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To the World, He’s Malaysia’s Most Famous Political Prisoner. To His Daughter, He’s Simply ‘My Dear Papa’ · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

An excerpt from “My Dear Papa.” Credit: Courtesy of Nurul Hana Anwar
This article by Sarah Ngu for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on November 25, 2015. It is republished on Global Voices in two parts with permission.
In part one, we introduced you to Nurul Hana Anwar, newly published author and daughter of Malaysian political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim. In this second part, she explains how she came to publish her deeply personal book Sayang Buat Papa (My Dear Papa).
This is how Nurul Hana Anwar's story goes. Early in January, her college professor had assigned her class a collage project. She decided to make it about her experience of her papa’s arrest in 1998 and his recent trial. When she tried to create art about her dad during high school in Malaysia, it created a bit of a hubbub. School administrators made her stop; they didn’t want to get into trouble.
Everyone knew who she was back home, but here, in New York, she is just another girl in a hijab. She would turn it in to her professor at the end of the semester, and that would be that.
To start compiling the collage, she opened the folder in her laptop which contained the scanned letters that her papa and her had exchanged while he was in prison. It was a folder that she had left untouched for over a decade. “I started crying and just let it all out,” she said.
The memories started coming back. She started thinking about that night in September 20, 1998. This is how she writes about it in her book:
I was awakened by noise and commotion, which made me confused but curious. I wanted to know why these unfamiliar sounds came at this late hour of night, when everyone should be asleep. My aunt who took care of me quickly locked the door… I jumped out from bed and quickly unlocked the door. My aunt tried to stop me, but she was too late; I was already outside the room.
A few masked men in black uniforms were standing outside her parents’ room. The cry “Reformasi!” could be heard from the crowds outside, who had gathered to support her papa. He was given an hour to pack his clothes. They herded him and his family away in a white van; the police had already cleared the streets so no one could stop it. The van stopped. They took her papa out and let him down an isolated road. His family would only know learn of his whereabouts nine days later; they found him in prison with a pool of blood around him. The police chief had beaten him senseless, leaving him unconscious for two days.
For six years, Malaysia’s opposition leader was silenced behind bars. For those six years, Nurul Hana grew up without a papa. They wrote letters to each other while he was in prison. One of the letters is featured in the book: “My cute sweet Hana, you make Papa so happy, so keep up the good work. Take care of your teeth. Finish your homework. Study hard. Smile and don’t slouch! Remember? Love Papa.”
Eventually she became accustomed to the prison visits, and assumed that the way most children saw their papas was in prison. No one told her why her papa was in jail; the word “sodomy” was never mentioned. Whenever someone assured her that “everything would be all right,” she wondered, but never said aloud: “What will be all right?”
The sodomy charge is deliberate in a Muslim majority country, especially since Anwar is a devout Muslim. “He had an image of someone of high moral standing, who’s Islamic in his background. So the best way to destroy that have a charge with sexual connotation in it. And if you can’t get that person to be seen with women, then you might as well deal with sodomy,” Latheefa Koya, a member of his legal team, said.
Newspapers, typically conservative in how they handle sexually explicit material, spared no detail in their coverage of Anwar’s purported homosexual escapades. The law prohibiting sodomy dates back to Malaysia’s time as a British colony; research shows that the law has only been invoked seven times from 1938 to 2009, and that four of the seven times were for Anwar.
An excerpt from “My Dear Papa.” Credit: Courtesy of Nurul Hana Anwar
The Malaysian Supreme Court eventually overturned the conviction of sodomy, partly due to evidence that the police had tortured confessions out of key witnesses. Anwar was released in 2004. It was only then by reading the news at age 12 that Nurul Hana begin to understand why he was in jail.
“I slowly put the pieces back together,” she said. “‘What is this?’ I thought. I didn’t tell anyone because I was supposed to know this, and I didn’t tell my mom because I did not want to burden her.”
Creating the collage out of newspaper clippings, letters and photos was a way to stitch together bits and pieces of her memories.
“I poured out all of my emotions [into the collage] and it really helped, because I’ve been keeping it in for such a long time,” she said. “I had a normal childhood for six years, but the sad thing is that dad didn’t see me grow up from age 6 to 12, and that’s kind of when you need your dad.”
From 2004 to 2015, the Anwar family enjoyed a respite. Temporarily barred from politics given his criminal conviction, Anwar accepted a position at Georgetown University and took his family to America, where Nurul Hana and her siblings attended American schools. It was the first time in a long time that they could walk around freely on the streets without being noticed. They could breathe a little more easily and lay the past to rest.
They eventually returned to Malaysia. Her older siblings grew up, got jobs, got married, and had kids. Anwar started to gain significant political momentum. In the 2013 elections, he led a coalition of Muslims, Chinese and Indians to win the popular vote.
But his coalition did not gain the majority of parliamentary seats due to electoral gerrymandering. Sources from the ruling party began to hint that current Prime Minister Najib Razak’s future was limited.
The family’s main worry was Anwar’s trial. In 2008, one of his male aides reported to the police that Anwar had sexually assaulted him. Anwar pointed out that his young aide was physically much stronger than him, since his body was, and is, still recovering from the beating in 1998. The charge was later changed to “consensual sex against the order of nature,” but the aide was never charged. The court did acquit Anwar, but the decision was appealed up the ranks. The final trial was set for February of this year.
The trial was on Nurul Hana’s mind as she worked on her collage. She decided she would give it to her papa as a gift when she flew to Malaysia as the family gathered together to hear the final verdict. She kept the project a secret, revealing it only the day before her papa’s court case, when the family was gathered in one room. Everyone was surprised. “It was the first time I talked about how I felt about everything,” she said of her collage. Her mother and her siblings started to tear up.
“You can’t really see [my dad’s] reaction in person, you see it more in his writing — typical dads, you know,” she said, smiling. “He wrote a letter later saying that he was really proud of me.”
The next day, the verdict arrived: the court found that Anwar Ibrahim was guilty of sodomy. He was sentenced to jail for five years.
“I couldn’t really speak,” Nurul Hana said. The silence that came upon her first as a 6-year-old child returned to her at age 23.
But then Nurul Izzah, her oldest sibling who is also an elected politician, encouraged her to speak and publish the book. At first she shook her head. She explained, “When I finished it, I couldn’t even look at it again.”
The thought of publishing it, to let the world into the most traumatic experience of her life, was too much for her. But after several days – “I’m an indecisive person,” she tells me – she changed her mind. She wanted to tell a different story about Anwar — as papa, not as politician.
Anwar Ibrahim and daughter Nurul Hana Anwar on the cover of “My Dear Papa.” Credit: Courtesy of Nurul Hana Anwar
“I feel like this book has been silent since 1998. No one has published stories about dad from a family’s point of view … People usually see him as a politician; I just see him as my dad who is wrongfully convicted. People haven’t seen him as a father or a grandfather. They don’t know that he sings lullabies to his grandchildren, or the little things like, when we have dinner or lunch together, everyone has to be there if you are at home. Especially during Ramadan, we always break fast together,” she said.
Because of how closely intertwined the “personal” and the “political” are in Anwar’s career, even a “personal” depiction of him is inevitably a political act. When I asked if she had any particular political agenda in publishing the book, she firmly shook her head, but she did make this comment: “If other families thought the charges were true, they wouldn’t stick to your dad. All our friends and relatives stuck together. If you want to talk about these things, you can still tell it’s untrue because we are sticking together.”
After she returned from the trial to her college in New York City, she said, “It was hard for me to continue my work; I couldn’t really focus. The one thing that pushed me forward was that I want my dad to be part of me by doing good in school, as he has always encouraged me to do, and talking about his message. Those two things I would like to hold onto now that he is not here.”
To be “good daughter,” for her, inevitably means “to become politically involved.” This is true for the rest of Anwar’s children, who all have been, in one way or another, pushed into the political fray.
When I had met Nurul Hana that Friday morning, she was in the middle of finishing up an assignment about race. Intrigued by America’s racial politics and history, she had just finished reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, a book which she loved.
Her favorite line is, “You cannot forget how much they took from us and how they transfigured our very bodies into sugar, tobacco, cotton, and gold.” The book is a letter from Coates, a black man, to his son, asking him — and the rest of us — never to forget America’s history. Never to forget that propping up the “American dream” are the beaten bodies of black people, bodies that reveal the murderous lie of the dream.
Most of Malaysia’s youth do not really know what happened in 1998. They were too young to understand, just as Nurul Hana was. Her book is directed, in part, to them, to show them a slice of their nation’s history by pulling back the curtain of the State in order to reveal her papa’s bruised and broken body.
The sidelining and silencing of Anwar behind prison bars may be an omen of what is to come. This past year, the government has chosen to revive yet another British colonial law, the Sedition Act, in order to promote a more “stable, peaceful and harmonious state.” Already, 30 politicians and activists have been charged, including a cartoonist, Zunar, who faces up to 43 years in jail for his books and for tweeting a cartoon about Anwar’s conviction.
Last weekend, US President Barack Obama visited Malaysia, which hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. Nurul Izzah Anwar, a member of Parliament and the oldest sibling in the family, has been campaigning for Obama to hold Malaysia’s government accountable for its human rights abuses.
But Obama needs Prime Minister Najib Razak’s cooperation to wrap up the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and to fight violent extremism, especially given Malaysia’s geographical location and Muslim population. Islam in Malaysia is becoming much more politicized and radicalized. Struggling to hold onto power, the ruling party has tried to play the religion card by amplifying its Muslim credentials and marginalizing non-Muslims, creating a breeding ground for ISIS recruits — indeed, over 200 Malaysians are believed to have already joined ISIS.
My conversation with Nurul Hana rarely breaches any of these geopolitical topics or concerns. What she is most concerned with is her father’s health — he is in need of major physical therapy and surgery, which the government is not providing, choosing instead to double his dosage of painkillers without telling him. The details that she brings up are personal and particular, such as how the government is stricter than they were in 1998, allowing him to call just one phone number (his wife’s) instead of five. The family gets around the rule by putting her mother’s phone on speaker, so that everyone can dial in and hear him.
Toward the end, we start talking about art and poetry. She tells me about a poem that she read aloud during her book launch, “Gadis Kecil” (A Little Girl), written by Usman Awang, a former National Laureate of Malaysia.
The poem begins comparing a little girl to a firm and thin tree, which stands strong even as other trees fall down in a heavy storm. The girl goes back and forth to meet her father, imprisoned for fighting oppression; barbed wire stands in-between them. The narrator offers her help, but she turns it down, saying, “I don’t need money, uncle, just paper and books.” He offers her sympathy, but she says, “Don’t be sad, uncle, steady your heart.” The girl is young in age, he remarks, but her soul is “matured by experience.” He asks, “Is it not shameful for a grown man / wanting to help suffering prisoners / to receive counsel from the child of one in prison / to be brave and steady?”
Nurul Hana translates the last sentence of the poem for me:
“Ten children like her can vanquish the meaning of a thousand prisons.”


