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Venezuela’s feminist movement begins rising above political polarization · Global Voices
Xili Duran

March 8, 2020 demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo courtesy of Uquira. Used with permission.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of how women fight gender violence in Latin America.
In Venezuela, feminists seem to be achieving what no other movement in the country has accomplished in the past 20 years: transcending political divisions and denouncing the increasingly precarious situation of women in Venezuela.
In 2019, 391 women were killed in Venezuela, according to a database compiled by a local media team from digital news articles, in the absence of official records.
But women’s situation in Venezuela is also a crisis within a crisis. Aid experts classify Venezuela as a complex humanitarian emergency—essentially a political or politicized human-made crisis that has created severe shortages of medicines (including contraceptives), supplies (including personal hygiene items) and food. Add to this the 16,506 violent deaths  Venezuela experienced in 2019, making it one of the most violent countries regionally and globally. This state of affairs has pushed 4.9 million Venezuelans outside of the country as migrants or asylum seekers.
Since 2014, there have been protests to oust President Nicolás Maduro, who is accused of corruption and overall inefficient governance. In 2019, Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president, further polarizing the country.
Against this tumultuous backdrop, any social movement is easily labeled either “pro-Maduro” or “pro-opposition”.
In December 2019, it appeared as if feminists were dividing themselves along these lines, as women's groups in Venezuela organized separate protests to perform the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis's “Un Violador en Tu Camino” (“A Rapist in Your Path”), as feminist groups in many other countries were doing at the time. Pro-government and anti-government protestors in Venezuela refused to sing together.
March 8, 2020 demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo courtesy of Uquira. Used Used with permission.
By March 8, 2020, however—International Women's Day—it had become clear that the country's feminists had put their politics aside. Feminist collective Uquira organized an International Women's Day march that was joined by organizations with a range of political views, such as Comadres Purpuras, Red de Mujeres of Amnesty International, Fundamujer, Hermanas Naturales, WeLab Venezuela, Aliadas en Cadena, Feminismo Inc, En Tinta Violeta, Faldas-R, Araña Feminista and others.
The number of participants was modest—a bit over 100 people—but it keeps increasing every year.
The feminist collective Comadres Purpuras tweeted that they refused to be “used” by the government or the opposition:
#MitinDeMujeres ✊ #PorTodasLasMujeres ?#9M
Nuestra apuesta y proyecto está en la reconstrucción del tejido social que ha sido utilizado bajo una lógica de capitalización propagandista por factores oficialista y de la oposición tradicional.
? https://t.co/YIgRAVcXRw pic.twitter.com/yTixxSFeVV
— Comadres Púrpuras? (@comadrepurpura) March 8, 2020
Our proposal and our project want to reconstruct the social tissue that has been used as propaganda by the government and the traditional opposition.
Venezuelan feminists denounce the lack of action taken to prevent femicides and prosecute aggressors, despite a 2014 legal reform recognizing femicide as a crime. In the 554 officially recognized femicides in the past two years, only 119 sentences have been handed down. On paper, Venezuela has adequate legislation to combat gender violence, but budgets are not made public and law enforcement is scarce.
In addition to gender violence, women's economic vulnerability has also appeared to unite feminists. The minimum monthly salary in the country is less than US$4, which prevents women from accessing basic items, healthcare, contraceptives, and forces them to stay in violent relationships or migrate under precarious conditions, risking sexual abuse and exploitation.
Feminists want to recover the spaces occupied by the dominant political parties because both the government and the opposition appear to be failing to solve gender violence.
Guaidó's National Plan, the roadmap that will guide Venezuela if he ever attains the formal presidency, makes no mention of tackling violence against women nor proposes any measure to solve the gender-specific problems women are facing under the current administration.
Maduro's government portrays itself as feminist, but it is characterized by powerless institutions and general indifference. The Minister for Women and Gender Equality, Asia Villegas, talked about gender violence in Colombia and Mexico during a government-led event on March 8, ignoring the situation in her home country of Venezuela.
March 8, 2020 demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo courtesy of Uquira. Used with permission.
In 2014, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recommended to Maduro's government a series of changes to decriminalize abortion under certain circumstances, reduce the rate of teenage pregnancies (95 out of 1,000 women in the 15-19 age group become pregnant in Venezuela, the second-highest teenage pregnancy rate in the Americas after Honduras), reduce the maternal mortality rate, and take concrete steps to tackle gender violence.
In November 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concluded that Venezuela was responsible for “enabling acts of torture and sexual slavery” committed against prominent women's rights activist and lawyer Linda Loaiza. Yet, on November 18, 2019, Loaiza complained that the Venezuelan state has not yet acted upon the Court's orders for measures of reparation.
“Nos Declaramos en rebeldia” (“We declare ourselves in rebellion). in March 8, 2020 demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo courtesy of Uquira. Used with permission.
On March 8, women demanded abortion rights too. Abortion remains a clandestine activity due to the legal restrictions in Venezuela, one of the most conservative jurisdictions in the region. Unsafe abortions are responsible for an estimated 20% of maternal deaths in Venezuela, according to a 2019 report from the United Nations High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet. Also, in a report from 2016—the last year records were made public—it appears that 66% more women died because of maternity complications compared to previous years. A proposal to decriminalize abortion was submitted by different activist groups to legislators in June 2018, with no results so far.
In the days leading up to March 8, President Maduro declared that “women should have 6 kids and let the homeland grow!” —a highly irresponsible assertion considering the figures above.
Except for Henrique Capriles, a former governor and Presidential candidate in 2012 who supported therapeutic abortion, opposition leaders have never made pronouncements on this topic.
“El Estado no me cuida! Me cuidan mis amigas!”(“The State doesn’t take care of me, my female friends do.”) March 8, 2020 demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo courtesy of Uquira. Used with permission.
On March 8, as neither government nor the opposition appears to be working to stop the violations against women, Venezuelan feminists from different political spectrum gathered to say:
“El Estado no me cuida! Me cuidan mis amigas!”
“The State doesn’t take care of me, my female friends do.”

author: Xili Duran


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After being kidnapped and threatened, Mozambican YouTuber has his channel suspended · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

After being kidnapped and later freed in early February, Mozambican YouTuber Arsénio Amós had his channel banned from the platform for allegedly violating the terms of service.
Screenshot of the channel suspended [March 8]
The violations that contributed to the exclusion of his channel were due to the simultaneous publication of thousands of videos. He claims that his channel was stolen, as he explained in a recent video.
Arsénio, or “Beleza em pessoa”, as he is known, is one of the most famous YouTubers in Mozambique whose channel, before its temporary suspension, had more than 80 thousand followers.
In early February, he was kidnapped for 24 hours, before he was freed by the police. Until today, Joe Williams, who claims to be a prophet, is in detention, suspected of ordering the kidnapping.
Days before his kidnapping, Arsénio published a video accusing Mozambique‘s self-proclaimed prophets of illicit enrichment. In one of the videos, he addressed the irregularities in the religious activities of Joe Williams
Before recovering the channel on March 22, YouTube displayed a warning alerting that the account has been suspended.
The channel was recovered with only two videos — most of the videos were removed. He still awaits Youtube's permission to upload videos on the channel.
Many people commented about the suspension of Arsénio's channel, mainly to support the YouTuber to continue his work.
But other people said that the YouTuber is being punished for defaming Joe Williams:
Valeu para tanto. O mal paga-se a mal. Quando prejudica a vida de alguém sem motivo, Deus usa uma outra pessoa para recompensar e pagar teus erros. Se vivias a custa deste canal, dias tens para viver momentos ruins. Finalmente pagaste teus erros.
Thanks for so much. You are paying for your mistake. When you harm someone's life for no reason, God uses someone else to reward and pay for your mistakes. If you were dependent on this channel, you have to live bad times. You finally paid for your mistakes.
On March 12, the YouTuber announced on Facebook that he created a new channel, which so far has about 2 thousand followers:
As nossas quedas servem de combustível para revelar o quão fortes nós somos e o quão capazes somos de quebrar uma montanha ?.
Olha para a sua tristeza como uma grande porta ? pra a felicidade.
A sua cabeça fica em cima ? e nunca em baixo ?
Por isso, foco nos sonhos, projectos etc e vamos a luta.
Inscreva-se no meu mais recente canal
Our defeats serve as fuel to reveal how strong we are and how capable we are of breaking a mountain.
Look at your sadness as a great door to happiness.
Your head is up  and never down
So, focus on dreams, projects etc and let's fight.
Subscribe to my latest channel

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Dércio Tsandzana


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Cambodian garment workers strike over unpaid wages amid COVID-19 outbreak · Global Voices
VOD

Workers at Canteran Apparel (Cambodia) Co. Ltd. protest over unpaid wages at the Phnom Penh factory on March 25, 2020. (Photo supplied to VOD)
This edited article by Saut Sok Prathna is from VOD News, an independent news site in Cambodia, and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement. Translated from the original article on VOD Khmer
Nearly 1,000 garment workers protested outside a Phnom Penh factory on March 25, 2020, after the owner failed to pay their regular wages, which the company said was due to declining payments from buyers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Factory workers employed by Canteran Apparel (Cambodia) Co. Ltd. protested after the company failed to pay their full wages for the most recent two-week pay period, worker Sann Sopha told VOD.
The factory owner refused to sign an agreement promising to pay workers their outstanding wages at the beginning of next month, as workers had asked, Sopha said.
Workers will continue their strike to force the company to respect the condition to pay workers regularly from today onward. Workers asked the company to make a written promise with them but the company did not dare to make a contract with us. The company just gave excuses for this and that.
Sopha said the factory had been paying workers irregularly for the past four months. She said the factory’s owner was Chinese, but the company listing on the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia lists the owner as Malaysian. The company employs 935 workers, according to GMAC.
Kim Bou, head of administration at the factory, said the company has lost buyers during the global economic slowdown resulting from the spread of COVID-19, a new respiratory disease that was first detected in China in late December 2019.
Bou said Canteran was facing a financial crisis and thus could not pay workers on time, but he said the company was trying to find funds to pay workers’ salaries.
The company faces difficulties with the market, and buyers have also delayed transferring their payments because of the Covid-19 issue. Our company tried very hard to find a solution for our workers. However much money we have, we will pay with that and the owner will keep paying till they get full wages.
COVID-19’s impact on Cambodia’s GDP may be more than 1 percent of the GDP in the best-case scenario and nearly 3 percent of the GDP in a worst-case scenario, according to an Asian Development Bank briefing from earlier this month. The impact could be close to 4 percent of the GDP in a hypothetical situation in which a significant outbreak occurs in the country.
The Health Ministry has confirmed 96 total infections in the country since January (as of March 26) with 10 people recovering from the virus.
Sopha told VOD that workers said they will face difficulties managing daily expenses, such as rent, utilities, children’s school fees and bank loans if their employer does not pay their full, regular wages.
Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union Movement of Workers, said the company is violating the law by not paying workers their full wages.
Sina said the Labor Ministry should find an immediate solution to help workers who are struggling with their expenses.
We cannot let the employers give excuses to delay paying workers’ wages, because workers are in debt and they cannot make an excuse to delay their expenses. If [workers] cannot pay debts on the right date and time, they will be fined.
Peng Phoeun, deputy chief of the Labor Ministry’s labor disputes bureau, could not be reached for comment during the time of publication.

author: VOD


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COVID-19 diaries from Wuhan: When humans are turned into objects · Global Voices
Winston Chiu

Someone on the riverbank in Wuhan with protective gears. (Photo credit: Guo Jing)
The following post is the third in a series of diaries written by independent filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming and feminist activist Guo Jing. Both are living in Wuhan at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic. You can read the first and second part of the series here.
This third installment was written between February 5-10, 2020. During this week, Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower of the outbreak of a new coronavirus in Wuhan, passed away. The original Chinese diaries are published on Matter News.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
An announcement outside a park: ‘Please wear mask when you enter the park.’ (Photo credit: Guo Jing)
早上接到一个网友发的求助，求助者的老公和她的公婆都被确诊为新型冠状病毒肺炎，两个老人已经去世，家里还有两个孩子，一个四岁，一个才一个月。她有疑似症状，现在也在隔离，担心孩子的照顾问题。我打电话过去了解情况，她说孩子暂时有人照顾，可是她的语气充满了忧虑，不确定隔离后的情况，不确定孩子是否能得到持续的照顾。
An internet friend sent me a message requesting help this morning. Her husband and parents-in-law were diagnosed with COVID-19. Eventually, her parents-in-law died. She has two kids, one is 4 years old, and another is 1 month old. Now she is developing symptoms, so she is quarantined. She is worried about issues related to childcare. I called back and asked her, and she said someone can take care of her kids for now. However, her voice is full of worry. She does no know what will happen next and whether her kids will be taken care of during her quarantine.
晚上继续和朋友聊天，主题是死亡。
大家纷纷讲了自己的死亡焦虑：
有人害怕死亡之前的痛苦，
有人害怕“我”的消失和自我意识的消亡
我们讲到疫情中充满了突然而集中的死亡，他们没有葬礼，无法和所爱的人告别，更别说临终关怀。
早上，我几次醒来翻个身又睡去，并没有睡着，只是不想起来面对。终于我还是起了床，打开手机，满屏都是关于李文亮的消息，有人戴着口罩拍照，口罩上写着“不明白”。
我又开始流泪。我要怎么在如此荒诞的社会生存呢？我还是得努力地活着，这也成为一种抗争。
I have developed a routine to chat with friends at night. Tonight our topic is death.
We talked about our anxiety toward death.
Some people are afraid of the pain before death.
Some people are afraid of the disappearance of “Self” and self-consciousness.
We talked about the sudden and aggregated death in a pandemic. They do not have a funeral. They cannot say goodbye to their friends. Not to mention hospice.
This morning, I woke up several times. I tried forcing myself to sleep again but couldn't. I did not want to wake up and face the world. At last, I got up and turned on my cell phone. All the messages I saw were about Li Wenliang. Someone took a photo of themselves wearing a face mask with the words “I do not understand” on it.
I kept crying. How can I survive in such a ridiculous world? However, I must stay alive, because this has become an act of resistance.
People wearing masks written, “We can not understand.” (Photo source: Internet. Photo credit: Guo Jing.)
我存的菜不多了， 今天要去超市补充一些食材。
有人说疫情过去，人们就很快会忘记。遗忘没有那么容易。我们可能无法记得所有人，但我们大部分人都无法忘记这段时间。我们还会跟别人讲起这段时间发生的事情、遇到的人，就像我们讲起非典、讲起汶川地震。我们还会带着这段日子的记忆生活下去。
大家担心的遗忘究竟是什么？是我们的社会不能因为这场疫情而有所改善，是下次发生类似的灾难的时候依然没有完备的防控体系，担心依旧会有人要做无谓的牺牲。
晚上和朋友聊天。我们都看到了网上有人发起的祭-奠LWL的活动，晚上8:55-9:00是关灯默哀，9:00-9:05用手中能发出光的所有物件指向窗外…我住的地方外面的楼本来也只有零星的灯光。9点钟，我看到这些楼上一些角落里亮起了微弱的光。那一刻，我们是彼此在黑暗中的光，这是穿破封锁的光。
我们都讨厌恃强凌弱的人，喜欢待人真诚，敢讲真话的人。而在大家都不敢讲真话，甚至讲真话要付出代价的社会，讲真话更加珍贵。李文亮是一个讲了真话的人。
I do not have much vegetables left, so I need to go to the supermarket to buy some food.
Some people say that we would soon forget what happens today after the end of the pandemic. However, forgetting is not that easy. We may not be able to remember every person we have seen, but most of us will not forget this period of our life. We will talk to others about what happens now and who we meet now, just like talking about SARS and the Wenchuan earthquake. We will live with the memory of this period for the rest of our lives.
What do we really worry about forgetting? We are worried that our society will not improve after the pandemic. We are worried that our society will not have a better disaster-monitoring system when we face another disaster. We are worried that some people will sacrifice for nothing.
I chatted with friends this evening. We saw the internet events to memorize Li Wenliang: Between 8:55-9:00 p.m., lights off and silent tribute, between 9:00-9:05 p.m., direct your lights to the windows… I don't have many neighbors and usually I can see a few lights in the buildings nearby. At 9 p.m., I saw some lights here and there. At that moment, we turned ourselves into lights for each other. This is the light that can penetrate the blockade.
We have spoken against the oppressors and paid our tribute to the honest people who stick to the truth. In a society where no one dares to tell the truth, where people are punished for telling the truth, telling the truth is invaluable. Li Wenliang is a person who told us the truth.
昨天下午，我在天台上寫了一下午的字，為紀念李文亮醫生。一直寫到天要黑了，也感覺很冷了才停筆。如果不做這件事，我無法釋放李醫生之死給我帶來的情感沖擊。這一周裏，連續得到了三位武漢朋友長輩去世的消息。今天早上，我們的另一位好朋友的哥哥，家裏也有親人被告重症。
我的老父親在封城期間與世長辭，他本不應該屬於這個瘟疫故事，可是我們都無法預測死亡的時間。我願意說他半年都沒有出過自己房間，因此他不可能屬於新冠。但我並沒有醫學憑證來證明這件事，現在我和阿姨都在家自動隔離，待14天後再行出門。
事實上，我覺得老父親冥冥間選擇的永別時刻，簡直是無比的人間智慧。因為，說來令人難以置信的是，再過三天，即2月5日，武漢市將組織力量進社區，排查“四類人員”集中觀察，以便收治隔離。這對求治者或許是一件好事，但對於一位年屆九六、全部失能的高齡老人來說，我不能告訴你這將會多麽恐怖。實際上在聽到這個消息時我把我能夠在家抄起的所有傢伙都想了一遍。因為，我不可能容許任何人把我活著的父親抬出去隔離
I was writing on my balcony in the evening yesterday to commemorate Dr. Li Wenliang. I stopped when it turned dark and cold. If I did not do it, I could not release the intense emotions brought by the death of Dr. Li. In this week alone, I have received messages from my friends about the death of the elder members of their families. This morning, the brother of a good friend of ours said someone in his family was in serious condition.
My father passed away during the lockdown. He should not be included in the story of this pandemic, but none of us can predict when death would arrive. I would say that his death has nothing to do with COVID-19, because he did not go out in the last half year. However, I do not have any medical evidence to support my words. Now the helper and I are in self-isolation, we will stay at home for 14 days before we go out again.
In fact, I think my father was very wise in choosing the timing of his death as the Wuhan government plans to send working teams into all residential communities to check on every single apartment on February 5. If anyone who is marked as one of the four types of people [confirmed cases, suspicious cases, people with fever, and people have close contact with confirmed cases], they will be taken away to quarantine facilities. It might be a good policy for people who seek medical attention. However, I cannot tell you how terrible it will be for a 96-year-old who has lost all his self-care ability. In fact, when I heard the announcement, I considered all the things that I could use to defend my family, because I could never allow anyone to take my father away for quarantine when he was still alive.
什么人不道歉？
父母很少道歉，即便道歉的时候也总是说“为你好”，暗含着一种指责，似乎是子女不领情。
性骚扰的施害者很少道歉，他们甚至用指责受害者的话语来为自己辩解，企图说明不是自己的错，他们说“你穿太少了”“你不应该晚上出门”“你勾引我”。
很遗憾，不被尊重的人、权利被侵害的人很难获得道歉。李-w-l是否能获得道歉呢？
睡觉前，我刷手机的时候刷到2月4日一个公众号发了一段录音，是一个山东姑娘打给捂汗市长热线的电话，电话中她表达了对武汉政府处理山东捐赠的350吨蔬菜的不满，认为政-府不应该拿去卖，对政-府分配物资的流程提出了建议，希望物资以最快的方式到达一线工作人员那里。
那段录音十分令人感动，她在电话结束的时候说希望市长可以给她一个回复。在很多人都充满无力感的时候，她依然坚持问责，这是一个明知不可为而为之的行为。而社会改变是由无数这样的人一起推动的。
Who does not apologize?
Parents seldom apologize. Even when they do, they always say, “for your own good,” implying that their children do not accept their good intention.
Sexual harassers seldom apologize. They even blame the victims to justify their behaviors and escape from the charge. They say, “you wear too little clothes,” “you should not go out at night,” or “you seduced me.”
I feel very sorry that getting an apology has become so difficult for people whose dignity and rights are infringed. Will Li Wenliang receive an apology?
Before I went to sleep, I used my cell phone to go online, and I found a voice recording published by an official account on February 4. It is from a girl in Shandong province. She called the hotline of the mayor of Wuhan. In the phone call, she criticized the way the Wuhan government handled the 350 tons of vegetables donated by Shandong province, that Wuhan government should not have sold those vegetables.
She gave some suggestions regarding the distribution of resources so that frontline workers could receive them as soon as possible.
That recorded message is very moving. At the end of the phone call, she said that she hoped the mayor could give her a reply. When so many of us feel powerless, she insisted on holding the government accountable. It is mission impossible, but these kind of people are the driving force for social change.
昨天的晚餐是香菇炒香肠加稀饭。香菇是在封城的第一天买的，在冰箱里放了十多天，有一个香菇变成了黑红色，我还是把它切了，又有些担心，就上网查了一下，看到有人说香菇变黑代表发霉，最好不要吃。谨慎起见，我还是扔了那个已经切好的香菇。
蔬菜屯太多容易变质，就会导致浪费。然而，为了生存我们又不得不屯。
有朋友前几天推荐《浩劫求生》，这是一部模拟真实生活环境下的灾难系列教学纪录片。中午看了第一集，是关于劫飞机的，有一个人全程在教大家如何制服劫持飞机的人和自救，在将劫匪的手脚都绑起来的过程，他说：“现在要剥夺他们的感官能力，此刻最重要的就是控制，我们要尽量剥夺他们的掌控能力，视力、说话能力，甚至塞住他们的耳朵，这些人会完全变成废物。”那一刻，我和劫匪产生了共鸣。
我们像是被当作劫匪一样对待，虽然不是被直接地剥夺这些能力。然而，我们看到的和听到的信息被过滤，我们经常发不出声。有关李-w-l的一些信息已经在消失。社会让我们自我审查，一些人还审查别人，建议别人删除和他无关又没有侵害任何人的言论。
My dinner last night was porridge and fried mushrooms with sausage.
I bought those mushrooms at the beginning of the lockdown. They were in the refrigerator for more than 10 days. One of the mushrooms turned dark, but I still cut it. Then I was worried, I searched online and some suggested that the dark colour might be caused by mold and it is better not to eat those mushrooms. To be cautious, I threw that mushroom away.
If we store too many vegetables, they will decay and we are wasting food. However, to survive, we need to store vegetables.
A friend of mine recommended the TV series, “Surviving Disaster” several days ago. This documentary series simulates disaster in our real lives to educate people. I watched one episode this afternoon, and it is about an airplane hijacking. A person teaches how to overpower the hijacker and save ourselves. When he ties up the hijacker's arms and legs, he says, “Now we will deprive their senses. It is all about control. We need to deprive their power, their vision, their ability to speak as much as we can. We should even plug their ears and turned them into objects.”
At that moment, I felt for the hijacker.
We have been treated like that hijacker, although we are not deprived those abilities directly. However, the information we see and hear has been filtered, and we always find ourselves speechless. The information about Li Wenliang has been disappearing. This society forces us into self-censorship, and some even actively censor others and ask other to delete information that is irrelevant to them and harmless to anyone.

author: Winston Chiu


text:
COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects digital rights in the Balkans · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Illustration: Igor Vujčić. Used with permission of SHARE Foundation.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
Cases of arbitrary arrests, surveillance, phone tapping, privacy breaches and other digital rights violations have drastically increased in Central and Southeast Europe as governments started imposing emergency legislation to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. Belgrade-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the digital rights organization SHARE Foundation have started a blog titled ”Digital Rights in the Time of COVID-19” documenting these developments.
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, some governments are enhancing surveillance, increasing censorship, and restricting the free flow of information. In many cases, the government-imposed restrictions flouted human rights standards.
Bojan Perkov, SHARE Foundation policy researcher. Courtesy photo, used with his permission.
The BIRN and SHARE blog also includes a feature inviting the public to submit reports of incidents to their database. Bojan Perkov, policy researcher at the SHARE Foundation, wrote a summary of their findings, noting the following:
Dosadašnja saznanja dve organizacije pokazuju da su najproblematičniji višestruki problemi sa privatnošću osoba u karantinu, širenje dezinformacija i opasnih zabluda u vezi sa virusom u onlajn medijima i putem društvenih mreža, kao i povećanje internet prevara.
The information gathered by the two organizations so far shows that the most problematic [violations] are multiple issues involving the privacy of people who are put under quarantine, spread of disinformation and dangerous misconceptions regarding the virus in the online media and via social networks, as well as the increase of internet scams.
The data gathered by the two organizations through the blog's database feature indicate that in just over the last two weeks, 80 people have been arrested, some of them jailed, for spreading fake news and disinformation, with the most draconian examples in Turkey, Serbia, Hungary and Montenegro.
Governments in Montenegro and Moldova made public the personal health data of people infected with COVID-19, while official websites and hospital computer systems suffered cyber-attacks in Croatia and Romania. Some countries like Slovakia are considering lifting rights enshrined under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), while Serbia imposed surveillance and phone tracking to limit freedom of movement.
Potentially infected citizens have been obliged to submit to new forms of control by law. In Serbia since the declaration of a state of emergency was declared and all citizens arriving from abroad must undergo quarantine. During a March 19 press conference, President Aleksandar Vučić stated that the police is “following” Italian telephone numbers, checking which citizens use roaming and constantly tracking their locations. This was specifically aimed at members of Serbian diaspora who returned from Italy and are supposed to self-isolate in their homes. He also warned the people who leave their phones behind that the state has “another way” of tracking them if they violate quarantine, but didn't explain the method.
In neighboring Montenegro, the National Coordination Body for Infectious Diseases decided to publish the names and surnames of people who must undergo quarantine online, after it determined that certain persons violated the measure, and as a result “exposing the whole Montenegro to risk.” Civic alliance challenged this measure through a complaint submitted to the Constitutional Court of Montenegro.
In Croatia, concerned citizens developed a website samoizolacija.hr (meaning “Self-isolation”), which allegedly enabled anyone to anonymously report quarantine violators to the police. The site was been subsequently shut down, and the Ministry of Interior initiated criminal investigations against suspected violators of privacy rights.
Crisis Headquarters of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a recommendation on how to publish the personal data of citizens who violate the prevention measures, as government institutions at cantonal and local level started publishing data about people in isolation and self-isolation, including lists of people identified as infected by the coronavirus. In response, on March 24, the Personal Data Protection Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a decision forbidding the publication of personal data of citizens tested positive for the coronavirus or those subjected to isolation and self-isolation measures.
The above cases of publication of health data online involve direct violation of the laws that designate them as protected at the highest legal level.
Perkov also raised the issue of whether these measures are effective, in particular because this puts people in danger. In Montenegro, infected people whose identities were revealed on social networks, have been subjected to hate speech.
Dalje, da li je ideja javno posramljivanje ljudi koji ne poštuju samoizolaciju ili smanjenje broja prekršaja? Kriterijumi proporcionalnosti i neophodnosti takođe su na veoma tankim osnovama i bez adekvatne opravdanosti. Mogu se postaviti pitanja da li je zaista neophodno objaviti imena svih građana u samoizolaciji po adresi stanovanja javno na internetu i da li je to jedini način da se obezbedi poštovanje zakona.
Furthermore, is the idea behind such measures the public shaming of people who disrespect the obligation for self-isolation or the reduction of number of violations? The criteria of proportionality and necessity have not been properly respected and their adequacy had not been justified. One can question whether it is really necessary to publish the names of all citizens under self-isolation with their home addresses online, and whether this is really the only way to ensure respect for the law.

author: Filip Stojanovski


text:
Moldova’s meme heroes promote solidarity with Eurosong spoof amid COVID-19 crisis · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

Screencap from the Youtube video “Mom, stay home,” by the Sunstroke Project.
This story originally appeared on Meta.mk News Agency, a project of Metamorphosis Foundation. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement. Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
In Moldova, the pop-rock group Sunstroke Project has adapted its 2017 Eurovision song “Hey Mama” for educational purposes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Titled “Mom, stay home,” the spoof encourages citizens to follow the prevention recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO) while also sending positive energy to the elderly, who are more vulnerable to the disease.
It is sung in Russian and Romanian and was published on YouTube with English subtitles.
While Romanian is the state language of Moldova, Russian, Ukrainian and Gaugazian all have official regional languages status. Russian is widely spoken in all regions of Moldova.
Moldova, a country of 2.6 million, has registered 298 confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far, and two deaths. Like most European countries, the government has enacted restriction measures to hamper the spread of the novel coronavirus, including two weeks of self-isolation.
The Sunstroke Project debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2010 with the song “Run Away.” Despite finishing at 22nd place — out of 39 contestants — the song became hugely popular. Currently, its official video has over 10 million views on YouTube.
That Eurovision performance also produced a famous meme: the group's saxophonist Sergej Stepanov became the “Epic sax guy,” a recognizable meme to this day, with dozens of iterations.
Because of their enduring web popularity, the Sunstroke Project competed for Moldova again at the 2017 Eurovision, this time with the song “Hey Mama” with lyrics in English. The performance once again included a sax solo.
In 2017, the group finished at third place in the competition held in Kyiv, Ukraine. It was the best result Moldova has ever achieved in the contest.
The 2020 edition of the Eurovision contest, which was supposed to take place in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in May, has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


text:
An Angolan isolation centre for those repatriated lacks screening, space, and even toilet paper · Global Voices
Simão Hossi

Screengrab from a video of Angolans exposed to the open air – from Wilcker Cláudio's profile (used with permission).
With seven confirmed cases (two deaths and one recovered) of COVID-19, Angola is among the more than 40 African countries which have already recorded the disease in their territories.
On March 18, the government set up an inter-ministerial commission to fight the spread of the pandemic in the country. The Health Ministry confirmed the first two COVID-19 cases on March 21.
Angola closed air, land and sea borders to the movement of people from midnight on March 20, but has been allowing some flights to transport Angolan citizens abroad back home.
The government established isolation centres on the outskirts of the capital Luanda to house repatriated Angolans. A flight from Lisbon brought about 200 passengers on March 21.
Passengers were not all treated equally, though, according to some accounts. One passenger, Célio Alberto, told the independent outlet Maka Angola that authorities had divided the passengers differently for the quarantine:
Sem sabermos quais foram os critérios de selecção, as autoridades escolheram os passageiros que foram para o hotel de cinco estrelas Vitória Garden e os que foram enviados para o Centro de Quarentena no Calumbo.
Without us knowing what the selection criteria were, the authorities chose the passengers who went to the five-star hotel Victoria Garden and those who were sent to the Quarantine Centre in Calumbo
Passengers destined for the Nova Esperança Centre for the Development of Children, in the Viana municipality, had to wait for over three hours on buses before they could enter the isolation centre.
Passengers taken to the Calumbo quarantine centre had a similar situation, having to sleep in the vehicle before going in. Maka Angola told the story:
Manuela Silva relata, indignada, a jornada do aeroporto ao local de quarentena, onde chegaram por volta das 22h00. “No trajecto, com sirenes e batedores, fomos apedrejados na via como assassinos, como estando a trazer o vírus para matar os angolanos”, denuncia.
(…)
Manuela Silva revela que só às 2h00 da madrugada chegaram alguns indivíduos não identificados, os quais deram início à montagem de camas individuais e beliches nos quartos do Centro de Desenvolvimento.
“Encontrámos os colchões ao relento, todos empoeirados e os quartos nunca antes habitados, em péssimas condições. As casas de banho nem sequer tinham papel higiénico”, revela a passageira.
“Uma médica que lá se encontrava de serviço disse-nos para irmos fazer as necessidades no capim. Nem nos permitiu perguntar-lhe como as mulheres o fariam no meio dos homens”, conta Manuela Silva.
“A TAAG ligou-nos porque havia um voo de emergência para transportar familiares de ministros e outros dirigentes e podíamos aproveitar. Ninguém nos informou de que ficaríamos sujeitos a estas condições degradantes. Muitos teriam preferido ficar em Lisboa”, lamenta Manuela Silva.
Manuela Silva recounts, indignantly, the journey from the airport to the quarantine site, where they arrived at around 10 p.m. “On the way, with sirens and escorts, the passenger claims to have had stones thrown at her on the way like murderers, as if she was bringing the virus to kill Angolans,” she says.
(…)
Manuela Silva reveals that it was not until 2 a.m. that some unidentified individuals arrived, who began to set up individual beds and bunk beds in the rooms of the Development Centre.
“We found the mattresses outdoors, all dusty and the rooms never before inhabited, in terrible condition. The bathrooms didn't even have toilet paper,” the passenger says.  “A doctor on duty there told us to go and perform our needs in the grass. She didn't even let us ask her how women would do it in the middle of men.”
“The [airline] TAAG called us because there was an emergency flight to transport family members of ministers and other leaders and that we could make use of it. Nobody informed us that we would be subjected to these degrading conditions. Many would have preferred to stay in Lisbon,” Manuela Silva says.
On the same day, another flight arrived from the city of Porto, the most affected by the new coronavirus in Portugal. According to Célio Alberto, also speaking to Maka Angola, there was no screening of passengers:
Misturaram-nos todos, os passageiros do Porto e de Lisboa. Não havia espaço nem condições para estarmos separados. Ficámos aglomerados e não havia quem nos desse informações nem estabelecesse quaisquer procedimentos de controlo. Mediram-nos apenas a temperatura à chegada, nada mais.
They mixed us all, the passengers from Porto and Lisbon. There was no room or facilities for us to be separated. We were crowded and there was nobody to give us information or establish any control procedures. They only measured our temperature on arrival, nothing more.
Family members of the internees are taking food to the quarantined passangers due to the state not providing sufficient food.
The case made the news in Mozambique. Screengrab of Telejornal, March 24.
After several criticisms in the press and on social media, the president’s chief of staff appointed General Pedro Sebastião, Minister of State and head of the president’s security, to coordinate the inter-ministerial commission for the Management of Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19, to ensure that passengers would be housed in better conditions:
Agradecemos a compreensão dos cidadãos pelos constrangimentos ocorridos. O Executivo está empenhado neste processo e tudo fará no sentido de salvaguardar a saúde pública e o bem maior, a vida de todos os angolanos.
We thank citizens for their understanding of the restraints that have arisen. The government is committed to this process and will do everything to safeguard public health and the greater good, the lives of all Angolans.
Meanwhile, university professor Gabriel Tchingandu wrote on Facebook that he perceived a lack of information in the media:
Sinto muita falta de informação sobre o COVID-19 em Angola. Se eu fosse director de uma rádio ou TV em Angola, suspendia toda a programação normal do órgão. Montaria uma tenda de repórteres na entrada do centro de quarentena Calumbo e outra na entrada do centro da Barra do Kwanza. Outra tropa de jornalistas diante das portas dos hospitais e clínicas assistindo casos.
Outra tenda de jornalistas ficava montada diante do quartel general da Comissão Inter-sectorial do Governo. No estúdio, os diferentes especialistas de saúde, comentadores e autoridades esgrimiriam argumentos com o foco virado para Angola.
Outros jornalistas em diferentes ruas das cidades fariam relatos de testemunhas com interesse no caso Covid-19. A cobertura de factos e ditos seria “no stop” em 24 horas. Os jornalistas nesta cobertura especial teriam seus salários duplicados.
Assim ajudaria a combater o coronavírus em Angola, aumentando igualmente a audiência da minha TV/rádio
I feel very much there is a lack of information about COVID-19 in Angola. If I was a radio or TV director in Angola, I would suspend all the agency's normal programming. I would set up a reporters’ tent at the entrance of the Calumbo quarantine centre and another at the entrance of the Barra do Kwanza centre. Another troop of journalists outside the doors of hospitals and clinics watching out for cases.
Another tent for journalists would be set up in front of the headquarters of the government's Inter-sectoral commission. In the studio, different health experts, commentators and authorities would debate arguments with the focus on Angola.
Other journalists in different streets of the cities would report stories relating to Covid-19. The coverage of facts and statements would be “non stop” across 24 hours. Journalists in this special coverage would have their salaries doubled.
This would help fight coronavirus in Angola, also increasing the audience of my TV/radio
Journalist André Mfumu Kivuandinga claims that the people in quarantine were without food and that they did not know where their luggage was:
Segundo denúncias acabadinhas de me serem feitas por um angolano, cujo nome irei omitir, que se encontra no Centro de Quarentena, em Calumbo, Viana, Luanda, desde às 1 horas da madrugada que comeram até agora estão sem alimentação, também não sabem o paradeiro das suas bagagens.
Até aqui nenhum responsável do Governo ou da comissão multissetorial os foi visitar, o cidadão em caso é hipertenso”.
According to complaints just made to me by an Angolan, whose name I will omit, who is in the Quarantine Centre in Calumbo, Viana, Luanda, from 1h00 up to now they have been without food, [and] also do not know the whereabouts of their luggage.
So far no government official or member of the multisectoral commission has visited them, the person in question has hypertension”
Carlos Pinho, a young political commentator, shared a video on Facebook about the indignation of passengers, still in the area of the Quatro de Fevereiro Airport.
“Incompetência gritante. Mas afinal quando teremos um governo a sério. É disto que eu falo: dignidade”.
“Glaring incompetence. But after all, when will we have a serious government. That's what I'm talking about: dignity.”
After the decree of a state of emergency for fifteen days, another major problem that arose is the practicality of measures such as total confinement of the population, as discussed by the commentator Víctor Mendes:
Decretar estado de emergência e encerramento de todo funcionalismo público é o que venho falando há uma semana. Fechar para evitar o mal maior.
Inglaterra e Estados Unidos entram em lockdown brevemente. Foi esse o erro que a Itália cometeu.
Mas nós estamos perante um grande dilema. Sim ou não?
O nosso governo nunca se preparou para um cenário como este. Não fechar poderemos também pagar muito caro e com aquilo que não tem preço. Vida.
Decreeing a state of emergency and closure of all civil service is what I have been talking about for a week. Closure to avoid the greater evil.
The UK and United States will enter lockdown soon. That's the mistake Italy made.
But we are facing a great dilemma. Yes or no?
Our government has never prepared for a scenario like this. We may also pay dearly for not closing and with what is priceless. Life

author: Simão Hossi


text:
Belarusian women turn to self-defence in battle against domestic violence · Global Voices
Hanna Liubakova

Participants in a WenDo class in Minsk, 2020. Photo (c): Hanna Liubakova. Used with permission.
On an early Saturday morning some 15 women gather in one of the ubiquitous, grey, three-story buildings in the outskirts of Minsk, capital of Belarus.
There are coffee and snacks to grab, and chairs are already evenly placed in a circle. The spacious room where we meet is a gym in its everyday life, but we aren’t here to get into shape. The next two days will be part martial arts lessons, part support group.
This is the essence of Wen-Do: a method of self-defence and assertiveness developed to allow women to fend off harassment, empower and speak up for themselves.
Courses such as these are relatively new and not yet widespread. There are many reasons why the idea of women’s self-defence is not more popular in Belarus: a wide variety of gender-based stereotypes, a tendency to blame the victims of violence, and a persistent belief in requiring “a strong man's shoulder” to lean on. And yet according to UN data from 2018, every second woman in Belarus suffers different forms of violence, with nearly every third being abused physically.
Wen-Do covers a wide variety of physical and verbal techniques. Women learn how to fight back and respond to wrist and arm holds and how to escape bear hugs and choke holds. Far from being just a method of self-defence, Wen-Do also focuses on consent, awareness, and avoidance of threatening situations. These are the skills we will gain over the next two days.
There are all kinds of people in this group. Tall and short. Blonde and dark-haired. Students and professionals. Some of us are in our 50s, others have just turned 16. We met just a moment ago, but already feel friendly toward each other.
But when Olga Laniewska, our trainer, suddenly asks us to shout, we stare at each other in confusion. This may be a women-only course, but however safe and comfortable the atmosphere is, it is not easy to start screaming when you’re surrounded by near-strangers.
Olga urges us on:
“Attackers know perfectly well that women often feel too ashamed to react when they are sexually assaulted. But your voice is your weapon. Use it.”
This time, we don’t hesitate to shout.
Breaking blocks, breaking stereotypes
Natalia (who requested that her name be changed), a PhD student, needed to resolve an issue with her doctoral adviser. He would abuse his position by constantly asking her personal questions about her family and her husband. She felt dependent on her advisor but wanted to stop this unwanted attention.
At Wen-Do sessions, women share real-life experiences of physical or verbal aggression, whether from strangers or known attackers. Harassment on the street. A violent husband. An assault at school. A co-worker who crosses too many boundaries.
Women then discuss and role-play situations to build self-confidence and react in a way that works best for them.
In Natalia’s case, she practiced her posture, body language, voice, and use of specific words until she was happy with the outcome. As she told me a few months later, when her adviser approached her again, she was able to stop his questions politely but firmly.
“He never behaved in the same abusive way again,” Natalia says. “He probably understood that I wouldn’t allow this anymore.”
Curiously, she says, their relationship has actually improved since then.
“What was your husband’s reaction when you signed up for the course?” I ask.
“He is very supportive and open-minded,” she says. “But sometimes he doesn’t understand why Wen-Do and the subject of domestic violence, since our relationship is not abusive.” When she was 19, someone tried to rape her. Although she was able to escape, the fear stayed with her.
Another student, Alina, 24, experienced domestic violence at home. Wen-Do taught her how to set boundaries and not allow others to violate them. Now, a few months later, she tells me it is still difficult for her to say “no” without guilt. But she is learning.
At the end of each day’s session, the participants break a piece of wood with a blow of the hand. Just as in martial arts, this is a vital part of the training, when a person shows their strength and courage. For those in my group, this was a moment of empowerment and resolution.
“It boosts your self-confidence levels. Without it, it’s impossible to defend yourself,” group member Hanna Parkhomenka says.
Natalia, Hanna, and Alina are among 900 women who have taken a Wen-Do course in Belarus since the first one was held almost four years ago.
“Does this mean they all know where to hit an aggressor?” I ask Laniewska, the only Wen-Do trainer in Belarus and one of very few Russian-speaking trainers internationally.
“It’s not just about kicks and blocks, though I teach those too,” she says.
“Ideally, after a woman learns Wen-Do, she doesn’t allow herself to be abused or attacked in the first place, because she is aware of her boundaries and what behaviour she finds unacceptable,” Laniewska says. The main focus of Wen-Do is to avoid threat and assault if possible. During the sessions, we talk about how this is even more important in Belarus, where the legal concept of self-defence is not fully elaborated.
In 2016, Laniewska received her Wen-Do training certification in Poland, where she had lived for 15 years, through the Autonomy Foundation, an NGO. It took 18 months and many interviews and conversations with psychologists until she was certified. She then moved back to Belarus, partnered up with Radislava, an organisation that helps domestic violence victims, and began offering self-defence classes for free – when Radislava can raise the funds. When there’s no money from sponsors, Olga gives paid workshops. If a group can’t afford it, she nonetheless works for free.
Wen-Do can be adapted for all ages and abilities. Courses typically last 12 hours, spread over two days. Laniewska teaches mostly in Minsk, although she has also given classes in Hrodna, Navapolack, Brest, and other cities across Belarus.
Positive Outcomes
Empowerment through self-defence is not new. Yet its positive effects are clear, advocates say.
In Canada, where Wen-Do originated in the 1970s, the method was incorporated into a sexual assault resistance programme designed for first-year female students at three Canadian universities. The results, published in 2015, were impressive. According to the authors, the training was correlated with a 46 percent reduction in completed rape and a 63 percent reduction in attempted sexual assault in the following year, compared to a control group of students.
A similar study of college students who took a self-defence class, conducted by Jocelyn Hollander of the University of Oregon, came to similar conclusions. The report said women who took the class experienced “significantly fewer sexual assaults during the subsequent year than women enrolled in other classes at the same university.”
Women’s self-defence training appears to have positive benefits in other societies as well. In 2014, Stanford researchers found that adolescent girls in the slums of Nairobi reported a more than one-third drop in rapes in the year after taking a 12-hour self-defence programme.
In Europe, although the Council of Europe advocated free self-defence training for girls and young women more than 20 years ago, little has been accomplished on the national level, a European Parliament report stated in 2016.
In Poland, municipal governments or employers have sometimes financed Wen-Do courses.
Wen-Do supplies the tools to build self-confidence and assertiveness. But it is no cure-all, explains Agnieszka Biela, a psychologist and a certified Wen-Do instructor based in Sosnowiec in southern Poland. “A woman can’t be in a situation of active domestic violence, because it requires more targeted help and can have the opposite effect, making her feel disempowered.”
Wen-Do practitioners need to know when to call on outside help, Biela says, recalling a woman in one of her classes who was living with an abusive partner. “Luckily, she told us about the violence at home, and we could refer her to an intervention centre.”
Biela explains that from a psychological point of view, Wen-Do focuses on the ability of women to fulfil their human potential and encourages self-exploration. “We as Wen-Do trainers show a woman that she is an expert on her own life,” Biela says.
In a survey prepared by the Autonomy Foundation after one Wen-Do workshop, nearly all the 54 women polled said they could have avoided many threatening situations in adult life if given the opportunity to take a workshop during their teenage years. Half the women used the skills they learned within a few months after the training.
Focus on Prevention
Ilya Murashko is not happy that mostly men attend his self-defence classes in Minsk.
“Let’s face it: women need to learn how to protect themselves more than men. Together with the elderly and people with disabilities, they are more often assaulted than men,” he says.
In addition to classic Krav Maga, a fighting and self-defence method, Murashko teaches setting and communicating personal boundaries, and recognising dangerous situations at an early stage. Sound familiar?
“Yes, it is similar to Wen-Do. Both are crucial for assault prevention,” he says.
The drawback, Murashko says, is that Wen-Do courses may be too short for women to master skills and make them a habit. That’s exactly what Olga Kutas, one of the women from my Wen-Do group, told me: “The effects of a single course could quickly get lost in women’s everyday tasks.”
But as Lena Bielska explains, while some physical defence tricks might be soon forgotten, as time goes on, the implanted seed of self-respect will grow. Bielska is a certified Wen-Do instructor and a co-founder of the Lublin branch of HerStory, a nonprofit that works in the areas of gender equality and discrimination. She says that’s why it is crucial that a trainer focuses on women’s empowerment and confidence, not just martial arts. Besides, it happens that women participate in Wen-Do workshops several times and some go on to take an advanced course.
An ongoing struggle
Assertiveness training is not easy to instil in a society that expects a woman to be sweet, mild-mannered, and meek. Women are expected to handle problems without making a scene. They are brought up to be “nice.”
“Things are changing,” Olga Yanchuk says about the stereotypes and the social risks that lie in wait for a woman who stands up for herself.
Yanchuk, a sociologist, is the general secretary of the YWCA branch in Belarus, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for women and offers leadership training. Yanchuk recently launched a project called Women’s Safety. Similarly to Wen-Do, the main focus is on boosting women’s self-esteem. The project offers paid online video lessons and personal consultations with a psychologist on personal boundaries and various forms of domestic violence.
As long as there is no law against domestic violence in Belarus – President Alyaksandr Lukashenka dismissed the idea as “nonsense” last autumn – Yanchuk believes it’s especially crucial for women to learn how to defend themselves and set their boundaries. “A woman learns how to listen to herself and her body. She can then more easily recognise the first signs of potential violence, tension, or discomfort.”
Yanchuk and her eight year-old daughter have also participated in a Wen-Do course. “The fact that my daughter understands that she has the right and need to protect herself is the greatest outcome of the training,” Yanchuk says.
That, and the wooden block that she broke with her bare hand, which she brought home as her trophy, she laughs.
This article was originally published by Transitions, a Prague-based publishing and media training organisation. It is republished here with permission, and has been edited for length and style.

author: Hanna Liubakova


text:
Great Barrier Reef mass bleaching threatens world heritage icon · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Coral bleaching severity survey on Orpheus Island 2017 – Photo courtesy ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies Flickr account (CC BY-ND 2.0)
As the world media focuses almost exclusively on the COVID-19 crisis, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has experienced a catastrophic mass bleaching event for the third time in five years. Warmer summer sea temperatures are being blamed for the devastating effects on huge areas of coral.
Severe bleaching has been found on reefs closer to the shore. Although bleached corals do not necessarily die, they can be killed if temperatures remain high. Bleaching also has negative effects on habitats for other sea life.
Needless to say, the latest bad news did not receive the detailed online attention it deserved; however,  environmental groups like Greenpeace were keen to highlight the implications and rally climate troops:
With so many of us already suffering, this news is really hard to stomach. The fight against #climatecrisis isn’t going anywhere, and it will need all of us healthy and safe to win. ?https://t.co/gR8FHVqYKF
— Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) March 27, 2020
Some Aussies took the time to comment. Microbiologist Professor David Osborn from Melbourne’s RMIT University tweeted:
Missed this yesterday, but more dreadful news – this time on a third mass #coral bleaching event across the #GreatBarrierReef in 5 years
After #COVID19 ends with economies in dire straits we cannot ignore #ClimateChange https://t.co/HK0YUS8d9j
— Professor Mark Osborn (@MicrobialLife) March 25, 2020
Professor Terry Hughes, the Director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at Queensland's James Cook University, shared this unique aerial view:
It’s been a shitty, exhausting day on the #GreatBarrierReef.
I feel like an art lover wandering through the Louvre….as it burns to the ground. pic.twitter.com/I0Mx7epLCe
— Terry Hughes (@ProfTerryHughes) March 26, 2020
There was some overseas response on social media. An overseas academic was clearly feeling gutted by the news:
And there is also the most widespread bleaching event in the Great Barrier Reef. Put a fork in us. We're done.https://t.co/gsntNXqJy7
— TedPavlic (@TedPavlic) March 28, 2020
A leading climate and clean energy commentator from Singapore, Assaad Razzouk, shared a video clip:
Meanwhile, #climate threats continue to lurk everywhere: After apocalyptic fires, Australia hit again as Great Barrier Reef suffers 3rd mass bleaching in 5 years, driven by warmer sea temperatures
World Heritage site with “enormous scientific and intrinsic importance” pic.twitter.com/LQYBYr6JOW
— Assaad Razzouk (@AssaadRazzouk) March 27, 2020
The inevitable references to the pandemic appeared as well:
The Great Barrier Reef once again suffered a major bleaching event, I know we are facing an unprecedented global disaster with #Coronavirus but we are also facing certain disaster on the reef we cant just let this slide by.#Auspol
— ? Sleeping Giants Oz ? (@slpng_giants_oz) March 25, 2020
at the very least we can replace the Great Barrier Reef with sunken mega cruise ? ships!
— katie⁉hamilton (@katie8491) March 29, 2020
There were a few of the usual skeptics questioning the role of climate change, including Reiver:
It’s cyclical, new reef forms on top of it and that’s how it became the Great Barrier Reef ??♂
— Reiver (@MaluaBayReiver) March 28, 2020
Currently, tourism in Australia is down like much of the economy. Many people worldwide are hoping that visitors will have a chance to see the wonders of the reef when the coronavirus emergency ends:
#ClimateAction Quote of the Day
‘With help, the tourism industry can recover after Covid-19, but only if there is a healthy Great Barrier Reef to visit once this crisis is over.’ Kate Smolski / @KateSmolski
@Jackthelad1947 @Shambles151 @DidiFrench @collectables66 @blanketcrap pic.twitter.com/5ofMBjz2Y9
— Allan Margolin (@AllanMargolin) March 27, 2020

author: Kevin Rennie


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A king’s belief in herbal remedies to cure COVID-19 butts up against science in Nigeria · Global Voices
Adéṣínà Ọmọ Yoòbá

Ọọ̀ni Adéyẹyẹ̀ Ẹniìtàn Ògúnwùsì, Ọ̀jájá II released a video promoting traditional herbal remedies to cure the coronavirus via Twitter on March 30, 2020.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
The novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 is shaking up the world like a massive earthquake.
According to John Hopkins University, the coronavirus has infected over 900,000 people worldwide; Nigeria currently has 174 cases as of April 1, 2020.
As researchers and scientists work assiduously to produce a vaccine that can serve as a panacea to the pandemic, traditional herbalists have also come forward with solutions.
In Nigeria, the Àdìmúlà Ifẹ̀, the king of the Yorùbá people, Ọọ̀ni Adéyẹyẹ̀ Ẹniìtàn Ògúnwùsì, Ọ̀jájá II, believes that natural herbs can cure COVID-19.
In partnership with YemKem International, an alternative medicine company, the Ọọ̀ni (king) is working to create an herbal therapy to be mass-produced and packaged for sale.
The concoction is based on a mix of bitter leaves, neem leaves and seeds, sulfur, black pepper and cloves that are traditionally used in Yorùbáland as powerful antioxidants to flush the system of harmful viruses.
The Ọọ̀ni, who doubles as the co-chairman of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria (NCTRN), took to Twitter in a series of tweets to announce his discovery, making claims that his unique herbal mix had been tested on himself and others with the coronavirus. In the March 30 tweets, the Ọọ̀ni calls on researchers to use natural herbs to produce a vaccine.
I'm also currently working with Yem Kem International (Alternative Medicine Expert) pharmaceutical company for the packaging and distribution of these globally.
It is about time to save the world now. Tomorrow may be too late.
Let's all keep safe.#Coronavirus #COVID19
— Ọọ̀ni Ẹniìtàn Ògúnwùsì (@OoniAdimulaIfe) March 30, 2020
The tweets contain two videos with detailed instructions on herbal home remedies, including the use of onions to extract viral infections and the use of incense to expel “negative energy.”
Traditional herbal medicine plays a major role in Yorùbá culture.
Every June — the beginning of a new calendar year in Yorùbáland — adherents of the god of wisdom (Ifá) in the Yorùbá cosmology gather for this festival on Òkè Ìtasẹ̀ where Ifá speak and forecast the future.
On June 6, 2019, at the World Ifá Festival, Òtúrá Méjì of the Ifá forecasted the “impending rage of an invisible pandemic war.” This prediction is now believed to be COVID-19.
A divine proclamation came out to the world last year June 6th 2019, during the World Ifa Festival – Otura Meji. We foretold about the impending rage of this invisible pandemic war, but few heard us.
Please note that Efod/ Urim and Thurim are in the holy Books.
— Ọọ̀ni Ẹniìtàn Ògúnwùsì (@OoniAdimulaIfe) March 30, 2020
The World Health Organization (WHO) has supported traditional medicine as a part of primary health care and released a bulletin on the ethical analysis of herbal medicine for global health.
However, WHO has also made it clear that there is no known cure or vaccine for COVID-19 novel coronavirus.
Making claims about herbal remedies that haven’t been verified through careful scientific vetting can be misleading to the public.
Dr. Olúwatómidé Adéoyè, a drug development scientist based in Lisbon, Portugal, refutes the king’s natural herbal remedy cure for the coronavirus.
In an email to Global Voices, Dr. Adéoyè wrote:
There is no way that [the Ọọ̀ni] could know for certain that his ‘medicine’ (concoction) can cure the coronavirus. The proper protocol to test such medicine will be to (i) isolate the virus and test the medicine in ‘petri dishes,’ if effective, (ii) test in animals (models) and eventually in (iii) Humans (safety and efficacy).
The pharmacologist asserts:
Even if we assume they jumped straight to human trials, there is no evidence that Ọọ̀ni has test kits with which he diagnosed people for COVID-19 in order to evaluate the clinical efficacy of the purported medicine.
In the email, Dr. Adéoyè also debunks several myths about traditional remedies promoted by the king in his videos.
For example, the king claims that onions kill negative energy and harbors positive energy. Sliced onions placed under the feet can neutralize and suppress the virus and strengthen the immune system.
Dr. Adéoyè says that academic papers that support these onion claims “are often scientifically poor” in terms of experimental designs, controls and data robustness. And that “more than 90 percent of such claims fail the efficacy-safety tests in human trials”:
Even if we assume that onions are effective viral neutralizers — if they can’t get into the body or get into the lungs (in the right dose/concentration), there's no way for them to act and be effective.
Dr. Adéoyè also dismissed the king’s claim that burning incense is effective.
Considering the breathing difficulties observed in COVID-19 patients, it will be an extremely stupid thing to reduce the air quality (oxygen) of someone whose lungs are under-performing.
While burning incense is a big part of popular culture in Nigeria, the incense itself “is not an effective disinfectant,” Dr. Adéoyè told Global Voices.
On the public health implications of the king’s claim, Dr. Adéoyè pointed out that those who market “their own snake oil as corona medicine … will only lead to more death.”
Dr. Adéoyè also warned that herbal concoctions “run the risk of acute and chronic toxicities.”

author: Adéṣínà Ọmọ Yoòbá


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COVID-19 strikes its first victims in Afghanistan · Global Voices
Khojasta Sameyee

“SEHAT (System Enhancement for Health Action in Transition). The Hootkhail Hospital has female doctors as well, which makes the facilities accessible to those who could not visit otherwise.” Photo: Rumi Consultancy/World Bank. From World Bank Flickr account. Image license: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
Afghanistan is particularly exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic: many of its 32 million inhabitants have suffered decades of civil war that have weakened, if not entirely destroyed, the country's public health sector. Afghanistan also shares a border with Iran, one of the countries most affected by COVID-19. It thus comes as no surprise that Afghanistan is now registering its first cases of infection and death.
The first fatality was reported in the northern province of Balkh on March 22, as confirmed by the Ministry of Public Health. The second case was a 45-year-old woman in the western Herat province. By March 28, there were 174 confirmed cases of infection with the novel coronavirus, the virus that causes the disease, and a total number of three deaths.
One of the many factors making the fight against the epidemic even more challenging for Afghanistan is the large numbers of Afghan refugees living in neighboring countries such as Iran and Pakistan. While some of them are now forced to return to their country, others also chose to come back.
The Afghan government started implementing special measures in late March to fight the epidemic. After 32 cases were identified in Herat province on March 25, the government ordered to limit movements in three provinces. Given that Herat province is the gateway for many Afghan refugees returning from Iran, Wahidullah Mayar, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, stated on March 25:
“Among the 30 cases in Herat, some of them have come from Iran. It shows that the virus is spreading in society.”
The flux of refugees coming from Iran has been confirmed by another state official, Ahmad Jawed Nadem, head of the Refugees and Returnees Department of Herat province, who stated that from February 20 to late March, an estimated 30,000 Afghans returned to Afghanistan voluntarily.
The Afghan Health Minister, Ferozuddin Feroz is not optimistic about the outcome of the epidemic, as he declared on March 24:
According to WHO [World Health Organization] predictions, there is the possibility of 16 million people [half of the country's population] becoming infected with the virus.
Based on the Afghan Health Ministry figures, 174 positive cases out of approximately 800 suspected cases have been reported so far.
Afghan culture is strongly centered around communities, and any social event such as a wedding, a sports competition, a religious event is traditionally open to a large crowd of extended family members, neighbors of the same district or village. As Health Ministry spokesperson Mayar says: “Our concerns are about those people who are gathering in one place.”
This image posted on March 22 is telling:
Apparently, this is a wrestling match yesterday in Mazar-e-Sharif (Balkh province)
Photo from social media.#COVID19outbreak #COVIDー19 @AFgCorona @Waheed_Omer pic.twitter.com/ttk55SUY50
— Ejaz Malikzada (@EjazMalikzada) March 22, 2020
The government has taken special measures to start implementing isolation: it has limited movement in Kabul the capital of Afghanistan for three weeks. It has also reduced working hours in state offices by three hours and is providing paid leave to pregnant women and mothers whose children attend preschool.
One potential source of the contagion is open-air bazaars that are the traditional places for food shopping, but also social contact and exchange of news in Afghanistan. According to Abdul Qayum Rahimi, the governor of Herat province:
The case of the bazaars is being discussed, about changes for this upcoming Friday
The Afghan Parliament has also become a possible source of the pandemic. Health Minister Feroz announced that there are two suspicious cases among parliament members, which led the body to shut down for two weeks.
Yet despite the seriousness of the situation and the latest government decisions, it seems the majority of people do not observe the measures, and do not take the risks posed by the coronavirus very seriously.
#COVID19 cases jumped to 74 in Afghanistan + 4 cases at the RS mission.
MoPH Minister predicts the contagion would infect 25 million ppl out of an estimated 32 mil population in the country.
The Minister also predicts that 11,0000 people would if covid19 is not taken seriously.
— Ahmad Mukhtar (@AhMukhtar) March 24, 2020
This March 28 view of Kabul indicates not much has changed in the daily life of the capital:
Pashtun-wat square, Kabul quarantine day 01—seems everything is normal—the gov restricted all types of movements except few in Kabul city but looks like no one cares about #CoronavirusOutbreak. pic.twitter.com/WB6MSMsMaH
— Elham kabir – الهام كبير (@TheElhamKabir) March 28, 2020
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author: Khojasta Sameyee


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Fans and colleagues pay respects to late Italian comics author Giovanni Romanini · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Giovanni Romanini riding a motorbike. Photo: a frame of the documentary “Magnus – Il segno del viandante” by TSW films, directed by Giovanni Eccher. Used with permission.
Italian comics author Giovanni Romanini died at 75 on March 20, 2020, in Bologna, the city of his birth, of a brain aneurysm. A public funeral will be scheduled after the end of the COVID-19 quarantine in Italy.
Colleagues, who affectionately called him “grandmaster,” or simply Giò, admired Romanini for the wide scope of his talent as a comics artist, which included pen drawing, inking, painting, and script-writing.
Tribute to Giovanni Romanini and Magnus, depicting them as characters from The Company of the Gallows: minstrel and slinger Bertrano and knight Sir Crumb. Cartoon by illustrator Gianni Tacconella, used with permission.
In his homeland, Romanini was acclaimed as a life-long collaborator of the late comics legend Magnus, the pen name of Roberto Raviola (1939-1996). The Italian newspaper La Stampa called Romanini “Raviola's squire” in an obituary.
Their collaboration began in the sixties with the series “Kriminal” and the book “Satanik,” both classics of the fumetti neri (“black comics”) genre—black-and-white crime thrillers with elements of horror and sex.
Their joint work continued with “Alan Ford,” a grotesque parody of the spy genre created by writer Max Bunker and Magnus, which Romanini helped illustrate. The acclaimed series celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019, having achieved cult status across the former Yugoslavia (it's still printed in both Italy and Serbia).
After Romanini's death, some media outlets in the Balkans published obituaries describing him as “the illustrator of ‘Alan Ford’,” implying he was doing it on his own. He was actually one of several illustrators of the series, and in fact was only credited as such on the issues 114, 121, 124.
In the late 1970s, Romanini teamed up with Magnus again to produce “The Company of the Gallows,” a blend of epic fantasy and humor in a format similar to Alan Ford.
Comprised of 20 issues of 120 pages each, the story revolves around a ragtag group of Renaissance mercenaries and their misadventures in Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia, inspired by the impressions from the authors’ actual travels to those places.
“The Company of the Gallows” (or “La Compagnia della Forca” in its original title) is regarded as Romanini and Magnus’ masterpiece.
In the 1980s, Romanini illustrated “Donald Duck” for Topolino, an Italian magazine that published Disney comics. In parallel at that time, Romanini worked with Lucio Filippucci on a comics about Cicciolina, a Hungarian-born porn star who became a member of parliament in Italy in 1987.
“Company of the Gallows” (“Družina od vješala”) in Croatian language, published in Yugoslavia in 1986. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC BY.
Many Yugoslav fans of Romanini's work only heard about him in 1986, when a Croatian translation of “The Company of the Gallows” came out. That was because Yugoslav publishers of licensed comics omitted the name of some collaborators, listing only the “stars,” such as Magnus and Bunker. That was the case with the Disney comics, which were extremely popular in Yugoslavia at that time — they also came signed as “Walt Disney,” even though Disney himself had died decades before.
During the seven years before his death by cancer in 1996, Magnus worked with Claudio Nizzi on a special project featuring Tex Willer, the main character of the influential Italian Western comics series “Tex.”
In the graphic novel “Tex: The Valley of Terror,” the ailing perfectionist Magnus ached to do justice to the beloved character and spent four years past the original publication deadline buried in the work. And when he decided he was not satisfied with the quality of his horse drawings, he reached out Romanini for help.
The following video shows Romanini's skill in drawing and inking Kit Carson, an iconic character of the “Tex” stories.
Giò ended up drawing all but four panels with horses in the graphic novel, having also helped with the inking. His contribution was recognized in the introductions of all editions of the book, which came out in Italy in 1996, in Croatia in 2013 and in Serbia in 2014.
The graphic novel by Nizzi and Magnus “Tex: The Valley of Terror,” 2013 Croatian edition by Strip-Agent, held in front of a mirror showing the covers in the background, and a panel with horses drawn by Romanini in the foreground. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC-BY.
Romanini's work on Tex resulted in a long-term working relationship with Sergio Bonelli Editore, the largest Italian comics publisher, which in southern Europe plays a similar role to that of Marvel in the US.
During his final decades, Romanini illustrated 30 issues of “Martin Mystère,” including memorable ones such as “Gods of Twilight.” This comics series enjoys significant popularity in Italy and across the former Yugoslavia, and has been published in other countries. It became a profitable franchise too, spawning an animated TV series and video games.
Many of Romanini's colleagues remembered Romanini's life on social media, often displaying photos of moments of joint endeavors that don't conform with the stereotype of the introvert geek usually associated with comics creators in the US.
For instance, comics writer and filmmaker Giovanni Eccher, who in 2007 directed a documentary about Magnus, posted a photo of Romanini riding a motorcycle at full speed, with the caption: “this is Giovanni Romanini for me.”
Indeed, many Italian comics artists lead very colorful lives, filled with adventures that would rival those of their fictional characters. One of those larger than life figures is Hugo Pratt (1927-1995), who spent parts of his life in Ethiopia, Argentina, and has children in Brazil.
Many comics authors who worked with Romanini would also fit the bill. The picnics for employees of Gian Luigi Bonelli (1908-2001), the creator of Tex Willer, included speedboat riding and shooting cans with Colt-45 revolvers. His son Sergio Bonelli (1932-2011) explored the Amazon rain forest, which turned out to be the setting for his “Mister No” series.
Romanini himself has written on his website:
Un personaggio che non fa mai errori e si comporta sempre in modo impeccabile, non è affatto interessante.
A character who never makes mistakes and always carries himself impeccably, is not an interesting character at all.


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The most critical lesson we’ve learned from the COVID-19 outbreak is the importance of free speech · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Hong Kong government file photo.
This article is by Kevin Carrico, Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at Monash University. It was published originally on Hong Kong Free Press on March 25 and republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.
If we learn anything from the spread of COVID-19 around the world, it should be the importance of freedom of speech.
The Chinese Communist Party’s decision to silence discussion of the emerging disease and punish doctors who raised the alarm created an ideal environment for this virus to spread throughout Wuhan, then across China, and eventually around the world.
As this virus continues to spread, infecting hundreds of thousands and killing tens of thousands, why would there be pressure in Hong Kong and beyond to silence discussion of this disease and punish doctors who are raising the alarm about its origins?
On March 18, the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao published an opinion piece entitled “This pandemic originated in Wuhan, the lessons of seventeen years ago have been completely forgotten.” The authors Dr. Kwok-Yung Yuen and Dr. David Lung are unrivalled experts in their field. Dr. Yuen is a microbiologist whose SARS study group discovered the role of the coronavirus in the SARS epidemic in early 2003. Dr. Lung is also a microbiologist who has recently published on the detection of COVID-19 via saliva samples.
In their article, the authors offer practical advice on understanding the virus for the general reader. First, they explain how the World Health Organization and the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses name viruses, while also acknowledging that the colloquial use of “Wuhan pneumonia” is understandably more straightforward than COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 and thus does not need to be condemned.
Secondly, Yuen and Lung explain that genetic sequencing has shown the virus likely originated in horseshoe bats before spreading to an intermediate host in the Wuhan Seafood Market (most likely the endangered pangolin), which then served as an amplification epicentre spreading from animals to humans before mutating to enable human-to-human transmission.
Thirdly, the authors point out that China’s state-sponsored conspiracy theory tracing the origin of the virus to the United States is completely baseless. The real source of this virus is China’s wildlife trade, which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) failed to halt 17 years after SARS spread from civet cats to humans. If this trade continues, the authors assert, “in another decade or so, we will inevitably face SARS 3.0.”
A frank discussion of the origins of this virus and the need to prevent another pandemic, written by two experts in microbiology who have been on the frontlines in researching and battling both SARS and COVID-19: this would appear to be precisely the type of opinion piece we need at this moment.
But Yuen and Lung’s article produced a storm of angry controversy on Chinese social media. Within a day the authors had publicly retracted their piece. Yuen and Lung did not explain what pressures led to this decision, but anyone who cares about increasingly fragile academic freedoms in Hong Kong should be deeply concerned by this development.
The third section of Yuen and Lung’s article discussing China’s wildlife trade is undoubtedly the most controversial. The authors assert: “the Wuhan coronavirus is a product of the poor culture of the Chinese people, recklessly capturing and eating wild game, treating animals inhumanely, disrespecting life, and continuing even today to eat wild game to satisfy their desires. The Chinese people’s deep-rooted bad habits are the source of this virus. If this remains unchanged, in another decade or so, we will inevitably face SARS 3.0.”
It would be unfair, of course, to stigmatise Chinese citizens as a whole for China’s wet markets. It would also be unfair to wholly denounce Chinese culture on account of the wildlife trade. This is not, however, what Lung and Yuen were doing.
It is not only fair, but indeed necessary, to stigmatise the wildlife trade and wet markets in China that have now produced two major illnesses (SARS and COVID-19) that have killed tens of thousands around the world.
It is not only fair, but indeed necessary, to stigmatise unscientific practices in traditional Chinese Medicine that encourage the consumption of civet cats to nourish your qi or pangolin scales to treat male impotence. These are not, we must note, the beginning and the end of Chinese culinary or medicinal culture, but they are indeed components of these cultures that need to be confronted for the sake of global health.
It is not only fair, but also necessary, to stigmatise the political culture that has enabled the perpetuation of this wildlife trade despite obvious evidence of the risks involved. The CCP exercises extensive monitoring and control over so many aspects of life in China, to the point that it can imprison civilians for random comments in private chats. Yet despite this power and control, the CCP has proactively chosen not to act against the wildlife trade for nearly two decades after SARS, facilitating the emergence of COVID-19.
It is also fair, and indeed necessary, to stigmatise the political culture of secrecy and suppression of “bad news” that has facilitated the spread of both SARS and COVID-19. The decision to reprimand Dr. Li Wenliang for comments on COVID-19 in a private chat among doctors shows both the Party-state’s reach and its horrid misuse of this reach.
While these trends do not, of course, represent Chinese culture as a whole, they are, however, real components of the political culture in the People’s Republic of China today that, unlike the viruses the CCP has covered up, cannot be simply denied away.
According to the academic freedom index released by Global Public Policy Institute, academic freedom in Hong Kong has been declining steadily in the past decade.
If this story had ended with Lung and Yuen’s retraction of their article this affair would have been just one more sad example of CCP orthodoxies exerting pressure on academic freedom in Hong Kong. On March 20, however, Professor Jon Solomon of the Université Jean Moulin in Lyon, France launched a petition on Change.org addressed to Zhang Xiang, the current vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, pressuring Zhang to fire Kwok-yung Yuen. There is a counter-petition here.
In his petition, Solomon claims that Yuen and Lung’s article “resurrect[s] the vocabulary of historical racism” and has “done grave damage to the University of Hong as well as Hong Kong and global civil society.” He then asks Zhang to provide a public explanation of the university’s support for Yuen. He calls for a panel to investigate the “living history of colonial racism” at the University of Hong Kong, and “pending further investigation,” asks that the university “reconsider its appointment of Dr. Yuen.”
In Solomon’s curious eagerness to draw attention to the colonial legacies behind the University of Hong Kong, legacies of which all are aware, he ignores two far more relevant legacies.
The first is the legacy of critical intellectual work which extends—despite a parallel legacy of repression—from the origins of political writing in China to the present. While Solomon undoubtedly envisions himself as a valiant warrior battling against orientalism, it is in fact oddly orientalizing to assume that a critical discussion of cultural practices must be rooted in “colonial racism”—as if the people of China were simply sitting around for a few millennia failing to recognize the potential for critical reflection, and as if any critical discussion of culture since then has to be shaped by “colonial racism.”
This spectre of the colonising white devil who haunts cultural critique, however, serves a crucial role in this narrative by recasting Solomon as white savior. Yet we must ask, from what exactly is Solomon rescuing the people of China: an article that called on people to be honest about the origins of the virus? One hundred years after the May Fourth Movement, is critical discussion of eating pangolin now off-limits?
The second legacy Solomon ignores—yet also, ironically, enables—is the CCP’s increasingly obvious deployment of political correctness to protect its own political regression. With its typical essentialism, the Party is redeploying vigilance against stigmatising people as a protection against the urgently necessary stigmatisation of dangerous practices and political secrecy. The laudatory ideal of protecting people from stigmatisation then ironically serves the purpose of protecting from criticism the powers and practices that are putting the Chinese people and the entire world at the greatest risk.
If Solomon disagreed with Yuen and Lung’s article, there is no reason why he could not write an article in Ming Pao articulating his disagreement and explaining his own understanding of the emergence of COVID-19. To instead publicly write to one of the author’s vice-chancellors demanding an “explanation” and “reconsider[eration]” of his appointment is a clear threat to academic freedom similar to that posed by the thugs who have repeatedly rallied for the University of Hong Kong to fire Benny Tai, a key figure leading the 2014 pro-democracy protests.
Pro-Beijing protesters rallying to pressure the University of Hong Kong to sack Benny Tai. Apple Daily photo via HKFP. Used with permission.
What actual benefit would there be for Hong Kong if Yuen was reprimanded for his reflections? There could be real risks for the world if Hong Kong’s leading specialists in coronavirus research were to grow afraid to speak frankly.
Such suppression of academic freedom would be worthy of condemnation in any context. In the context of Hong Kong today, where both academic freedom and freedom of speech are under increasingly grave threat from a Party-state pushing the same line as Solomon, this kind of suppression is doubly deserving of condemnation. This is the kind of suppression of free speech that got us into this mess twice, and is likely to do so again. Repeating this mistake is nothing short of dangerous.

author: Hong Kong Free Press


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April Fool’s Day, COVID-19 and Trinidad and Tobago’s ‘recalcitrant minority’ · Global Voices
Amilcar Sanatan

Image of Dr. Eric Williams by Joop van Bilsen / Anefo – http://proxy.handle.net/10648/aa1a0844-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84, CC0, Link. Screenshot from Dictionary.com. Remixed by Georgia Popplewell.
The original version of this piece was published on the author's blog.
You might be shocked to learn how much the word “recalcitrant”, especially when married with the term “minority”, is part of the popular vocabulary in Trinidad and Tobago.
As the noted scholar Gordon Rohlehr wrote in 1997, Trinidad and Tobago is a “young, multi-ethnic, multicultural, newly-independent state” (Rohlehr 1997, 849). The people of Trinidad and Tobago gained independence from Britain in 1962, but Rohlehr’s description of the society in 1997 as “young” and “newly-independent” still apply when we consider the long view of history. One hundred years in the life of a civilisation is a short time, and the cultural realities, social hierarchies and public attitudes that we wish would change (for the better) over time often do not.
On April 1, 2020, Prime Minister Keith Rowley, in one of the now-routine media conferences about COVID-19, opened his talk with a discussion of a number of issues. He gave context to the global situation of the coronavirus, the struggles of tourist economies, the government’s considerations of more humane conditions for prison inmates, in addition to an important justification of the state’s approach of using moral suasion rather than punishment and discipline with the instrument of the law at this time.
During his address, Rowley also used the phrase “recalcitrant minority.” Listening to the speech with my family, my brothers and I responded: “Damn.” We know the historical weight of the term. And we braced for the social media backlash.
Those who separate the intentions of language from its outcomes and resonances might refer to Rowley’s choice of phrase as a “public relations blunder.” Those who are attuned to how people feel might call it culturally offensive. And of course, those who are offended by the term might charge that it is fundamentally racist.
The term “recalcitrant minority” is specific to the history of Trinidad and Tobago and April Fool’s Day (April 1), and inextricably linked to the People’s National Movement (PNM), the political party Rowley leads, and its founder, Eric Williams, who went on to become the country’s first prime minister.
Before the prospect of single-state independence in Trinidad and Tobago, Williams campaigned for the West Indies Federation, a short-lived project that envisioned the formation of a political unit comprising of several of the Caribbean’s British colonies.
In March 1958, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), in a bitterly-fought campaign that fueled racial animosity and mistrust, defeated the Williams-led PNM and affiliated West Indies Federal Labour Party in the Federal Elections. The defeat by the DLP, which received substantial support from Indo-Trinidadians, shocked Williams and emboldened his critics. It also bolstered Williams’ belief that the political vision of “West Indian nationalism” was being undermined by certain national and racial forces that opposed a federal project.
On April 1, 1958, in an address to his supporters at the University of Woodford Square, Williams sought to explain the possible reasons for the election results that, in his view, “pose[d] a dangerous threat to the stability of our country and new nation.” It is often mistakenly believed that Williams spent the entire speech disparaging Indo-Trinbagonians. What he was in fact attempting to do, was draw comparisons between the India of Jahawarlal Nehru and the “Indian nation” of local activists, calling the former progressive and invested in interracial solidarity, unlike the latter.
Colin Palmer, in Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean (2006), recounts the episode as follows:
…Williams went on to denounce the Trinidadian advocates of “an Indian nation” as “the recalcitrant and hostile minority of the West Indian nation masquerading as ‘the Indian nation’ and prostituting the name of India for its selfish, reactionary political ends.” This was arguably, the most controversial and criticized speech that Eric Williams delivered during his long political career. (266)
Palmer argues that this “unfortunate use of language” was used by Williams’ critics as encompassing what they believed to be his overall attitude to the “entire race” of Indo-Trinbagonians. According to Palmer, “it is unlikely that this was his intention, since the PNM included many pro-federation and Indo-Trinidadians – as did the DLP” (266). Gordon Rohlehr, interestingly, has a somewhat different interpretation:
“It is not clear to this commentator whether by “recalcitrant minority” he meant Indo-Trinidadians or the cadre of French Creoles, other whites, off-whites and coloreds…” (857).
Williams’ legacy is complex, as was his relationship to the diversity of ethnic and social groups in multi-ethnic Trinidad and Tobago. He argued, for example, for the full participation of Indo-Trinbagonians in the political and cultural life of the society as well as his political party; but he discouraged the formal teaching of Hindi in schools, fearing that this would undermine the nationalist ethos of education. For Williams, making cultural distinctions between Indians (and Africans) was anathema to nationalism. Yet his desire for a non-racial nationalism was still fundamentally constructed on Afro-creole terms.
An examination of the historical background to the phrase “recalcitrant minority” helps illustrate the cultural reality of Trinidad and Tobago in the 1950s, and also the challenge faced by all of us governing in 2020. What is at stake here is neither the intent of language nor the dictionary meaning of this pair of words: we are here, rather, to understand, critique and learn from its cultural resonances. Ethnic, racial, cultural, gender, age differences are part of all societies. Historical knowledge is the precondition to working through them.
Who would ever have predicted that a speech made on April 1, 1958, would reverberate in April 1, 2020 through a speech made by another leader in the same political party? My intention here is not to discuss whether or not the prime minister had ill intentions in his use of the term—I cannot read his mind. But I can read language and put it into historical context. I am writing to push back against the ahistorical public responses that have copy-and-pasted or posted screenshots from Dictionary.com of the term “recalcitrant” to support their arguments that the term “recalcitrant minority” is not offensive to Indo-Trinbagonians.
Language is not neutral. Political meanings are a part of language. Whether it is Hillary Clinton’s description of young (black) offenders in the 1990s as “superpredators” or David Cameron’s racist dog-whistle against Sadiq Khan in the London mayoral election of 2016, political platforms give greater context to language because the discourses presented there reflect the intent and ideologies of public policy—or at least the mindset of public decision-makers.
Here’s are Prime Minister Rowley’s actual words from the April 1 media conference:
I want to say that if it turns out that the biology is against us we will take further measures if it turns out that we cannot encourage and control the recalcitrant minority (that famous phrase) then the force of law is with us [emphasis added].
The fact that he said “that famous phrase” demonstrates his awareness of the historical and political weight of the term—it was not a misstatement, but a deliberate use of language. What, however, is the utility of this term in a national conversation? How does it make the message more effective? When ethnic division and misunderstanding are part of our society, how does this choice of language challenge these problems?
A challenge to the Prime Minister to consider his choice of words is a challenge to all public leaders to consciously use language that includes rather than excludes. Washing our hands can help stop COVID-19 from spreading, but we cannot wash our hands of our history.
References:
Palmer, Colin A. 2006. Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean. Kingson, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers.
Rohlehr, Gordon. 1997. “The Culture of Williams: Context, Performance, Legacy.” Callaloo (Autumn): 849-888.

author: Amilcar Sanatan