Global Voices » Eastern & Central Europe

Macedonia: Coping With Ice and Snow in Skopje

Veronica Khokhlova — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:15 +0000

GV Author Filip Stojanovski posts pictures of Skopje's snowy and icy streets and reports on his blog: “[…] the pavements and the side streets in the municipality of Centar remain icy. Some are covered by layers of ice or re-frozen slush, by old frozen snow, or an unevenly hardened mash of snow and 'salt.' Fokus daily claimed that the authorities avoid declaring nationwide state of emergency in order to ‘prove' that they were prepared for the snow.”

Russia: “Anti-Gay Propaganda Bill” Passes Second Reading

Veronica Khokhlova — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:52:29 +0000

St. Petersburg is getting closer to signing into law the notorious “anti-gay propaganda bill” [ru]. On February 8, 2012, lawmakers approved it on its delayed second reading, and, according to AllOut.com's Russia action page, the vote on the third - and final - reading is to take place next week.

Coming Out, a St. Petersburg-based LGBT rights NGO, wrote this about the possible consequences of the law's adoption:

[…] If this law is passed, Russian LGBT will live in fear of punishment just for being open about sexual orientation in their social environment. It paves the way to legalized discrimination, justifies violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Moreover, under the pretense of protecting minors, this law in fact will lead to further isolation and greater number of suicides by homosexual adolescents in a country that is already leading in the numbers of teenage suicides. […]

The article cited above also has photos and video from a mini-protest that took place in front of St. Petersburg's Legislative Assembly building on Feb. 8. One protester, who ended up being detained by police, held a poster that said, “Hitler started with anti-gay laws”:

British author and actor Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) posted this comment on Twitter, referring to the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who was homosexual, and linking to AllOut.com's appeal, “TELL RUSSIA: NO GAY GAG ORDER”:

Hell's teeth. Something must be done to stop these fantastical monsters. Will talking about Tchaikovsky be banned? http://www.allout.org/en/actions/russia_call

LJ user arzamaskaya ended her post about the lawmakers' initiative with this serious-sounding mock appeal [ru]:

[…] Somebody, do introduce sanctions against us [Russia] at last.

A protest sign outside the Russian consulate in London reads: "Council of Europe Must Defend Russian Gay Rights. Suspend the Russian Vote." Photo by MELPRESSMEN MELPRESSMEN, copyright © Demotix (1/07/11).

LJ user mc-leesnick linked to a Russian-language news item about Stephen Fry's reaction, adding [ru] that Russia, among other things, is also a country where “concrete facts of election fraud are declared 'speculation' before an investigation begins” and where “stealing from the state budget isn't punished but encouraged.”

In the comments section, a rather typical exchange took place between the author of the blog and a reader:

plurlife: There are, of course, many other problems that no one is taking care of. But here we are talking about propaganda and underaged [kids], so to me everything seems logical enough. If you want to love someone of your own gender, do so, but don't make noise about it in the streets and don't hold gay parades. This, however, has to be in the subconscious, not in the legislation.

mc_leesnick: Listen, what's the problem with gay parades? Seriously: what is the problem?

plurlife: The problem is that children see it, they live with it and learn from it, and it becomes normal for them. And the problem is also that after gay parades, mass beatings of such “fun guys” takes place, which is also not very normal - people shouldn't be beaten up because of their orientation. I'm not a homophobe, or whatever you call it, I just don't understand why it is necessary to loudly announce that you're a homosexual, a transsexual, a lesbian, a drag queen? Do not try to convince people that it's normal - no matter how much they want it, it's never going to be normal. […] I don't call it a disorder and I don't think they should be locked and re-made, […], it's just that I don't see a point in such demonstrations - only problems. If even just [a Muslim prayer performed in public causes people to overreact], then what do you expect from homosexuals with their parades.

Another reader, LJ user kuzyabuster, echoed Stephen Fry's irony - and mentioned the lack of adequate response from the city authorities to the truly serious and often life-threatening problem that St. Petersburg's residents have to face every winter:

I can imagine trucks taking out of St. Petersburg the works of [Yukio Mishima], Stephen Fry, biographies of [Alexander the Great], Tchaikovsky, Oscar Wilde […]… Would be better if they were taking snow and icicles out…

Russian journalist Yelena Kostyuchenko is not new to explaining the LGBT community's legal demands to her less knowledgeable compatriots. In May 2011, she wrote a powerful and popular post [ru] about her reasons to attend Moscow Pride 2011, and Global Voices translated parts of it in this text about yet another annual attempt to hold the event.

