la Universidad de Navarra.
The website www.educarhoy.org [es] is part of the “Education of Human Affectivity and Sexuality” project of the Institute for Society and Culture at the University of Navarra.
The University of Navarra, a private institution that belongs to Opus Dei, was itself founded by the founder of Opus Dei, Josémaría Escrivá de Balaguer. Although academically it has established itself among the best universitites in the world, it is ideologically very conservative.
Twitterers hastened to tear apart the article and offer sarcastic commentaries on its suggestions.
Estoy de acuerdo con el ABC en una cosa. Elegir no masturbarse es una decisión libre. Propia de un gilipollas, pero libre.
— Ser Rodrik Cassel (@SerRodrikCassel) January 29, 2014
I agree with ABC about one thing. Choosing not to masturbate is a free decision. Stupid, but free.
Hoy es uno de esos días en los que se alinean los planetas en una singularidad cósmica haciendo que “pajas” y “ABC” vayan en la misma frase.
— Señor Rembrandt (@Sr_Rembrandt) January 29, 2014
Today is one of those days when the planets have aligned in a cosmic singularity such that “jerking off” and “ABC” have appeared in the same sentence.
Tras el éxito de “Cómo evitar la masturbación”, mañana en ABC: “Cómo ser un buen señor feudal”
“Your first girlfriend in her underwear,” an image submitted to Twitter by Fercegar.feudal.
— Lucía Taboada (@TaboadaLucia) January 29, 2014
After the success of “How to prevent masturbation,” tomorrow in ABC: “How to be a good feudal lord.”
Ya que el ABC nos enseña como evitar la masturbación, bien podría enseñar a sus amigos del gobierno cómo dejar de darnos por el culo.
— óscar crespillo (@ocrespillo) January 29, 2014
Seeing as ABC has taught us how to prevent masturbation, they ought to teach their friends in government how to stop fucking us up the ass.
- ¿Cree que masturbarse es malo? – A .. Si – B .. Evidentemente – C .. Es pecado – D .. Las Respuestas del ABC son correctas.
— Tarantwitno (@Tarantwitno) January 29, 2014
Do you think that masturbation is bad? (A) Yes (B) Obviously (C) It's a sin (D) ABC's response is correct
Some tweets sharply pointed up ABC's hypocrisy:
Que dicen los de ABC que no os masturbeis que mejor llamáis a algunos de los anuncios de prostitución que hay en su periódico.
— Harto de Carrefour (@hdcarrefour) January 29, 2014
ABC's attack on masturbation would be better applied to some of the advertisements for prostitutes in their newspaper.
A ver, es normal que el ABC esté en contra de la masturbación, todos sabemos que los monárquicos son más de irse de putas.
— El hijo de la Inés. (@AlexRockNRoll7) January 29, 2014
Well yeah, it's normal that ABC opposes masturbation, we all know that monarchists are whores’ best customers.
The online press has echoed the activity on Twitter, throughout the course of the day publishing numerous responses to ABC's article. Bloggers didn't lose the chance to interject their own opinions. Shurmanico commented on the blog Tremending Topic [es]:
Ahora lo entiendo todo, por eso este pais esta tan lleno de hdp, siguiendo la doctrina ABC, no te la casques vete de pilinguis, hazlo sin condon como buen catolico, luego te confiesas y vuelta a empezar. Si te mueres de alguna enfermedad estas haciendo un favor a Spain ya que no tendran que pagar la jubilacion.
Now I understand everything. This country is full of bastards. Following the doctrine of ABC, don't jerk off but instead go to whores, do it without a condom like a good Catholic, then confess and start over. If you die of an STD, you'll be doing Spain a favor since you won't have to be paid a pension.
In the post “How to jerk off 27 times before finishing ABC's article” [es] on the blog No sin mi mochila (“Not Without My Backpack”), Martyn opined:
Si me diera por tener hijos, lo que filtraria no sería el porno, sino los medios de desinformación como ese panfletillo digital casposo.
