What is so special about these protests is the fact that they have not been centrally coordinated by student unions but have been organized entirely bottom-up, with the help of online social media.

It all started in Vienna, Austria on October 22, when a small group of students met for a flashmob in the city center to protest, and then headed to University of Vienna where they spontaneously occupied the Auditorium Maximum. By the time police arrived, the news of the occupation had already circulated on Twitter, mobilizing so many supporters it was impossible to clear the hall.

Unsereuni website

A 24h webcast from the Auditorium Maximum was put in place. Organizational tasks from cooking to cleaning were structured via a wiki, and a website communicated with the public. Twitter, blogs and Facebook (32,400 fans so far) were used to spread the word.

This had two effects:

- For the first time protests of this scale did not need the support of mass media for mobilization. Within less than a week after the beginning of the protests more than 20,000 demonstrators roamed the streets of Vienna, preceding any mass media coverage. Media contacts were limited to a bare minimum (which produced much confusion). Students simply didn‘t need the media and since the protests lacked hierarchy, there was a shortage of spokespersons.

- Second, because everyone could follow what was going on inside the Auditorium Maximum (the webcast produced half a million views within one month) it kept the tabloid press from labeling the protesters as rioters or extremists. Too many people knew it wasn‘t true. The power of opinion-making had shifted.

Soon the protests infected other university cities in Austria and abroad: Today, less than a month and a half after the first protests, almost 100 universities in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Albania, Serbia, France, Italy, Croatia and the Netherlands are occupied or have seen other forms of mass protest.

On Wissen belastet, Max Kossatz, a blogger and media observer from Austria, has analyzed [de] the Twitter stream: 66,379 tweets by 6,780 different usernames have been published on the subject in the last month. 1,043 pictures were posted on Twitpic and produced 125,612 views - see this Twitpic photo mashup on Youtube. And especially interesting, is the following map of tweets that illustrates how the protests spread over time (watch in HD and fullscreen to get the full experience):

Gerald Bäck of Bäck Blog, who works in the media observation business, found out that the gross reach of the tweets, i.e. the unique number of followers exposed to them, was 386,860. His analysis [de] shows who the key influencers were, what URLs were most linked to and what hashtags were used most.

In his blog, smime, Michael Schuster who is specialist in semantic analysis, contributed an overview [de] of the “old media” covering the events. He counted 2,700 articles and identified four trends lasting roughly one week each: “Protests take place”, “protests continue”, “protests widen”, and recently, “ok, enough now.”

Luca Hammer of 2-Blog, a student and technical mastermind behind the Viennese web activities, has published a field report [de] of how wikis, Twitter and webcast were used to get things rolling.

It looks like the case of #unibrennt may become an early milestone in the transformation of Austrian politics by the use of online social media. It has created wide attention - and confusion - among established media and political structures, and created a spirit of empowerment among students and digital leaders.

Opposition members counter-attacked, with Martine Aubry, leader of the Socialist Party, saying at a meeting in Grenoble that President Nicolas Sarkozy was embarrassing France by opposing National Identity to Immigration.

And anyway, what sense does it make to call 2nd or 3rd generation citizens immigrants?

Remembering the Great American Boycott in the U.S., a one-day boycott of schools and businesses by immigrants, both legal and illegal, of mostly Latin-American origin that took place on May 1, 2006, a group or “collectif”, was created earlier this month, under the title : La journée sans immigrés - 24 heures sans nous (The Day without migrants - 24 hours without us), which is scheduled for March 1, 2010. The group's manifesto is featured on its website [Fr], and Facebook groups have been set up in 10 regions so far. There is also a blog and a forum.

The manifesto begins with these words:

Nous, femmes et hommes, de toutes croyances, de tous bords politiques, et de toutes couleurs de peaux, immigrés, descendants d’immigrés, citoyens conscients de l’apport essentiel de l’immigration à notre pays, en avons assez des propos indignes tenus par certains responsables politiques visant à stigmatiser ou criminaliser les immigrés et leurs descendants. Rappelons qu’un immigré est celui qui est perçu comme tel par les autres au-delà même de ses origines. Nous voulons nous réapproprier et réhabiliter ce terme devenu péjoratif par la force de l’instrumentalisation politique.