On February 8, following the St. Petersburg vote, Kostyuchenko (@mirrorsbreath) had a quick - and also quite typical - Twitter conversation with user @vakurov (Aleksandr Vakurov, who describes himself as a “psychoanalyst” and “business consultant”), parts of which are translated from Russian below:

@vakurov: […] What's wrong with it? It's the propaganda that's getting banned, not homosexuality.

@mirrorsbreath: […] Propaganda of homosexuality doesn't exist. In reality, the law stops the work of LGBT organizations, introduces censorship into the mass media and culture.

@vakurov: […] Obviously, I'm not getting something. Don't I have the right to protect my children from the harmful homosexual ideology?

@mirrorsbreath: […] Homosexuality doesn't have an ideology. It's a trait that 5-7% of the population are born with. Relax.

@vakurov: […] No problem. Just don't spoil my appetite. Many people have bad breath - and they aren't demanding special rights.

@mirrorsbreath: […] You are very spiritual, I can see it right away. We do not need special rights - we need equal rights. Do you feel the difference?

@vakurov: […] What inequality are you talking about? Then how about the rights of pedophiles, drug traffickers, rapers, drug addicts? о_0

LJ user vg36 believes [ru] that the new law, if adopted, might affect not just the local LGBT community, but members of the opposition in general:

Until the Russian Federation has learned how to block internet access, the law banning [”gay propaganda”] is ridiculous. But does anyone seriously think that it only targets the Russian LGBT community? […]

They used to send [people dressed up/posing as gays] with rainbow flags to opposition rallies in order to discredit the protesters. Now it turns out that most protesters do not mind rainbow flags - so this will be done [fake gays will be sent in] in order to detain and fine [the protesters]. […]

But the opposition has been asleep, as usual, and/or didn't realize that this was another weapon against them. Or they were afraid to oppose a law that might possibly be very popular with the masses, afraid to defend the freedom of speech of an unpopular group. Well. With the opposition like that, [it's not surprising] we get laws like this and the situation in the country is the way it is.

Russia: DDoS Attack Puts Down Several Political Websites As Cyberwar Escalates

Alexey Sidorenko — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:06:26 +0000

On February 9, 2012, following the widely-discussed leaks of pro-Kremlin mailboxes, LiveJournal, where the leaks were published, became temporarily unavailable, Lenta.ru reported [ru]. Russian representative of Anonymous group @OP_Russia, suggested [ru] that it was a DDoS attack to hide the evidence of massive wrongdoings (including corruption, thievery, political provocations, and cybercrime) [ru] by Nashi youth movement. Later that day @OP_Russia took responsibility for taking down 3 websites of United Russia party: mos-partya.ru, er-region.ru, and er-kaluga.ru.

Russia: Three Conversations With Parents of Young Neo-Nazis

Veronica Khokhlova — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:37:41 +0000

At OpenDemocracy.net, Olesya Gerasimenko talks to the parents of three young neo-Nazi men who were convicted of race murders: “One has adopted the views of their only child and says that violence is necessary. One blames the politicians that have incited adolescents to street fighting. One cries, convinced of the innocence of his son. They are all different, but they have all asked themselves one and the same question: ‘am I to blame for what happened?’”

Macedonia: Pondering Future Consequences of ACTA

Filip Stojanovski — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:19:31 +0000

While the authorities in Macedonia remain silent on the country's stance on the ACTA, bloggers, such as Airborne, emphasize the need to gain more knowledge [mk], as the traditional media mostly ignore the issue: “Maybe, one of these days, we'll just simply wake up in the ACTA-ruled world.” The new media attempting to fill this gap in local languages include Metamorphosis and IT.com.mk. Endek blog advocates [mk] standing up for Internet freedom by joining international protest movements.

Macedonia: Problems With Transparent Online Reporting of Air Pollution in Skopje

Filip Stojanovski — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:51:19 +0000

According to the blog of GreenBox NGO, Skopje's city government is not interested in providing funds for the online system that informs citizens about the current levels of air pollution.

The automatic system for measuring pollution, located in the center of Skopje, caused quite a stir when it reported alarming levels of air pollution last year.

Some observers related the presence of the cancerous PM10 dust particles to the government-funded construction boom in the Center municipality, which had been turned into a giant construction site through the Skopje 2014 project. The surrounding area is also an epicenter of the activities of the so-called “urban mafia” that uses connections within the local government to change zoning laws and convert public parks, parking lots and small houses to huge and profitable apartment blocks, office spaces and shops.