If I had kids, what I'd block wouldn't be porn, it'd be conduits of disinformation like that grimy digital leaflet.
MK posted in the newspaper noticias de Navarra (“Navarra News”) [es]:
«La masturbación puede dañar seriamente su salud», imagen de Desmotivaciones.mx subida a Twitter por Su
¿Que será lo siguiente que se inventarán estos cristofachas? ¿Un cilicio como regalo en la entrega del ABC del proximo fin de semana.? Es la acostumbrada prensa-basura para tapar la noticia de corrupción del día. Hoy el marido de la diferida está en todas las portadas por cobrar “por que tú lo vales” 6000€ al mes sin contrato alguno de un banco restacado.
What are the Christofascists going to think of next? A free hairshirt in the next weekend edition? Tabloids always put the latest corruption story on the cover. Today the Diferida's husband [a reference to Luis Bárcenas, husband of María Dolores de Cospedal] is on all the front pages for taking six thousand Euros a month, “because you're worth it,” from a bailed-out bank for doing absolutely nothing.
On Menéame, a website like Reddit or Digg where users can post, vote for, and comment on articles, criticocivico [es] didn't conceal his surprise at some of the support for ABC's article:
“Así estarás preparándote para el amor sólido, que pasa por ser dueño de tu sexualidad, y no permitirás que la masturbación le quite calidad a esa capacidad de amar” ¿Perdonaa?
“This is how you should prepare yourself for true love, by owning your sexuality and not letting masturbation diminish your capacity for love.” Excuse me?
To which lacrisis_son_lospadres [es] responded:
Lo de amor sólido quizá se refiere a la coprofilia. Los del Opus (el artículo lo escribe la Universidad de Navarra) tienen gustos un poco especiales.
“True love” probably refers to coprophilia. People from Opus Dei (i.e., the article from the University of Navarra) have somewhat special tastes.

author: Lourdes Sada


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Top 10 Russian-Language Tweets, Week 13 of 2014 · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Top tweets in the Russian twittersphere. Images mixed by author.
Today is the first in RuNet Echo's new series on weekly top posts in the Russian-language twittersphere. Every Friday, RuNet Echo will be collecting the top ten Russian-language tweets and curating them for Global Voices readers. Our selections are based on Tjournal.ru's “best tweets” algorithm, available and updated in realtime here.
#10 — An old man and his old car.
Этому мужчине 102 года. Он не менял машину 82 года. Роллс-Ройс 1928 г. pic.twitter.com/rD6CvsmQTR
— Исторические Фото (@HistoryFoto) March 25, 2014
This man is 102-years-old. He hasn't replaced his car in 82 years. A 1928 Rolls-Royce.
#9 — A joke about mass murder.
Рейтинг Путина достиг 80%. Чтобы он достиг 100%, необходимо расстрелять и посадить оставшиеся 20%.
— Пeрзидент Роисси (@KermlinRussia) March 27, 2014
Putin's approval rating has reached 80%. In order for it to get to 100%, it will be necessary to shoot or arrest the remaining 20%.
#8 — Comparing the war crimes of Bush, Obama, and Putin. (Number of women, children, and elderly killed. Civilians murdered in unnecessary wars. Countries bombed. Governments overturned. Torture prisons. Countries threatened with military actions. Attempts to destabilize countries using “color revolutions.”)
Внезапно (оригинал на немецком via @FatherIand) pic.twitter.com/qHskMW0xxd
— Stanislav Apetyan (@politrash) March 24, 2014
Suddenly! (The original is in German by @Fatherland.)
#7 — Sports fans in Russia show their support for Ukraine.
Ого. Фанаты питерского Зенита сегодня развернули баннер в поддержку Украины pic.twitter.com/uQhB9myE4a
— Телеканал ДОЖДЬ (@tvrain) March 25, 2014
Ooh. Fans of the soccer team Zenit Saint Petersburg unfurled a banner in support of Ukraine.