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When in Doubt, Ask Yourself ‘What Would the Tanzanian President Do?’ · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Tanzanian President John Magufuli with World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Photo released under Creative Commons by the World Bank.
Tanzania's newly elected President, Dr. John Magufuli, nicknamed ‘the bulldozer’, has become a Twitter sensation across Africa following a series of radical cost-cutting measures he has introduced, which are rare in African countries. Immediately after his inauguration, Magufuli scrapped independence celebrations, choosing instead to spend money on sanitation, fighting cholera in affected areas and buying hospital beds and equipment.
Saying, “It is so shameful that we are spending huge amounts of money to celebrate 54 years of independence when our people are dying of cholera,” the president declared that on independence day, every household is required to participate in a nationwide clean-up campaign.
Mainland Tanzania, formerly Tanganyika, got independence from Britain on December 9, 1961.
Other cutbacks include the suspension of unnecessary foreign travel for government officials, sitting allowances for seminars and meetings including those of Member of Parliament, and lavish cocktail parties and dinners by public institutions. A state dinner for the official opening of the country's parliament, for example, was going to cost 300 million Tanzanian shillings. Magufuli slashed the budget to 25 million and ordered that the rest be taken to buy 300 hospital beds and mattresses and 600 bed sheets.
And when a group of 50 government officials was about to set off for a tour of Commonwealth countries on November 21, 2015, the president cut that list down to four people, saving the government 600 million shillings in tickets, accommodation and per diems.
Other austerity measures include a moratorium on foreign travel; when trips are necessary, they will be done economically — no more first-class tickets for government officials (with the exception of the President, Vice President, and Prime Minister), expensive hotels or cars. Allowances have also been stopped and the government plans to reclaim any non-operational state companies that were privatized.
The president has also prohibited public officials from sending out Christmas and New Year cards on the government's dime. The funds set aside for the printing of these cards will instead be used to pay off debts that government bodies owe for goods and services rendered. Another bold move was that, instead of sponsoring the annual World AIDS Day exhibition, the money budgeted for the event will be used to buy drugs for people infected with HIV.
Impressed by his performance, Twitter user Talkative Rocker has suggested that Magufuli's influence should be spread beyond Tanzania:
Should President John Magufuli just become President of East Africa and we create KENYUGANZANIA
— Talkative Rocker (@beewol) November 24, 2015
Indeed, Twitter users across Africa have been showing their appreciation for the austerity measures by using one of the funniest political hashtags on the continent, #WhatWouldMagufuliDo — in other words, before you make a decision, you should first ask yourself what the Tanzanian president would do in a similar situation.
So, #WhatWouldMagufuliDo? Here's what Twitter users think:
When she wants some silverware jewelry but then you're smart so you start thinking: #WhatWouldMagufuliDo pic.twitter.com/etvFZy9iPx
— Given Edward (@GIVENALITY) November 26, 2015
I Wanted to buy an iPhone then thought #WhatWouldMagufuliDo and here i am.. pic.twitter.com/8eCD3Ymf52
— ule vid (@kirio_kario) November 28, 2015
When you call her out for a date and she comes with her girls then you ask yourself #WhatWouldMagufuliDo pic.twitter.com/jq1yNVHTpE
— Jeff 2.7.7™ (@andsjeff) November 26, 2015
After my Iron stopped working before buying a new one i asked myself #WhatWouldMagufuliDo and Voila!! pic.twitter.com/v3PIhvAlOA
— Mahmud (@MahmudKullane) November 26, 2015
#WhatWouldMagufuliDo even informed one netizen's decision about attending a public mass that was delivered by a visiting Pope Francis in Nairobi, Kenya on Thursday, November 26:
I wanted 2 spend fare n go watch the #papalmass frm uhuru park bt afta thinkin #WhatWouldMagufuliDo ,i decided to save fare n watch frm home
— STEVEN G.I.D.I (@OUMASTEVE1) November 26, 2015
Some of the Magufuli-inspired thriftiness was absolutely hilarious:
My girlfriend wanted money for eye-liner, I asked myself #WhatWouldMagufuliDo ; we used office marker pens instead pic.twitter.com/mdQL7OdRFr
— Dave (@MyUglyMustache) November 26, 2015
I wanted to take my wife to a resort in ZNZ then i thought #WhatWouldMagufuliDo so i filled up the bathtub with water & salt now we chilling
— Mahmud (@MahmudKullane) November 26, 2015
I wanted to buy a cap but the I thought of #WhatWouldMagufuliDo pic.twitter.com/wIlsCqW7fx
— Victor Mochere (@VictorMochere) November 26, 2015
Some netizens even addressed social and national issues:
Beggars in the street asking for money but #WhatWouldMagufuliDo pic.twitter.com/ZRCGWdT2CT
— The Music (@Classic_Greg) November 26, 2015
I seriously wanted to increase Uganda's defence budget but then tweeps asked me #WhatWouldMagufuliDo and I was like pic.twitter.com/Z617mEJoCo
— Allan Ssenyonga (@ssojo81) November 26, 2015
Beneath the humor, however, Africans realise that there is much more to the hashtag:
As fun as #WhatWouldMagufuliDo is, it is also real expression of wider disillusion w/ rampant kleptocracy in #Africa https://t.co/P7qrmUodYV
— Frezer Haile (@frezerhaile) November 26, 2015
We might be making fun of H.E Magufuli but deep down we know tht many African C’tries need “Magufuli” 4 president & MPs #WhatWouldMagufuliDo
— Maureen Agena (@maureenagena) November 26, 2015
Many Tanzanians hope that their new president will keep up the momentum during his next five years in office.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Will Indonesia’s Police Circular on Hate Speech Suppress Freedom of Expression? · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Indonesian police. Photo from Flickr page of Sbamueller. CC License.
The Indonesian police has issued a new circular linking hate speech to the country’s criminal code. While the police say it is necessary to prevent social conflicts, some activists describe it as a threat to free expression.
On October 8, the chief of police signed Circular No. SE/6/X/2015 on the management of hate speech (ujaran kebencian). The circular defined hate speech by citing several provisions already existing in the criminal code while broadening the scope of the crime.
Hate speech now includes insulting acts, defamation, blasphemy (penistaan), objectionable acts (perbuatan tidak menyenangkan), provocative acts, instigation, and the dissemination of false news. The circular also listed the ways in which hate speech is disseminated: campaign speeches, banners, social media, rallies, religious sermons, electronic media and mass media.
The police said the circular is intended to guide law enforcement on how to contain hate speech and avoid the spread of violence, especially religious conflicts. Indonesia has a bigger Muslim population than any other country in the world. In recent years, minority communities and some Christian churches have been attacked by hardliners and religious fundamentalists.
Inspector General Anton Charliyan, head of the National Police’s Public Relations Division, explained the importance of the circular:
We cannot afford to let these new technologies and digital tools to be misused and abused. A tongue can be like fire. Do not speak rashly. Reflect your culture through a positive use of words and language, and show that we are a well-mannered nation.
Some activists, media groups, and lawyers were quick to criticize the circular as an unnecessary measure that could lead to human rights violations.
Bagir Manan, chairman of Indonesia's Press Council, told the Jakarta Globe newspaper that the circular is a throwback to the colonial-era when criticizing authorities was deemed hate speech:
I have my own concern about that circular. It indeed tells people to watch their tongues when it comes to spreading hatred. But it also says that there are legal actions for spreading hatred. That could be dangerous.
Do we really want to go back to that period of time? What kind of democracy would that be if one expressed his opinions and then was sent behind bars?
LBH Pers, a legal aid institute, warned that the circular could target legitimate dissent. An excerpt of their statement is quoted by Hukum Online:
The application of the law here could result in wrongful arrest, as those who will end up being arrested will not be the actual perpetrators, and this will ultimately prove to be a source of tension. It is better to separate defamation from hate speech, so that police officers don’t end up abusing their authority as they attempt to handle such an obscure provision.
Yerry Nikholas Borang from multimedia group Engage Media is also worried that the circular provides a broad mandate to the police:
…this hands the police a powerful weapon, allowing it to decide what can and cannot be categorized as hate speech, and is absolutely problematic and dangerous.
Former law and human rights minister Amir Syamsuddin wants the police to withdraw the circular, noting it could cause confusion:
People may think that the circular wants to limit the freedom of expression. It also could be considered as social control and it could be considered as being against democracy.
In an editorial, the Jakarta Post newspaper acknowledged the value of the circular in addressing the worsening exchanges of online hate speech but suggested reviewing of its broad definition of hate speech:
Given too many questionable cases of insult and defamation, dropping the categories from the new circular would lead to better focus on hate speech.
Irfan Abubakar, director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta, emphasized that the circular does not criminalize the right of citizens to criticize public officials.
He urged the police to restore public trust:
The circular is important momentum for improved state protection of minority religious groups whose rights have too often been violated. But how far the circular is able to contribute to improved management of religious conflict depends on the commitment of police to actually implement the circular in the way its drafters intended.
At the same time, police now have the tough job of responding to scepticism and misunderstanding in the community because of the widespread equation of hate speech with all forms of public criticism. It must be stressed that the circular was not intended to silence freedom of expression or smother democratic reforms. Rather, it is a much-needed reminder to police to act on hate speech before it becomes hate crime.
That the police is educating its ranks to confront hate speech in society is recognized by many as a timely initiative. Whether the implementation of the circular would actually lead to abuses is a concern that must be addressed by the government. The suspicion that the police will distort the circular's apparent mission for its own ends reflects the public’s generally low perception of law enforcement.
It does not help that the government has enacted several laws and policies in the recent past containing provisions that undermine individual rights.

