Global Voices » X – DO NOT USE

Spain: Electricity Cut Off for one School in Alicante

Jane Ellis — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:58:19 +0000

Power was cut off [ca] for 800 pupils in a secondary school in Alicante due to outstanding payments. The Valencian Community is currently mired in financial difficulties after years of extravagant spending. MPs Esther López Barceló [ca] from the United and Alternative Left and Mireia Mollà [ca] from the Coalicío Compromis, provided reactions to the news.

Francophone Africa: The Important Literary Contributions from Former Colonies

Solène TRETOUT — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:36:57 +0000

The Genevan blog of Rémi Mogenet, Le Savoyard de la Tribune, explains with supporting examples that [fr]: “Mythological African traditional stories have made a remarkable entrance into francophone literature”. He quotes the Mandika epic tale of Soundjata, written and published in French by Guinean D. T. Niane, as well as, for Cameroon, Au Pays des initiés by Gabriel Mfomo and La Marseillaise de mon enfance by Jean-Marton Tchaptchet, without forgetting L' Anthologie nègre by Blaise Cendrars.

France : Strike against the RFI - France 24 merger project

Solène TRETOUT — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:24:54 +0000

The blog Écrans, published on the online version of the daily French newspaper Libération, explains the issues [fr] of the merger of the RFI radio and the TV channel France 24 [fr] and its impact on the French public broadcasting system for international news. The RFI staff, worried about the radio station survival, extended the strike that begun on the 28th of November.

France: A tribute to Author Hubert Nyssen

Suzanne Lehn — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 08:52:00 +0000

French writer and publisher Hubert Nyssen [fr], who founded the publishing house Actes Sud, died on Nov. 12. 2011. Among the many tributes to this lover of foreign litteratures and eulogist of translation as a form of art, one can find Sabrina's post that retraces [fr] his biography, an unabridged version of the post she wrote in 2005.

Côte d'Ivoire: When Will the Universities Reopen?

Vivienne Griffiths — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:01:29 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage Côte d'Ivoire Unrest 2011.

[All links in are in French unless otherwise indicated]

During the post election crisis in Côte d'Ivoire [en], the country's three universities (Cocody, Abobo-Adjamé and Bouaké) were closed and the halls of residence cleared of their residents. While many Ivorians welcomed this measure at the time, today many are questioning the uncertainty surrounding the reopening of the universities.

The closures had two specific aims:

- To free up the rooms that were illegally occupied by non-students, especially members of the powerful, not to mention armed, Fédération Estudiantine et Scolaire de Côte d'Ivoire (Federation of Ivorian Students and Scholars)

- To renovate the buildings, which were in a serious need of repair.

The decaying state of Cocody University in Abidjan. Image by Alexenafrique, copyright Demotix (13/10/11).

Despite the fanfare that accompanied the beginning of the works, with visits from the Higher Education Minister Cissé Bacongo being reported across the Ivorian national media, the uncertainties surrounding the date when courses will finally resume were a source of concern for students, teachers and parents.

Construction at Cocody University, Abidjan, October 2011. Photo by author.

Over the last few days the debate has intensified on social networking sites, particularly on Twitter. Government minister Antoine Mian, a campaigner for IT and telecommunications in education, has underlined the risks of a prolonged university closure:

@MIANSEH: idleness is the root of vice #VICES and Ivorian students have been idle for the past 5 months. Hello #VICES #sosUniv #criseUniv #civ2010

Micro-bloggers have not been slow to ask the question directly to Alain Lobognon, one of the few Ivorian ministers to have an active Twitter account. Marc Antoine Hodonou demanded to know:

@Ceschod: just 1 question: has a date been set for the reopening of the U[niversity] campuses at #Ci225 ? #civ2010 #civ225

More pragmatically, Don Prince suggests a compromise solution allowing the works to continue and teaching to resume:

@princedonk: What I want to say is that classes can run while a part of the univeristy is under construction, if a little care is taken! #sosUniv

According to him, the Institut National Polytechnique Houphet Boigny (INP-HB) has already proved that this could work. This public, higher education institute based in Yamoussoukro (the political capital) has a faculty in Abidjan and its students were housed on the Cocody campus. As Don Prince points out, despite the closure of the Cocody campus, courses have carried on at the INP-HB:

@princedonk: Despite the university closures, the INPHB faculty at Cocody university has remained operational, example to follow #sosUniv

If this solution was rolled out across the universities, lecture halls and other rooms would be quickly put straight and the students could resume their courses again despite the campus closures.

For others, difficulties surrounding housing and transport at Abidjan encourage them to suggest other solutions, like distance learning. Hagger55 suggests:

@hager55: online teaching; video conferencing to catch up on years that have already begun @anarshy @Sanders225 #sosUniv #civ2010 for speed

But, in the absence of appropriate infrastructure and the lack of households with the required IT equipment, this solution is unlikely to succeed, as Stephane Kouakou points out :

@iamstephanek: Equipment levels? @hager55: on line teaching; video conferencing to catch up on years that have already begun @anarshy @Sanders225 #sosUniv

To reassure everyone, Alain Lobognon announced:

@MIANSEH: The date has been set. It will be made public start of November by the GOVT #ci225 We are avoiding past mistakes #civ2010

But he insisted on specifying:

@MIANSEH: The Universities wont be reopened hastily. Address problems before opening #ci225 #civ2010

The message is clear, Ivorian students need to be patient and consider alternative solutions like the private, higher education Grands Ecoles or civil service entry exams (civil service courses have not been interrupted).

This post is part of our special coverage Côte d'Ivoire Unrest 2011.

Catalonia: From Arab Spring To Islamic Autumn

Claire Ulrich — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:20:35 +0000

Pepe Nieto from SODEPAU, a Catalan international aid organization, published a post entitled: “From the Arab Spring to the Islamic Autumn“ [cat]. Nieco forecasts that political Islam will be the great benefactor of the recent events unfolding in the Arab world, after the elections in Tunisia and the statements from the new Libyan leaders. He adds that media should not be surprised by the turn of event given that similar outcomes took place in Algeria, Palestine and Turkey, where repressions never succeeded in stifling Islamic movements.

France: Calls for Official Recognition of 1961 Paris Algerian Massacre

Patricia Worth — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:13:20 +0000

On October 17, 1961, in the midst of the Algerian war, the security forces from the Paris Prefecture of Police, under orders from Maurice Papon, cruelly suppressed a peaceful demonstration in the city by Algerians organized by the Fédération de France du FLN (National Liberation Front) [fr] to protest against the curfew specifically imposed upon them.

According to the historian Jean-Luc Einaudi [fr], at least 200 people of Algerian origin were killed - either thrown from bridges, shot, or bludgeoned to death. The press statement from the police chief reported the next day two demonstrators dead and several injured.

Fifty years later, these reported figures are the object of a controversial argument between the historians [fr] Einaudi and Brunet, and are still played down [fr] by right-wing politicians and historians, amid a deafening official silence.

17 October, 1961, tribute by illicomache on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

The later police charge on the Charonne metro station on 8 February, 1962, which left eight dead, received much more attention. Now, people everywhere are speaking out and calling for the French government's admission of the 1961 tragedy.

Calls for government admission

On 12 October, 2011, the website Mediapart launched its online ‘Call for the official admission of the tragedy of 17 October 1961 in Paris‘ [fr], signed by a number of personalities as well as the full contingency of the French political left. The petition is still open:

The time has come for an official acknowledgement of this tragedy, the memory of which is as much French as Algerian. The forgotten victims of 17 October 1961 were working, residing, living their lives in France. We owe them this basic justice, that of remembering.

This 17 October (2011) some of the press were on the same wavelength. Le Monde.fr published online previously unseen photos [fr] from 1961, while OWNI published ”accusing archives from the Prefecture of Police” [fr] under the heading “A French Shame 17 October 1961″, and on OWNI.eu, a graphic of the arrests made on that day.