#6 — Moscow lawmakers consider prison time for pesky bloggers.
В Мосгордуме предложили сажать на четыре года блогеров, недовольных решениями по Крыму http://t.co/OeaaKEBcN0 pic.twitter.com/6C95SyEjR6
— Телеканал ДОЖДЬ (@tvrain) March 27, 2014
Deputies in the Moscow city council have proposed imprisoning for four years bloggers who contest [Russia's] decisions in Crimea.
#5 — Russia's only remaining independent television station promotes its “SOS” telethon.
Как вы можете нам помочь прямо сейчас? 1) Поделиться ссылкой http://t.co/AA5zIvcDzz во всех ваших социальных сетях 2) Ретвитнуть этот твит
— Телеканал ДОЖДЬ (@tvrain) March 24, 2014
How can you help us right now? 1) Share this link in all your social media networks, 2) Retweet this tweet.
#4 — The fake Twitter account for Crimea's de facto Prime Minister disseminates a leaked phone call that included Yulia Timoshenko apparently using obscenities against ethnic Russians.
Важно. Тимошенко о русских на русском http://t.co/p5iCUeaRke
— Сергей Аксенов (@sergyaksenov) March 24, 2014
Important! Timoshenko [talks] about Russians in Russian.
#3 — Tough talk from the fake Twitter account for Crimea's much-adored Attorney General, Natalia Poklonskaya.
Если вдруг будут искать и не найдут, передайте дуракам – я каждый день с 8-00 до 22-00 на ул. Севастопольская 21. тел. 51-84-36. ))
— Наталья Поклонская (@NPoklonskaya) March 26, 2014
If suddenly they go looking [for me] and can't find [me], pass along to the fools that I'm here [at work] every day, from 8 in the morning until 10 at night, at 21 Sevastopol Street, telephone number 51-84-26. :)
#2 — Russia's top political blogger, Alexey Navalny, applauds investigative journalism that exposes corruption in Russia's ruling party.
Ретвитни, если хочешь, чтоб все газеты в РФ выходили с такими полосами http://t.co/lC34uI8cm0 pic.twitter.com/J3eoYYwq4g
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 26, 2014
Retweet this, if you want all the newspapers in Russia to carry such headlines. [Newspaper cover reads, “The Palaces of United Russia members.”]
#1 —  TV Rain's owner, Aleksandr Vinokurov, rallies the minority of Russian citizens who oppose censorship in the media.
70% россиян считают, что в интересах государства допустимо искажать информацию в СМИ http://t.co/QTmgoWcOcf Ретвитните, если так НЕ считаете
— Винокуров Александр (@Vinokurov12) March 27, 2014
70% of Russians think that it's okay to distort information in the media if it serves the state's interests. [Link to polling results.] Retweet this if you disagree.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Trinidad & Tobago: Another Minister Bites the Dust  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

In the wake of the dismissal of the latest minister from the current government, Wired868 chronicles the firings of his colleagues.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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South Sudan Military Intelligence Chief Denies Attempted Coup · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

The chief of military intelligence for South Sudan denies that there was an attempted coup there on December 15, 2013.
PaanLuel Wel reports:
Reports from Juba have it that the head of military intelligence, Gen. Mac Paul Kuol Awar, has rubbished the alleged coup attempt of December 15, 2013. Mac Paul was called as a government witness to testify against the detained 4 political prisoners (Pagan, Oyai, Majak and Gatkuoth) who are arraigned in court, charged with treason.
Ironically, the Director of military intelligence, who was called to back up government’s assertion that there was a coup, came out strongly arguing that there was no such thing as a coup. Instead, he said, it was a misunderstanding among the soldiers of Tiger Battalion, which was then mishandled till it escalated into a countrywide rebellion.