author: Mong Palatino


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Armed Police Provide Intimidating Backdrop for Serbian Interior Minister’s Press Conference · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

Police officers from several police units line up before the press conference held by Serbian Minister of Interior Nebojsa Stefanovic on Sunday, November 29, 2015. Image shared widely on the Internet. Original photo by Žaklina Tatalović, used with permission.
Following accusations by Serbian daily Kurir that the country's prime minister was involved in threatening the newspaper's former director, Serbian Interior Minister Nebojša Stefanović announced during a press conference that the prime minister had “passed” all questions in a voluntary polygraph test on the matter.
Stefanović, speaking on Sunday, November 29, with two rows of armed police officers standing behind him, added that “lies being spread about the PM must stop.”
Na ovoj KZŠ fali samo oklopno vozilo.
— Raša Milić (@MilicRadoslav) November 29, 2015
All this press conference is missing is an armored vehicle.
— Raša Milić (@MilicRadoslav) November 29, 2015
The unexpected press conference was held in response to a video released by Kurir that Sunday morning. In the footage, the paper's ex-director Aleksandar Kornic stated that Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, his brother Andrija Vučić, and the director and editor-in-chief of government mouthpiece Informer met with him in a Belgrade restaurant and pressured him for days to give false testimony regarding the activities of Aleksandar Rodić, owner of Adria Media, which owns several national publications including Kurir.
Kornic said he sought the help of his former colleagues at the daily, claiming he feared for his safety and had been “going through hell” over the past 15 to 20 days. In the 15-minute video released online, Kornic describes the event.
That afternoon, Serbian Interior Minister Stefanović called a press conference to inform the public regarding the investigation into this matter. Before the event, reporters present began tweeting photos of the two rows of fully equipped officers from several different police units lining up behind where the minister was expected to speak, sparking worried speculation over what the government's message was. Journalist Suzana Trninić was among the first to share the image that spent the day circulating social networks:
A šta ste vi bili? Bili smo pozadina. pic.twitter.com/LkQXdCtkbD
— Suzana Trninic (@SuzanaTrninic) November 29, 2015
And what were you? We were the backdrop. pic.twitter.com/LkQXdCtkbD
— Suzana Trninic (@SuzanaTrninic) November 29, 2015
During the press conference, which was broadcast live by several television channels and uploaded to YouTube later on the official account of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, Stefanović stated that the prime minister was cooperating fully with the police investigation into the allegations of Kornic and Kurir daily. He then explained that the prime minister came to speak to police before being summoned and volunteered to take a polygraph test. Stefanović said Vučić passed with flying colors, “answering all questions with ‘no'” in reference to his knowledge of the events described by Kornic and whether the prime minister had ever met Kornic at all.
Stefanović called the accusations an “obvious” attempt at discrediting the prime minister and “destabilizing Serbia.” He said the public prosecutor would be launching an investigation that day into who was “organizing and spreading lies” and that two men had been arrested, at least one of whom was caught “passing by the prime minister's home eight times” in one day, although he did not specifically explain how the two matters were related. The prime minister and his family as well as some other members of the government had added security assigned to them, Stefanović said, hinting that their safety might be in jeopardy.
“What is good in all this is that we have seen that the prime minister demonstrated today that he is a common citizen of Serbia and one of us,” Stefanović added, saying, “He showed he is a normal man, for whom the truth and justice are above any function.”
When he finished his statement, Stefanović turned to the press and asked for questions. After 10 seconds of silence, Stefanović wrapped up the press conference, stating, “Well, if you don't have any questions,” and left.
Other journalists and the general public soon chimed in with comments.
Mogu da razumem konferenciju za štampu ministra Nebojše,ali pozadinu za vreme KZŠ ne mogu.Šta je cilj pozadine, uplašiti narod policijom?
— Branko Denić (@councilorpk) November 29, 2015
I can understand the press conference held by Minister Nebojsa, but I can't understand the background during the press conference. What is the goal of that background, to scare the people with police?
Internationally acclaimed Serbian journalist Brankica Stanković, who is the host of the only investigative journalism television show in Serbia and who has a security detail assigned to her by the government because she began receiving threats several years ago, commented almost immediately:
kada se ministar policije na KZN obraca u prisustvu GOMILE NAORUZANIH policajaca onda je to javna pretnja SVIMA a ne samo kriminalcima!!!
— Brankica Stankovic (@brankica_st) November 29, 2015
When the minister of police speaks at a press conference backed by a BUNCH OF ARMED police officers then this is a public threat to EVERYONE not just criminals!!!
Stankovic later tweeted that she had requested her security detail, assigned by the Ministry of Interior, be removed and would accept responsibility for her personal safety. The request was denied by authorities, Stankovic said, offering no further explanation.
Other users noted that former regional leaders who had been known for tight security and strong-arming the public hadn't flaunted their police forces like this:
Nakon ubistva Đinđića i pobune JSO nisu postrojene naoružane jedinice na KZŠ-u. Sad su ih postrojili da bi rekli da je Vučić prošao poligraf
— Veljko Popovic (@VeljkoPopovic) November 29, 2015
After the assassination of Đinđić [former Prime Minister of Serbia, assassinated in 2003] and the rebellion of the Special Operations Unit [disbanded special unit of the former regime] there were no police forces lined up at press conferences. Now they've lined them up to say that Vučić passed a polygraph.
President of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS) Vukašin Obradović made a statement saying he was deeply concerned for the safety of journalists in the country and that the press conference and statements made by Minister Stefanović could only be construed as a “call for lynching journalists” in Serbia. In that statement, IJAS expressed particular concern for “labeling certain journalists and media as participants or organizers in a possible state coup”:
Na taj način otvoreno se poziva na progon i linč pojednih novinara i direktno se ugrožava njihovu bezbednost”, kaže se u saopštenju NUNS-a koje je potpisao njegov predsednik Vukašin Obradović.
„NUNS poziva nadležne državne organe da redovnom postupku ispitaju istinitost navoda u tekstu objavljenom u dnevnom listu Kurir i nakon sprovedene istrage o tome obaveste javnost“.
NUNS ocenjuje da je veoma opasno da se u medijima umesto u institucijama sistema vode istrage i donose presude.
“This is a way of openly calling for persecution and lynching of individual journalists and directly puts their safety at risk,” the IJAS statement, signed by its president Vukašin Obradović, says.
“IJAS is calling on the responsible state bodies to investigate the accuracy of the claims published by the daily Kurir and, after the conducted investigation, inform the public [of their findings].”
IJAS holds that it is very dangerous to conduct investigations and bring judgement in the media instead of institutions of the system.

author: Danica Radisic


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Bangladesh Keeps Blocking Social Media, Threatens New Surveillance Tactics · Global Voices
Zara Rahman

