Archive for
January 20th, 2009
Stories
MENA: Reactions to Obama's Inauguration
Today marked an historic moment in United States history as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President. While Arab support of Obama has been waning over the past few months following the selection of his cabinet and his silence over Israel's attacks on Gaza, across the Middle East and North Africa bloggers still have plenty to say.
A Syrian in London shares a timeline of the past few weeks of Israel's attacks, then remarks:
Not since Kennedy, and some say not never, has an American President has had such attention with such high hopes, from around the world resting on his shoulders. In his inauguration speech, President Obama said:
“we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord”
“we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”
“In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.”
“we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals”
Dare we grieve the dead?
Dare we hope for the living?
Jar of Juice, a blogger based in Dubai, felt that Obama's speech was a bit lacking:
While I think Obama’s speech was brilliant - he did not flinch when he said “Muslims” but was trying hard to sound genuine when he “thanked” the imbecile of whom we do not speak of after today - I think there was a crucial element missing in this event…
…but I guess Obama won’t lower himself to acknowledge that fool more than the diplomatic gesture in his speech.
Moroccan blogger Laila Lalami, who is a US resident and admits to voting for Obama, is slightly more hopeful, and glad Obama's day has come:
I’m glad that day has come.
Eight years ago, I voted for Ralph Nader because I thought there really wasn’t much of a difference between Democrats and Republicans on the major issues. But after the debacle in Florida, the Supreme Court decision, and the abysmal presidency that followed, I learned a simple lesson: Not all politicians are equal. There are some who are so talentless, so impervious to common sense, so lacking in simple compassion that they make a mockery of the office. I suppose I’m too cynical now to expect vast differences in government policy but I am still fired up about this particular change, about Barack Obama, and about the departure of George W. Bush.
Moroccan Obama fans are still actively campaigning for President Obama to give his first foreign speech in Rabat.
The Balkans: “Whose Is This Song?”
Recently several Macedonian bloggers published the documentary “Whose Is This Song?” by a Bulgarian director Adela Peeva on their blogs and started discussing the story. The documentary was filmed as an idea that the director got during a dinner in Istanbul with several friends (a Macedonian, a Serb, a Greek and a Turk), when all of them said that the song playing in the background was from their country.
First to publish [mkd] a short review of the documentary was Arheo Blog:
[…] Although the documentary doesn’t have any political tendency, the search for an identity of a song shows the search for the identity and national impatience for the nations from the Balkans. Instead of connecting them, not knowing the situation, in some moments Peeva has to deal with emotional reaction of the interviewed people thinking that she is offending them. Trying to connect the cultural heritage for the Balkans, this time through music, Adela Peeva at the end will conclude that it’s almost unbelievable how only one song with unknown background can create hatred in people. This is shown in the end of the movie, in the scene where one Fiesta is transformed into a field that is on fire and its save by “people from different ethnicities”. This is happening at the border between Bulgaria and Turkey.
Although it’s a great documentary, I was intrigued by the two facts said in the movie – “That this is a war song and that the rhythms are from North Europe, because they are not typical for the Balkans”. It’s up to you to determine which song it is.
When the post of Arheo Blog was shared [mkd] on Kajmak.ot there were several reactions:
Arwena:
I don’t know why there is always a tendency to look for argument and reasons for national tendencies. That is always the case for the Balkans, because politics is unavoidably connected with history. I stand by: “that the documentary doesn’t have any political tendencies”, because it’s made with another purpose. Probably it didn’t have that motive at the beginning, but the results show something completely different. This is something that we have seen several times when there is mixture between cultural heritage and achievements of different ethnicities and civilizations. Everything artistic that includes more sides, by the nature of this region will lead to nationalism and it will be considered as motive with political tendencies.
Zlochko:
Yes, yes. It’s made by completely naive reasons to find the true origin of the song. That’s why she says to the Bosnians that the Serbs have the original (although she still hasn’t been in Serbia), she plays the Bosnian version to the Serbs, and to the Bulgarians she says that the Turks claim that the song is theirs.