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Documentary About South Sudan National Football Team’s First Coach · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Roving Bandit reports about a new documentry titled “Coach Zoran and His African Tigres”:
A new documentary, about the first ever manager of the first ever South Sudanese national football team. His name is Zoran, and he swears like a trooper. It's an entertaining story, filmed in 2012 and set against the backdrop of some beautiful footage of Juba amidst the excitement and optimism of independence (in 2011). Particularly poignant due to the recent return to conflict.


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‘Sleeping Lion’ China Awakened, Says President Xi Jinping · Global Voices
Owen Guo

Evoking Napoleon during his visit to France, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country is an awakened lion that is “peaceful, pleasant and civilized”.
On March 27, 2014, Xi gave a speech in Paris to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France. Screen grab from Youku.
Xi made the remarks in a speech in Paris on March 27, 2014 commemorating the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France, part of his seven-day Europe tour as he sought to strengthen trade ties with the continent.
“Napoleon said that China is a sleeping lion, and when she awakes, the world will shake. The lion China has already awakened, but this is a peaceful, pleasant and civilised lion,” he said.
Once dubbed “the sick man of East Asia”, and now the world’s second largest economy, China has been keen to project its image overseas in the past few years. But it has done so largely through government-sponsored initiatives that range from Confucius institute establishments to the overseas expansion of Chinese media conglomerates.
Xi’s lion metaphor marked a departure from the mundane public speaking style that was typical of China’s previous leaders. Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor, talked about “China’s peaceful rise” during his visit to Europe in 2005.
Former Chinese ambassador to France Cai Fangbo told a Beijing newspaper that the lion remark by Xi is a “skillful” and “persuasive” response to the so-called “China threat” theory, a proposition that perceives China's rise as a destabilising force in the international arena. “The speech by Xi Jinping indicates that China has taken a path of peaceful development,” Cai commented.
However, Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political scientist at the Hong Kong Baptist University, had a different take. “Have you ever seen a peaceful, civilised and not aggressive lion? A lion is a big, wild and predatory animal, very much like China in its relations with other countries,” Cabertan was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying.
Xi’s colorful spin on his diplomatic philosophy came as the world watches the rising tensions in the East China Sea, where China and Japan are locked in a row over a set of uninhabited islands known to the Japanese as the Senkaku Islands and to the Chinese as the Diaoyu Islands.
Under Xi's leadership, China announced in March this year that it would increase its military spending to nearly 132 billion US dollars, up 12.2 percent from the previous year, a move that drew criticism from the West and Japan. China defended its decision to bolster the military budget, citing a need to safeguard national security and world peace.
With China's declaration of a new Air Defence Zone over the East China Sea last year, Xi has demonstrated a more proactive stance on the front of diplomacy. The US and Japan have defied rules by flying aircraft unannounced through the zone, raising concerns of potential incidents that could ripple into larger geopolitical regions.
On popular Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo, the president's Paris talk has prompted mixed response.
Shanhe Baidu, from China's capital Beijing, seemed to be proud of the lion metaphor:
让西方也听听咱们东边的狮吼
Let the West listen to the lion roar from the East
Writing in response to Shanhe Baidu's pride, Yanzhi Fengwei argued:
真正的强者不吼
The true powerful ones will not roar
Beijing's Heibai Chongdong wrote:
此狮子非彼狮子，拿破仑时期的中国与世界的财富对比怎样。这样的话只是激励人心，还是另有深意？时间来解释……希望跳楼部门别删我……
The lion now is not the lion then. How would China's [fortune] be compared with that of the world during the time of Napoleon? Should we take this statement as encouragement or does it have other meanings? Time will tell…… I hope the censors will not delete [my comment]……
“Panlaosi can't drink Qingdao beer” wasn't convinced that China is like a lion:
强拆强征土地，对自己人威武无比的狮子。官员集团性腐败，市场垄断，贫富差距，东西差距，国民素质低。狮子醒了？我倒觉得像病猫死前的回光返照。
Forced demolition of houses and land grabs, [local governments] act like very powerful lions toward its people. Officials are corrupt, market monopoly persists, the gap between the rich and poor, wide disparities between the country's west and east regions, and the low quality of national character. Has the lion awakened? I thought it's more like a dying cat.