A protester near the Teacher Students Centre (TSC) of Dhaka University. The poster reads “How many excuses more? Open Viber, Messenger, WhatsApp and Facebook NOW.” Photo by Zaid Islam, under copyright. Used with permission.
It has been nearly two weeks since the government of Bangladesh banned Facebook, Viber, WhatsApp and other social messaging applications in the country.
The ban stemmed from fears of public unrest following a Supreme Court ruling that upheld death sentences for two political figures convicted of genocide and rape during Bangladesh's 1971 war for independence from Pakistan.
Although the ban has hit multiple applications and platforms, the block on Facebook is especially concerning for citizens. On 28 November, government officials said they planned to propose an agreement with Facebook that would oblige the company to provide authorities with certain user data upon request, in order to ensure “cyber security” in Bangladesh. According to the latest reports, authorities will not lift the Facebook ban until the agreement is signed with Facebook.
This could make for a long wait. Since the company began publicly releasing transparency reports in 2013 (including information about user data request processes), it has not released any user data at the behest of the Bangladesh government.
In the meantime, Bangladeshis have been using VPNs and proxy servers to access social media, but the government now appears to be cracking down on this behaviour. On 29 November, local news site bdnews24.com reported that State Minister for Post and Telecommunications Tarana Halim publicly condemned the use of proxy servers as illegal and problematic due to restrictions on bandwidth:
Firstly, using the proxy servers is a breach of the law. Those who are using them are using a bandwidth with a specific capacity. They won't be able to do that much longer. Because this bandwidth's capacity is low.
Minister Halim went on to warn those who are accessing Facebook through proxy servers that this is not only “illegal”, but also suggested that there was a “high possibility that their IDs would be hacked.” While using any network carries a certain degree of risk for users’ privacy, Minister Halim's comment sounded more like a vague threat than a practical warning.
It appears that Minister Halim's threats now are being enforced by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. Twitter user Elana N shared a notification from her service provider, warning that her use of such networks could be monitored:
#bangladesh is still blocking social media…but apparently they don't know about Twitter. Just received emails threatening to disable vpns
— Elana N (@Caligirl7508) November 25, 2015
@zararah pic.twitter.com/vo12bdWLmQ
— Elana N (@Caligirl7508) November 25, 2015
Government agencies may not be entirely in agreement about the social media ban. Minister of ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak has been regularly updating his own Facebook page during the time of the block and touting plans for a “Digital Bangladesh” — but whether he has done this using a proxy or some other tool is unknown.
On Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms, users are questioning the ban from various angles. Journalist Udisha Islam writes in an online portal that Facebook users are being kept in the dark:
ভয়-ভীতি না দেখিয়ে আসল বিষয়টি কী ঘটছে জনগণকে জানান। [..] সরকারি প্রেসনোট জারি করে যদি বলা হতো ঠিক কীসের ভয়ে ফেসবুক, ভাইবার বন্ধ হলো আর বিকল্প পথে কেউ ব্যবহার করলে কী শাস্তি দেওয়া হবে তাহলে কেউই ব্যবহার করতেন বলে মনে হয় না।
Don't threaten the Facebook users but tell us what is happening. [..] If a government press-note was issued saying what was the exact reason to block Facebook and Viber and what will be the consequence if people want to still use it circumventing the ban, then people would not use it perhaps.
Other users have raised similar questions. Blogger Soheil Zafar writes on Facebook:
কোন্ আইনের লঙ্ঘন প্রতিমন্ত্রী বলবেন কী? ফেসবুক বন্ধ ঘোষণা করা হয়েছে কবে? কোন্ সরকারি নোটিশে? গেজেট নম্বর কতো? গোপনে গোপনে একটা ডোমেইন বা আইপি বন্ধ করলেই সেটা নিষিদ্ধ হয়ে যায় না। আপনি তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি বা টেলিযোগাযোগ বোঝেন না, সেটা আমরা জানি; কিন্তু আপনি অ্যাডভোকেট, মিনিমাম আইনকানুন বুঝবেন, এটা তো আশা করা যেতেই পারে।
Dear State Minister, would you please let us know [using Facebook is a] violation of which law? When was Facebook shut down? On which government notification? What is the official gazette [number]? If you arbitrarily block a domain or an IP that does not mean the service is banned [it is a crime to use it]. We know that you may not know much about ICT or telecommunication, but as a lawyer you should be aware how law works. We can expect this much, right?
Some civil society members looking to the law to convince the government to overturn the ban. On 26 November, the Daily Star reported that Supreme Court lawyer Cumar Debul Dey had sent the government a legal notice requesting that it lift the restrictions on Facebook, Whatsapp and Viber within 24 hours. According to him, the “arbitrary” decision violates constitutional rights of Bangladeshi citizens, as well as legal rights guaranteed in Article 39 of the constitution and the rights under the Right to Information Act of 2009. He also mentioned that it moved the country away from Prime Minister Hasina's goals for a “Digital Bangladesh.” At the time of writing, no updates on his complaint had been given.
The ban has also harmed the local economy, with business owners reporting reduced traffic and sales due to their inability to promote their products on Facebook.
I do appreciate the intent but isn't the Govt of #Bangladesh going against #DigitalBangladesh goals? Bad days for Facebook based Startups.
— Sidrat J (@SidratJ) November 20, 2015
Journalist Bidhan Ribeiro sees the ban was a troubling response to public upheaval over war crimes trials and politically motivated violence that has resulted in the deaths of multiple writers and bloggers since 2013:
যারা বিকল্প পথে ফেসবুক ব্যবহার করছেন তারা কি আইনশৃঙ্খলা লঙ্খন করছেন? বরং যারা করছেন তাদের বিরুদ্ধে ব্যবস্থা নিন। আমার কথা আমি বলব,এটা আমার অধিকার। ফেসবুক ব্যবহার করা কোনো অপরাধ নয়। আপনারা অভিজিৎ কিম্বা দীপনদের হত্যাকারীদের ধরতে পারছেন না, অথচ যত হুমকি ধমক সাধারণ ফেসবুক ব্যবহারকারীদের বিরুদ্ধে। ফেসবুকের সাথে যদি আপনাদের ইগোর সমস্যা হয়েই থাকে সেটার জন্য সাধারণ ব্যবহারকারীরা ভুক্তভোগী হবে কেন?
Those who are using Facebook via proxy, are they violating any law? Rather you try to take action against those who are breaking law. I will say my words [in Facebook.] This is my right. It is not illegal to use Facebook. You are failing to nab the killers of blogger Avijit Roy or publisher Dipon and you are threatening the common Facebook users. If you have some ego problem with Facebook [regarding disclosure of users information] why make the users suffer for that?
Writing for the Dhaka Tribune, Shafquat Rabee suggests “monitoring who is accessing problematic materials” as the solution. But what the government considers to be “problematic” is another worry for freedom of expression advocates.
On Saturday, Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak revealed that a draft digital security law is currently being prepared and will soon be sent to the Cabinet for approval. The law, he says, will “help prevent cyber crimes and anti-national activities on the Internet.”
Who decides what “anti-national activities” or “cyber crimes” really are? With the current lack of accountability shown by the government, a move towards more stringent controls of the Internet is worrying for the state of freedom of expression in the country. And with the ban still in place, and a law on the way, this could signal the start of a devastating turn away from the so-called “Digital Bangladesh” that the country is aiming for.

author: Zara Rahman


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Death in Diyarbakır: Shooting of Human Rights Lawyer Deepens Turkey’s Political Strife · Global Voices
Ece Basay

Unknown assailants shot at Tahir Elci, head of the bar association in Diyarbakir, and 40 other activists on November 28 as they were giving a press statement near a mosque in the city's Sur district, according to witnesses. Demotix image by Erhan Demirtaş ID: 9173659.
Diyarbakır'ın simgelerinden Dört Ayaklı Minarenin ayaklarına silahlı SUIKAST… pic.twitter.com/0SJVF1NFz8
— Tahir Elçi (@tahirelci) November 26, 2015
An assassination at the feet of the Four Footed Minaret, one of the symbols of Diyarbakır
On November 28, Tahir Elçi, one of Turkey's most prominent pro-Kurdish lawyers, was holding a press conference close to the very same minaret he referenced in his tweet above, explaining that the people of Turkey's Kurdish-populated East were tired of conflict and recurrent government military operations in the region.
Moments after he finished his speech he was shot dead as police and Kurdish militants clashed, with his death prompting thousands to come together for a politically charged funeral in the Kurdish region's administrative capital.
The violence that claimed Tahir Elçi's life also saw two policemen killed and a number of journalists wounded. The government controlled by the AKP (Justice and Development Party) responded immediately, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu promising his killers would definitely be caught
The leaders of opposition parties also expressed condolences. While MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) chief Devlet Bahçeli said Tahir Elçi's death had saddened all political factions in the country, CHP (Republican People's Party) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu tweeted:
“Çatışma istemiyoruz” diye haykırmanın karşılığı ölüm olmamalıydı. Tahir Elçi'yi ve polisimizi katleden güçler hesap vermelidir.
— Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (@kilicdarogluk) November 28, 2015
Exclaiming “we do not want violence” should not have resulted in death. The forces who massacred Tahir Elçi and our policemen must give an account of what they have done.
But in Turkey's currently toxic political landscape, everybody has a different interpretation of who these ‘forces’ were. The pro-Kurdish left-leaning HDP (People's Democratic Party) characterized Elçi's shooting as a political assassination.
Hukuku katledenler, Diyarbakır Baro Başkanı Tahir Elçi'yi alçakça katlettiler! PEŞİNİ BIRAKMAYACAĞIZ! pic.twitter.com/O0rZKzyLXf
— HDP (@HDPgenelmerkezi) November 28, 2015
Head of Diyarbakir Bar Association Tahir Elçi is viciously murdered by the slayers of law. WE WILL PURSUE YOU!
The polarization that has come to typify online responses to Turkey's Kurdish conflict was again in evidence in the aftermath of the shooting. Thousands of tweets were posted under the hashtags #TahirElçi and #TahirElçiÖlümsüzdür (#TahirElçiIsImmortal).
Those that do not blame militants from the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) for Elçi's death, blame the state.
Havuz medyası hedef gösterdi. Savcı gözaltına aldı. Bir tetikçi şakağından vurdu. Vali ise sokağa çıkma yasağı ilan etti. ‘Faili meçhul'?
— Hüseyin Aygün (@HuseyinAygun62) November 28, 2015
State media made him a target. Prosecutor took him into custody. A marksman shot him through his temple. The governer, moreover, declared a curfew. Unsolved murder?
On Ekşisözlük, a widely used forum, one nationalist commenter wrote:
övdüğü pkk tarafından kursuna dizilen. kurşunlar havada uçuşurken pismanlik duymuştur eminim. edit = saldırıda bir de polis şehit olmuş, kürt ırkçısı birinin ölümü konuşulurken, gerçek emekçinin ölümü hiç konusulmuyor.
He was executed by the same PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party — the main Kurdish militant faction] that he praised. I am sure he was full of regrets as those bullets travelled though the air […] During the attack, one policeman was shot to death. While a Kurdish racist's death is being debated, no one talks about the death of a real worker.
Other observers have drawn a parallel with the assassination of Hrant Dink, a high profile ethnic Armenian journalist gunned down in 2007, whose death was never fully solved.
#TahirElci under probe for his remarks & attacked by AKP leaders & AKP media which made him a valuable target like #Dink h/t @turgayogur
— ilhan tanir (@WashingtonPoint) November 28, 2015
Shortly after Elçi's death thousands took to the streets in Diyarbakır as well as Istanbul and İzmir. The gathering of almost 2,000 in Taksim in Istanbul was broken up by tear gas and water cannon.
16:56 #İstiklalCaddesi, #TahirElçi eylemine müdahale sonrası, “Hırsız Katil AKP” sloganı atılıyor. @UmutGazetesi pic.twitter.com/rdnwhjyR27
— 140journos (@140journos) November 28, 2015
16:56 #İstiklalStreet, people shout “Thief, murderer AKP”, after the police attack against #TahirElçi protest.
Police firing teargas and fire hoses at demonstrators protesting against killing of Tahir #Elci
— William Whiteman (@willmwhiteman) November 28, 2015
Istanbul, Turkey. 28th November 2015 — Protesters run for cover from tear gas fired by Turkish riot police during a demostration on Istiklal avenue in Istanbul after a top Kurdish lawyer was killed in Diyarbakir on November 28, 2015. Demotix image by Avni Kantan. ID: 9171320.
The protests reflect growing public frustration at insecurity in Turkey with hundreds of people having died in political violence in the second half of this year.
The improvement in relations with the country's Kurdish minority was once hailed as a key achievement of the AKP government. But as AKP seeks to reassert its dominance across the country's political landscape following an electoral victory in November, it has fallen back on nationalist rhetoric while using the PKK threat as a pretext for wide-ranging and oppressive security operations in the country's east.
Tahir Elçi was a very successful human rights lawyer, who was the defence lawyer in many important cases such as Lice, Roboski, and Temizöz. He was an important activist who worked for peace between the Kurdish and Turkish communities. Last month, however, he was arrested for declaring that the PKK was not a ‘terrorist organization’. After the arrest, he was released conditionally and banned from traveling abroad.
Lawyer #TahirElci had been on trial for saying on TV that #PKK was not a terrorist organisation, criticised both gov and PKK for violence. — Constanze Letsch (@ConstanzeLetsch) November 28, 2015
In a series of tweets, one Twitter user explained Elçi's importance:
Who is Tahir Elçi: tweets by @civilvvars.
There are maybe some of us who did not know Tahir Elçi as we are supposed to. Tahir Elçi is – was – one of the best human rights lawyers of this country.
He was the lawyer of 21 people who disappeared in custody in Cizre, 16 people who were killed in Lice, and 34 people who were bombed in Roboski.
Tahir Elçi managed to win many important decisions in Human Rights Courts, especially on the topics of the right to live and torture in Turkey….
…Thanks to his efforts, many cases of forced disappearances, bombings and torture that were either kept waiting or left unpunished were recommenced.
Today, we have lost a very important lawyer who has given all his life to peace and the human rights struggle. Please get to know him better and do not forget him.
Tahir Elçi's funeral was held on November 29 at Koşuyolu Park, in front of Yaşam Hakkı Anıtı (Statue of the Right to Live) and attended by around 50,000 people. Many more were reportedly blocked from attending due to the cancellation of flights and buses to the region.
HDP's co-president Selahattin Demirtaş, the head of Turkey's Bar Association Metin Feyzioğlu, and the bar presidents of 80 different cities and many other political figures attended the funeral.
#TahirElçi Elçi'nin cenaze yürüyüşü yüz binlerle devam ediyor, halk her yerde cenazeyi selamlıyor. #Diyarbakır pic.twitter.com/1hLHPWoBxS
— dokuz8 (@dokuz8haber) November 29, 2015
#TahirElçi
Thousands continue to walk after Elçi's funeral, the public salutes the funeral from everywhere.
During the funeral, HDP's Demirtaş gave a powerful speech saying he had doubts about whether this murder would be solved:
Tahir's death is not because of the state, but because of the lack of state. There is a state in Ankara, which does not feel this pain. How could you hold a society together, which can not even come together around this pain.