The “Skopje Breathing” online system [mk], owned by the City of Skopje, stopped functioning at the beginning of January 2011 (1, 2; mk), after several media outlets (1, 2, 3, 4; mk) reported that the air quality was still poor. The webpage displayed this text: “Software upgrade is under way. The application will soon be available.”

Screen shot of Skopje Breething monitoring system, which is 'in construction' since early January 2012.

GreenBox blog posted [mk] the following:

Would you like to know about the quality of the air in the center of Skopje? Then you need to put on your snow shoes, parka, hat, scarf and gloves and trek to Macedonia Street to check the information by looking at the display near the Šmizla [equivalent of the Valley Girl or Barbie-girl stereotype] statue. The website “Skopje Breathing,” which published a live data feed until Christmas [old calendar = Jan 7], is still not working, and most likely will not work in the future.

Air pollution measuring station (right), Šmizla statue (left). Photo by GreenBox blog, republished with permission.

The environmental lab of the company Farmahem, which maintained the system for a year, confirmed that the issue at stake is more than a software upgrade. Their contract has expired, and the City of Skopje has not initiated a renewal. Farmahem allegedly wanted to upgrade the system with a public archive with the measured data, but now the citizens need to turn to the city government, which decides the destiny of this online transparency tool.

The City of Skopje representatives seem totally uninterested in ensuring that the publication of the air quality data online continues. The [City of Skopje's] spokesperson Nedelčo Krstevski says that the website appeared thanks to the initiative and goodwill of the company.

“The website was not ours. At the moment we cannot say whether it depends on us or on Farmahem. For us the important thing is that the measuring stations work and that the citizens can get air quality info from displays on the devices,” Krstevski said.

The City representatives admit that for the “Skopje Breathing” to continue working they would need to start a public procurement procedure, which, according to them, was very complicated and included a public tender. They do not know if that is going to happen.

“I cannot tell you anything now, neither that the site will exist, nor that it won't exist,” said Krstevski.

Through “Skopje Breathing” the citizens learned that the air pollution in the capital was up to 10 times higher than the maximum allowed by law. This resulted in recommendations not to go out at all. After the public pressure forced the city government and the Ministry of Environment to send inspections to the nearby industrial plants, the levels of pollution temporarily dropped. According to the research [mk] by the Institute for Public Health, Skopje could avoid 117 deaths and 420 cases of serious illnesses per year if the concentration of dust dropped by a third of the current levels.

Russia: New .Ru Domain Registration Rules Allow Easy Domain Seizure

Alexey Sidorenko — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:07:47 +0000

Andrey Rylkov Foundation writes about the first case of enforcement of the domain seizure rules in the “.ru” and “.рф” domain zones. The rules [ru] (Article 5, point 5.5) , updated on November 11, 2011 allow any law enforcement agency (like police, Federal Security Service, Prosecutor's office or Federal Drug Control Services (FDCS)) to request domain seizure without a court order. On February 3, 2012 FDCS successfully seized the domain of rylkov-fond.ru, a website of Rylkov Foundation that had severely criticized situation with drug trafficking.

Russia: The Anonymous Hacks and Publishes E-mails of Pro-Kremlin Youth Group

Alexey Sidorenko — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:51:20 +0000

Read The Guardian's take on the so-called “Potupchik-gate,” a series of scandals surfaced as a result of hacking and publishing of private inbox of Kristina Potupchik [ru], press-secretary of Nashi, notorious pro-Kremlin youth group. All hacks were published by twitter-user @OP_Russia who uses Anonymous symbolics. Representatives of Anonymous, previously never seen involved in Russian online politics, had also issued an Russian/English statement on the issue.

Hungary: Goodbye, Malév!

Marietta Le — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:10:19 +0000

Malév, Hungary's state airline since 1946, ceased operation on February 3, 2012, due to bankruptcy. According to news reports [hu], even the airline's employees were informed about the shutdown just an hour or so in advance. Some passengers learned the news when they tried to check in at the Budapest Liszt Ferenc Airport.

Hungarian citizens were shocked by the news, because even though the national carrier’s bad financial situation was well-known, Malév's rescue plans were being negotiated during the past few weeks. Many claimed the cause of the company's ill fate was bad financial management. In January, even the 2007-2010 state financial aid to the airline was deemed illegal by the European Commission. Eventually, business partners lost their trust in the company, and this tipped the balance on Friday when Dublin and Tel Aviv airports refused to give take-off permissions to Malév flights.