Repeating part of Xi's speech that China will be a member of the international community, Zhu Sanfeng, a businessman from the coastal city of Xiamen, was hopeful:
“…中国是会融入全球化趋势下国际社会文明大家庭的。”——不容易！这是历史性的大进步！
“China will integrate into the big civilised family of international society.”— This has not been easy! This is some big historic progress.
Paotian Qipa from the western city of Kunming vented his frustration:
钓鱼岛的事都没解决，马航的事都不来个真正态度，这叫醒了？
The issue of the Diaoyu Islands hasn't been solved, and [China] hasn't shown its real attitude toward the missing Malaysia flight, have we really awakened?

author: Owen Guo


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South Korea: Royal Gate Restoration, Corruption and Suicide · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

In recent months, particularly murky allegations over the royal gate restoration have unfolded in South Korea. The project's ‘chief carpenter’ is accused not only of using substandard wood, but stealing donated wood. Moreover, several government officials involved in the project were also indicted on charges of bribery [ko], and a civilian investigator who revealed details about the flawed operation committed suicide.
John Rodgers of Marmot's Hole blog wrote about how things have developed, sparking a rather interesting discussion on the country's issues of corruption in the comments section.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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The ‘Woman Who Was Dragged’ and Killed by Brazil’s Military Police · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

Image by Collective ñ, free use.
[All links lead to Portuguese-language pages except when otherwise noted.]
Claudia Silva Ferreira was shot in the neck and back during a military police operation on the morning of March 16, 2014 in the Morro da Congonha favela, or slum, in the north of Rio de Janeiro. Unconscious, the 38-year-old woman and mother known as Cacau was put in the trunk of a police car to supposedly be taken to the hospital.
Neighbors and friends tried to stop the police from taking her, but the officers fired warning shots in the air to disperse the crowd, and with the trunk open they took her away. Then, on the Intendente Magalhães highway, her apparently lifeless body rolled out of the trunk, and secured by a piece of clothing, was dragged along the asphalt for at least 250 meters without the officers in the car paying attention to the appeals of other drivers and pedestrians.
The shocking scene was filmed by an anonymous driver:
The video of Claudia Silva Ferreira being dragged behind a car, released bynewspaper Extra, contains extremely graphic content.
The military police officers responsible for dragging Silva Ferreira, Sub-lieutenant Adir Serrano Machado, Sub-lieutenant Rodney Miguel Archanjo, and Sergeant Alex Sandro da Silva Alves, were arrested the following day. But they were released on March 20 on the request of prosecutor Paulo Roberto Cunha, who declared, “If she [Silva Ferreira] presented vital signs, there would be the crime of bodily harm. But, if she was dead [when placed in the trunk], they did not commit any crime.” The police officers are awaiting judgment while released on bail.
Protest in homage to Claudia Silva Ferreira and against police violence on March 17 in Madureira in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro. Photo by Organização Anarquista Terra e Liberdade OATL (Anarchist Organization for Land and Liberty), free use.
Journalist Monica Waldvogel noted on her Twitter that Sub-lieutenant Adir Serrano has been involved in at least 63 deaths. Sub-lieutenant Rodney Archango has been involved in six deaths.
According to Thais Lima, Silva Ferreira's daughter, the police officers laughed while putting her body in the car.
Professor Eduardo Sterzi posted on his Facebook the anonymous testimony of a resident who was present when Silva Ferreira was killed and of another resident who had just died as well:
(…) foi executado após já ter sido alvejado e estar caído. Ele tinha uma mochila com drogas, mas três pistolas foram plantadas pra ser dito que houve confronto, além de outras três mochilas que também foram plantadas.