author: Ece Basay


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Russia Considers Tougher Restrictions on Mobile SIM-Card Sales · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Russian authorities want to make it harder to purchase mobile SIM-cards anonymously. Image from Pixabay.
Buying a mobile SIM-card in Russia might soon become even more difficult, even though doing it anonymously is already illegal and subject to a fine. Russian authorities are considering additional restrictions on sales of mobile packages citing “a growing terrorist threat” as their main reason.
The initiative comes from the Interdepartmental Committee on combatting extremism and seems to be aimed mostly at foreigners who want to purchase mobile SIM-cards on Russian soil, creating additional complications for them. Russian business daily Kommersant reports that several sources among Russian mobile communication providers and their partners have confirmed that Russian law enforcement is working on measures to further restrict SIM-card sales.
The anti-extremism task force suggests amending existing legislation to limit the term of mobile service contracts for foreigners in Russia. The service contracts, according to the proposal, should be limited by the end date of a foreigner's legal term of stay in the country and should expire as soon as the foreign citizen leaves Russia. Any extension of a service contract should be based on paperwork confirming that a foreigner has been allowed to extend their stay in Russia.
Law enforcement agencies also want to further restrict the sales of prepaid mobile services that circumvent signing a contract with mobile providers, according to Kommersant's sources. Since January 2014, Russia has required anyone purchasing even a prepaid package to present their ID and sign a contract with the operator, but there are still opportunities for anonymous purchases. To curb the sales of contract-less SIM-cards (already punishable by fines), the anti-extremism task force suggests granting Roscomnadzor, Russia's communications watchdog, the power to conduct impromptu inspections of points of sale and hold “undercover” test purchases to check whether sales facilities adhere to the rules and record customers’ IDs.
Kommersant's sources told the newspaper that the proposed changes are connected with “terrorist threats,” though did not specify any concrete scenarios.
Over 100 million mobile SIM-cards are sold in Russia annually, according to data from ACM Consulting. Law enforcement estimates that at least 1.5-2 million of those are sold without ID confirmation or contracts every month, potentially making them available to individuals and organizations engaged in criminal or extremist activity.
On the other hand, mandatory recording of personal data of individuals wishing to use prepaid mobile services and growing restrictions on access to mobile services contribute to the already shrinking space for personal anonymity and freedom of expression in the Russian communications sphere. Other examples of the state's attempts to police Russians’ communications include requiring personal identification to use public Wi-Fi networks and a special registry for popular Russian bloggers.

author: Tanya Lokot


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Sahand Sahebdivani: ‘The Main Thing That Storytelling Does Is It Makes You Human’ · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

Veteran storyteller Anje Robertson in the previous Mezrab. Picture taken by Bas Uterwijk and available in the Mezrab's Facebook page.
This is the second of a two-part interview with Sahand Sahebdivani about cultural exchange, storytelling and identity. In the first part, Sahand explained the history of the Mezrab, a cultural center in Amsterdam that he founded, as well as the tradition behind storytelling and the impressions of the world that the stories we hear can give us.
In this second part, Sahand expands on these ideas as well as what it means to be a cultural hybrid.
Global Voices (GV): It seems that the Mezrab is also all about cultural exchange through stories. How do you think telling stories can bring us closer to groups of people who we believe are different from us?
Sahand Sahebdivani: The main and foremost thing is that it humanizes us. We see the Other through this lens of “cultural character”. When we don’t know Venezuelans and we think of Venezuelans, we think of Chavez, we think of oil, dictatorships. We think of all these cliched images. We don’t see a person with human aspirations. With Iranians it’s the same. They think of the Ayatollah, they think Ahmadinejad, they think of oppressed women. The main thing that storytelling does is it makes you human. Now, funnily enough, now that people talk about this, imagine a person that comes on stage and tells a story. You know, whether is a story from their culture or a personal experiences. And I would that in the Mezrab 70% to 80% of the stories shared are personal stories.
A lot of people think that it is the stories that give a different image of the country. But they don’t realise […] that the story is quite unimportant. What is more important is the fact that that person is standing before you with all his or her nervousness and is telling you the story. So the fact that that person is standing there and tells us about the first time they fell in love or whatever, it doesn’t even matter the story they tell. You can’t even see the stereotypical Iranian or Venezuelan or Russian or Polish. You see a person who’s struggling with standing in front of an audience and trying to tell this. They’d be struggling with the language […] This makes them so human, which is more important than whatever story they’re tell. You can forget the story… But the experience of seeing that person as an individual will stay with you. And I think this is the most important part of the work.
“Ryan Millar warming up the crowd for the storytellers.” Picture taken by Bas Uterwijk in 2013 and available on the Mezrab's Facebook page.
It’s not so wide that you have a perception that goes on/off in an easy way. Probably the people who have never experienced, let’s say foreign cultures. The first time that they come to the Mezrab, or the first time that they hear these stories. Maybe they have these perception changes.
For people who hear these stories regularly, it feels like it’s more of a process that explores the nuances of the human experience.
GV: If, as you said, it's the very act of telling a story and not the story itself that makes people human, how do you think new technologies are influencing or affecting traditional storytelling?
Sahand: I don’t think new technologies are affecting storytelling at all. Technologies are constantly re-inventing the way we tell stories. From the moment we went from regular stories to the novel, to theatre to film. And now we have the Internet, we have stories that are enhanced by apps online, we see things on 3D, we can look up things in our iPhones, people who mix some kind of weird mix, like characters from a series can have a Twitter feed that is twittering to you, and it’s a fictional character, but you feel the friendship with them. So, there are all these things happening with the technology. Which can influence the way we experience traditional storytelling. But funnily enough, while this exists, people are going back to storytelling and they’re going back to … away from these developments. It’s a parallel thing. Technologies do develop these new ways of telling stories — I love it and I do that as well — but at the same time people haven’t lost the need to just get together and be in a room where they can just sit and enjoy.
What I also see is that people want to hear personal stories. But that’s a cultural change rather than a technological change. People really, really enjoy personal stories. It takes them more effort to get the mythical stories, let’s say… That is a change I have experienced.
GV: But what about the discovery of others through online stories?
Sahand: This is what we’re doing all the time. We are all day, everyday connecting with stories. To talk about storytelling and technology is to say that there’s also a thing in technology that is not storytelling. It’s all storytelling. All has been storytelling, every computer game, for instance, tells a story, even if it’s this stupid Mario running around, it’s still a story… The scope is so big […] We’re constantly surrounded by people’s stories. We’re constantly bombarded by people’s stories.
“Contrary to what some might think, it's really the audience at the Mezrab that makes the night. These are the kindest folk you'll meet in Amsterdam.” Picture taken by Bas Uterwijk in 2013 and available on the Mezrab's Facebook page.
GV: You seem to be a figure that embodies the possibility of harmony between seemingly different cultures (Dutch and Iranian). Could you share with us your experience as a cultural hybrid and how that colours your view of the world?
Sahand: First of all I would say that in a certain way of looking, I am a cultural hybrid, maybe successfully so in the sense that I don’t see that there’s a conflict between my cultural identities. But I also have to say that we’re all cultural hybrids. I cannot think of a single person who’s not in a sense a cultural hybrid. Even when you look at Europe, and Europe on the world map is such a tiny place. The amount of ethnic mixing that has been happening in Europe, and the amount of times that the borders have moved… The amount of religion that has mixed here… Even if the person still lives in the same place that they great grandfather moved to, he or she is a cultural hybrid.
Take the movement from town to cities. I live in Amsterdam, for example. And in my eyes, many Dutch citizens moving from small towns to the capital are immigrants in my eyes. Somebody moving from a small to a big town can be much more of an immigrant than, say, my family, which has lived in a big cosmopolitan city for generations.
Just to be aware that your personal identity can have so many facets. That all the time you’re switching between one and another. When you see this you realise that national identities are not such a big issue. It’s not such a big thing, especially if you live in a world where the Iranian intellectual and the Dutch intellectual would read Kundera or García Marquez; so for me is not such a big thing to read these books whether I am in Tehran or Amsterdam.
GV: But there will always be friction, no?
Sahand:  Of course, it is an over-simplification to say that there is never a conflict. But it’s not such a big issue. It’s a big issue if we make it an issue. We’re so desperately looking for an identity, and I think this is true whether you’re Dutch, or whether you’re Venezuelan or Iranian, that your construct of your identity becomes more of a prison than what your identity actually is.
And I see this when I see Iranians who are living abroad, going around… “This is how I have to be Iranian.” I know this one guy who would not go to the Mezrab because it’s not “Iranian enough. Because Sahand has made too many compromises towards the West.” What does that mean? That you will only attend to places that are absolutely Iranian? That’s bullshit. There will only be like four places in the Netherlands that you can go to.

author: Laura Vidal


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Russia Sees Its First Real Prison Sentence for ‘Promoting Extremism’ on Social Media · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Users charged with spreading extremist materials on the RuNet have previously avoided real prison terms. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
For the first time, a Russian court has handed out a real prison sentence to a user charged with “propaganda of extremism on social media.” Previously, similar charges had mostly resulted in fines or suspended sentences.
An Internet user in the Siberian town of Surgut has been sentenced to a one-year imprisonment in a penal colony. The real (not suspended) year-long prison term was handed down by the municipal court after it found the individual guilty of distributing “extremist materials” on social networks, in accordance with Article 282 of the Russian criminal code. According to media reports, the user, Oleg Novozhenin, had previously posed audio and video files “promoting the activity” of Ukrainian nationalist party organization “Right Sector” (currently banned in Russia) and the right-wing “Azov” volunteer battalion.
This isn't the first time the RuNet users have been charged with extremism-related crimes for online activity. Charges of “incitement to extremism,” coupled with increasingly restrictive public assembly and protest regulations, are what tends to land users in hot water. A retweet of an image, a republished post on VKontakte and even an anti-fascist Donald Duck cartoon can cost Russian citizens unfettered access to the Internet.
Article 282 of the criminal code presents a fairly vague definition of what amounts to “promoting extremism” and is broadly applied as a censorship tool. Together with other repressive laws, it has resulted in a handful of court cases, but in most of them, the court proceedings have ended with suspended sentences, administrative penalties, or fines. Now, the Surgut court verdict has created the first precedent of a real prison sentence for “extremist” activity online.