A Malév commercial, music composed by Gábor Presser

According to A REPÜLÉS Szakmai blog (THE AVIATION Professional blog) [hu], the last Malév flight landed in Budapest on Friday at 08:46 UTC (09:46 AM in Hungary), arriving from Helsinki. The words that the pilot said to the air traffic controllers have been shared by Hungarian netizens on many sound- and video-sharing sites:

Pilot: On behalf of the last Malév flight’s crew, we would like to thank you for the good, several-decade-long cooperation. See you.
Air Traffic Controller: We also thank you and wish you a good rest, I hope we will meet.
Pilot: Hope so, under some different name.

According to AIRportal.hu [hu], on Friday evening 14 Malév planes were returned to their lessor ILFC at an airport in Ireland. (See here for Malcolm Neson's photos of the Malév planes at Shannon Airport in Ireland.)

Csaba Demeter, a pilot who was among those flying the planes back, shared his story on Facebook [hu]:

[…] Around midnight we arrived to EINN [airport code for Shannon Airport, Ireland], landed one after another and rolled nicely, to salute in this way the past period. We stopped one after another, on rolling-roads, on parking spaces, we stopped them, unpacked and turned off the lights, our planes were in the darkness. It was an awful feeling, WE HAD TO LEAVE THEM THERE. We were hoping for a call [saying] COME HOME WITH THE PLANES this was just a dream or a bad joke. But nothing like that came. THEY STAYED THERE. All of them. :-( […]

People shared their thoughts on the sad fate of the national carrier. Csaba’s memories on Fékszárny blog [hu] tell the best what Malév meant for the citizens of this small Central European country:

I flew a lot with them, I have many good and many bad experiences as well. I wouldn’t tell about those because there is nothing special among them. Why I very much loved to fly with Malév and it always enjoyed priority in contrast to the others is that they were OURS. After being away from home for a long time they were the first signs of coming home. The mentioned white-blue painting with the Hungarian tricolor, the greeting at the door and the Hungarian newspapers. I usually spent 2-3 weeks abroad and not in cities and comfortable hotels, but in deserts and other great places. So coming home was always a big joy and its first messenger was the crew of the Malév flight. After a long, stressful trip even my eyes filled with tears when landing at the Ferihegy [airport]. It was a very bad [feeling] to look at the pictures and read the news on the internet. Let’s hope not all is lost, it would be good to see the red-white-green planes again.

Csaba

According to Véleményvezér blog [hu], the national carrier “got into the perfect storm” of Hungary's economic dynamics:

[…] Malév got into the perfect storm from this perspective: it should have survived almost a decade of economic stagnation and almost a decade of mismanagement; whilst the two phenomena amplified each other. It did not survive and this is yet another nail in the coffin of our dreams and illusions about the leading position of Budapest and Hungary in the region.

Until a new Hungarian carrier is founded, Origo news site reports [hu] the pilots of the “Malév Hungarian Airlines Virtual” will keep on “flying” with the Malév call signs.

Thumbnail and featured image show Malév airplane, by Flickr user hugovk (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Bulgaria: Human Rights Organizations Against a Neo-Nazi March

Ruslan Trad — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:27:18 +0000

The civic initiative “People Against Racism” is appealing [en] to the Municipality of Sofia and the Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria with the request to ban an international neo-Nazi racist conference scheduled for Feb. 17 and a neo-Nazi torchlight procession known as the “Lukov March” on Feb. 18. Every year since 2005, Bulgaria's far-right, neo-Nazi, and ultra-nationalist groups have commemorated the death of Gen. Hristo Lukov, who supported Nazi Germany during WWII. Lukov March 2011 drew protests from many civic groups and human rights organizations, including the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the Jewish organization B'nai B'rith, and People Against Racism. (More about Lukov March; a 2010 video.)

Slovakia: Stop ACTA Protest

Tibor Blazko — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:07:22 +0000

An anti-ACTA rally took place in Bratislava on Feb. 4. On the protest's Facebook page [sk], nearly 7,500 people wrote they would attend, and over 3,800 wrote they'd “maybe” attend. The weather was cold and windy; the recent news from Poland, which has postponed the ratification of ACTA, was good; and it's unlikely that anything will be approved before the Slovak early elections in March. As a result, only 500 people or so showed up for the rally [sk; photos; video]. This week, a number of Slovak and Czech politicians announced they were in favor of postponing the ratification of the controversial treaty.

Bulgaria: Severe Flooding Emergency

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:57:45 +0000

GV Author Ruslan Trad is tweeting - here, here, here, and here - about the severe flooding in southern Bulgaria, which was caused by heavy rainfall of the past few days and has killed at least eight people in the village of Bisser. The latest tweet came about an hour ago: “Breaking: Maritsa River’s dike broke close to the village of Generalovo, municipality of Svilenhrad, huge wave.” More photos from the disaster in the village of Bisser - at the Facebook page [bg] of the Bulgarian National TV's fundraising effort to help the victims.

Ukraine: Netizens React to Popular File-Sharing Website's Shutdown

Tetyana Bohdanova — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:27:18 +0000

On January 31, 2012, Ukrainian Internet users learned that the country’s biggest file-sharing site, Ex.ua [ru], was shut down due to repeated copyright violations. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior, among the companies that filed a lawsuit [uk] against Ex.ua were Microsoft, Adobe, Graphisoft and others.

Ex.ua was one of the most popular websites in the country and accounted for 15-25% [uk] of Ukraine’s in-country traffic. It required no paid subscription and attracted millions of users who freely shared pirated video and audio files, games and software.

The news of the site's shutdown caused quite a stir online, with many netizens criticizing the government for going after Ex.ua and calling for its restoration.

Christina Vinovska (@chris_vinovska) tweeted a common appeal:

return #exua immediately!

While many echoed her plea, others decided to take action both offline (photos of the Feb. 1 protest in Kyiv are here) and online.

Thus, following the release of the online statement about Ex.ua's shutdown by the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry's website went down and remained periodically inaccessible due to “an increased number of visitors and possible DDoS attacks” [uk].

By that time many Twitter, Vkontakte and Facebook users were actively sharing detailed instructions [ru] on how to overload the servers of selected websites. The target list included websites of Ukraine’s President Victor Yanukovych, the pro-presidential Party of Regions, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Parliament, and others.

What seemed to begin as a number of decentralized attempts, quickly turned into a mass organized effort, with Ex.ua supporters forming a “Free Ex.Ua” [ru] group on a popular social network Vkontakte [ru], which gathered over 6,000 members during the first hours of its existence (currently, there are over 41,000 members).

By February 1, the Presidential website was completely down [uk] and the Ministry of the Interior had to announce [uk] that it was going to use its two Facebook accounts until its official website was restored. By mid-day of February 1, Ex.ua had to appeal [ru] to users to stop the attack that succeeded in disrupting the work of nearly all major governmental websites:

Dear users,

Administrators of Ex.ua call on you to stop all illegal activity against governmental websites. […]

At the same time, a heated discussion of Ex.ua’s supposed illegal activity was taking place online.

Facebook user Sergei Sidorenko wrote [ru]:

In response to the mass mourning of the Ex.ua’s untimely death, I would tell you something different from what half of the Internet has been yelling about:

I do not have a single piece of licensed non-free software on my computer
I watch only pirated films
I jailbroke my Apple iPod soon after the purchase
Even the licensed Windows installed on my laptop I soon [removed] and installed a pirated one, because it was more convenient for me

But I have to admit that shutting down Ex.ua was the RIGHT THING. And I don’t understand those who now yell, “Yes, they were pirates, but was that a reason to close them?” […]

Guys, if we want to live a civilized [life], let’s at least not condemn the obvious attempts to establish legality.

In defense of Ex.ua, Yaroslav Fedorak of Blogosphere.com.ua wrote [uk]:

Yes, I really do believe that according to today’s legal framework, file-sharing website Ex.ua was conducting an illegal activity and sooner or later would have been closed. But don’t be too quick to throw stones at me! The problem here lies in the legal framework itself, which is hopelessly outdated and no longer meets the needs of the current super-dynamic and hyper-volatile environment.

Amidst such discussions, it was not long before Ukrainian Internet users began to question whether the authorities themselves were following the letter of the law. Giving in to increased media attention, the Ministry of the Interior had to admit [uk] that it was also using pirated software, while holding negotiations with Microsoft to end this practice. Netizens were outraged.

Yurko Chervony (@skinik) tweeted [uk]:

They should first shut themselves down, and not #ex.ua “[The Ministry of the Interior] admitted that half of the software [they're using] is illegal” tinyurl.com/7tjq7c8

Many netizens shared an online comment [uk] by Oleksandr Severyn of Maidan.org.ua:

When marauders fight with pirates, pirates become national heroes

Other netizens, however, believed that the government's action against Ex.ua was motivated not so much by the copyright violations, but by the website hosting [ru] an extremely popular parody video [uk] mocking the Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych.

Pavlo Rizanenko (@rizanenko) tweeted [uk]:

Our authorities closed #exua because they did not want to have an uncontrollable information resource on #UaNet [Ukrainian Internet – GV]. Piracy was just an excuse rizanenko.livejournal.com/983.html

Whatever the actual causes of its shutdown, following the unexpected mass reaction of Ukrainian netizens, Ex.ua was back online [ru] as early as February 3, when the investigators concluded [ru] that piracy allegations did not have to result in blocking of the site's domain name.

Many netisens viewed it as a positive case of online consolidation and organization of Ukrainians.

Serge Lavrinchuck (@Lavrinchuck) tweeted [uk]:

The #EXua story, of course, has its positive sides. When else the Ukrainian people would have united like this to attack government websites?

Numerous observers referred to the attacks as the “online revolution” [ru]. Maksym Savanevsky, editor of the Internet business and SMM website Watcher.com.ua, wrote [uk]:

What has changed in the society in the past 60 hours.

Most important: the citizens have had a taste of their victory. They have felt that “together they are many, and they cannot be defeated”. It is difficult to recall similar events since 2004 [Orange Revolution – GV].

Yes, the scope was not the same. Yes, everything happened online, inside warm apartments. But it has been a while since the authorities looked so helpless in the face of the people’s simple desire to get something they thought they deserved.

Still, others were critical of the society mobilizing in defense of a pirate website. Jouranlist Serhiy Shcherbyna wrote [ru]:

Where are you, the renowned [citizens], when honest, normal businesses are being bluntly taken from ordinary mid-level entrepreneurs? […] Why nobody touches the Tax Inspection's website for their regular [pressure] on business?

Why would you not [disable] the Interior Ministry's website when people are being killed at [local police stations]? Why would you not [disable] the Kyiv City Administration's website for [icy] roads on which people are breaking arms and legs every day?

Why are Ukrainians able to protest only when their social benefits and [free stuff] are taken away? Freedom of speech, the lawlessness of the authorities, politically-motivated [imprisonments], a half-dead economy and, most of all, a country that is nearing a collapse, all this is not causing such an outrage.

While the online polemics continue and the future fate of Ex.ua remains unclear, as of February 6, the website is operational and works on restoring its full capacity.

Balkans: Online Platform Tracks Reports From Areas Hit by Record Snowfall

Danica Radisic — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:12:22 +0000

Since last week, the Balkans have been hit by massive snow storms, the likes of which have not been seen in over a decade, if not longer. After an unusually long period of nearly no real signs of a typical Balkan winter, last week brought what seems to be non-stop snowfall throughout the region, including the seaside areas around the Adriatic that seldom get any snow.

Men shoveling snow from a street in Sarajevo. Record snowfall has paralyzed transportation in the Bosnian capital, where a state of emergency has now been declared. Photo by Sulejman Omerbasic, copyright © Demotix (5/02/12).

Serbia's national television network, RTS, and other media reported on Friday 3 February, 2012, that a state of emergency has been declared by the government, while citizens have been reporting critical situations throughout the country and that municipal services have been doing a poor job of tackling the snowfall in many urban areas.

In an article titled “Serbia Blocked by Snow, State of Emergency in 27 Municipalities, Recommendation to Call Off School Attendance” [sr], the Head of the State of Emergency Sector of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Predrag Maric, is reported to have stated on Friday:

27 municipalities in Serbia have declared a state of emergency due to heavy snowfall. Maric has told Beta news agency that the most difficult situations are in Sjenica, Ivanjica, Prijepolje, Crna Trava and Surdulica, where the height of snow has reached approximately 2 meters. According to him, power supply is “relatively good,” outages are being fixed quickly and there have been no long power outages.

Maric also announced the possibility of declaring a full state of emergency nationwide, which the Government did on Sunday evening, cancelling school throughout Serbia at least until Friday, February 10, among other things.

Several actions have been organized by the online community in Serbia and the region to fend off the snow and to attempt to regain a functional state in urban areas at least, such as a #lopataup (”#shovelup”), organized by one online community leader, Zoran Torbica, and other local Twitter users.

In the meantime, Al Jazeera Balkans, the recently established regional office of Al Jazeera news network in the region, has joined forces with the team from Ushahidi to set up a platform for tracking verified information on everything from road blocks, power outages to other critical points and information in the entire region.