Public radio service FranceInter devoted its broadcast “The March of History” to “The Police and North Africans in France, 1945-1961″, available on podcast here [fr], and France-Culture called its special report [fr] “The scar of the suppression of 17 October 1961″.

In an opinion piece published by Rue 89, the American historian Robert Zaretsky wrote [fr] as an introduction to his detailed account of the day of 17 October, 1961, and of its aftermath:

On 17th October, Nicolas Sarkozy's Gaullist government will not be aware of the fiftieth anniversary of a murderous event, shrouded in silence and confusion even today, that sheds crucial light on the complex relationship between the past and present, between the French and the Algerians in contemporary France.

In an interview with the historian of French colonialism, Gilles Manceron, the site bastamag.net tried to clarify the reasons [fr] for the French government's silence. According to Manceron, there had been a real desire to cover it up; he explains how the veil has gradually been lifted:

This was done on several occasions. In 1972, in his book La Torture dans la République (Torture in the Republic), Pierre Vidal-Naquet recalls the massacres of October 1961: “In 1961, Paris had been the scene of a real pogrom.” On 17 October 1980, Libération devoted a special report of several pages to it, entitled, “19 Years ago: a racist massacre in the centre of Paris”. In 1981, for the twentieth anniversary, Libération returned to the fray, followed by Le Monde. And for the first time, the events of 17 October 1961 have been discussed on television: Antenne 2 broadcast a report from Marcel Trillat and Georges Mattéi. In 1984, the novel by Didier Daeninckx, Meurtres pour mémoire (Murders for the record), also looked back on these events.

But it was so preposterous that these writings had no effect. It seemed implausible. Then came the 1990s, with the publication of the key work by Jean-Luc Einaudi, La Bataille de Paris – 17 octobre 1961 (The Battle of Paris - 17 October 1961), and the release of the film by Mehdi Lallaoui, Le Silence du fleuve (The Silence of the River). Young people who were children of immigrants picked up on this issue. All these factors and the different players led to the truth finally re-emerging.

Blogger BiBi was made aware of these events when reading Meutres pour mémoire, and commented [fr]:

Through those in power, France makes herself an arrogant sermoniser on history, the most recent lesson coming from Sarkozy. He rants and raves about the Turks and the Armenian genocide but there's no doubt at all that he has forgotten the murders perpetrated on 17 October 1961, the day when French Police, under orders from a certain Police Chief from the Seine by the name of Maurice Papon, threw Algerian opponents into the Seine when they came to protest against the unjust curfew which affected only them.

On the Bondy Blog, Chahira Bakhtaoui provides a commentary on a documentary [fr] by Yasmina Abdi, Ici on noie les Algériens (Here they drown Algerians), and Sarah Ichou interviewed [fr] her grandmother who was 27 years old at the time of the massacre, and her aunt who was eight:

When did you know what had happened? The next day and the following days, because there was no television. We knew then that there had been some deaths, that they had thrown Algerians into the Seine. I remember the sadness of the people surrounding me. Some men who went to demonstrate for their country, their independence and rights were killed and tossed into the water. So, it was dreadful, but we only learned of all this afterwards, that there had been dozens and dozens of deaths. It was the period of French Algeria. But everything I'm telling you is only the memories of a little girl 8 years old. I didn't know much about politics, but I did know that there was a war on, that we had to demonstrate for our country; I would hear it from the adults. I was living in this climate with my parents. I just have this memory of fear from this day, 17 October 1961. The proof that I remember it, is that it made a deep impression on me. In any case, in demonstrations there are always people who come to take revenge, to kill, to do whatever, because normally a demonstration is peaceful. People go to demonstrate for their rights and not to get themselves killed. On the other hand, those who came to kill didn't come to demonstrate. Those people are racists, they came because there was an Algerian demonstration, because there were Arabs, nobodies, so they needed to be dropped into the water, a page from history that's sad but unfortunately it's like that in all wars. That's the problem.

Médiapart has put online a map of the demonstrations [fr] that took place to mark the anniversary in France.

In Algeria, where a commemorative stamp has been issued, Akram Belkaïd on Slate Afrique recalls the Massacre d'État (State Massacre) [fr] and Afrik.com, the Nuit oubliée (Forgotten Night) [fr].

The editorial writer of El Watan meanwhile hopes [fr] to see “After denial, admission”, but it's October 1988 [date of democratic reform riots in Algeria] that another news writer remembers [fr], quoted by Courrier International.

@Celestissima was the source of several links in this post.

This text has been abridged and edited for English speaking audience.

France: Towards an Admission of the 17 Octobre 1961 Suppression?

Carol Osborne — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:10:18 +0000

The blog Le Petit Blanquiste recounts [fr] the peaceful demonstration by Algerians in Paris, on 17 October 1961, which was suppressed in blood, and the media reactions of the time. After 50 years of near silence, there are emerging signs of an admission of fault.

Russia: Bloggers' Summer of Civic Actions

Daniel Alan Kennedy — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:13:24 +0000

Although August is traditionally considered a quiet month in Russia, the country's Internet has been alive with hundreds and thousands of people taking part in a number of social actions. On Saturday August 6, 2011, an event took place which had been months in the planning: ‘Bloggers Against Garbage.'

‘Bloggers Against Garbage'

The instigator of the action was popular travel-blogger Sergei Dolya, who has not previously been noted for his social activism. He had the idea to organise a large group of Russian-language bloggers to clean up garbage in the places they lived. This is how Dolya phrased [ru] the goal of the action:

Я прошу вас очнуться и решить для себя раз и навсегда, равнодушны лично вы к вопросам чистоты и порядка в месте, в котором вы живете, или нет.

Я объездил 65 стран, и только в самых бедных из них люди не заботятся о внешнем виде своих городов и поселений. Нам еще нужно много сделать и пережить, чтобы наше общество стало ставить в приоритет аккуратность, рациональное отношение к ресурсам, чтобы каждый уважающий себя человек считал своим долгом сделать замечание нарушающему порядок. Но это общество состоит из нас с Вами. Давайте начнем уже сегодня понемногу менять ситуацию и, может быть, к нашей старости мы будем знать, что мы с вами выиграли самую коварную войну – войну со своим безразличием.

Акция «Блогер против мусора» - это шаг, который, как мне кажется, способен запустить сложный механизм борьбы с самим собой за право жить в чистом и цивилизованном мире…

I ask you to come to your senses and decide for yourselves once and for all whether or not you care about the cleanliness and order of the place that you live in.

I've been to 65 countries and only in the very poorest of them do people not care for the external appearance of their towns and settlements. We still have a lot to do and work though in order for our society to start making rational attitudes towards resources a priority, so every self-respecting person considers it their duty to make comments that challenge the prevailing order. But this society is composed of us and you. Let's start changing the situation a little today and maybe when we are old, we'll know that you and I won the most insidious war: the war with our own apathy.

The action “Bloggers against Garbage” is one step, I think, which can start off a difficult fight with our own selves for the right to live in a clean and civilised world.

Bloggers not just in Russia, but also in neighbouring countries responded to the action. Moreover, it was supported by a multitude of sponsors, including companies such as Beeline (popular Russian mobile carrier), Lenovo, Coca-Cola, DHL, Kaspersky Labs (well known Russian anti-virus company), Dymov (Russian meatpacking company), the retail chain Respublica and many others. The company News Outdoor advertised the action and the factory ‘Nova Roll' provided the participants with free garbage bags. Participants were also provided with t-shirts, bandanas, gloves and signs with the slogan “No More Garbage Here.”

This map shows the cities where the action took place:

Map of cities where the 'Bloggers Against Garbage' action took place, by Sergei Dolya.

Here is a short but telling list of statistics which Sergei Dolya provided [ru]:

В акции приняли участие 16 тысяч человек в более чем 120 городах России.

Собрали около 25 тысяч мешков мусора по всей стране, т.е. примерно 200 тонн.

В качестве организаторов было привлечено 439 человек координаторов

На подготовку и проведение акции было потрачено 11 млн. 568 500 рублей.

16,000 people in more than 120 cities in Russian participated in the action

About 25,000 bags of garbage were gathered in the whole country, approximately 200 tonnes.

439 people got involved as organisers

11,568,500 Russian roubles [387,800 US dollars] were spent on preparations and implementation of the action.

A special community, blogerprotiv [ru] collected posts reporting on how the action went in different cities. The event united different political forces: members of Yabloko, Molodaya Gvardia, the National Bolsheviks and other parties and movements all took part in it. In several regions the action was headed by governors, for example, in the city of Blagoveshchensk, Governor Oleg Kozhemyako came [ru] to help the fight against rubbish. In the city of Vladimir, Mayor Sergei Sakharov also came [ru] to the action.

From numerous reports it became clear that ‘Bloggers Against Garbage' had attracted more than just bloggers, and that in many places they were actually in the minority. With the exception of one case [ru], where bad organisation of the cleaning process and the unfamiliarity with the phenomenon of volunteering played a negative role, the action went off peacefully and without problems everywhere.

Greatest civic action of bloggers?

Summing up the results of a successfully carried out action to clean up rubbish, Sergei Dolya wrote [ru]:

Акция “Блогеры против мусора” войдет в историю российского интернета как крупнейшая гражданская акция блогеров. Никогда до этого на улицу одновременно не выходило такое количество интернет-жителей.

The action ‘Bloggers Against Garbage' will go down in the history of the Russian Internet as the greatest civic action of bloggers. Until now, there has never been such a collection of Internet-citizens heading onto the streets at one time.

Well known blogger Anton Nossik shared Dolya's view [ru]:

Совершенно однозначно так, если говорить об оффлайновых акциях. Может быть, в каких-то сборах подписей или денег больше народу участвовало, но физически на улицы через Интернет столько народу выводили только в Каире

It's unambiguously the case if we're talking about offline actions. Perhaps more people participated in some sort of signature collection or fundraising action, but in terms of people physically coming out on the streets thanks to the Internet, only in Cairo were this many people coming out.

However, ‘Bloggers Against Garbage' did not inspire such enthusiasm and support in everyone. A couple of bloggers expressed the opinion that such an action could only cause harm, in as far as tax-payers were starting to carry out government work, which their taxes should have been paying for:

Что собственно произошло? Несколько тысяч человек пошли убирать кал в своих населенных пунктах. То есть простые люди платящие налоги и коммунальные платежи пошли выполнять работы этих самых чиновников и служб. Милейший Доля делает вид, что он не знает - это прямая обязанность городских властей. И делая наивное лицо заявляет - то, что мы денег немеряно платим за поддержание чистоты в городах - фигня. А давайте мы еще и работу за них начнем выполнять – пишет блогер piligrim67.

What happened here? A couple thousand people went to clean up excrement in their towns and villages. These are normal people paying taxes and local charges who went and carried out the work of the civil servants. Sweet little Dolya pretends he doesn't realise that this is the straightforward responsibility of municipal authorities and feigning naivete, he announces that the massive money we pay towards keeping the cities clean isn't worth a damn. Why don't we start doing even more of their jobs - writes [ru] blogger piligrim67.

Garbage removal men sleep as bloggers collect rubbish in a St Petersburg park. Photo from blogerprotiv on LiveJournal.

Some bloggers have pointed out that one-time actions to clean up rubbish cannot help fix the situation with regards to environmental pollution. Many bloggers proposed increasing the punishment for despoiling nature:

Почему бы нашим законотворцам не придумать что-то по настоящему мотивирующее задумываться. Например, ужесточить наказания. Тем, кто не попал бычком в урну - отрубать руку, кто не донес мусор до контейнера - 25 лет лагерей, а любителям плевать жвачку на асфальт - обрезать язык. Я, конечно, утрирую, но почему-то кажется, что только такие меры способны заставить мусорящую биомассу пораскинуть мозгами прежде чем нагадить - пишет блогер i-narodny.

Why can't our lawmakers come up with some way of making [litterers] reconsider. For example, increasing the punishments. Those who don't throw their cigarette butts in the bin can have their hands cut off. Those who don't take their rubbish to a container can get 25 years in a [prison] camp, and those who love to spit chewing gum on the ground can have their tongues cut out. I am of course, exaggerating, but why does it seem that only these measures are capable of forcing litterbugs to think about the planet before they befoul it - writes [ru] blogger i-norodny.

Blogger amuzzz published [ru] photographs of places in Losiny Ostrov National Park in Moscow, which were cleaned by bloggers the previous evening and had subsequently been littered and vandalised again:

Torn up sign in Losiny Ostrov. Photo from blogger amuzzz.

Думаю, что зря отменили обязательные субботники в учебных заведениях. Мусора стало больше, а ответственности мусорящие теперь никакой не ощущают. Обидно. - пишет в конце своего поста блогер amuzzz.

I think that they should not have canceled these compulsory subbotniks [en] [days of voluntary work] in our schools. There is now more rubbish, and litterers responsible now cannot be caught out. It's disgraceful - writes blogger amuzzz at the end of his post.

The organiser of the action, Sergei Dolya responded [ru] to the doubts of bloggers:

Одноразовая акция не имеет смысла. Их надо проводить регулярно. Я думаю, что следующую акцию мы проведем весной, а пока мы займемся установкой урн в городах и пинанием местных администраций на тему ликвидации нелегальных свалок.

One-time actions make no sense. They need to be carried out regularly. I think we will carry out the next action in spring, but for the time being, we will be setting up bins in the cities and prodding local administrators on the issue of liquidating illegal dumping.

A summer of civil actions

Several other notable actions were taking place at the same time as ‘Bloggers Against Garbage.' The website fursenko.net [ru] was launched, where several participating groups, in particular, the Russian Students' Union, the movement “Education for All,” the union of workers from the Russian Academy of Sciences and others, collected signatures for the dismissal of the country's Minister of Science and Education, Andrei Fursenko.

In the manifesto published on the website, the organisers wrote:

НЕВОЗМОЖНО БОЛЬШЕ терпеть воровство чиновниками сотен миллиардов бюджетных рублей и бремя тотальной бытовой коррупции в детсадах, школах, вузах, научных центрах! НЕВОЗМОЖНО БОЛЬШЕ терпеть кумовство, клановость, непрофессионализм и некомпетентность, процветающие в управлении образованием и наукой!

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to further tolerate the thieving of hundreds of billions of roubles from the state budget by civil servants and the burden of total day-on-day corruption in kindergartens, schools, universities and scientific centres! IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to further tolerate the nepotism, croneyism, unprofessionalism and incompetence thriving in our institutions of learning and science!

Recently, the latest chapter of the analytical document ‘Power of the Families. Government - 2011‘ [ru] was published, focusing on Minister Fursenko [ru] and analyzing his influence on business and links to corruption. By the start of August, over 17,000 signatures had been collected for his dismissal.

Blogger Ilya Varlamov (zyalt) meanwhile is continuing to fight against illegal parking. He reports [ru] that on August 8, in the Public Chamber, a “hotline” was started on this theme, as a result of the project ‘A Country Without Idiocy.' The hotline will operate from August 21. Varlamov calls on all to use the telephone number 8-800-700-800 to report the illegal “columns, chains and ribbons that have encircled our city.”

Young Yabloko members have opened the website Ушахиди.рф [ushahidi.rf], which aims to ensure regulation of the upcoming elections in Russia. Time will tell if this website is successful; for now, the only problems are that the address of the site can only be typed in Cyrillic letters and no mirror of the website exists yet.

According to the most recent VTsIOM report [ru], Internet-users already account for 53 percent of Russia's population, and their participation in social action grows every day. Having taken the first step - taking part in a garbage clean-up - some citizens may want to take the following step, participating in a “clean-up” of political rubbish.

Russia: Ministry's Online Blunders

Siân Sinnott — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:27:20 +0000

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) has recently started to mobilise on the Internet and in the past weeks two important events have taken place online to draw attention to the Ministry's activities.

The VKontakte group

On May 18, 2011, the MVD announced the creation of an the department's official group [ru] on the popular social network VKontakte, a site similar to Facebook.

The moderator of this community goes by the name of Uncle Styopa, a character whose image, thanks to Soviet cartoons and books, is a positive one for many generations of Russian citizens. The aim of the group, as stated by the page's profile is to “unite those who have a connection to the police, the interior forces and other units of the MVD of the Russian Federation or anyone else who is interested in their activities.”

Image from the official MVD group on the site "Vkontakte". Top caption reads: "In Service of the Law. We Serve the People", and lower caption: "The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation".

However, in comments made to the Itar-Tass news agency a representative of the MVD stated [ru], that the group's aim was to “organise new channels of information and communication which will allow for contact to be established with those who practically bypass traditional channels such as television, radio, and print news and who prefer to receive new information and socialize via their favourite social network.”

Twelve thousand people have already joined the group in just a short period of time. So far the group's increasing numbers are not particularly interesting: the group's official news feed on the MVD's activities has been republished in the form of quotes taken from the original site or news agencies, in other words without any adaptation of its officious language to a younger audience. For example: “The Realisation of Composite [Investigative] Measures”; this language is not of great value when communicating with an Internet audience, and even less so with the young users of Vkontakte.

Unfortunately, the absence of unique content is unlikely to be able to retain the audience which has been gathered so far, nor will it capture the interest of newer members.

However, the MVD's representative states the contrary: “The selection of the social resource which lies at the basis of the groups creation was no accident. Using young rhetoric, common phrases and expressions and vibrant personalities, the ministry purposefully obtained the support of the youngest and most active part of the country's population since, after all, the average age of the users of “Vkontakte” is 18 to 25 years.”

Search conducted at police-russia.ru creator's office

On the same day, May 18, two events took place that had a connection with both the Internet and the MVD. The MVD's Internal Security Service led a search of the office of a senior inspector of the Department for the Coordination of Government Spending of the Russian MVD, a Russian police major named Dmitri Vorobyev.

Vorobyev, according to the commander of the Department of Internal Security MVD (see here for the official order on the carrying out of the search), “had created a site called police-rassian.ru, in order to counter the official site of the Russian MVD” where, according to Draguntsov, “false or slanderous data was knowingly hosted regarding the employees of the Central Apparatus of the Russian MVD. The site explained the specific activities of the different subdivisions of the Russian MVD, which are not to be published in readily accessible sources of information, and in an insulting form criticized the Ministry's work.”

These arguments formed the basis for the decision to carry out the search in Dmitri Vorobyev's work office, which, to all appearances, was carried out in order to find additional ‘evidence' for the case about his criminal doings.

Within the limits of the search the police were assigned the task of “inspection, studying and removal of articles”, including electronic media, documents concerning illegal activities, which in practice means removal of the computer's hard disk, all other disks, flash drives and other media as well as piles of paper and even books, which more often than not bear no relation to the case. [I speak from the experience of many of my friends who have had searches carried out in cases of so-called political extremism].

An extract from the police order. Screenshot from the website Police-Russia.ru.

The most interesting thing is that the site that is being talked about in conjunction with this decision does not actually exist under the domain police-rassian.ru.

Dmitri Vorobyev, in actual fact, is the creator of the police forum police-russia.com [ru], which is also available at the domains police-russia.ru, police-russia.com, militia-russia.ru.

Whoever wrote what appeared in the decision-making process for the search could not even correctly indicate the site's name. Yet another question which has been brought up is the spelling of the country's name - the second mistake afforded by the document.

The forum police-russia.com has existed for a long time and is a popular place for MVD and other security service employees to discuss and exchange opinions. Often normal citizens join in discussions, such as those following the Dissenters' March in 2006 and 2007, which ended in a strong crackdown on demonstrators.

On the forum there was a big discussion between the workers of the Special Purposes Police Unit (OMON) and the marchers who tried to discuss why there is always a crackdown, however law abiding they are and however properly the employees of the Security Services act during the crackdown. This discussion (which has now unfortunately been removed from the forum [ru]) was very important and showed that the demonstrators had a direct conversation with those who were ordered to hit them.

It is interesting that this forum became a place where allegations of corruption and acts of law breaking within the MVD were published. In this respect, on April 22, 2011, the thread “Corruption in the MVD's Support Division” was published, with a reference to the appeals [ru] from the workers of the Support Division to the country's leadership with discussions regarding the billions embezzled through government purchase contracts for MVD needs.

Public relations ‘vertical' vs bottom-up initiatives

This is a comment [ru] from a current MVD employee and a participant in the forum, about the order to conduct the search and the attempt to bring a criminal case against the creator of the forum:

The creation of the forum to counterbalance the official MVD site does not contradict the existing legal system. The forum's aim was not to spread lies or offensive data in relation to the Central Apparatus of the MVD. The individuals who spread such data bear the responsibility regardless of whatever site it was distributed on. Therefore, the site's creators cannot be responsible for any offensive language or slander written by one of the site's users. Find those who spread it. An explanation of the specific procedures of the MVD subdivisions can be accessed openly in textbooks on legal procedure, criminal investigation, the MVD's administrative work etc. In the forum secret government data was not expanded upon and had appeared accidentally before being quickly removed by the administration.

Transparency, as a principle of the work of our government, is one stipulated by our Constitution and by the law on government service. The suppression of transparency is a direct encroachment on the legal foundation of the country where you live. Your decision is unlawful. We would like to forewarn you that the regular participants in the forum are not only MVD employees but simple citizens, the mass media and deputies of the Duma who serve the government of the Russian Federation and its Constitution. Unlawful attempts to close the forum or persecute their creators could incite people to turn to the General Prosecutor's body, the State Duma, the President of the Russian Federation, international organisations, including group and mass acts of protests. I call on you to prevent unlawful actions. Your challenge to propose a way of leading negotiations has been set.

The reaction of the activists on the forum at the attempt to close it down and put pressure on its creators was interesting. By a way of a counter action the particpants began discussing registering the forum as a non-profit organisation and including former employees of the MVD. One of the participants of the forum, Plastun wrote [ru]:

With a such resistance movement it would be more efficient to oppose [the attempts of closure], since such associations would be able to defend members' rights by representing their interests in law-enforcement bodies whatever their level and to defend the rights of those who still work, simply by receiving information about rights infringements and making a claim on their behalf.

In reply to this, the creator of the forum clarifies [ru] ”This idea is already in motion I would say”.

And so what will we get as a result? An uninteresting, boring group on the social network Vkontakte, created by official MVD structures and an attempt to shut down and pressure the lively and interesting forum of MVD employees. Alas, this is a widespread bureaucratic practice, as one of the participants, Begemot, noted [ru]:

There is a police PR department. It is a powerful organization of several thousand employees, with salaries and full expenses which has, at least, twenty to thirty experienced specialists who occupy themselves with backing the online image of the MVD. […] At one point in time a lieutenant colonel [Vorobiev] […] creates a site which gathers a group of like-minded people, with only a pitiful budget (in ministry terms) and the site becomes the COUNTERBALANCE for the whole bulky official MVD site, which cost… but yes we're not talking about money and neither is it the question at hand. The question is a person. And a professional. […] A first class professional who had established, almost single-handedly and almost without a budget, the competition to the whole MVD department!

Uganda: Press Freedom Diminishing as Elections Near

Mark Jordahl — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:02:27 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.

Uganda walks a fine line when it comes to press freedom. At times, it is amazing the things that journalists are allowed to write or broadcast in criticism of the government. Then, suddenly, someone will cross that fine line and find himself or herself in jail, or worse. Many see a steady decline in press freedom in Uganda, particularly with the 2011 elections approaching.

International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) reported on two journalists beaten while covering a campaign rally in Lira in January:

Lira, 22/Jan/2011 - Michael Kakumirizi, a “Red Pepper” publications photojournalist, was mobbed by suspected supporters of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party while covering an opposition presidential candidate's campaign rally in the Lango sub-region.

Francis Tumwekwasize, a former WBS TV journalist now affiliated with the Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) Press Unit, was also beaten. The IPC is a coalition of opposition political parties that nominated retired Colonel Dr. Kiiza Besigye as their candidate for the Ugandan presidency.

The journalists were roughed up by the suspected NRM supporters, who accused them of taking their pictures while they were allegedly bribing voters at the Aloi Police Post, in the newly created Alebeatong district, in an attempt to keep residents away from Dr. Kizza Besigye's 19 January rally in the area. When a camera flash went off, the NRM supporters realised that there were journalists among a group of residents they had called to the Aloi Police Post to receive money.

In a more recent release, Human Rights Watch and IFEX draw attention to 16 activists and journalists who have been arrested and harassed for spreading a petition asking the 330 Members of Parliament to return questionable payments of up to 20 million Ugandan shillings (about $9,000) they have received in the last two weeks from the ruling party to “monitor government programs.” Widely seen as a bribe, the money was released at a time when the Ugandan government has already spent 85% of its budget halfway through the fiscal year. About a quarter of the national budget was disbursed in January alone, the month before the elections.

Human Rights Network for Journalists (HRNJ-Uganda) published a statement from the Pakistan Press Foundation condemning an attack by Special Force Guards on a television correspondent who filmed an altercation at a campaign venue:

Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), an independent non-governmental institution committed to promoting and defending freedom of expression, is concerned about the detention of Masaka based NTV Uganda correspondent Issa Aliga by the Special Forces Group (the bigger presidential protection unit SFG) for filming a scuffle involving Rwemiyaga area Member of Parliament Theodore Ssekikubo ahead of President Museveni’s campaign rally.

…While filming he was roughed up and man-handled by four Special Force Guards personnel who confiscated his camera. He was pushed here and there on accusation of filming an event without permission. He was taken to their bus and interrogated for some minutes. After interrogation, he was released and his pleas to get his camera back fail on deaf ears. He was then ordered to go through the usual security checks and attend a campaign rally like any other voters. His mobile phone was also switched off.

The Committee to Protect Journalists highlighted two incidents, in August and November of 2010, involving radio reporters being detained and harassed by the police:

On November 3, 2010, four armed men kidnapped Nzito, a 23-year old Radio Simba reporter who covered crime and occasionally opposition parties, and threw him into a pickup truck with tinted windows. “I spent 10 days locked in a dark room with my hands and legs handcuffed and remained on the floor. I was not given any real meals or food. The army men would come and scare me in the night,” he told CPJ. Assailants using the same truck eventually dumped Nzito outside the capital, Kampala, according to local journalists. His release came a day after HRNJ-Uganda filed a habeas corpus in court compelling the army commander, the attorney general, and the head of a security agency to produce the journalist. HRNJ-Uganda said its investigations determined that the journalist had been in the custody of Uganda's Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force.

Nzito told CPJ he frequently experiences nightmares now. “I have been dreaming about dark rooms, beatings and being held at gunpoint.”

Frank, a reporter with the U.S.-based online station Radio Free Buganda, suffered a similar misfortune in August 2010 after covering the 17th anniversary of the coronation of Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, the ruler of Uganda's most powerful traditional kingdom representing the Baganda, the country's largest ethnic group…

…The government was not happy to hear that Radio Free Buganda was broadcasting the festivities. After the local newspapers Ggwanga and Buganda Post published stories about Frank's live broadcasts, he said he began to receive anonymous phone calls. Then, four men stormed Frank's home who took away his wireless Internet modem and computer. The next day, men Frank believed to be security agents detained him for six hours, seized his mobile phones, and pressed him to reveal whom he worked with and how much was paid. “I am scared for my life because all of my contacts were in my phones and other crucial information.”

It seems that the reductions in freedoms may also ripple out beyond the mainstream media outlets. According to AllVoices, Uganda's Assistant Inspector General of Police, Asan Kasingye, has announced that the police will be monitoring social media such as blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter during the elections:

[Asan Kasingye] said that it is possible that hate messages and inflammatory statements could be exchanged on Facebook and Twitter and so the police are monitoring them to guard against riots.

Kasingye claims that during the 2009 Buganda riots, some social media were used to stir up the population and cause widespread unrest.

Kasingye doesn’t explain the extent of the monitoring or how it will guard against infringement on personal rights of expression and privacy.

This is the first election in which social media has played an important role.

Political parties and candidates used Facebook to fundraise for campaigns and the Internet to raise their profiles locally and internationally.

This increasing harassment of journalists in Uganda has the potential to greatly impact coverage in this election season, and closer monitoring by the police may make it hard for the voices of citizens to be heard through social media. A free press is one of the hallmarks of a healthy democracy, and as that pillar erodes, it will weaken every other aspect of this nation.

This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.

Africa: Condoms Finally Authorized Conditionally by The Pope

Lynn Palermo — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:19:27 +0000

The news spread around the world in a matter of minutes. In a book released on November 23, Pope Benedict XVI declared that “in certain cases, when the intention is to reduce the risk of contamination, [the condom] can even be a first step toward opening the way to a more humane sexuality, lived differently.” He gave this response to the question(fr)* , “Is the Catholic Church fundamentally against the use of condoms?”

According to several observers, this response marks sea change in the Pope's vision on contraception: until now, for the Church, abstinence was the only way to limit births or to prevent the spread of illness through sexual activity. The Church opposed any other form of contraception and condemned the use of condoms, even to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STD).

Until now, the many activists and religious Catholics involved in the fight against AIDS had to choose between disobeying the Church or limiting their activity to helping people already infected. Thus they could not work to prevent AIDS, only hope to prolong life after the infection struck.

Earlier, during a trip to Cameroon and Angola in March 2009, the Pope had declared that the use of condoms “aggravated” the problem of AIDS. His words, spoken in the airplane, provoked an outcry worldwide and caused embarrassment to Catholic organizations engaged in the fight against AIDS.

Photo by parousie on medial.photobucket.com

Reactions were heated. têtu.com presented a few of them:

Des groupes polémiques tels que «Je porte plainte contre le pape, me soutenez vous?» ou encore «Vivement que le pape soit une femme vraie ou fausse» sont apparus.

Désormais, tous les dimanches est organisé un lâcher de préservatifs devant le parvis de l'Église Saint-Eustache à Paris, pour une opération nommée «une capote pour le pape». L'action consiste à gonfler un maximum de préservatifs et à les lâcher dans le ciel. D'autres ont eu l’idée de remplir les urnes des églises avec des prophylactiques. Le projet le plus fou est celui qui consiste à envoyer un maximum de capotes par courrier, de façon à obstruer le petit bureau de poste du Vatican. »

Polemical groups, such as, “I'm going to sue the Pope, will you support me?” or “I can't wait for a woman Pope, real or fake” were created.

From now on, in an operation called “a condom for the Pope,” we will hold a condom release every Sunday on the steps of Saint-Eustache Church in Paris, Activists will inflate condoms and release them into the air. Other activists thought of filling urns in churches with prophylactics. The craziest plan was to mail the Pope enough condoms to paralyze the Vatican post office.

In Cameroon, Jean Marcel Bougereau of the Mouvement camerounais pour le plaidoyer à l'accès aux traitements (Cameroonian Movement for Access to Treatment) commented:

Ce n’est plus Benoit XVI, c’est Gaston Lagaffe. Un Gaston Lagaffe réactionnaire. On se souvient de celle gaffe, énorme, proférée à la veille de son voyage en Turquie (Il avait cité un empereur byzantin disant que les enseignements de Mahomet étaient “mauvais et inhumains”), il y eut plus récemment la réintégration de l’évêque intégriste – et négationniste – Williamson, l’homme qui croyait à l’immaculée conception mais demandait des preuves pour les chambres à gaz ! Il y eut plus récemment encore l’inhumaine ‘excommunication d’une petite fille brésilienne de 9 ans qui avait été violée par son beau-père, ainsi que des médecins qui lui ont sauvé la vie en la faisant avorter, comme si pour l’Eglise le corps de la femme, et là d’une enfant, n’était que le réceptacle passif des spermatozoïdes masculins.

He's no longer Benedict XVI, he's Gaston Lagaffe. A reactionary Gaston Lagaffe. Think of his enormous blunder, pronounced on the eve of his trip to Turkey (he had cited a Byzantine emperor who had said that the teachings of Mohammad were “bad and inhumane”). And more recently, the reintegration of Williamson, the fundamentalist and negationist bishop who believed in the immaculate conception but demanded proof for the gas chambers! And even more recently and more inhumane, the excommunication of a nine-year-old Brazilian girl who had been raped by her step-father. The doctors who saved her life by performing an abortion were also excommunicated, as though for the Church, a woman's body, or in this case, the child's body, were only a passive receptacle for male sperm.

Vidberg also expressed his point of view:

According to the Pope, condoms aggravate the problem of AIDS.

Pope: “So, despite protecting yourself, you contracted AIDS?”

Patient: “Yes, I always wore a condom. The only time I took it off was to make love, obviously. Otherwise it would be unpleasant.”

Pope: Yes, obviously. I understand.

An article published by Senego.com on November 21 said:

Condamnée par beaucoup, jugée définitivement obsolète par nombre de fidèles la position du Vatican n’avait pour elle que sa profonde cohérence interne. En prônant la chasteté absolue avant le mariage et l’absolue fidélité réciproque ensuite, en décrétant que la vie humaine commençait avec la fécondation d’un ovocyte par un spermatozoïde, en condamnant toute forme de contraception mécanique ou hormonale de même que l’ensemble des techniques d’assistance médicale à la procréation, le Vatican avait délibérément choisi de ne pas accompagner l’évolution des sciences, de la médecine et des mœurs.

Condemned by many and judged obsolete by numerous faithful Catholics, the Vatican's position had only internal logic. By promoting absolute chastity before marriage and absolute fidelity afterward, by decreeing that human life begins at the moment of fertilization, and by condemning any form of artificial or hormonal contraception, as well as any type of fertility treatment, the Vatican had deliberately chosen to abandon the evolution of science, medicine, and mores.

Specialists in the area of STDs who are faithful to Catholic doctrine did not have time to celebrate the Pope's new pronouncement. Another AFP dispatch published on haitien headlines stated that:

Dimanche après-midi, le Saint-Siège a toutefois tenu, de manière tout à fait inhabituelle, à publier un communiqué pour souligner “le caractère exceptionnel” de l'éventuelle utilisation du préservatif, soulignant, face aux attentes de responsables et militants de la lutte contre le sida, que “le raisonnement du pape ne peut pas être considéré comme un tournant révolutionnaire”.

Sunday afternoon, the Holy See, in an unusual move, published a communiqué to emphasize how “rare” the possible use of condoms must be, and to clarify, given the expectations of AIDS activists, that “the Pope's thinking cannot be considered a revolutionary turning point.”

Will we see other caveats, clarifications, or obfuscations seeking to halt this evolution?

For the time being, specialists wanting to reconcile their religious faith with the exigencies of their profession will now have recourse to a key tool, for there is no real substitute for the condom in the fight against AIDS.

* Links are in French unless stated otherwise.

Getting to Know the Global Voices Latin America Team

Eduardo Avila — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:25:53 +0000

As outgoing Editor for Latin America, I have seen the Global Voices team from Latin America grow tremendously over the past three years. Each of the volunteer authors has dedicated time and energy to serve the mission of Global Voices, and to share their part of the world with a global audience. At any given time, each of the countries that make up the Latin American region has been represented by a talented blogger tasked with the challenge of presenting a wide range of issues in a balanced and fair manner. Now that I am moving on to take the helm at Rising Voices, I am eager to see how the team will take the coverage of such a diverse region to greater heights under the leadership of the new Latin America Editor, Silvia Viñas. Continuing a recent tradition, let's meet some of these amazing people that have been part of the Latin American team (in alphabetical order by first name).

Members of GV Latin America with friends from GV Portuguese and GV Caribbean. Photo by Suzanne Lehn

Andrea Arzaba [Mexico] - I don't think I've seen a single picture of Andrea in which she was not smiling. Her enthusiasm and friendliness is both sincere and contagious. Recently back in Mexico after spending a semester studying abroad in Spain, Andrea is very active in youth conferences and blogging competitions. She was recently chosen to represent the Think About It organization at the UN Summit to be held in New York City later this month. Read her blog One Lucky Life [es] and follow her on Twitter: @andrea_arzaba.

Belén Bogado [Paraguay] - Belén is quite the multimedia star in her native country of Paraguay. Not only is she an accomplished print journalist, but she has also hosted her own radio show and television program. In addition, she has brought special recognition to Paraguayan bloggers, including an introduction to the first blogger to write in the Guaraní language, who was featured in a GV post and which caught the eye of the local CNN affiliate.

Catalina Restrepo [Colombia] - Many of us have seen how much Catalina has grown over the past three years. She started as one of the participants of the Rising Voices' project HiperBarrio. Since then, she has really come into her own, gaining confidence by the day and asking for more challenges. In addition to being invited to speak at international conferences, she was also recognized at home when she was awarded the Talented Young Woman [es] prize in Medellín. Read her blog: Cosas del Alma [es] and follow her on Twitter: @catirestrepo

Felipe Cordero [Chile] - Felipe joined Global Voices in 2010, and his participation began shortly after the tragic earthquake struck his country of Chile. He was living in Columbia, Missouri at the time when he volunteered to help with the coverage, as way to draw more attention to the tragedy and reconstruction. His posts helped make the Special Coverage Page of the earthquake timely and diverse. Since graduating from college, Felipe has taken part in many interesting training programs and internships, including one at the Chilean Mission at the United Nations. Read his blog: Política Online [es] and follow him on Twitter: @felipe_cordero.

Gabriela García Calderón [Peru] - At the Global Voices Summit in Santiago, Chile, Gabriela received recognition for being the GV member with the most number of translations across all Lingua sites. With more than 2000 translations under her belt, Gabriela wanted to get involved with GV even more. So, she volunteered to become a GV author by focusing on some of the non-political facets of Peruvian society. Read her blog: Seis de Enero [es].

Issa Villarreal [Mexico] - To say that Issa is interested in the urban arts scene in her hometown of Monterrey, Mexico, would be an understatement. In her free time, Issa covers local concerts and music festivals [es] on her blog and other publications. In addition, she is a videographer, and one of her most recent works was filmed a local amusement park. Her three-part series exploring graffiti and urban art across Latin American stands among some of her most classic posts. She also covers other topics, including the #internetnecesario campaign, although I was unable to convince her to write a post on the Mexican delicacy of eyeball taco. Read her blog: Perdida en el Súper [es] and follow her on Twitter: @hiperkarma.

Members of GV Latin America meeting with GV Board Member Rosental Alves at the GV Summit in Santiago. Photo by Juliana Rincón and used under a Attribution 2.0 Generic CC license.

Jenny Cascante [Costa Rica] - Jenny is another of our authors that is active in her country in the arts and cultural scene. She has been a part of the super-stylish arts digital magazine De La Bimba [es]. Read her blog: Nube Número Nueve [es] and follow her on Twitter: @nubecina.

Jorge Gobbi [Argentina] - Buenos Aires is one of my favorite Latin American cities and most times that I've visited, I've managed to stop by to say hello to Jorge. I don't think I realized how well-known he is in the Argentine blogosphere until he was featured in the La Nación newspaper as one of 5 of the most important bloggers [es] in the country. Probably best known for his travel blogging, he won Best Travel Blog in Spanish awarded by Lonely Planet. Jorge is currently pursuing his doctorate degree in Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. Read his blog: Blog de Viajes [es] and follow him on Twitter: @morrissey.

Juan Arellano [Peru] - Ever since Juan has taken on the leadership role for Global Voices in Spanish, the site has thrived. The roster of active translators that he has recruited makes it one of the most diverse and willing teams to bring GV content into the Spanish language. The partnerships and collaborations that he has pursued serves as a model for other Lingua sites. In addition to translating posts, Juan also makes sure that local issues in his native Peru makes it to the pages of Global Voices. Read his blog: Globalizado [es] and follow him on Twitter: @cyberjuan.

Juliana Rincón Parra [Colombia] - While I had less interaction with Juliana than before, it was because she was promoted to Global Voices Video Editor. However, she still managed to provide great coverage of important videos from the region, which was whenever she was not knitting or podcasting. Read her blog: Medea Material [es] and follow her on Twitter: @medeamaterial.

Julián Ortega [Colombia] - Digital media has become an integral part of Colombian politics over the past several years, and Julián has provided a service for helping GV readers wade through the vast amount of tweets, Facebook groups, and blog posts. He is extremely knowledgeable about the subtle nuances and context of Colombian politics. Julián is also very active in the equinoXio [es] digital magazine. In addition, he holds a special place in his heart for his cats, who can be seen on his Flickr account. Follow him on Twitter: @julianortegam.

Laura Vidal [Venezuela] - Laura has been personally responsible for making sure that Venezuela is not portrayed as a country that only revolves around polarizing politics. She has made sure GV readers learn about many of the country's talented musicians, writers, artists, and cultural projects. Currently pursuing her Master's degree in Education Sciences at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense in Paris, Laura has always offered me a place to crash on her floor during my stops in Paris, and also showcased her culinary skills to me when she made delicious arepas. Read her blog Sacando la Lengua [es] and follow her on Twitter @lenguaraz.

Luis Diego Molina and Adriana Vargas [Costa Rica] - I hesitate to not give each of these young authors their own recognition, but they've been working together on the citizen journalism project Habla Costa Rica, where they have reported from the ground during events like the protests at the University of Costa Rica. I've been thoroughly impressed with their willingness to learn and how much dedication they have put into their project. Follow the project on Twitter: @hablacostarica.

Lully Posada [Colombia] - Lully is such a strong supporter of citizen media projects around the world, but there is one that has attracted more attention than others. In fact, she has started volunteering with the HiperBarrio project helping out with workshops, but more importantly, providing encouragement and motivation to the new bloggers. She is also one of the co-founders of the equinoXio digital magazine, and provides interesting interviews. Read her blog: Reflexiones al Desnudo [es] and follow her on Twitter: @lullyp.

Milton Ramírez [Ecuador] - Milton or perhaps I should write Dr. Ramírez, has been one of the most prolific GV authors from the region over the past several years. Milton holds a doctorate in Education and is extremely interested in examining the relationship between education and technology. He is also a champion for local technology projects and events in his native Ecuador, including extensive coverage of BarCamps and other digital campaigns. His love for his home region of Loja has placed the city on my must-visits someday. Read his blog: Education and Tech and follow him on Twitter: @tonnet.

Renata Avila [Guatemala] - As one of the resident Creative Commons experts within the Latin America team, Renata is the lead for the Creative Commons project in her native Guatemala. She is also serving as one of the co-leads in the Technology for Transparency project at Global Voices. Renata also holds a special interest in the plight of the indigenous communities in her country and which has served as a subject for many of her articles on Global Voices. Read her blog: Nothing is Permanent [es] and follow her on Twitter: @avilarenata

Rocío Díaz [Dominican Republic] - Rocío is our first author from the island of the Dominican Republic. She took great care in presenting a wide range of issues from the colorful characters of Carnival to the national sport of baseball, as well as the DR's response to the earthquake in neighboring Haiti. She started blogging as part of a national movement for community action, which helps draw attention to problems, as well as solutions in the island's municipalities. Read her blog: Monaco [es].

Silvia Viñas [Uruguay/Chile] - As the new Regional Editor for Latin America, Silvia has always been willing to fill in whenever needed, whether it be about issues facing Chile or Uruguay. No wonder she is so flexible, since she describes herself as half-Uruguayan and half-Spanish, and has lived in five Latin American countries. This allows her to be a great fit for the role of Latin America Editor, who needs to be well-versed in the affairs of an entire region. When she is not online posting and editing, she is the mother of an adorable two year-old, who just celebrated her birthday. Read her blog: Walking Around [es] and follow her on Twitter: @silviavinas

This is only a partial list, as there are many more authors who have recently joined or who have been recently inactive, but have been an integral part of making the Latin America region as strong as it has become. These authors include: Claudio Ruíz [Chile], Clotilde Castillo [Panama], Nike Jung [Chile], Muna Annahas [Paraguay], Roy Rojas [Costa Rica], Celeste Calvet [Argentina], Aaron Ortiz [Honduras], Leonidas Mejia [Honduras], Mario Durán [Bolivia], Carlos Suasnavas [Ecuador], Mario Blanco [Uruguay], Tim Muth [El Salvador], Rodrigo Peñalba [Nicaragua], Melissa De León[Panama], Luis Carlos Díaz [Venezuela], Rosario Lizana [Chile], Iria Puyosa [Venezuela], Claudia Cadelo [Cuba], Alvaro Berroteran [Nicaragua], HJ Barraza [Mexico].

As you can see, the Latin America team is very diverse, not only in the part of the world that they cover, but in their own personal interests and background. Congratulations to such an amazing team of volunteers for making the Latin America region so well represented at Global Voices.

Greece: Wildfires encroaching on Athens

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:47:14 +0000

Wildfires broke out on Friday night in Northeast Attica in Greece and rapidly consumed large tracts of forested land and properties. In just two days, they reached the northernmost suburbs of Athens, reawakening memories of destruction in the nightmarish forest fires of 2007.

Greek blogger mindstripper posted the view from her balcony on Saturday evening on the scratch blog:

‘Ωρα Αθήνας 8μμ

Κι εγώ θέλω να φύγω από το σπίτι μου.

Athens time 8pm. And I want to leave home.

A day later, London-based photographer mlazopoulou posted a photo taken from an airplane:

She commented, “Just can't describe this with words…”

Live views of the fire

On Sunday night, a webcam in the forest of Schinias recorded snapshots of advancing fires until the camera temporarily went out of order (it is now working again).

Schinias webcam image on Aug 24 at 1:53 AM in Greece

The New Athenian chronicled the events of early Sunday, when the fire reached the Pendeli suburb of Athens:

Many local residents had spent the night protecting their homes. On Sunday morning they were still doing what they could to put out small fires near their homes, beating them with olive branches and shovels, or forming human chains to relay buckets of water filled using yard hoses. The air was thick with acrid smoke, and people were covering their faces with T-shirts, kerchiefs and towels to work. [..]

Many Pendeli residents were waiting until the last moment to evacuate their houses. The roads were still lined with parked vehicles in late morning. Many people were waiting outside their homes, faces covered, their dogs beside them on leashes. From the invisible depths of the smoke explosions were audible – natural gas tanks, perhaps, or cars exploding.