Eles chegaram atirando em tudo e todos, por isso a morte da mulher.
(…) was killed after he had already been shot and had fallen. He had a backpack with drugs, but three pistols were planted on him so that it could be said there was a confrontation, in addition to the other three backpacks that were also planted.
They arrived shooting at everything and everyone, and that's why the woman died.
According to Silva Ferreira's husband Alexandre da Silva and his brother Julio Ferreira, Silva Ferreira was allegedly shot by the same police officer who planted four weapons on the scene of the crime, when, according to them, she was only carrying a package of coffee and six Brazilian reals (2.65 US dollars) to buy food for her children.
About this fact, activist Camila Pavanelli commented on Facebook:
A mentira é o pressuposto do qual devemos partir ao ouvir qualquer declaração da PM. Mas nem sempre esse pressuposto se confirma. No caso de Claudia e suas quatro armas, não se estava tentando mentir para acobertar o crime (afinal, quem seria capaz de acreditar nesta versão?).
Afirmar que Claudia tinha quatro armas é nada menos que estender a tortura aos seus familiares.
The lie is the assumption that we should accept whatever declaration we hear from the military police. But they don't even confirm these assumptions all the time. In the case of Claudia and her four weapons, were they not trying to lie to cover up the crime (in the end, who would be capable of believing this version?).
Saying that Claudia had four weapons is nothing more than extending the torture of her family.
Photo posted by the profile Anonymous Rio on Facebook. Free use.
People on social media compared the case of Silva Ferreira to that of young boy João Hélio. Federal Deputy of the PSOL (the Socialism and Freedom Party) Chico Alencar noted on his Facebook:
Fevereiro de 2007. Três jovens abordam um carro no bairro de Oswaldo Cruz, subúrbio do Rio. Na mão de um deles, uma arma de fogo. Do lado de dentro, o menino João Hélio, sua irmã de treze anos e sua mãe.
Foi um dos crimes mais terríveis e chocantes que o Brasil já testemunhou. [Ao tentar escapar da viatura] O pequeno João Hélio ficou preso ao cinto de segurança, do lado de fora do carro, e foi ARRASTADO pelos assaltantes por cerca de sete quilômetros. Seu corpo ficou completamente desfigurado. Até hoje, para muitos, lembrar e escrever sobre isso é tarefa que arrepia e arranca lágrimas.
February 2007. Three young men carjack a vehicle in neighborhood of Oswaldo Cruz, a suburb of Rio. One holds a firearm in his hand. Inside the car, a small boy, João Hélio, his 13-year-old sister and his mother.
It was one of the most terrible and shocking crimes that Brazil has ever witnessed. [Trying to escape from the car] João Hélio was buckled into his seatbelt, outside the car, and was DRAGGED by the robbers for about seven kilometers. His body was completely disfigured. Until today, for many, to remember and write about this is a task that causes goosebumps and brings tears to the eyes.
The case was also compared to that of Amarildo, a stone worker who was tortured, killed, and his body “disappeared” [en] by the military police in the favela Rocinha, also in Rio de Janeiro, in July 2013.
The memory of João Hélio sparked even more outcry given that mainstream media, instead of using Silva Ferreira's full name, called her the “woman who was dragged“, among other variations.
Activist Niara Oliveira questioned this on Twitter: “Why is that today we remember the name of the boy that was dragged from a car robbed by criminals? BECAUSE THE PRESS REPEATED HIS NAME TO EXHAUSTION,” and commented:
Porque quando uma vida importa tem nome, identidade, história. REPITAM SEMPRE: Cláudia da Silva Ferreira, trabalhadora, mãe de 4 filhos.