Ushahidi is an open-source platform for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping, which was also used in Serbia just after the earthquake in Kraljevo in November 2010 to map and track damage in the area.

Haris Alisic, who heads the New Media team for Al Jazeera Balkans, launched the platform on Sunday evening, and many members of the online community, including some of the region's GV authors, have joined the Al Jazeera-Ushahidi team in curating, tracking and verifying reports from the region.

The adapted Ushahidi platform can be located on Al Jazeera's official site, while reports can be sent in by anyone using the following channels:

- via SMS to +387644218661
- via Twitter by using the hashtags #kolaps #sneg #snijeg #lopataup #iskljucenje
- via email to oluja2012@aljazeera.net
- or by entering information directly into the form on the”pošaljite izvještaj” tab on the Al Jazeera page

If you would like to volunteer your time to help map critical areas and are familiar with using online tools, please contact the author of this article, or Haris Alisic via Twitter, or leave a comment here on Global Voices, and we will contact you for more information on what you can do to help. We also ask that you all begin reporting from your area on Twitter and using the above-mentioned hashtags on Twitter, which are automatically collected by the platform and then reviewed and verified by Al Jazeera and volunteers.

Russia: Practice of Compulsory Military Service Comes Under Attack

Donna Welles — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:57:02 +0000

Russia's compulsory military service practices have come under attack for a variety of reasons, including the issues of economic inefficiency, governmental corruption connected with determining exemptions from service, dynamics of Russia's demographic status as it affects the military's ability to meet its quotas, and the practice of dedovshchina (from the Russian word for ‘grandfather'), a violent form of hazing directed at young conscripts.

Known as the first Emperor of Russia, Peter the Great included a “recruit obligation” in his efforts to form the Imperial Russian Army. The term of service in the 18th century Russia was for life, until it was reduced to 25 years in 1793, 20 years with an additional 5 years in reserve in 1834, and 12 years active duty in 1855. Russia's modern conscription practices date back to a 1967 law that remained largely unchanged until the mid-2000s, when the term of service was reduced to 1 year in 2008 for all men aged 18-27.

Writing for The Volokh Conspiracy Blog, a group blog comprised mostly of law professors, Ilya Somin put the practice of conscription in its historical context by paraphrasing an article written by economist Joshua Hall:

Economist Joshua Hall has an interesting article describing an oft-ignored, but very important expansion of freedom over the last several decades: the declining use of military conscription. He notes that, as of 1970, some 80% of the world’s governments used conscription, including the US and many of the democratic nations of Western Europe. By 2009, that had declined to 45%, and many of those nation that still have conscription have reduced the length of conscript’s terms and made it easier to escape the draft. Even France, the nation that first pioneered conscription in the 1790s, abolished it in 2001.

Hall also gives a good summary of the economic case against conscription. Most knowledgeable people are aware of the standard points that conscription reduces the quality of the military because professionals are, on average, better soldiers than short-term conscripts, and that conscription creates major social costs by forcing people to serve who would be more productive in other occupations. Hall notes two other ways in which conscription is inefficient that are less well-known – that it creates deadweight losses by diverting people from their preferred occupations to those which have draft exemptions, and that it encourages governments to underinvest in military equipment and instead sacrifice more lives in battle rather than capital […]

In addition to the economic inefficiency issues associated with conscription, there are governmental hazards as well in that it is known to incite corruption. International Defense and Security Programme Blog discussed in general terms the importance of applying a mandatory military service law equally, regardless of socio-economic status, and then cited Russia's military as a specific example of the methods by which conscription corrupts the military, along with efforts the Russian government has taken to address these issues:

Compulsory military service can be a cause of pervasive corruption within the armed forces. Such is the case in Russia. In order to avoid conscription, would-be soldiers pay bribes to the military authorities, medical personnel in charge of assessment and officials in draft boards. Such practices are widespread and publicly acknowledged.

In July 2010, Russia’s nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, tabled draft legislation which would allow potential conscripts to pay a sum equivalent to US $32,500 to avoid military service. The resulting funds would be channeled toward the costs of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). This measure, aimed at Russia’s military commissions, signifies both the great extent of draft corruption in the country and a clear recognition of this reality.