There is nothing naive in the documentary… and if it’s full with something it’s politics. But it’s good that it’s made in that way – it shows the nations here in the best way :).
The blogger Razvigor also published the video and wrote [mkd]:
[…] The author of the film in the part for Albania said that she would return, and that really happened with her last movie “Divorce Albanian Style” [mkd]. Is that movie available on the internet also?
These are the things I was talking about when I was searching for the Macedonian Michael Moore [mkd].
There are two version of the song in Macedonia: from the town of Prilep “Oj ti Paco Drenovchanke” and from the town of Tetovo “Oj devojche, ti Tetovsko jabolche.”
Thailand: Australian writer jailed for lese majeste
Australian writer Harry Nicolaides was given a three year prison sentence for lese majeste in Bangkok on Monday. He was charged with the offense of offending the monarchy for a passage in a book he published in 2005 titled Verisimilitude. Only 50 copies of the book were ever printed and seven copies sold. The book contains a paragraph referring to a “Crown Prince”. The offending text is now being quoted on a variety of sites and some sites have even made a pdf copy of the book available for download.
Harry was arrested in Thailand in August and was held in prison until his trial on Monday. He pleaded guilty to the charge in order to get a lighter sentence. New Mandala, a blog which has covered Harry's case in detail, published a statement from Harry's brother. He wrote：
My family is extremely distressed with the outcome and we will now do all that we can to ensure that Harry remains strong, healthy and positive in the circumstances. Harry does not intend to appeal the decision but rather wishes to focus efforts on considering an application for Royal Pardon.
Some Australian blogs expressed their concern for Harry and the hope that he can get assistance from the Australian government. Andrew Walker at New Mandala said pressure is building on the Australian government. A roll of the dice wrote:
In the end it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he is a good writer or not, it doesn’t matter what kind of guy he is, it doesn’t even matter whether he deliberately or recklessly got himself into this mess. What matters at the moment is that a man is in prison for nothing more than exercising free speech and making a poor choice of travel destination, and at the moment he seems to be getting less help from our government than a certain group of convicted drug traffickers in Indonesia.
Robert Merkel at Lavartus Prodeo wrote that he wondered why a pardon wasn't granted.
Leaving aside the broader goal of convincing the Thai government to abandon its lese majeste laws (Thailand has more pressing governance problems at the moment), surely the realpolitik approach to getting Nicolaides out of jail was a deal where, first, he was let out on bail. Then, a quick guilty plea should have led to an equally quick royal pardon and an even quicker deportation; the Thais keep face and Nicolaides gets to work on his writing in some other location with more hospitable laws. But that didn’t happen. And I’m still left wondering why it didn’t.
Some others were not quite as sympathetic. Richard Barrow at Thai Blogs said people should know and respect the law in Thailand.
Although I feel sorry for the guy, it is hard to believe that a teacher and a writer could know so little about the culture of Thailand. If you check any “Do's and Dont's” list for Thailand, you will always see mention of this: “Do not insult the monarchy”. In fact, most books go on to say that you should avoid any discussion of the monarchy which could be seen as criticism. In Thailand, lese-majeste is a serious offence.
Harry Clarke, a former resident of Thailand, also expressed a similar point of view.
Generally I am puzzled at what has occurred as Nicolaides has worked in Thailand since around 2003 - he should clearly have understood the reverence and respect Thais place on their monarchy. I find it difficult to believe his claim that he didn't understand the law since any foreigner working in the country finds about about this very quickly.
Harry is not the only foreigner facing lese majeste charges in Thailand. Therion writes:
Harry Nicolaides isn't the first westerner to fall foul of lèse majesté laws in Thailand.
New York based Committee to Protect Journalists has come to the defense of BBC journalist, Jonathan Head, who has been accused of slandering Thailand's 81 year old King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
And Thai academic Giles Ji Ungphakorn is also facing lese majeste charges over a book he wrote titled A Coup for the Rich. Ungphakorn has his own blog where he is showing that he is unafraid to speak out. He has written a statement detailing the problems of the lese majeste law and his reasons for fighting against the charge.