— Niara de Oliveira (@NiDeOliveira71) 17 março 2014
Because when a life is important, there is a name, an identity, a story. WE WILL ALWAYS REPEAT: Claudia da Silva Ferreira, worker, mother of 4 children.
Collection of news headlines on the death of Claudia Silva Ferreira collected by activist Ana Silva. She wrote: “THE POLICE MURDER, AND THE MEDIA IS CYNICAL AND PERVERSE. Woman, woman, woman, resident, resident, resident, dead, dead, dragged, dragged, dragged, dragged. Daughter of the dragged, burial of the dragged, widower of the woman, the woman who was dragged. It is all like this: without a name, without an identity, WITHOUT HUMANITY. JUST ANOTHER CADAVER. JUST ANOTHER STATISTIC.”
Activist Thiago Paiva added to the discussion in a series of tweets:
Por qual razão a vítima quando é de classe média/alta tem nome e sobrenome? Pensando no que eu disse de manhã. Guri arrastado de carro. Estereótipo completo de ~classe média~ – nome, sobrenome, série de reportagens. Uma moça arrastada de carro, pobre, não tem “potencial” pra ser uma musa que gere uma causa… é só “mulher arrastada”
For what reason is it that a victim of the middle/upper class has a name and a last name? Thinking on what I said this morning. Boy dragged by a car. Complete stereotype of the ~middle class~- name, last name, series of reports. A woman dragged by a car, poor, doesn't have the “potential” to be a muse that creates a cause.. it's just “woman who was dragged.”
The tone was that of despair amongst many activists and users of Facebook and Twitter. Activist Rodrigo Cardia wrote that the case “probably would soon be forgotten because the victim was black and poor – like many other people who are killed daily by the military police throughout Brazil.”
Professor Idelber Avelar questioned what will happen to the “uniformed criminals”:
Nada. Não vai acontecer nada. Não serão julgados e, na remotíssima possibilidade de que o sejam, serão absolvidos. E o sistema político brasileiro continua incapaz de apresentar soluções minimamente decentes para a existência de organizações criminosas desse tipo, aparatos de tortura e morte, fardados, que atuam com o beneplácito do Estado e ao arrepio da lei.
Nothing. Nothing is going to happen. They won't be tried, and in the remotest possibility of what could be, they will be acquitted. And the Brazilian political system continues to be incapable of presenting even minimally decent solutions for the existence of criminal organizations of this type, apparatus of torture and death, uniformed, which act with the blessing of the state and contrary to the law.
Journalist Bruno Torturra tweeted:
A impunidade da polícia transformou sua prerrogativa. Deixou de ter o monopólio legal da violência para ter o monopólio legal da ilegalidade
— Bruno Torturra (@torturra) 18 março 2014
The impunity of the police transformed their prerogative. They went from having a legal monopoly on violence to having a legal monopoly on illegality.
The case brought back to the surface the debate for the end of the military police and its demilitarization, as pleaded for by the collective Rio na Rua:
A vítima de hoje foi uma mulher negra e pobre, moradora de uma favela situada em um bairro de classe média baixa do Rio de Janeiro. Cláudia, 38 anos, trabalhadora, mãe de quatro filhos, criava quatro sobrinhos. Mais uma vítima da ação bárbara da PMERJ. A voz das ruas diz que “a polícia mata pobre todo dia”. Quantos outros casos como o dela não ganharam voz na grande mídia? E qual voz o caso Cláudia ganhará? Sua morte é mais um exemplo de que a desmilitarização da polícia é uma questão urgente. Não queremos mais exemplos. Queremos o fim da Polícia Militar.
Today's victim was a woman, black and poor, a resident of a favela situated in a lower-middle class neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Claudia, 38 years old, worker, mother of four children, who also cared for four nieces and nephews. One more victim of the barbaric actions of the PMERJ (Military Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro). Voices from the street say that “the police kill the poor every day.” How many other cases like hers will not find a voice in the media? And what voice will Claudia's case gain? Her death is one more example that the demilitarization of the police is an urgent issue. We don't want more examples. We want the end of the military police.