Asked in a TV interview, quoted on Le Blog de Rose Blanche, Peggy Derder, vice-president of the “Day without Migrants” Group, explained [Fr]:

Notre collectif appelle les immigrés, descendants d'immigrés et citoyens conscients de l'apport essentiel de l'immigration à ne plus participer à la vie économique de la Cité pendant 24 heures. Ne pas travailler peut prendre plusieurs formes: faire grève, poser une journée de RTT ou de congé… On appelle également à ne pas consommer : ne pas aller au Mc Do, ne pas faire de shopping etc. Par cette absence, nous voulons marquer la nécessité de notre présence. En agissant sur le levier économique, on veut montrer que les immigrés sont une richesse au sens propre et figuré, des éléments moteurs de l'économie et de la société.

The initiative quickly won support from a large part of the political spectrum. Center-wing activist MIP did not want to be outdone, and was linked to by left-side blogger Intox 007:

Alors, oui, si cette journée est l'occasion de montrer aux hypocrites que de nombreux jobs (et pas forcément ceux en bas de l'échelle) sont exercés par des immigrés, vocable réducteur et objet d'attaque ignobles. Et que ces citoyens là sont aussi dignes que le né-ici, mais qu'ils sont plus l'objet de mépris, et que cela doit être combattu.

Demain le nouveau Congo Brazzaville also happily relayed the message, as well as Algerian news forum city DZ.

However, there are also dissonant voices, and not only where they are to be expected.

Merle moqueur (”Mocking bird”) is fed up with This- and That Days, and she sarcastically warns against any misunderstanding of the “without Immigrants” motto :

Ah, ça nous manquait, la journée sans immigrés. Voilà une idée de gauche qu'elle est bonne , fédératrice, porteuse de lien social, et pas du tout nunuche. Voilà une formulation qui plaira à certains. Eteins ton ordinateur, prends ton flingue, monte dans le bus et va jusqu'à la cité des Primevères. Il n'y a plus de bus ? Il a brûlé ? Arrête tes conneries réactionnaires, camarade, et marche un peu, ça te fera du bien. Va chez les Noirs et tire dans le tas, c'est la journée sans immigrés, t'as le droit.

And why the 1st of March, so far ahead ? Back to the manifesto :

Le 1er mars 2005 est entré en vigueur le «code de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile» (CESEDA), plus communément appelé le code des étrangers. Cette loi symbolise une conception utilitariste de l’immigration, en d’autres termes, une immigration choisie sur critères économiques. Nous ne pouvions trouver de meilleur jour pour appeler à « une journée sans immigrés ».

The ban has sparked mixed reactions throughout the Arab and Muslim blogospheres: While some bloggers are outraged, others make the point that banning minarets does not hinder practicing the faith.

Lebanese-American Pierre Tristram, who blogs for About.com, opens a post with this paragraph, condemning the Swiss decision:

How can 59 million people be so dumb, Britain's Daily Mail famously asked in a day-after headline of the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004. The Daily Mail can notch a new one for its shame gallery: How can 3 million Swiss be so bigoted?

Tristram closes with this scathing comment:  “The difference between your average Swiss and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the poster child of racist rants, has just gotten much narrower.”

Egyptian blogger Hicham Maged searches for an answer in his post, and concludes:

In a nutshell, I am looking forward for Swiss people to re-evaluate what happened; it is not only whether law protect citizen's rights or not, which is something important to debate and go for in the Swiss courts to correct for sure, but what is more important for me is that this fatal mistake should set up an alarm for not falling into the swamp of ignorance where nothing fill it but fear, anger and stupidity ~ Everywhere!

Another Egyptian blogger, whose blog is entitled Not Green Data, recognizes the credo that “a mosque is a mosque,” but laments the loss of the mosque's beauty in the Swiss ban:

Can you imagine a cube of Swiss Cheese, without its eyes - the holes in it? Or a Swiss Knife without the compass or the screwdriver? This is exactly what the Swiss people want to do with mosques. A mosque will remain a mosques without its Minarets, and it will still function the way it is supposed to function without them. But it will then loose its architectural identity and beauty.

British blogger Matthew Teller, a Middle East travel writer, focuses on the propaganda posters of various Swiss

A poster by the Swiss SVP calling for a ban of minarets

campaigners, picking apart both sides of the battle in this post, describing the poster to the left:

The repulsive SVP, who’ve used what the Financial Times called “strident populism” to target ‘foreigners’ of all kinds in Switzerland as criminals, benefit cheats or worse, kicked off the campaign with the poster opposite: “Stop! Yes to the minaret ban”. Look at the imagery: minarets as missiles, women as menacing, the burqa as concealment, black as a threat, the Swiss flag cast into shadow from the east, the cross obliterated.