The Lese Majeste Law in Thailand does not allow the for the proper functioning of a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy, since it restricts freedom of speech and expression and does not allow for public accountability and transparency of the institution of the Monarchy.
Turkey: Armenian “Martin Luther King Jr.” Commemorated
The second anniversary of a murdered journalist once again had the power to move mountains in strained relations between Armenia and Turkey, two states separated by the biblical mount Ararat and an unholy history. When ethnic Armenian Hrant Dink was assassinated in front of the Istanbul office of the Agos Armenian weekly newspaper he edited on 19 January 2007, thousands of Turkish citizens attended his funeral chanting, “We are all Hrant Dink. We are all Armenians.”
Yesterday's commemoration might not have been on such a large scale, but newspaper articles, editorials, and reaction from bloggers show that the murder of a prominent member of Turkey’s dwindling Christian Armenian minority by a Turkish ultra-nationalist continues to shock the world. Moreover, hopes remain alive that Dink's legacy as a symbol of peace and reconciliation between the two nations. The Pasha and the Gypsy comments.
Today is not only Martin Luther King Day, and the day before Barack Obama's inauguration. It is also the second anniversary of another murder.
Rasti, a Kurdish blog, also remembers the day that Dink was killed.
I remember where I was and what I was doing two years ago today. I remember how I felt. I remember opening a page of news and seeing the photo of Hrant Dink covered with paper, yellow crime scene tape holding back onlookers, and the police standing nearby. I remember how I felt. I was shocked, horrified, dismayed, disgusted. I wanted what I was seeing not to be true. But I knew it was true…
With commemorations held around the world, Turkey hosted the majority. Among them, as listed on Blog Kurdistan, one stood out.
18 Ocak’ta saat 15.00’te Galatasaray Meydanı’nda ‘O gün Biz de vurulduk’ temalı bir flashmob etkinliği yapılacak.
Photos from the flash mob demonstration are already available on a Turkish site. Other Turkish blogs have marked the occasion, and KISA KES UZUN OLSUN… posts photographs from the gathering at the location of the journalist's murder. Online commemorations were also held, with over 1,800 members of my Facebook group changing their profile picture to display of a photograph of Hrant Dink and their status lines to read “We are all Hrant Dink.”
Armenian journalist-blogger Mark Grigorian [RU] also remembers Hrant Dink.
Он был одним из тех, кто пытался найти пути и способы примирить армян и турок…”Армяне — врачи турок, — продолжал он, — а турки — врачи армян. Нет других докторов. Диалог — вот единственный рецепт”.
With the historic first visit of the Turkish president to Armenia last year, and an online apology for what most historians consider to be the Armenian Genocide, Grigorian notes the unparalleled progress in Armenian-Turkish relations since Dink's death.
…проблема так велика, а пропасть между двумя народами так глубока, что сдвиги в сторону сближения вызывают у националистов негативную реакцию, а то и отторжение. Примером этого можно считать опубликованную в одной из турецких газет фотографию, на которой группа мужчин держит плакаты с надписями: “Собакам вход разрешен, евреям и армянам вход воспрещен “.
And while nationalism in Turkey remains a significant problem, one Turk made another unprecedented step toward reconciliation. His letter, posted on my Blogian, explains his actions.
When I found out that the properties that I and my brothers inherited from our father wasn’t our own, but properties taken from the murdered Assyrians in 1915 I felt an indescribable feeling of guilt and shame… I have personally apologized to every Assyrian and Armenian I’ve met. But this does not get rid of the crime our ancestors committed. Even if I am personally not responsible for what happened in 1915, I felt as I had to do more than just to apologize. Finally, I came to the decision to give back all properties that I inherited from my forefathers to [an Assyrian organization].