“This bus was burnt by the people following the murder of yet another black slum dweller, a woman from the city of Rio. This is not vandalism. This is revolt. This is not a crime. It is a right to become indignant. This life that has been taken doesn't relieve the pain of this family and of all who are victims of the genocide promoted by the state. FOR THE END OF THE MILITARY POLICE!” Text and photo by Organização Anarquista Terra and Liberdade (Anarchist Organization for Land and Liberty), free use.
Many pieces were published about the death of Silva Ferreira, amongst which stands out “Claudia Silva Ferreira, 38 years old, janitorial worker, killed by being dragged by a military police car”, published by Camila de Magalhães Gomes on the blog “Blogueiras Feministas” (Feminist Bloggers):
Image posted by the collective “Se não tiver direitos não vai ter copa”(If there are no rights, there will not be a World Cup) on Facebook. Free use.
Quem vai gritar por Claudia? Quem vai saber seu nome além dos familiares e das pessoas de sua comunidade? Quem vai se insurgir contra os criminosos fardados, agentes do estado? Quem pedirá a responsabilização desses agentes? Por que o barulho diante dessa brutalidade perpetrada por agentes públicos é tão menor?
Who will shout for Claudia? Who will know her name aside from her family and the people of her community? Who will rise up against the uniformed criminals, agents of the state? Who will ask that these agents be held responsible? Why is this outcry in the face of this brutality perpetrated by public agents so little?
Amanda Vieira wrote in a piece titled “Claudia Silva Ferreira: shot, dragged, and killed by the military police. Until when?” on the blog “FemMaterna”:
Para a grande maioria dos jornais, uma mulher faleceu. Para nós, faleceu Claudia Silva Ferreira, uma pessoa que tinha uma identidade, uma história, um nome digno de ser mencionado nas manchetes de jornais. Ela tinha uma vida digna de ser preservada, tanto quanto qualquer outra neste país que, pelo menos oficialmente, não aceita pena de morte.
For the great majority of newspapers, a woman died. For us, Claudia Silva Ferreira died, a person that had an identity, a story, a name worthy of being mentioned in newspaper headlines. She had a life worthy of being preserved, as much as anyone else in this country that, at least officially, does not accept the death penalty.
Activist Fabiano Camilo reflected in “‘The woman who was dragged’- violated bodies and the naturalization of the police violence”:
A violência policial, que na sociedade brasileira adquiriu a dimensão de um hábito, passando a ser naturalizada e tacitamente justificada, motivo pelo qual não nos surpreende e não nos indigna, dirige-se, antes de tudo, contra os corpos que nossa cultura significa como passíveis de ser violentados: corpos índios, corpos negros, corpos pobres ou miseráveis, corpos femininos cisgêneros, corpos transgêneros, corpos não-heterossexuais. Não obstante, não são esses os únicos corpos que podem ser violentados pela polícia militar.
Police violence, which in Brazilian society has acquired a sense of habit, is starting to become naturalized and tacitly justified, the reason for which does not surprise us and does not repulse us, directed above all against the bodies that our culture identifies as acceptable of being violated: indigenous bodies, black bodies, poor bodies, or miserable bodies, feminine bodies, transgender bodies, non-heterosexual bodies. Nevertheless, these aren't the only bodies that can be violated by the military police.
Civil police officer Lucas Ed summarized on Facebook the feelings of many:
A Cláudia não merecia, o marido dela não merecia, os filhos, os sobrinhos que ela criava. Os cariocas não mereciam ver aquilo, os brasileiros, os seres humanos.
Que coisa triste.
Claudia didn't deserve it, her husband didn't deserve it, nor her kids, nor her nieces and nephews that she cared for. The people of Rio didn't deserve to see this, nor the Brazilian people, nor any human being. What a sad thing to happen.

author: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia