Archive for
September 27th, 2006
Stories
Tunisia: Opening prisons to the world
At this site, I’m trying to show videos that show or speak about human rights abuses, and – as in the Tunisian video above - the impact of human rights abuses on ordinary people. I don’t speak Arabic, so how do I know what this video’s about?
It's thanks to Tunisian activist Sami Ben Gharbia, who this Monday launched Tunisian Prisoners Map, which shows the prisons where a number of political and other prisoners are being held in Tunisia. The site, which — like sites such as ChicagoCrime.org - uses a Google Maps mashup, gives a brief case history for each prisoner, relevant external links, and, where Sami can find it, online video of their families - in the case of the video above it's Mohamed Abbou. The videos are in Arabic, so I can’t give you more detail (any helpers?), but there’s some background in English in the case histories Sami provides.
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Posts from Peru
This time it is three rather than two weekly summaries from the guys at Perú Político: Weekly Chronicle (September 6 to the 12) and Weekly Chronicle (September 13 - 19) Gobierno y Congreso tras el clamor popular, and there is a version in English for readers of the anglophone world: Weekly review (September 6-12) and Weekly review (September 13-19) Congress and Government behind popular clamour.
The first summary principally deals with the repercussions in the Judicial Power after the recent cases of corruption and the national proposal for 2007, while the second looks at the recent polemic actions of the Congress regarding the death penalty for rapists of minors as well as the law to eliminate the basic charge for a fixed telephone.
The whole world is opinionated about the topic of a basic telephone charge and even though there is general consensus that the user's costs should be lower, how to do it is what leads to interminable debate. Citing two blogs, El Otro Tambor posted “The Basic Charge” with lots of interesting links in the following tone:
Telefónica del Perú cobra 47 soles (en la práctica más todavía) simplemente por dejarnos tener un teléfono, aparte de lo que pagamos por llamadas y servicios. Se supone que eso es lo que le cuesta a Telefónica mantener sus instalaciones y equipos. Esos que en cierta medida se construyeron con nuestros impuestos mientras la empresa era estatal, y en otra medida se podrían financiar con una parte de las enormes utilidades que consigue la empresa gracias a su posición de monopolio. Pero no, Telefónica sólo quiere maximizar su ganancia y que nosotros sigamos financiando la inversión y costeando las pérdidas. Y la institución encargada de regular esto, Osiptel, bien gracias…
Kurdistance
Onnik Krikorian from Oneworld Multimedia has written a series of wonderful articles about the Yezidis, ethnic Kurds, who live in Georgia and Armenia. Traditionally, information gathered about the Yezidis focus on those that live in Southern Kurdistan/Northern Iraq, which makes Onnik's article an incredibly valuable cultural resource.
Rasti writes this week about the “spin” in the Turkish media about the prowess of the Turkish Military:
This spin on alleged Turkish military prowess is only going to work on the ignorant. Think about it; when was the last time the TSK was involved in a real war? That would be Korea. Since then, the only military prowess exercised by the TSK has been against unarmed Kurdish civilians under Turkish occupation, or against a few thousand Kurdish gerîlas, or against unarmed Cypriot civilians in Turkish-occupied Cyprus. The TSK specializes in fighting civilians, but there's no way it's going to get into a real fight. That's why the pashas are only going to send 800 to 1,000 Mehmetciks to Lebanon–out of an 800,000 strong army, second largest in NATO–and, since everything has hotted up in Afghanistan, that's why the pashas are balking at sending more Mehmetciks for that “peacekeeping” mission.
Hiwa from Hiwa Hopes notes the increase of Kurds living in Northern Kurdistan/Southeast Turkey heading to Southern Kurdistan/Northern Iraq to enroll in Kurdish Universities.
The Is-Ought Problem gives a detailed explanation behind the recent decision of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to fly the Kurdish flag instead of the Iraqi flag:
As a result, the decision not to fly the flag of Iraq, but instead to fly only the flag of the Kurdistan Regional Government is much more than a statement of national independence. It is a statement of cultural autonomy and rejuvenation. A statement of religious tolerance and pluralism. It is, more than anything, an affirmation that Kurdistan is, and shall remain, different.