Dink's reputation for promoting human rights and fighting for minority rights has also opened Armenian eyes. Armenian-American blog This Side of Fifty, for example, ponders not only Dink and Armenian-Turkish relations, but also how his message was much wider.
…It strikes me very odd that many Armenians I knew growing up had a dislike for blacks. When I look back at both the Armenian Genocide and the life work of Martin Luther King, I am struck with one thing. Armenians for the most part focus on our own tragedy, almost exclusively. We can live in this great country and see little irony that we as disposed people live on the lands of disposed American Indians….
Incidentally, the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday in the United States in 2009, celebrated the second Monday of January, coincides with Dink’s second anniversary. Two years ago, immediately after Dink’s murder, Canada-based Armenian blog Hyelog compared the two.
On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was shot… In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was established as a United States holiday.
Hrant Dink’s story still remains to be written in Turkey…his unwavering trust that we all would manage to live together in peace one day.
It is now Turkey’s turn to demonstrate its greatness by making Hrant Dink Turkey’s Martin Luther King.
China: Does the government still concern about the “kidney stone babies”?
The coverage of the tainted milk scandal in China has been gradually faded away from the mass media with the bankruptcy of Sanlu company. In December 2008, the Chinese government comes up with an initial compensation plan, however, to some victims' disappointment. And according to Hong Kong's newspapers' report (Mingpao), some parents put forward their proposal in early January, 2009 were detained from voicing out.
Government compensation plan
Local news (via sina) reported that the total compensation amount will be around RMB 4 billion (USD 0.6 billion) shared by the government and 22 other corporates. The government's share (RMB 2.6 billion) will be allocated directly to the hospitals for paying the bill for the victims. The compensation for the death caused by melamine claim is up to RMB200,000 (USD30,000), for serious kidney disease victims, it is RMB30,000 (USD3,000). As for minor illness the victims receive RMB2,000 (USD300) subsidy. A health fund (RMB 0.2 Billion) was set up to help victims for their future hospital treatment. Some parents, especially those getting the RMB2000 offer, refused to sign the compensation agreement.
Some bloggers joined in the discussion, for example, Wuhangmin criticized:
早就有人指问题奶粉的赔偿方案不公正，既没有患者代表参加，赔偿金额也不尽合理。而如今在赔偿方案启动后暴露出来的问题，更是令人费解。“结石宝宝”究竟有否免费救治？倒底有多少“结石宝宝”享受到了免费政策？为何报道中提及的患儿都是在自掏腰包自费救治？不知道国家规定免费治疗后是否下拨了专项资金，如果有，这笔资金究竟是如何使用的？为何还有家长要自掏近5万元看病?
Mu mian 7 suspected that the Chinese government is deliberately slowing down the process:
政府不是信誓旦旦的表态吗，现在呢？怎么都没反应。他们只会拖延时间 ，让民众遗忘这件事，达到最后不了了知的结局，政府和企业皆大欢喜，民众只能偷偷地流眼泪！！！
Liu Changfeng, another Chinese blogger added a legal dimension to the discussion:
政府部门与有关企业达成协议，匆匆出台补偿标准。尽管表达出了相当的诚意，但在不少人看来，赔偿标准显然是低了很多，大大超出人们的预料。从政府的本意来说，显然是为了尽快促成赔偿的实施，尽早消除事件的负面影响。但无论如何，此举都无法让公众信服。一方面，就当下的经济形势而言，在不少并非当事人的网友看来，这个赔偿标准都低得有些离谱，赔偿标准的合理性有几多？公众无法不对其提出疑问。另一方面，法庭的审判只认定了的违法行为，而对受害者的赔偿只字不提。作为司法干涉的最后也是最关键的环节，赔偿问题并非来自司法部门的解释，而是来自政府官员的说法。那么，赔偿标准究竟该由法律认定还是由政府行政决定？公众质疑的是行政决策究竟能否代替法律审判？
Up till now, there are around 290 thousands children developed symptom related with melamine poisoning. 51.9 thousands have entered hospital and 154 of them are suffered from serious kidney disease and 11 of them have died.
Russia: Lawyer Markelov and Journalist Baburova Shot Dead in Moscow
Russian human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, 34, was shot to death Jan. 19 as he walked from a news conference along Prechistenka Street in central Moscow. Journalist Anastasia Baburova, 25, who accompanied Markelov, was also shot as she tried to intervene; she died in hospital a few hours later.
Baburova was a freelance journalist for Novaya Gazeta.
Markelov was the attorney for the family of Elza (Kheda) Kungaeva, an 18-year-old Chechen woman killed by Russian colonel Yuri Budanov in March 2000. Budanov was granted early parole and released from prison on Jan. 15, 2009. At the Jan. 19 news conference, Markelov said he planned to file an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against Budanov's early release.
Markelov's other high-profile client was journalist Mikhail Beketov, who was attacked and severely beaten in Nov. 2008 (see this Chicago Tribune story for more info).
The New York Times quoted a spokeswoman for Novaya Gazeta, who said that Markelov had also worked on “almost every case opened as a result of the work of Anna Politkovskaya,” a prominent Russian journalist who was shot dead in Oct. 2006.
Many Russian bloggers reacted with shock and outrage to the broad-daylight shootings of Markelov and Baburova. Below are some of the initial responses, translated from Russian.
LJ user tupikin:
[…] I've known Stas [Stanislav] for God knows how many years, from the early 1990s perhaps, from the time he was a law student. Then he finished his studies, cut his long hair short and became a lawyers who was defending the truth, defending human rights even when it seemed that it was impossible to defend them.
He worked in Chechnya against the federals, he worked against the police, he worked against the Nazis.
And he, damn it, was an incredibly cheerful and optimistic person, despite all these nightmares that accompanied him in life. […]
LJ user alisezus:
I've no idea who killed Stas and Anastasia Baburova. Whoever it was - may he be damned.
Stas used to offer a helping hand to the most humiliated, the most insignificant and, often, the most despised people - those who could no longer hope to get any qualified legal assistance.
A few times I gave Stas' number to my own friends. He never refused to help. Haven't lost a single case.
Eternal memory to you.
LJ user oleg-shein:
[…] Markelov worked on a huge number of cases, which, as a rule, had something to do with illegal activities of the officials. We met when protesters were beaten up in [Elista] five years ago and one person died. We succeeded in replacing the prosecutor then and halting prosecution against those who participated in the protest. There there many other episodes. […]
He was a sincere, brave and very compassionate person, who had a good sense of irony and sarcasm, a true menace to those who were used to humiliating ordinary people with impunity.
LJ user xanzhar:
[Lawyer Yuri Shmidt] writes that [Markelov] was too brave. Careless. Maybe he did not completely understand what country he lived in. And we, too, did not understand it completely. How disgusting…
One of the comments to this post, from LJ user aquim:
He understood everything. Namely, that a real war is taking place in the country. He knew that he was taking risks all the time.
LJ user marchenk:
[…] Stas was known and respected by everyone who was involved in some kind of social activism. Not just in Moscow. Hard to believe.
He is survived by wife and two children. […]
A couple comments to this post:
andrei_naliotov:
I talked to him on Thursday. He was convinced that Budanov did not deserve [early conditional release]. To the question on what's to be done now he replied: “We'll fight.” An anti-fascist. Beketov's lawyer. […]
marchenk:
[…] Stas belonged with human rights activists, trade unionists, anarchists, anti-fascists, those who advocated the rights of migrants and refugees. He was perceived not just as a lawyer […] but as an activist as well. […]
[…] Throughout his involvement in law and activism, he had been getting many different threats. Budanov's case, Beketov's case, the European Court of Human Rights cases, support for anti-fascists…
LJ user smitrich:
[…] It resembles the murder of Politkovskaya too much.
LJ user voinodel, in a comment to this post:
No, Dima, this murder is much worse.
LJ user voinodel - and his readers - in the comment section to a post on his own blog:
ogneva007:
I think this is part of a script, and the early conditional release of the defendant is, too. The goal is to provoke a social collapse.
voinodel:
Would be okay if it was so. But this seems to be no longer a professional theater, but an amateur performance.
ogneva007:
Amateur performance is predictable and provokable, too.
voinodel:
Yes, you've understood me correctly. But [amateur performance] is scarier because it is taking place on a larger scale.
ogneva007:
And the scale is frightening - I read LJ a lot. And I'm shocked that it is possible to screw (pardon) normal people's brains so much that they begin to write really delirious things with foam at their mouths.
[…]
maramaram:
Markelov, as we know, was Mikhail Beketov's lawyer, but nothing but Budanov is being discussed. I think that those who Beketov was [fighting against] could have predicted such a “course of public thought.”
voinodel:
[…] As for Beketov, I absolutely agree with you. But this has to do with us journalists. People will read more eagerly about the murder of the lawyer of the Kungaevs than about the murder of the lawyer of “some” Beketov.
***
A few links to English-language posts on the double murder:
[…] I’ve been watching TV since I got home… and it’s amazing. It’s amazing. The most offensive, most propagandistic of the evening news shows is on Channel 3, TV-Center, it’s not a major channel so they try harder—the woman broadcaster acted like it was Markelov’s fault that he got shot on the night she was hosting the news. “Another of those killings that are said to ‘resonate,’” she began contemptuously before reading the details as quickly as possible—as though, ok, she understood it was “news,” but also she knew this was all part of Markelov’s brilliant marketing strategy, his media campaign, and, frankly, she found it in poor taste.
There was no hint of an idea that Putin or Medvedev would respond, or that people would grieve, or that something really really horrible had just happened, that they were killing all the best people in Russia and no one was going to do anything about it. […]
- Ongoing coverage at Robert Amsterdam's Blog, which includes Grigory Pasko's report; a post on the earlier threats that Markelov received; updates on the media and advocacy groups' reactions; and a post on Budanov's early release, drafted when Markelov was still alive.
Links for Tue, 2009-01
My The Caucasian Knot comments on yesterday's arrival of an Azerbaijani passenger plane flying directly between Baku and Yerevan. Carrying the American, Russian and French co-chairs charged with the task of mediating between Armenia and Azerbaijan in an attempt to find a solution to the Nagorno Karabakh, such flights have only been possible since late 2006 — except for one time in the middle of the war between the two countries when Azerbaijani mafia bosses visited Armenia to pay their last respects to a local mobster killed in a Moscow prison.
LJ user drugoi posts pictures and video (RUS) from Moscow's Kazansky Train Station, where activists from a pro-Kremlin youth movement held a rally to encourage Central Asian migrant workers to “work legally” and “pay taxes.”
LJ user dobrokhotov wrote this (RUS) on Jan. 18 about the Russian-Ukrainian gas deal: “What nonsense, it's been, like, two days already since they agreed on the price of gas, but they haven't yet announced officially what the price is. This is unprecedented nonsense, almost like if the Ukrainian and Russian soccer teams played against each other, but instead of broadcasting the game, they'd have coaches come out to journalists and say: “Thank God, the game was a success, there were 20 percent more goals scored than in an average European game.”
Valkyrie writes at Groundviews: “The fundamental crisis of Tamil politics (in Sri Lanka) today is that there is no Tamil political group (except Tamil politico-armed groups) that advocates for the rights of the Tamil people.”
A Bengali In TO summarizes some lessons from the recent Gaza conflict and says: “The Muslim world has a surplus of martyrs and a deficit of scholars.”
All Things Pakistan criticizes an inhuman tribal practice in Pakistan in which a person has to walk on burning coal to prove innocence.
Nii writes about Afric Xpress (AX), a solution provider for mobile phone-based and other electronic transaction services for African communities in the continent and abroad.
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