Serious attempts to deal with this issue have been made in recent years by the Russian government. The length of conscript service was shortened by six months in April 2008 to one year, while the list of exemptions from conscriptions has also been made more restrictive. However, the 2004-7 federal government programme designed to trial a transition to fully professional armed forces was largely ineffective, due to poor design and pervasive corruption which prevents full remuneration from reaching the contracted soldiers.

Mikhail Prokhorov's 2012 presidential election program included putting an end to Russia's compulsory military service by 2015:

• Create a professional, mobile, high-tech army, able to respond quickly to local and regional conflicts;
• Pay special attention to our strategic nuclear forces and space-based weapons as means of ensuring Russia’s independence and security;
• End military conscription from 2015 while moving to a professional army;
• Ensure social benefits for war veterans (free education, tax exemptions and soft loans to start businesses or buy housing) […]

Global Voices discussed in a post entitled, “Russia: Demographic Collapse Means ‘No One Left to Draft',” how the low birth rate of the 1990s has affected Russia's ability to maintain conscription quotas. However, demographic decline was only one of the major factors that General Nikolai Makarov, Russia's chief of the General Staff, mentioned in a RIA Novosti article quoted in the aforementioned GV post; dedovshchina was the other one:

Russia has no conscript-age young men left to recruit […].

The current conscript service crisis in the Russian Armed Forces is mainly due to demographic decline, bullying and brutal treatment of conscripts. […]

Marina Litvinovich reported for Global Voices on a relatively new trend where social media accounts of those who have died have been converted into memorials. One such memorial was dedicated to Evgeniy Shamukhin, a Russian soldier who had been drafted and then beaten to death during a dedovshchina ritual:

I was drafted in November 2007 and served in the Academy of the Ministry for Emergency Situations in Moscow region. On May 13, 2008, I was brutally beaten up by my fellow soldier Alexandr Revyakin. He was beating my head with his feet regardless of my appeals to stop it, and at the end I lost consciousness. Suffering serious injuries and not coming to my senses I passed away in a hospital on May 19, 2008. On August 14, 2008, the military court of Solnechnogorsk city sentenced Revyakin to 6 years and 6 months of detention.

Russia has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and it is believed that close to 1 million Russian people have taken their own lives since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Russian Defense Policy Blog argued that the dedovshchina practices associated with Russia's compulsory military service make young soldiers even more prone to suicidal actions:

Dedovshchina has always had potential to drive desperate conscripts to take their own lives to escape it. Hence, the majority of Russian Army suicide cases are investigated under Article 110 of the RF Criminal Code, “Incitement to Suicide.” Western legal tradition has long experience with incitement, but “incitement to suicide” is a little unusual. Not so for Russian military prosecutors and criminal investigators.

The author went on to list recent accounts found in the Russian press of young Russian soldiers who had indeed taken their own lives or who had attempted to do so:

In late August, a conscript on guard duty in Volgograd shot himself, leaving a suicide note blaming dedovshchina in his unit. The case is being investigated under Article 110.

In late August, a conscript from a Krasnoyarsk unit was detailed to the Railroad Troops brigade in Abakan to help prepare for Tsentr-2011. With only three months left to serve, he went AWOL, and apparently hung himself.

In mid-August, a conscript in Kaliningrad jumped off the boiler house roof and sustained a number of serious injuries, but survived. He had left a note asking that no one be blamed in his death.

In early August, a conscript in the 735th Missile Regiment, 62nd Missile Division in Uzhur killed himself while on guard duty at night. He had served six months.

In early March, in Belogorsk, a conscript due to demob in a few days shot himself to death.

In early February, a conscript in Sergeyevka shot himself to death. The case was being investigated under Article 110.

Public awareness of the soldiers who have taken their own lives has grown recently. A June 2011 Radio Free Europe article described an incident where protesters gathered in Moscow in response to the surge of soldiers who had died under such circumstances in the previous months.

In a November 2011 post, Russian Defense Policy Blog relayed the results of a poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation, which surveyed 3,000 people living in 64 of Russia's regions. Many of the questions that were asked reflected a widespread awareness that dedovshchina exists, that it is related in some way to compulsory military service, and that many young men resort to illicit activities in order to avoid military service:

Finally, buried deep in the results, participants were asked for their views on the state of affairs in the Russian Army in coming years:

• 19% said it will improve.
• 19% said it will worsen.
• 35% said it will stay the same.
• 26% said hard to answer.

However, when asked to compare military service conditions today against those 10-15 years ago, more respondents said they are easier (39%), and many fewer said they are harder (14%), by comparison with Russians asked the same question in 2002 (just 6% and a whopping 64% respectively).