Global Voices Online

Rosemary Ekosso discusses the politics of abortion and homosexuality in Cameroon: “As a woman, I have learnt by trial and error (mostly error) not to believe automatically what large groups of men tell me. When the group is as large and exclusive of females (don’t give me that guff about nuns – can a nun be a cardinal?) as the Catholic Church, I am very, very, wary.”

“In Barbados we have a long way to go regarding how as a country we want to deal with the issue of homosexuality”: Barbados Underground says “it would be unfortunate for some if we wait until the next general election” to start discussing…the societal changes to accept this group of people who continue to be marginalized.”

Namibia Planned Parenthood Association (NAPPA) wants justice for women whose rights have been violated as a result of forced sterilisation.

On Nov. 17, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, and The Czech Daily Word lists “most frequent stupid arguments and errors” of those who believe that “the era of communism was better than the post-revolution times.”

Profy writes about the IT dimension of president Medvedev's annual address: “The draft speech was initially published online as a lengthy article by the president and he invited all the citizens to voice their opinions out via the Kremlin official website - and people were definitely very willing to participate given more than 18 thousand comments received.” NetEffect writes about “tweeting your way to Gulag”: turns out that in Russia, “the police are avid readers of ‘the Internet' and particularly of Twitter.”

AdnanEmin's Blog, Prison Diary, a new blog from Azerbaijan, has been set up to republish letters sent from prison in the oil-rich former Soviet republic by Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli, two detained video blogging youth activists sentenced last week and considered by Amnesty International to be prisoners of conscience. The first post carries a message from Milli after his sentence.

A deputy minister of Nepal had beaten a top government employee for not providing a vehicle of her taste. Xnepali Blog has details.

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall: How To Marry a Bulgarian hosts a series of readers' personal reflections: Biliana Velkova, Alexandra Grashkina-Hristova, Maria Vassileva; Hungarian Spectrum writes that “for Hungary and the Hungarians the whole thing started much earlier”; Belgraded writes about the upcoming and much-awaited fall of the “visa wall” for Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia; CAFÉ TURCO writes about the anniversaries of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Kristallnacht, and the destruction of Mostar’s Old Bridge;

The final part (part 4) of Polina Zherebtsova’s 1999 Chechen Diary - at Sundry Translations and Other Tangentialia. (More links: intro, part 1, part 2, part 3, Russian-language original.)