Algerian-American The Moor Next Door, seeing the ban as a power struggle, remarks:

The minaret, for its opponents, symbolizes Islam’s “arrival” in the Alps. It stands to proclaim the Muslim presence above other faiths and peoples. Banning it, then, is to ban a symbol of Muslim power and existence

…

The aesthetics of identity, and therefore power, are what the drive is really about. It is a way for a people in doubt to affirm and define their confused identity by rejecting that of the newcomer’s.

Syrian blogger Maysaloon has a unique perspective on what the most important narrative of this story is.  Setting aside the issues of bigotry, fear, and architectural integrity, the blogger makes the following point:

Neither Swiss bigotry, nor the religious or architectural significance of minarets are what is important about this story. What is important is that for the first time in 400 years, at least since the Ottomans besieged Vienna, Muslims are having a real impact on what is happening in Europe.

The blogger goes on to highlight the ways in which Islam has influenced the “west” and vice versa, concluding:

To sum it up, I am not worried about the bigots. Minarets and sharia can be banned, headscarves can be torn off, and all the cartoons in the world will not stop the fact that Islam is now in Europe, and it is in America, and it is spreading throughout the world.

To conclude, Mauritanian Twitter user weddady's comment on the end result of the referendum sums up well the sentiment of many.  He says, ” Now no one can pretend that Europe doesn't have a problem with Muslims, nor can anyone deny the extensive Islamist presence there.”

There has been progress in combating the disease since it was first identified in the early 80s, but HIV/AIDS remains a major public health issue. Over 33 million people are currently living with HIV worldwide, almost 70 percent of who live in sub-Saharan Africa. People with HIV are living longer though, in part because of the beneficial effects of antiretroviral therapy. To highlight the need for universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment, care and prevention, the theme of this year's World AIDS Day is ‘Universal Access and Human Rights.'

Bloggers globally have used World AIDS Day as an opportunity to share their thoughts on not only this disease, but the significance of this day. Many of these blogs are included on Global Voices Google map of HIV-positive bloggers and groups who blog about the disease, which has been updated for World AIDS Day. Charlie Dale, blogging on My Journey with Judy… from the United States, reflects on the significance of World AIDS Day.

“Somehow over the years I guess I have grown complacent to what this day really means, if in all honesty anything to the masses. In the beginning it was in all the news stories, papers and events that this day was approaching and awareness and attention was brought to this monster killer.

Over the years though the media like the rest of us I guess has grown overly weary of a problem that is still fairly rampant and in the minds of the media VERY old news sadly to say…Long term survivors like myself I guess have grown weary, worn and tired. Many of us are just trying to survive day to day and make something of ourselves and our lives.”

But Claire Keeton, blogging for South Africa’s Sunday Times, says there is still an important role for World AIDS Day.

“It’s that time of year when Christmas decorations flood the shops and red AIDS ribbons come out. Tuesday is World AIDS Day.

Some people with HIV/AIDS and activists object to World AIDS Day – essentially saying it allows people to ignore the epidemic the rest of the year, as long as they remember it for a single day.

Paying lip service. Window dressing. Look at the Onion cover in that light.

From my side, World AIDS Day does have advantages. It’s the one time of the year that all media make space for HIV/AIDS stories.”

Many bloggers have done just that, made space on their blogs to share their experiences about this disease. Aderyn Verwood from Germany, blogging on Vintage Verwood, says that until her good friend was diagnosed with HIV, she didn’t pay much attention to it:

“Like most people, I knew about HIV, but the role it played in my life was too insignificant to ever become more than a distant, abstract threat that seemingly did not belong to my environment. Now, no day goes past that I don’t think of it consciously, that I don’t hope for improvement of already existing therapies or for a breakthrough in scientific research, so that a cure might be found…To my friend, I’d just like to say: I hope that many decades from now, we will sit together, old and wrinkly, laughing about the times when we were young. I love you.”

Others took a less personal approach and blogged to raise awareness and spread the facts. Jessica Joseph, blogging on Alien in The Caribbean from Trinidad and Tobago, wrote a three-part exploration of sex and sexuality in the Caribbean in the days leading up to World AIDS Day. In this first part, she looks at where the shame and secrets regarding sex come from:

“Some of the questions I would like to investigate are: Where exactly did our prudery and hypocrisy come from? What are the elements of sexual attraction? What are the dynamics of gender and sexual orientation? Some of the resolutions I would to make are: Sexuality and spirituality are not mutually exclusive. Good sex is also safe sex. HIV/Aids is a viral representation of a deeper syndrome and its cure lies in a holistic approach to sexuality even it means the painful re-breaking and re-setting of a bone (no pun intended) that was badly cast for a very long time.”

Some bloggers used art to express how they feel on World AIDS Day. Last year Richard Kearns, blogging on HAVVACC, wrote this poem in honor of the day and says he plans to write a new poem this year. Sinthalunda, a poet in Malawi, posts this poem:

“Here from this musty village
Come golden stars
Who dance the same rhythm
From far beyond the horizon;
Their light sound gets louder
As they walk to school
For the beat of lessons
Round the circle of subjects.

From this forgotten compound
Come complex joys
From children whose nose-dust
Has been cleaned by wind's awareness.
For now, the way of knowledge
In the world of education
Has taught them to sense
The voice of silenced victims.”

To encourage more bloggers to write about HIV/AIDS on all 365 days of the year, not just World AIDS Day, this past summer Rising Voices released “Blogging Positively,” a collection of case studies, interviews and best practices about citizen media related to HIV/AIDS. The guide highlights leaders in the HIV-positive community, contains tips for workshop facilitators and teachers and provides resources to help new bloggers get started.

Photo by circo_de_invierno, from Flickr under CC BY 2.0.

Words about violence must break SILENCE

UNIFEM, in the Say No to Violence channel on YouTube has already documented some of the actions being taken around the world to end gender violence. This first video shows the Ngara Girls High School in Nairobi, Kenya, where young girls are being taught to say No to Violence, to stand up for their rights and also how to deal with rape, assault, harassment and other forms of gender violence:

Also in Kenya, the Kenyatta National Hospital has a Gender Violence Recovery Center, where women and their children can go and receive care in cases of violence against them. In this next video, they tell of their experience running the center, the context they are in, and women who have been victims of gender violence speak out:

In Peru, the Flora Tristan organization is having a protest and mass gathering for another aspect they believe is related to gender violence: the denial of free access to birth control methods and the new law that determined that the day after pill (emergency contraception) wouldn't be distributed free of cost. They will be doing an educational campaign in a park in Lima and giving out information about birth control, also handing out day after pills and birth control packets as a symbolic protest:

In the context of all Latin America and the Caribbean, UN-INSTRAW launches this video as part of an awareness campaign :

Latinoamérica y el Caribe es un lugar peligroso para las mujeres. Más de 50 por ciento de las mujeres de la región han sido objetos de agresiones. En la República Dominicana, por ejemplo, 1,453 mujeres fueron asesinadas entre los años 2000 y 2008. En el marco del Día Internacional para la Eliminación de la Violencia Contra la Mujer, UN-INSTRAW lanza un nuevo video sobre la seguridad de las mujeres latinas y caribeñas.

In Spain, women participated in the 5th Self-Defense seminar against gender violence, where they are taught how to protect themselves in case they face a dangerous situation. Training is geared towards enabling them to disable their aggressor momentarily so they can run away from danger.

And from Chile, Hip Hop Artist COFLA has made a song titled Femicide. Whereas hip-hop lyrics are often thought to promote violence against women, this artist has put out a song condemning how men go from promises of love and protection to violence, aggression and even murder:

Have there been similar efforts and activities in your hometown or country? Please let us know in the comments how your community is moving towards ending violence against women!

Photojournalist and blogger Craig Wherlock translated from reports in Greek media:

a 35 year old Armenian woman was beaten, handcuffed and detained in front of her two year old child [..] in Athens last Thursday [..] When she went to get the pushchair carrying her child they grabbed her, pushed her to the ground, kicking and punching her in the belief she was resisting arrest. The hapless mother was handcuffed and taken with her child to the Aghios Panteleimonos police department where she was kept for four hours.

The incident was promptly reported on Twitter by Cyberela:

«Νταήδες» αστυνομικοί ξυλοκόπησαν 35χρονη http://www.enet.gr/104685 (via @enetgr) @chrisochoidis Τί θα κάνετε γι αυτό;

Citizen Protection minister Michalis Chrisochoidis was harangued by demands to take action. On Twitter vivian_e said:

@chrisochoides Υπουργέ, δεν πάει άλλο η κατάσταση με την αστυνομική βία. Πρέπει να υπάρξουν παραδειγματικές τιμωρίες. Άμεσα

Half an hour after the first tweet, the minister's office responded directly to citizens for the first time through Twitter:

@Cyberela @diakoptis @teacherdude @asteris @magicasland μετά την καταγγελία της 36χρονης η ΓΑΔΑ διέταξε Ένορκη Διοικητική Εξέταση

… to which vivian_e responded

@chrisochoidis Θα σας ρωτάμε κάθε μέρα για την πορεία της ΕΔΕ.

Later, the minister announced that the officers responsible for the incident would be permanently dismissed, and initiated a public consultation for the creation of a special office to monitor incidents of police abuse.

People may be too embarrassed to openly talk about it, but everyone does it, toilet or not. World Toilet Day helps people celebrate the importance of sanitation and raise awareness for the 2.5 billion people who don't have access to toilets and proper sanitation. This video by the nonprofit WaterAid highlights the luxury of having a toilet.

Celebrating your can may seem silly, but not having one can not only lead to embarrassment, lack of dignity and safety issues, but also preventable diseases and even death. When people don't have toilets, they're forced to relieve themselves in open streets, fields, or back alleys. The result? The contamination of drinking water and food sources, which leads to a slew of health risks. Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection and kills 1.8 million people, mostly children, a year. Even countries with abundant toilets have to deal with problems ranging from unhygienic public toilets to waterway-destroying sewage disposal.

Vanilla, blogging on Let's Look At It This Way from Singapore, says that people should care about toilets:

“I know this is a crappy topic to most people. It is unfortunate that it is a ‘taboo' topic to talk about openly and many people remain ignorant about the scale of the problem. I fail to understand how this can be an unimportant topic when, on an average, we visit the toilet 2500 times a year, or 6-8 times a day. In our life time, we would have spent 3 years in the toilet.”

Organized by the nonprofit The World Toilet Organization, World Toilet Day is being celebrated globally with various events. To further increase awareness, WaterAid announced the launch of its new ToiletFinder UK App for iPhone users this week. The free app helps Brits find the nearest public toilet while reminding them how lucky they are to have clean and safe toilets. The largest event today, called The Big Squat, asks people to stop and squat for one minute in a public place to raise awareness. These photos show people squatting globally, including this one of preschoolers in Singapore:

A blog from Brunei, the world according to panyaluru …, also shows appreciation for the toilet by putting it into perspective:

“Imagine if we are walking along in the row of shops in Kiulap or Gadong. Suddenly the tummy grumbles, just like the worst ribut you can think off. No rest bite. Grumble and grumble. Rumblings. The light is on amber and ready to turn green. But no toilets in sight. Not a single public toilet in the rows of shops…Add to that no water, no tissue, nothing! That could be the worst day of your life, your worst nightmare, ever worse than the nightmares those kids have in the Nightmare on Elm Street Movies. On this day, let’s show our appreciation to our toilets.”

Despite its serious side, many people have used humor to celebrate World Toilet Day. In the U.K., the blog London City Drains features a 10-question toilet quiz, while in this video high school teacher Matt Cheplic sings about the day.

Some bloggers point out that toilets alone may not be the answer. Sandhya, blogging on Maradhi Manni in India, says many men don't use available toilets:

“In a city like Chennai, where the climate is hot nearly 10 months of the year, I see men urinating on the roadside all the time. When women can control and go home and relieve themselves, why can't men do so, I don't know. So, first of all people should be fined heavily for doing this crime (yes, it is crime) on the spot. I have seen them doing this on the wall of the public toilets! In Srirangam, I saw them urinating on the compound wall of the temple even though every street surrounding the temple had toilets, which were clean, but pay toilets!”

While lack of sanitation impacts everyone, the taboo around toilets can disproportionately affect women. In some countries, modesty forces women do their business in fields before sunrise or to hold it until after the sun sets, leading to health and safety concerns. Joanne Sprague, blogging on Overturning Boulders in India, observes that women are absent from the morning toilet run in Chennai, while in Ethiopia the blog AN ADVENTURE IN ADDIS notices a similar situation:

“I’ve heard so often about the lack of toilet facilities for women or lack of toilets in general; that teenage girls in the countryside get up at 4 am to go out in the dark to do their business so they don’t get bullied by the boys at school or stop going to school altogether. Men just pee anywhere, cigarette in hand and there’s an assumption that women don’t need to, if they are thought about at all….I want to see a huge billboard in Amharic saying ‘Girls go too’ with a picture of Barbie sitting on a toilet.”

To celebrate World Toilet Day, blogger Jonathan Stray, takes readers on an international tour of toilets he's visited, from Thailand and the U.K. to West Africa and Oman, concluding:

“We in the west with our flush toilets and toilet paper and sparkling shower stalls are the exception; the rest of the world thinks a bathroom is a wet, smelly place, when they have a bathroom at all. A good toilet means you probably have a very good quality of life, so enjoy yours. Happy World Toilet Day!”

Photo of Tiled Toilet by nedrichards on Flickr, Creative Commons.

Beckii Cruel started to gain popularity at the end of this year thanks to some videos posted on YouTube where she appears dancing in her room, to the tune of anime songs, attracting the interest of inveterate fans of anime and manga.
After becoming a celebrity on the Internet as user xBextahx, she was invited to perform in Akihabara, the district in eastern Tokyo that is widely acknowledged as the symbol of the otaku culture [en].

bluecafe09k48 sums up Beckii's profile for us.

イギリス・マン島在住の美少女、１４歳ですね～。
マンガ「フルーツバスケット」を読んで以来、
日本のオタク文化に嵌ったのが３年前とのこと。
ベッキー・クルーエル自身が日本のアニメソングなどで踊っている動画を
ＹｏｕＴｕｂｅで公開したのが今年の３月くらいから。
「男女」がニコニコ動画に転載されたのが５月頃で、人気が爆発。

PV of Danjo (男女)

Beckii Cruel's popularity is certainly a Japanese phenomenon, as demonstrated by the fact that the only Wikipedia entry on her is in Japanese. However, the word of mouth has spread also among those foreigners who are passionate fans of Akihabara and the otaku culture in general.

GodLen, at Animevice. com, for example, comments with a bit of mock jealousy on the British idol's career.

Beckii Cruel, oh how I wish I were her, for she is the Cinderella story of the otaku world. This 14-year-old girl from England has won over the hearts of moe-loving otaku in Japan by posting videos of herself dancing to anime and Jpop songs on youtube. Yesterday she had the opportunity to dance in front of over 600 fans at the Enta Matsuri in Akihabara; amazing, and it all started with a youtube video. Now she has a DVD coming out in Japan (which you can pre-order now) that features her dancing her dance, and being overall moe.

Sankei News interview to Beckii Cruel at Akihabara Enta Festival

Beckii Cruel, who was recently chosen by candy and sweets maker Lotte to promote the Fit's Dance Contest together with other celebrities, performed live for the first time at Akihabara Enta Festival on October 25 [here are some pictures of the show].

They are the Climate Debt Agents, and their job is to get the Danish government industrialized countries, including Denmark, to pay their “climate debt” to the developing world. If you are in Denmark, and would like to don a suit and join them, you can apply here. You can also visit them on their blog or on Facebook.

Who pays the price?

When rich countries make decisions that have negative affects on the environment, people living in poverty pay the highest price. Drought, hunger, and death caused by climate change could be prevented in many places with technology like water storage facilities that can help communities adapt to new climate conditions.

But that costs money.

“Who should pay the climate debt?” [PDF] is the title of a short report by the international anti-poverty organization ActionAid that calculates the monetary value of the debt at €135 billion per year until 2020, and proposes how the bill should be divided between countries.

Over the past 3 months, MS ActionAid Denmark has educated a team of online and offline activists to help deliver their message, by sending them on research missions to Kenya, Brussels and Denmark, and pairing them up with Global Voices bloggers who mentored them virtually for 6 weeks on blogging.

On their website, the mentees-turned-debt-agents explain: “We want a world with climate justice and global justice. In order to get that the attitude of decision makers has to be changed so that they recognize and realize to pay off their climate debt.”

Since the court decision, the prime minister has launched a campaign accusing “leftist” judges, the national and foreign press, and even Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano of political bias against him. Last week, the government introduced a bill promoted as “one of the most radical reforms of Italy's snail-paced justice system since the end of World War II”, which the opposition, magistrates, and consumer advocacy groups insist is yet another “ad personam law”, tailored to help Berlusconi avoid corruption trials.

On the same day of the verdict, October 9, a group of bloggers, citizens and intellectuals, self-defined as “not politically involved or belonging to any parties”, launched the idea of a national protest against Berlusconi demanding his resignation. They promptly opened a Facebook group under this header:

SALVIAMO L'ITALIA, SALVIAMO LA DEMOCRAZIA. BERLUSCONI DIMETTITI.

Saturday, December 5 was designated “No Berlusconi Day (NBD)”. The campaign spread quickly on the Internet with videos, blogs, and tweets, as well as offline, through word of mouth. In little more than a month over 280,000 people pledged to host a public event on “No Berlusconi Day” via the main Facebook group, with groups formed in many cities in Italy and around the world, including San Francisco and Sacramento (California), Ottawa and Montreal (Canada), Buenos Aires (Argentina), London, Madrid, Vienna, and Istanbul - where local rallies will be held on the same day.

The initiative has been featured on countless websites, as well as on Italy's leading daily newspapers, la Repubblica and Corriere della Sera. Today the leftist daily L'Unità devoted several pages to the event, including a story underlining the crucial role of citizen media in such “bottom-up initiatives”, comparing it to the protest movement in Iran and even to the Obama election in the USA. An open letter appeared in the London Times.