Bit of a shorter week I'm afraid, see you next time!
Ethiopian bloggers rally to save controversial bill
Ethiopia’s diaspora bloggers are flexing their political muscles in a bid to save a controversial bill they claim has been blocked in the US Congress.
The highly-politicised groups of Ethiopian writers living in the USA published a flurry of posts over the past week to persuade Congress to pass House Resolution 5680 - the ‘Ethiopia Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights Advancement Act of 2006′ (see the full list of H.R. 5680 posts on Technorati).
HR 5680 is, in its own words, designed “to encourage and facilitate the consolidation of security, human rights, democracy, and economic freedom in Ethiopia”. It amounts to a condemnation of Ethiopia's current government and a series of punitive actions - everything from “[prohibiting] security assistance to Ethiopia” (with exceptions for peacekeeping or counter-terrorism assistance) and a ban on “U.S. entry of any Ethiopian official involved in giving orders to use lethal force against peaceful demonstrators or accused of gross human rights violations, government security personnel involved in shootings of demonstrators, and Ethiopian civilians involved in killings of Ethiopian policemen”. The latter prohibition is a reference to bloody clashes between protesters and armed police that left more than 80 dead after Ethiopia's national elections last year.
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China: spoofing Confucius
The new, standardized statue of Confucius was unveiled on September 23 by the China Confucius Institute. Here are some reactions from the blogsphere:
Xiong pei-yun points out that the standarization is against Confucius teaching:
孔子教导艺术家，“知之为知之，不知为不知，是知也。”意思是，孔子长什么样，你知道就说知道，不知道就说不知道，搞标准要诚实。显然，这种看似为孔子脸上贴金、附带赠送个关二爷脸谱的做法，不过是冒充知道、以掺假“恶搞”孔子。
相见不如怀念。孔子“道成雕像”，只是经过孔基会的手，便可以充当“标准”，并定义“不标准”，或以标准的名义窒息他人的想象。
Nameless big bull in bullog says that the event reminded him of the past campaign in “Criticizes Lin Biao and Confucius”:
我那个时候还挺害怕，因为我母亲姓孔，我生怕有人问我你妈妈姓什么，一说姓孔，利马可能有小朋友给我起个孔老二的外号…
Links for Wed, 2006-09
Shianux writes about the lack of basic economics knowledge among the UMNO political party members in Malaysian province of Johor. Johor is the province that borders Singapore. Johor UMNO is asking the federal government to cancel all projects like the proposed bullet train between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore that might (according to Johor UMNO) benefit Singapore more. The blogger feels that Johor UMNO is being selfish as it fears that Johor would loose if other parts of Malaysia has direct transport links to Singapore.
Days in Daechuri reports on the weekend solidarity protest in seoul against the expansion of military base in Pyeongtaek. There were also protests in New York and Los Angeles.
Positive solutions writes on the social economic background for the Chinese government's propaganda of building a harmonious society.
An opinion piece written by Yoo Seung-gi in Ohmynews, talking about the crisis in humanities subjects in Korea education.
Jeremy Goldkorn in DANWEI blogs about a Accord Girl's video that enraged local netizens and resulted in another internet mobs hunt. The girl thinks that anyone who earns less than 3,000 yuan a month is a loser (i.e. most people in China).
Zhao mu blogs about a debate between education department and media workers. On September 25, the spokes person of education department openly criticized that the Chinese media is ignorant. The response of course is “which is more ignorant? education department or media?” (zh)
At neweurasia's Turkmenistan blog, Peter details just how much foreign companies — John Deere in this case — will suck up to Turkmenistan's president in order to secure business deals.
KZBlog notes that Kazakhstan has slipped in the World Economic Forum's competitiveness rankings, saying that the country still has much to do at the consumer level to improve.
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