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The Kremlin’s News Man Decides It’s Time to Say ‘Daesh’ Instead of ‘ISIL’ · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Dmitry Kiselyov. Photo by Kremlin.ru, April 17, 2014. CC 4.0.
The Russian state media has joined the worldwide debate about what to call the Al Qaeda offshoot that has come to control large parts of Iraq and Syria. This militant organization is known to most English-language readers as ISIS (the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”) or simply “the Islamic State.” In Russia, the group is typically called ИГИЛ (the Russian form of ISIL, or “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”) or just ИГ (“IG,” which in Russian stands for “Islamic State”). Like the French news media, much of the Arab world’s journalists, and reporters in several other countries, Russia is now shifting to a new name for the group, adopting the Arabic acronym for ISIS, “Daesh,” which the group itself rejects as insulting.
What brought about the Russian media’s sudden policy change? Those who prefer the word “Daesh” over “ISIS” and “ISIL” have Dmitry Kiselyov, Russia’s so-called “propagandist-in-chief,” to thank for the shift. Kiselyov, who heads the government-owned international news agency Rossiya Segodnya, introduced the new terminology on Sunday, November 29, during his weekly news program, which airs on national television. The next morning, he told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that Rossiya Segodnya will gradually replace the word “ISIL” with “Daesh” in reports about the organization.
Kiselyov listed several reasons for the change. Journalists around the world, including Western outlets, he explained, are switching to the term “Daesh.” He also pointed out that the French government uses the word Daesh (though he didn’t mention that France has used this terminology for more than a year now). Finally, Kiselyov cited a request from Russian Grand Mufti Rawil Gaynetdin, who recently asked a joint session of the Russian parliament to adopt “Daesh” in place of “ISIL.” (Indeed, Russia’s Council of Muftis has been asking as much for the past eight months.) Russia’s Muslim leaders say the linguistic change would remove a term that inadvertently reinforces the idea that Islam is inherently violent.
But why is Kiselyov responding to these developments only now?
Since the November 13 attacks in Paris, Russia has intensified efforts to present itself as France’s steadfast ally in Syria. So far, it seems to be working. On November 26, French President Francois Hollande even visited Moscow, where he and Vladimir Putin discussed the possibility of broadening the coalition against militant groups in Syria.
On his television show, Kiselyov also used the Daesh/IGIL split among Western countries to take a jab at Turkey (with whom tensions have been high, following a border incident in Syria), saying NATO members’ approaches to the Syrian conflict are worryingly “heterogeneous.” In the show, he then pivoted to a story about Ankara buying oil from ISIS, arguing that Turkey thereby sustains terrorism in Syria. A day later in Paris, incidentally, Vladimir Putin stated publicly that Turkey only shot down a Russian jet a week earlier to protect its oil trade with terrorists.
One of the first people to notice that Kiselyov’s Sunday-night broadcast signaled an industry-wide shift for Russia’s news was Alexey Kovalev, who runs the counter-propaganda website Noodleremover.news. Writing on Facebook on November 29, he reported that top figures in Rossiya Segodnya’s news empire had begun circulating a memo announcing a shift from “ISIL” to “Daesh.” Kiselyov’s decision was already filtering down, throughout Russia’s state-run media. On November 30, RIA Novosti’s David Burghardt confirmed on Kovalev’s Facebook page that he’d received a memo dictating a change of terminology regarding ISIS that applies to all state-owned media outlets.
Judging by its most recent articles, RIA Novosti (which Rossiya Segodnya controls) has already dedicated itself to the gradual transition, using the term “Daesh” with an explanatory note. TASS, another state-run newswire service, also seems to be changing its terminology. While many independent outlets, like Lenta.ru, RBC, Slon, Dozhd, and Kommersant, have not showed signs of switching to “Daesh,” the pro-Kremlin publications LifeNews and Izvestia say they have been searching for a way to distance the so-called “Islamic State” from Islam for three months already. According to LifeNews Executive Director Anatoly Suleimanov, the outlet’s publisher, Aram Gabrelyanov, finally made the decision to adopt the term “Daesh,” informing his staff of the change on November 30, a day after Kiselyov’s broadcast.
The debate about what to call the organization that’s seized control of eastern Syria and western Iraq is undoubtedly important. It should come as no surprise that we at Global Voices have also discussed the matter. In fact, in a Community Blog post by GV Managing Editor Sahar Habib Ghazi on July 20, we aired our internal conversation about this rhetorical riddle.
The switch by the Kremlin’s media outlets to “Daesh” promises at least two features unique to Russia. First, it could be a loophole that allows journalists to avoid the tiresome requirement set down by federal censors, which mandates that journalists mention—in every article about the group—that the “Islamic State” is “banned in Russia as an extremist organization.” (Kiselyov himself endorses this advantage.) Second, and more importantly, the speed and order in which different publications change their ISIS terminology could inadvertently reveal Kiselyov’s grip on Russia’s media, power over much of which Vladimir Putin placed in his hands two years ago this month.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Today is #Giving Tuesday—Donate to Global Voices · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

Today is #GivingTuesday, a day dedicated to global generosity of all kinds. An article written by our Lebanese community member Joey Ayoub hours after the Paris attacks reminds us of this, and of why we at Global Voices do the work we do.
In The Streets of Paris Are as Familiar to Me as the Streets of Beirut, Joey writes movingly about “the general failure of humanity’s imagination to see itself as a unified entity.” He adds:
“It is a hard thing to realize that for all that was said, for all the progressive rhetoric we have managed to create as a seemingly united human voice, most of us members of this curious species are still excluded from the dominant concerns of the ‘world’.”
Every day at Global Voices our editors and volunteer authors and translators work across borders, time zones and language barriers to bring you important citizen-driven stories the mainstream media doesn't have the time or interest to cover, report on online freedom of expression and support others in joining the global conversation.
To stay independent and sustainable, we depend on the generous support of friends and readers like you. Your donations help cover the cost of server space, administrative expenses, our microgrant programs and Global Voices staff.
On this #GivingTuesday, please consider supporting Global Voices by making a donation.
Or if you're an Amazon shopper, click on this link before making your purchases, and Amazon Smile will donate a portion of the purchase price to Friends of Global Voices.
A very big thank you from the Global Voices community!
Donate now »

author: Georgia Popplewell


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A Day for Mate, A South American Culinary Infusion · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Typical calabash gourd where mate is served. Image from the Flickr account by user Diego (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Last November 30 marked the first Day of Mate—a culinary infusion that combines the cultural heritage of several South American countries. Popular throughout the region, it's particularly ever-present in Argentina and Uruguay, where the dish is widely consumed.
The mate is prepared with dry and ground leaves and twigs of yerba mate, also known as yerba from Paraguay. The name “mate” comes from the name of the calabash gourd that is traditionally used as a container for the infusion.
The history of story of yerba mate has even inspired cartoons, like the one below uploaded to YouTube:
Today, it would be unimaginable to ban mate in Argentina, though that is precisely what happened in the 17th century, when sipping mate was considered an “abhorrent habit,” and a “dangerous contagion among indigenous people”:
En una carta dirigida al rey, [el gobernador de Buenos Aires, Diego Marín de Negrón] le informaba acerca de ese “vicio abominable y sucio que es tomar algunas veces al día la yerba con gran cantidad de agua caliente”. Tomar mate “hace a los hombres holgazanes, que es total ruina de la tierra, y como es tan grande (la extensión y hondura del vicio), temo que no se podrá quitar si Dios no lo hace”, decía el funcionario […].
Más adelante, [el gobernador de Buenos Aires, Hernando Arias de Saavedra, conocido como] Hernandarias prohibió la yerba (mate). “Que nadie en adelante fuese ni enviase indios a haber hierba a ninguna parte donde la haya, ni la traiga, ni traten ni contraten so pena de pérdida de ella, que se ha de quemar en la plaza pública”.
In a letter to the king, [Buenos Aires Governor Diego Marín] Negrón explained that “abhorrent and dirty vice that consists in drinking some times during the day the herb with big amounts of hot water.” Drinking mate “makes men lazy, which is a total ruin of the earth, and as it is big (both the extension and depth of the vice), I'm afraid it can't be taken away if God doesn't do it,” claimed Negrón […].
Later on, [the Governor of Buenos Aires, Hernando Arias de Saavedra, known as] Hernandarias banned the herb (mate). “May no one, from now on, go nor request Indians to get herb nowhere where it can be found, nor bring it, nor deal nor take on, under penalty of losing it, which shall be burnt in the public square.”
But the punishment wasn't limited to the incineration of the herb: Hernandarias also sentenced anyone who “smuggled or pretended to smuggle [the herb] into the city” to 100 lashes.
According to research by the National Institute of Yerba Mate, the average Argentinian consumes up to one hundred liters of mate each year:
En el país, las cifras del consumo del mate son elocuentes: una investigación del Instituto Nacional de la Yerba Mate indicó que los consumidores de la infusión ingieren un promedio de 100 litros anuales de mate. […] cada año se compran 240 mil toneladas de yerba mate, mientras que de café se compran 33.400 toneladas y 6 mil toneladas de té. […]
El mate contiene nutrientes y aporta diversos beneficios a la salud de sus consumidores. En primer lugar, la mateína, su compuesto principal, tiene propiedades energizantes que estimulan al sistema nervioso central, brindan lucidez intelectual y aumentan la concentración.
Además, la yerba mate fue revelada como un antioxidante más potente que el ácido ascórbico, de la Vitamina C. […]
Como si fuera poco, el mate aporta al organismo las vitaminas A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, C, E y hasta 15 aminoácidos.
In the country, the figures of the consumption of mate speak for themselves: a research by the National Institute of Yerba Mate found out that consumers of the infusion drink an average of 100 liters of ros mate per year. […] Each year, purchases of yerba mate are as high as 240,000 tons, compared to the 33,400 tons of coffee and the 6,000 tons of tea. […]
Mate contains nutrients and provides several benefits to the health of the consumers. In the first place, the xanthines (its main ingredient) has energizing attributes that stimulate the central nervous system, it provides intellectual clarity and enhances concentration.
Furthermore, the yerba mate is an antioxidant more powerful that the ascorbic acid, from Vitamin C. […]
And as if that weren't enough, mate provides the body with vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, C, E, and up to 15 amino acids.
As usual, the fans of mate used Twitter to express themselves:
¡FELIZ DÍA NACIONAL DEL MATE! Amargo, dulce, bien caliente y hasta lavado; el mate es el gran compañero de los argentinos. ¡Salud amigo!
— Nati de Lara ♥♪ (@NatideLara) December 1, 2015
Happy National Mate Day! Bitter, sweet, very hot even dipped; the mate is the great companion of Argentinians. Cheers!
Este 30 de noviembre Argentina celebró el Día Nacional del Mate, la bebida más popular del país #yerbamate . pic.twitter.com/jXAhyXLPkd — ATL Innovación (@ATLinnovacion) December 1, 2015
On November 30 Argentina celebrated the National del Mate, the most popular drink in the country.
Today is the first ever Día Nacional del Mate (national mate day). People celebrate it by drinking mate like every other day
— Barba Roja (@djmidwood) November 30, 2015