While the protest appeal document has been translated in 11 languages so far, including Arabic, Turk and Serb-Croat, the No Berlusconi Day blog further explains:

The No Berlusconi Day group is a large, informal, global network of ordinary citizens, spanning all political and cultural backgrounds. The coordinators of the group are unpaid and do not collectively hold specific political affiliations… Although the No Berlusconi Day group is non-political, the group and event has received public support and endorsement from a number of high-profile activists, including Salvatore Borsellino brother of the anti-corruption judge Paolo Borsellino who was murdered by a Mafia car-bomb in 1992.

Beppe Grillo, a well-known Italian comedian who launched a very popular (some say ‘populist') campaign against corruption and illegality of past Italian governments last year, has also announced his support of No Berlusconi Day on his website, attracting more than 1,300 comments, the vast majority supporting his statement:

“Mi sono rotto i coglioni di Berlusconi”. Ditelo in pubblico, al bar, al ristorante. Gridatelo in radio, ai semafori, scrivetelo ai giornali, inviate mail ai siti italiani e internazionali, alle caselle di posta dei deputati, dei senatori. “Mi sono rotto i coglioni di Berlusconi”.

[…]

E' mai possibile che gli italiani, anche quelli rincoglioniti dalle televisioni, non abbiano un moto di rigetto, un conato di vomito a vedere la Repubblica Italiana trattata come una zoccola? Il Grande Corruttore ha corrotto forse ogni coscienza? Tutto ciò che ha toccato nella sua vita si è corrotto, decomposto. E' lui l'H1N1 della nostra democrazia.

The main Facebook group features an ongoing flow of new comments:

Giacomo Spataro: GIORNO 5/12.. TUTTI I NEGOZI CHIUSI…bandiere viola fuori…e tutti a roma….

Diritto Di Parola: La manifestazione si potrà definire APARTITICA e nata ed organizzata dal basso solo se i partiti non esibiranno i propri simboli. Non raccontiamoci frottole :) W il 5 dicembre voluto dai cittadini !!!! Scendiamo tutti in piazza a manifestare per le dimissioni di Berlusconi !!!

Daniele Nuzzo: Per fare Carpooling per andare a Roma dividendo le spese.

The NBD organizers chose the color purple to identify the movement, explaining that “purple is not just for mourning, but it is also a symbol of vital energy and self-determination”. Hence some creative ideas on Facebook:

Use this image for your profile or for a t-shirt:

While actual meet-ups are underway throughout the country, the electronic tam-tam is also spreading via Twitter.

On October 31, the first volunteers took to the streets in many cities to start informing people about the upcoming event. Here is a video from downtown Rome, where a journalist from PdCI-TV interviewed the activists on the fly [it]:

No political parties have formally endorsed the protest with the exception of Antonio di Pietro and Paolo Ferrero (leaders of small opposition parties, respectively, Italia dei Valori and Comunisti Italiani), who confirmed their attendance to the Rome rally.

Will people actually take to the streets en masse? For those still in doubt, the following “Joker Silvio” video explains the “top 10 reasons why citizens should participate in the No B-Day, an event born and promoted almost exclusively on the Net” [it]:

Explains DW-World :

In an interview with “Inrockuptibles” magazine last summer, N'Diaye said she had decided to leave France and move to Berlin in 2007 “in great part because of Sarkozy.”

The controversy began after Eric Raoult, a lawmaker and member of Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, wrote to the culture minister last week recommending that NDiaye be reminded of the “duty of restraint” that comes with the Goncourt.

In response, France's cultural establishment has thrown accusations of censorship into the debate. Bernard Pivot, a Goncourt jury member, accused Raoult of knowing nothing about the literary scene.

N'Diaye, born in 1967 to a French mother and a Senegalese father, won the Goncourt prize for her novel, “Trois femmes puissantes” (”Three Powerful Women”), a story about three women caught between France and Senegal and the hellish ordeal of illegal migration from Africa.

“The story of these migrants has been told many times before, but if this can help people understand their fate a bit better, I will be happy,” said NDiaye.

What was it that stirred Eric Raoult's ire? No less than an interview of the woman novelist, when she answered magazine Les Inrocks's question : “Do you feel well in Sarkozy's France?” saying [fr]:

« Je trouve cette France-là monstrueuse. Le fait que nous (avec son compagnon l’écrivain Jean-Yves Cendrey, et leurs trois enfants – ndlr) ayons choisi de vivre à Berlin n’est pas étranger à ça. (…) Je trouve détestable cette atmosphère de flicage, de vulgarité… »

Renowned law blogger Maître Eolas demolishes Mr. Raoult's claim in an ironically well-argued post [Fr], finally awarding him the “Prix Busiris” (”buse” may be translated by “dolt”).