On Twitter, people referred to a Google Maps mashup, with data from the fire information agency FIRMS, to monitor the fires and quickly settled on a hashtag (#grfires) to aggregate tweets related to the fire. Most messages repeated information broadcast on TV, as well as media and political criticism, with little actual firsthand reporting.

Twitter user @savvakos provided some firsthand reports of advancing fire fronts, complete with Google Maps coordinates:

Ενεργό μέτωπο της φωτιάς στην Σταμάτα, λίγο πριν από την πλατεία #grfires http://bit.ly/t38Z5 http://twitpic.com/ezarv

Active fire front in Stamata, just beyond the square #grfires http://bit.ly/t38Z5 http://twitpic.com/ezarv

Also on Twitter, @kyanoun posted a real-time video with commentary using Qik from his car while he drove down a smoke-clouded Attica highway.

Flickering lights in the dark

Sunset is a dreaded time during times of fire, because aircraft are grounded and firefighting efforts are severely hampered. Eric Parks described this dramatic moment on Twitter:

@erictparks: Sunset & we're watching daring air crews make final drops in little light. Darkness reveals hundreds of points of fire on the mountains.

Greek web designer Dimitrios Doukoglou posted this photo on Twitpic on August 23:

The view from my roof, yesterday night. #grfires

Several people posted mobile phone photos on Twitter using the Twitpic application, and a Greek software developer provided an auto-refreshing web service to aggregate them, using the #grfires hashtag.

Politics in times of fire

Teacher Dude, a citizen photo-journalist based in Thessaloniki focused on the political connection between wildfires and national elections:

Although Greece regularly has wildfires a study carried out by the Athens University of Economics suggested that there was a direct link between their destructiveness and national elections. According to Spyros Skouras and Nikos Christodoulakis half of the forest lost through fires in the last 54 years took place in the 16 years in which elections were held.

The last serious fires to hit the country in 2007 took place just weeks before parliamentary elections and most political analysts consider the announcement of new elections within the next few months a certainty.

Teacher Dude reminisced on Twitter about an earlier firefighting effort in which he himself took part:

I keep on remembering what happened here in Saloniki in 1997. I volunteered to help fight the fires. Scary how fast they can move.

… and also commented wryly that:

The New Democracy [governing party] logo has new meaning now. http://tinyurl.com/m4mafa #grfires

Bermuda: Guantanamo Protest

Janine Mendes-Franco — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:20:20 +0000

“Brown Protest”, photo by Max Kehrli.

As Bermudians continue to react - unfavourably for the most part - to their government's acceptance of former Guantanamo Bay detainees as full citizens of the tiny island, bloggers comment on yesterday's protest and what the public outcry could mean for the nation's Premier.

The Devil Island, known for being a cartoon blog, says:

Didn’t have anything written, but I wanted to doodle SO bad. There’s tonnes of blogs talking about it. I’ve spent the afternoon and evening bitching about it and talking about it and reading about it. I’m going to wait for the next step.

I HOPE that he [the Premier] doesn’t wriggle out of this, but I’m not holding my breath. I can’t find it in myself to put anything past him. One of his “supporters” actually compared this to Dr. King. Sickening.

I WOULD however like to welcome these Uighur gentlemen to my home. If the vetting turns out copacetic and you guys are cool, we’re cool.

Breezeblog actually posts a video of the protest, which features “the moment Janice Battersbee told Premier Dr. Ewart Brown what many Bermudians think of him.” While the racial divide in the island's politics was evident, the blogger writes:

It took great courage as a PLP supporter to stand in front of her country’s leader and deliver that – and credit to Brown, he stood there and took it with dignity, even if he must have been seething and humiliated inside.

There’s been a lot of internet and radio chatter about how the crowd was overwhelmingly and depressingly white – no surprise there – and sadly Hott 107 almost seemed to dismiss the protest because of the racial imbalance. But the pro-Brown support was noticeable by its absence.

It was encouraging to see Bermudians willing to stand up and be counted and as such it was a good day for democracy. The people told their elected Premier in no uncertain terms what they thought of him without fear of arrest or police brutality. If nothing else, it will have impressed the four Uighurs who can only dream of such freedoms back home.

Photo courtesy Max Kehrli.

Catch a fire takes notice of “a counter-demonstration” that was carded for the same time of the original protest action:

This demonstration is being billed as supporting the decision to bring the Uighurs here.

This blog takes the position that it encourages active and critical participation in Bermuda’s politics, and to that degree I hope that there is a good turn-out for today’s demonstrations, as such activity is to the credit of our democracy.

This blog is, without hesitation, in the support of those who are critical of how this decision was made. I feel that the decision was made not on humanitarian grounds and that describing it as such is a red herring and emotionally manipulative deflection. I believe that the way this was done was contrary to the Constitution, and unnecessarily so.

Now that the Uighurs are here they should stay, but the way the decision was done needs protested. Either way, everyone have fun, be careful, confront ignorance and generally exercise your democratic rights, either for or against the decision.

Meanwhile, the Premier's reaction to the protest does not sit well with Vexed Bermoothes:

Don’t expect much from Dr. Brown. His comment on the protest: ‘As some of you might know, I grew up in the protest era. This is nothing new to me. I have seen them larger and longer.' Be careful what you ask for Dr. Brown.

Know we know why the Sally Bassett statue was placed in front of the Cabinet building: so the Premier can stand in front of it whenever he is in hot water to try and shift the dialogue to one of racial martyrdom. Nice try.

“Between the Signs”, photo by Max Kehrli.

Vexed Bermoothes is also focused on the irony of the entire deal…

On the day that the PLP seeks to wrap itself in laurels of humanitarianism, their Government admits that there are still no funds to replace the decrepit and wholly inadequate homeless shelter in Bermuda.

I encourage all those international groups who are puffing up Dr. Brown for solving their problem, to feel free to encourage and assist the Bermuda Government in finally fulfilling its obligations to its own people.

…not to mention the safety issue:

Premier Ewart Brown stated in the House of Assembly on Friday that Police Commissioner Jackson had done a thorough security check on the Uighurs.

Well, maybe not. As it turns out – like everyone else in Bermuda, the Police only learned about the uighurs on the radio news on Thursday morning.

Is it not a crime to ‘bend the truth' in a statement to the House of Assembly?

The crowds at Parliament at lunch today – which spilled onto the surrounding streets – were noisy and fed up particularly compared to the meagre team of Brown supporters that gathered in his stage-managed appearance. It will be untenable for the PLP to retain support for the Premier in the face of such public displeasure. The constant circus surrounding him has become a debilitating distraction for Bermuda.

This leads the blogger to turn his attention to the opposition party's call for a vote of “No Confidence” in Premier Brown:

Typically a motion such as this would be voted upon two weeks after being tabled. Understandably, the Premier’s team are pursuing all options to keep that from happening.

It is clear that there is considerable public discontent regarding the leadership of Dr. Ewart Brown. The Speaker (although currently drawn from the PLP ranks) has a strong responsibility to be impartial in conducting the affairs of the House. He must facilitate the debate of this motion as soon as possible, so that Bermuda can clear the air and get our Government back to work.

Photo by Max Kehrli.

Finally, he has a few words of wisdom for “international groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch [that] are freely tossing around humanitarian plaudits driven by their deep concerns about Guantanamo Bay and everything that it represents”:

They are incorrect if they assume that the backlash towards Dr. Brown is based on the Uighurs alone. It is not. The backlash is based on the accumulation of ‘unethical but not necessarily illegal' acts under his tenure. If there is no respect amongst our top leadership for the Constitution, then there is no Rule of Law. And if there is no consistent rule of law, then there are degrading and unreliable human rights for Bermudians.

In short, it is fundamentally wrong to undermine the Bermudian Constitution so that the American Constitution can retain its lustre.

The images used in this post are by Max Kehrli, used with permission. Visit Max's website and flickr photostream.