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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After Naysayers Call Him ‘Lewd’, Singaporeans Voice Their Support for American Singer Adam Lambert · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

More than 20,000 have signed an online petition asking state-owned TV company Mediacorp to uninvite American singer Adam Lambert from performing in Singapore’s New Year's countdown concert.
Adam Lambert performing in Singapore in 2010. Photo from Flickr page of KWSW (CC License)
The petitioners argue that Lambert might perform ‘lewd acts’ that could offend the concert audience and TV viewers. A counter petition supporting Lambert was also launched and has already gathered more than 24,000 signatures.
The original petition highlighted Lambert’s promotion of LGBT rights, which the petitioners claimed is “contrary to mainstream Singaporean values.”
Adam Lambert is hardly the kind of performer to send off our historic Jubilee Year or to usher in the New Year. His track record displays a flagrant disregard for the sensitivities of his audience – including whether or not children are watching. Singaporeans can enjoy a good show without their consciences being affronted by lewd acts in the name of entertainment. In addition, a simple online search would reveal that he is well-known for his active promotion of a highly sexualized lifestyle and LGBT rights, both of which are contrary to mainstream Singaporean values.
After it was criticized by the LGBT community, the text of the petition was edited by removing references on Lambert’s sexuality:
Unfortunately, our concerns to address the probability of lewd acts on a public platform have been downplayed and turned into yet another political LGBT rights issue.
A counter petition was launched by those who claim to be the ‘moral majority’ of Singapore in support of Lambert’s scheduled performance this month.
Please allow Adam Lambert to perform in Countdown 2016 to demonstrate to the whole world that Singapore is a country that shuns discrimination and promotes diverse inclusive points of view.
Responding to the petition against him, Lambert promised that his show will be a “thoughtful and sophisticated insight into the pursuit of happiness and self-worth.” His statement was released on Facebook by his music label:
My performance at Celebrate 2016 will not only be a spectacular one, it will celebrate the entire human family in all its diversity. I am a uniter, not a divider, and I believe in celebrating the human heart and spirit.
One of the early supporters of the petition against Lambert is Focus on the Family, a Christian charity organization:
Would you be okay with your children watching this? We, at Focus, support initiatives to promote healthy family entertainment. Join us as we strive to build a safer and more wholesome environment for our children.
The group is referring to some of Lambert’s shows in other countries which featured men kissing each other.
But Lambert’s supporters reminded his critics that the singer has performed twice in Singapore without generating controversy.
Nic Lim, administrator of an LGBT group in Singapore, urged the anti-Lambert petitioners not to focus on the sexual orientation of the singer:
To reduce a performer to his or her sexual orientation is not just offensive but degrading and unbecoming of a civilized society.
For activist writer Kirsten Han, she advised the petitioners to simply turn off the TV if they find Lambert’s performance not suitable for children:
…even if he does something you don’t condone and your kids happen to see it, you can always turn the television off and explain your point of view to them. That’s part of parenting, after all.
But some of those who signed the petition clarified that they are not against the sexuality of Lambert but only with his ‘lewd acts’ on stage.
Mediacorp announced the Lambert will proceed with his performance at the end of the month.
This issue once again highlighted some of the challenges faced by the LGBT community in Singapore, a society where sexual activity between men remains a criminal offense.


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Beijing’s ‘Airpocalypse’ Hits Record Levels as Toxic Smog Chokes City · Global Voices
Patrick Wong

Beijing blanketed in hazardous smog. November 30 became this year’s worst record, the same day that the UN climate change talks in Paris began. Image from United Nation's official Weibo.
“Beijing today…Smog. The United Nations Climate Change Conference will convene today. What do you expect?” asked the United Nations account on Chinese Twitter-like Weibo on November 30, the day that the much anticipated summit on climate change kicked off in Paris.
“The conference should be held in Beijing,” responded one Chinese netizen, referring to the short-lived blue skies that the city experienced during high-profile events  — like “Military Parade Blue” and “APEC Blue” — when the government ensured the air quality by shutting down factories and limiting the number of vehicles on the roads.
But once again, Beijing is shrouded in hazardous smog. The city registered the worst record of this year on November 30, with the PM 2.5 reading in some districts reaching almost 1000 μg/㎥, 100 times above what's considered healthy by the World Health Organization. The Chinese government has launched the orange alert — the third level of four tiers — instructing citizens to limit their outdoors activities and construction work, according to the Beijing Emergency Plan for Heavy Air Pollution.
PM 2.5 is fine particulate matter; its diameter is less than 20 percent of a single hair. Due to its size, it can enter the lungs, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases including lung cancer, stroke, and asthma.
The building of Central Television in Beijing shrouded in thick smog. Photo from Weibo's user @Yaba
As the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection shows that in the first half of 2015, the number of days when air quality fell within healthy limits was 55, eight more days year on year, and the density of PM 2.5 dropped by 15.2 percent. Beijing Mayor Wang Anshun has promised the control of PM 2.5 will reach 70 μg/cm² by 2017, according to central government’s pollution resolve plan in 2013.
At the Paris climate talks on November 30, Chinese President Xi Jinping resolved to “reduce carbon dioxide emissions to between 60-65% per GDP compared to 2005 and increase the amount of energy coming from non-fossil fuel sources by 20% by 2030.”
The yellow and brown sky reminded people of an independent documentary known as “Under the Dome” released this February by Chai Jing, a well-known journalist who used to work for state-run Chinese Central Television (CCTV). One netizen remarked:
辛辛苦苦盖的那些大高楼和地标建筑一夜之间全部消失，颤颤巍巍的走到路口却看不到马路对面的红绿灯到底是什么颜色。我就想问问牛逼的官员，当年为什么封杀柴静的人那么负责任，这治理雾霾的人怎么就能这么不负责？
Major skyscrapers and landmarks disappear overnight. I cannot for the life of me see what color the traffic lights at the opposite end of the road are. I want to ask some officials: Why was Chai Jing’s documentary censored so eagerly? And whoever did it, why did they decide that the issue of air pollution is so irresponsible?
Chai's documentary begins by recounting the operation her baby, born with benign tumor in 2013, had to undergo. Touched by her baby’s suffering, she staged an investigation with her own money into heavy industrial plants and the government's air pollution regulations, further revealing vested interests behind Petroleum China and Sinopec — two state-run energy tycoons monopolizing the domestic market. She made several visits to western countries like the United Kingdom and the United States to explore better ways of controlling the emission of pollutants.
For the first time, a Chinese journalist brought the issue of air pollution into the realm of public discussion, despite criticism of some scientific mistakes and lack of accurate statistical data in the film.
Fearing the potential public pressure the documentary could generate, censors later pulled the documentary from domestic websites, including government mouthpiece People’s Daily, and silenced the furious online discussion ahead of the annual sessions of the National People’s Congress.
Chai’s thought-provoking documentary exposed the vested interests of two domestic energy barons and the environment department’s lax enforcement of pollution limits on heavy industrial enterprises.
Chai’s investigation aside, it is rare to see in-depth coverage of those players who have an interest in keeping the environmental status quo in Chinese media, whose reports mostly focus on personal steps people can take to protect their health and the government’s measures on already smoggy days.
“Whether reports on haze or on other environmental issues, domestic media should bear the burden of responsibility,” a People’s Daily article pointed out last year, “to provide more scientific and deeper reports to public, and to make effort to present a good image of the country.”
Edward Wong, the Beijing bureau chief of The New York Times, suggested state-run Xinhua News Agency should make use of its status to dig deep into the reasons for the air pollution:
Xinhua should do journalism and use their 内参 to write public reports on vested interests behind the pollution. https://t.co/AnLr2OBv7h
— Edward Wong (@comradewong) December 1, 2015