First, he rectifies a grammatical mistake :

Tout d’abord, et le ministre de la culture et de la communication aura rectifié de lui-même, le devoir de réserve ne peut en tout état de cause être dû aux lauréats mais dû par les lauréats : cette erreur de préposition fait du lauréat le créancier alors que dans l’esprit la tête du député, il en serait évidemment le débiteur.

And legally ? Among the texts, the blogger quotes of course the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen along with the European Convention on Human Rights. And the “duty of restraint”, traditionally asked from civil servants ?

Le devoir de réserve est souvent invoqué à tort et à travers par des gens qui n’y ont rien compris comme interdisant à un fonctionnaire de s’exprimer, y compris parfois sur des affaires purement privées.

The lawyer concludes on the M.P.'s dishonesty, before dealing the finishing blow :

Ajoutons à cela qu’en 2005, en tant que maire du Raincy, lors des émeutes de l’automne, il fut le premier à proclamer l’état d’urgence dans sa commune pourtant épargnée par les actes de violence afin de griller la politesse au premier ministre, ce qui montre une certaine tendance à la gesticulation inutile pour attirer l’attention sur lui.

Ce qui établit en même temps le mobile d’opportunité politique, et emporte la décision.

Other bloggers also had scathing words.

On Art contemporain, la peau de l'ours, Philippe Rillon writes [fr]:

Nous comprenons fort bien que le devoir de réserve s’impose à tout serviteur de l’Etat; mais depuis quand la littérature et les auteurs sont ils assimilés aux fonctionnaires avec leurs droits et devoirs?

Nous avions déjà une “Culture administrée”, nous voici maintenant “artistes fonctionnaires” comme si Paris était Berlin-est d’avant la chute du mur…
(…)
Il serait quand même étonnant qu’au lendemain d’une hyper-médiatique commémoration de la chute du mur, ce godillot vienne gâcher le spectacle idylique des dominos qui tombent.

Meanwhile, Marie Ndiaye, after an attempt at toning down her words in an interview with radio station Europe 1, which in the midst of the turmoil went unnoticed, appealed to French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand. The latter deems the controversy “trivial” and “ridiculous” [fr], and the main players stick to their guns [fr].

Bikya Misr, wrote about the case:

After nearly four and a half months, the Marwa el-Sherbini saga has come to a conclusion of sorts after a German court sentenced the man who stabbed the “veiled martyr” 17 times inside the court in July to life in prison without possibility of early release. Egyptians, Arabs and Germans alike have welcomed the verdict and hope Europe and the Middle East can begin to heal the wounds of the killing and move “toward a better future.”

Hicham Maged wrote about how glad he is for the ruling, and that he has real trust in the German justice system:

The judge was aware about various tricks from the killer's defence team and here I quote the words according to this article: “ He killed … not out of fear but out of revenge. He consciously exploited her innocence and defencelessness. ” I agree with this and do not forget that he also tried to kill her husband.
I am glad that the courtroom where betrayal took place has been washed up physically and morally by applying justice. Consequently, my trust in the German justice system was needless to mention because this crime was shocking for all of us not only Germans. For that matter, only today Marwa and her unborn baby can rest in peace after compensating from the killer.

Zeinobia was happy with the verdict, and she also wrote in response to those who believed that it is a political verdict, and that the German court ruled in favour of Marwa in order to please the Egyptians, and Arabs:

Now I want to say something, some racists “and they are not few in the world now”, will say that this is a political verdict ; the court had to take to win the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world and to save the German interests is the Islamic world.
Well with my all respect I said it before and will say it again; do not think of Marwa as a Muslim woman; think of her as a Pregnant woman and a mother who was brutally stabbed 18 times in front of her little boy. He killed two souls, innocent souls because of blind hate and racism. He deserves to be behind bars for the rest of his life for taking the life of innocent souls and take the life of a mother from her child

Aam Mina on the other hand wrote a post, making fun of those who believe in conspiracy theories and were expecting the Germans to rule in favour of the murderer:

He then wrote about many the lessons we are supposed to learn from this incident:

Finally, Hicham Maged wrote:

What happened to Marwa should be a ‘wake-up’ call that make people work for achieving this both by criticising extreme actions taken against people because of their faith or race and understanding our differences and this simply means to quite stereotyping from whoever against whoever.