author: Patrick Wong


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‘Cloud’ Jokes Aplenty After China Blamed for Australian Meteorology Bureau Hack · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Storm over Darwin Harbour. Courtesy Flickr user Geoff Whalan (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A cyber attack on Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has been blamed on Chinese hackers, sparking widespread online speculation as to the identity of the perpetrators and the implications of the breach. The common assumption is that ‘China’ and ‘Chinese’ mean the government of People's Republic of China in this case.
According to the ABC, the breach “will cost millions of dollars to plug the security breach, as other agencies have also been affected”:
The bureau owns one of Australia's largest supercomputers and provides critical information to a host of agencies.
Its systems straddle the nation, including one link into the Department of Defence at Russell Offices in Canberra.
China, for its part, has denied any involvement.
There was some lighthearted scepticism about the motives behind the attack:
Can anyone explain in 140 characters why anyone would want to hack the Bureau of Meteorology?
— Tim Kelly (@TimKofCanberra) December 2, 2015
Some social media users drew a connection between the security breach and the recent controversial proposal to sell the Australian Port of Darwin to a Chinese company. In addition to local criticism, the issue was raised by US President Barack Obama when he met new Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and leader of the Liberal National parties coalition.
Nice work from the Liberal National Party morons. #auspol #qt #China #BOM #Hacked #liberals pic.twitter.com/uGYbKMRfkX
— michael halliday777 (@michaelhallida4) December 2, 2015
The recently negotiated Free Trade Agreement between Australia and China (#CHAFTA) also took a hammering on Twitter:
Just wondering if they sold off Bureau of Meteorology in fine print #FTA or #Chafta ? Chinese seem to think so #auspol deals done dirt cheap
— mark dickenson (@bugwannostra) December 2, 2015
The China free trade agreement appears to apply to the data from the bureau of meteorology too #auspol #qt
— AshGhebranious (@AshGhebranious) December 2, 2015
Online IT specialist ZDNET was quick to point out that this may be part of a pattern, highlighting the intelligence sharing network Five Eyes to which Australia belongs:
China is regularly accused of conducting cyberattacks against the nations of the Five Eyes alliance — comprised the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Although no one seems to have taken the story as satire, it has been greeted with lots of humour, especially jokes about the weather:
China – hacking the Bureau of Meteorology doesn't transfer the smog out of Beijing #fyi
— Damian Haywood (@damianjh) December 2, 2015
Memo to China re: Bureau of Meteorology hack: Hack away mateys! You won't learn anything from the Melbourne weather prediction algorithm!
— Shane Rogers (@upshifted) December 2, 2015
China trying to steal our weather! https://t.co/L40chidScY via @abcnews
— David Olsen (@DDsD) December 2, 2015
Wordplay has been popular in online commentary, especially ‘cloud’ puns:
Has anybody made a joke about the Bureau of Meteorology hack and cloud storage yet
— Banju (@zoomosis) December 2, 2015
BoM hacked, I blame the cloud #security #humanquality #testing BBC News – Australia Bureau of Meteorology ‘hacked’ https://t.co/B3P7mfY6wv
— Anne Carter (@annecarter4) December 2, 2015
Author's mash-up of the People's Liberation Army flag (public domain) & Hacker Inside logo by Dagmar d'Surreal (CC BY-SA 3.0)
David Glance, director of the University of Western Australia's Centre for Software Practice, has examined ‘the who, what and how, of the hack’ at independent news and commentary site The Conversation:
If the hackers were state-sponsored Chinese hackers such as the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] Unit 61398, then the target of the hack would have been wide-ranging but possibly focused on information related to Australian defence and security services and capabilities.
…If the hack was done by the Chinese PLA, then it is unlikely that whatever security mechanisms are put in place will be completely effective in stopping a recurrence of this attack.
Dr. Malcolm Davis, assistant professor in China-Western relations at Bond University in Robina, Australia, speculated about the prospects for closer defence ties between the two countries:
#China unleases cyber attack the very week #ausdef-PLA relations enhanced. https://t.co/qTZ1tKSbd2 via @ABCNews
— Dr. Malcolm Davis (@Dr_M_Davis) December 2, 2015
Although everybody talks constantly down under about the weather, Bureau of Meteorology doesn't often trend on social media.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Fears of a Political Purge Grow in China as Editor and Professor Are Sacked for ‘Improper Discussion’ · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A new booklet on the Chinese Communist Party's New Disciplinary Rules. Image from Chinese state-owned media outlet China.com
Under the pretext of improving the management of its 88 million members, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced a new set of disciplinary rules on October 22, 2015.
The most controversial rule was against the “improper discussion of central government policy” (妄議中央), which could result in members being expelled from the party. Though the rule applies only to the CPC's members, some observers have theorized that it represents an effort by central leadership to consolidate its power by purging the party of dissent.
The first party corruption case based on the “improper discussion” rule involved the sacking of Xinjiang Daily editor-in-chief Zhao Xinwei in early November. The CPC accused him of making public comments criticizing the central government's anti-terrorism and anti-extremism policy in Xinjiang, a region home to the Muslim Uyghur minority where ethnic tensions between authorities and locals have erupted in violence since 2008. Zhao was expelled from the party and could face further criminal charges of corruption.
In a separate corruption investigation carried out by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, a number of top officials — including Zhou Benshun, former party secretary of Hebei Province, Yu Yuanhui, former party secretary of Nanning city in Guangxi Province, among others — have also been accused of “making public comments that go against the spirit of the central committee.”
Many opinion leaders have criticized the new “improper discussion” rule as hindering the development of “intra-party democracy”, the idea that China's single-party system could incorporate internal checks and balances based on deliberation and voting. Those who support the rule, on the other hand, argued that it will not affect society as it only applies to party members in order to protect the central authority's leadership.
Yet, as the majority of employees from the public sector, including media outlets, schools and universities, are party members, the rule's impact is potentially pervasive. Liang Xinsheng, the vice department head of the English Department at Lingnan Normal University in Zhanjiang city, was also sacked under the new rule for making comments on social media platform Weibo that allegedly defame the party and the country.
The rule is ambiguous in nature; the basic question of who judges what is inappropriate remains unanswered. In fact, those who raised that very question on social media saw their comment censored. Law professor He Weifang's post below, in which he mentions famous party members who were persecuted by the party's leadership, only to later be “rehabilitated” posthumously years later in recognition of the injustice, was among the deleted posts:
【妄议？谁做裁判】当年中央搞大跃进时，彭德怀提出质疑，算不算妄议？毛发动文化大革命，打倒刘少奇，当然也是中央大政方针，党员张志新表达不满，算妄议么？按当年对彭和张的处理，不仅是妄议，更属于反党和反革命。但最终却要为他们平反。我想问你：妄议或批评界限谁来划，争议谁来裁？
Improper discussion? When the Central Committee launched the Great Leap Forward [an economic campaign in the late 1950s and early 1960s that forced rural peasants to form agricultural collectives and give up private farming, which contributed to widespread famine], [senior military leader] Peng Dehuai questioned the policy. Is that improper discussion? When Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution and attacked [statesman] Liu Xiaoqi, it was central committee's policy. [Party member] Zhang Zhixin raised her voice in opposition. Is that improper discussion? Back then, the way the party punished Peng and Zhang, they were more than improperly discussing — they were anti-party or anti-revolution. But eventually, their persecution was rectified. So the question is: who defines what is improper or not? Who is the judge?
Many saw worrisome parallels between the “improper discussion” rule and the Anti-Rightist Movement (1957-59) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), both campaigns that sought to purge undesirables from the communist party. As the term “improper discussion” is newly invented, blogger Sima Dang traced its origin to a historical term — “criticism in public” (指斥乘輿). Similar to He Weifang, he feared the rule would be used as justification for widespread political persecution:
新中国成立后，为了巩固无产阶级专政政权，在1957年反右斗争中，把“指斥乘輿”范围扩大化，“凡是对本单位的党领导有意见就是反党，就是右派”。有不少右派不服气，说我又不是反对党中央，不过是对本单位领导有意见。回答是“党的领导不是抽象的，而是具体的，党中央的正确领导难道不是体现在本单位的党组织的领导中？” […]
又过了十年，出于打倒“走资派”的需要，“指斥乘輿”的范围大为缩小。1967年1月13日发布的“公安六条”，仅仅明确凡是“攻击污蔑伟大领袖毛主席和他的亲密战友林彪同志的，都是现行反革命。”此后，因“妄议”毛泽东和林彪的张志新、李九莲们被关押、被割喉、被枪杀的不计其数。
After the new China was established [in 1949], to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957 made extensive use of “criticism in public” — “anyone having an opinion on their working unit leaders is anti-party, and hence they are also rightist.” The rightists argued back that they were not against the Central Committee but just wanted to raise their opinions on their working unit's leaders. The answer they got was “party leadership is not abstract but concrete. Isn't the leadership of the Central Committee also embodied in the leadership of working unit's leadership?” […]
A decade later, in order to crack down on the bourgeoisie, “criticism in public” became more specific. On 13 January 1967, “Regulations on Strengthening Public Security during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” were announced. They specifically stated that “any attack and defamation of great leader Mao Zedong and his comrade Lin Biao is anti-revolutionary.” After that, Zhang Zhixin and Li Jiulian, among numerous others who participated in “improper discussion” of Mao Zedong and Lin Biao, were arrested, silenced and murdered.
The anxiety over a possible return of violent political struggle nationwide is reflected in the following satirical comment that went viral on Chinese social media platforms:
继党中央提出“不得妄议中央”以后，各级地方政府积极相应，相继提出“不得妄议省委”、“不得妄议市委”、“不得妄议县委”、“不得妄议乡党委”、“不得妄议村委会”等号召，把行动落到了实处。朋友圈也马上开始“你不得妄议我，我不得妄议你”运动！
After the party's Central Committee introduced “improper discussion of the Central Committee,” all level of governments have followed suit and introduced “improper discussion of the provincial committee,” “improper discussion of the county committee,” and “improper discussion of the village committee.” Let the new rule take effect. Among circles of friends, we will soon see campaigns of “mutually forbidden improper discussion.”
The satire isn't so far off the mark. Recently, a high school teacher named Zhang Aijia from Hubei province was fired for reposting a comment that mocked the online propaganda surrounding Xi Jinping's reading list. Even though Zhang did not make any comment of her own and the reposted comment did not mention Xi Jinping's name, the school was under political pressure to dismiss Zhang. All this dark humor risks turning into political reality.

author: Oiwan Lam