Photo President of the Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari, by Bayo Omoboriowo via Wikimedia Commons, May 29, 2015, (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The Nigerian government announced on Friday that it will boycott the country's Twitter network, a couple of days after it deleted a threatening tweet by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari that claimed the government would use violence against the Igbo people.
Despite the removal, the message continued to circulate on social media, evoking the anguish of the civil war that has claimed the lives of more than one million people.
But the tweet sparked a movement on social networks to stand with the Igbo people.
On a series of tweets published on June 1, 2021, Buhari threatened to address Nigerians from the east with his own language, referring to the civil war in Nigeria from 1967-1970 against the separatist movement of the Biafra Republic, in southeast Nigeria.
The tweet was taken in the wake of a series of attacks against the government and local security forces in the area, which is blamed on the Islamist militant group Occupy Biafra (IPOB), the mobilisation of people seeking a biafra residence.
The group has denied responsibility for the attacks, according to Voice of America.
Many of those reporting today were too young to appreciate the destruction and loss of lives during the Nigerian Civil War, said Buhari's tweet, which has now been deleted:
A screenshot of a twitter tweet of Nigerian President Buhari's threats
Tweets that reacted strongly to the statement by Buhari apparently angry at the State House, the country's capital, Abuja, about the nature of the attacks against election officials.
I think we have provided a lot of support.
They said they wanted it, but now they want to destroy it, he said, appearing to be speaking of the secessionist:
Buhari speaks in hisnywa
Buhari, a former military minister, was in the army during the civil war in Nigeria.
The violent conflict resulted in the death of more than a million Igbo people and residents of the Eastern Region, according to Chima J. Korieh, a professor of African History at Marquette University in the United States.
For many Nigerians, the separatist war in Biafra is generally seen as a sad incident, but for the Igbos that survived, it remains a remarkable experience, says Nigerian author Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.
(Dondoo: The writer is from the Igbo.)
Twitter's policy on hatred blocks tweets that prophecy violence and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and national origin.
Such tweets, like Buhari, are either deleted by the company or the users self-selected to delete material contrary to the policy.
Lai Mohammed, a Nigerian minister of information, described the president's tweets as a very shocking incident:
Twitters Mission In Nigeria Is Suspicious, Says Lai Mohammed pic.twitter.com/6hbAKsnjVM
Tweets with threats still appear online
A investigation by Digital Africa Research Lab (DigiAfricaLab) indicates that a threatening tweet by Buhari still appears on several accounts two days after it was deleted from Twitter, following the examination of other users:
More than 30 hours after Twitter deleting Nigerian president @MBuhari for breaking the law, the banned tweet was rejected by many Nigerian accounts as a result!
Bytering into the different accounts through different devices, DigiAfricaLab saw more than 17,000 tweets quoted by users before the social media company removed the tweets from @MBuhari and @NGRPresident accounts, all of which were confirmed Twitter accounts used by President Buhari.
Furthermore, DigiAfricaLab was able to kubo and kukuza President Buhari's tweets that were rejected.
Tweets deleted can continue to appear on the Twitter feeds because theAPI used by Twitter users (API) relies on other networks that link to the Twitter feeds through URLs.
The other reason, according to J. D. Biersdorfer of the New York Times, is that the deleted tweets may still be found and displayed in the search results until the site hosts a new version of the tweets on the account.
Reaction of the hashtag #IAmIgboToo
The tweet of President Buhari's threat prompted a heated debate among Nigerians on Twitter, which grabbed the headlines with the hashtag #IAmIgboToo to express their grief.
Likewise, Nigerian Twitter users from various ethnicities also used Igbo hashtags to stand in solidarity with the Igbo people.
A survey carried out on June 4, 2021 by Global Voices, Brand Mentions showed that in seven days, the hashtag #IAmIgboToo has been mentioned 508 times, used 319,200, reached 457,500 people, and 313,100 shares on Twitter and Instagram.
A screenshot of the words mentioned under the hashtag #IAmIgboToo
Human rights activist Aisha Yesufu using the name Waigbo Somtochukwu, a reference to God's attacks, condemned how President Buhaari cursed the Igbos who say the attack on the Igbos is an attack on me:
My name is Aisha Somtochukwu Yesufu.
Whatever happen to the Igbo people is a call to me.
Attacking the Igbos is attacking me.
I condemn the 1967 threats from PMB against the Igbo people
No Nigerians are more than any Nigerians
Popular rap artist and music maker Jude Abaga (M.I Abaga) expressed her desire for the country to move beyond these nasty statements:
The statement that Nigeria is taking the Igbo is a slander and leaves a non-changing attitude
#KomeshaSars Rinuola [Rinu] Oduala, a pseudonym for Ochiaga, referring to the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, remembered with pride the contribution of the Igbo women to Nigeria's history, referring to the Aba Women's Movement in November 1929:
I remember the Aba Women’s Movement where at least 25,000 women protested against colonial violence.
I come from a very similar caste of women, born with courage & tolerance after many years of oppression and injustice.
My name is Rinu Ochiagha Oduala #MimiNiIgbo
Blossom Ozurumba, an Igbo translator for Global Voices, noted that threats start and can be intimidating:
Recognizing the dignity of individuals becomes easier to alleviate the moral concerns about murder, discrimination, or torture others because of ethnic identity.
If they do not become human beings, it is easier to justify the violent acts against them.
Introducing the value of human beings, according to Ozurumba, makes it easier to avoid being targeted by acts of murder, discrimination, or torture for their ethnic groups.
Photo and makeover, CC PDM 1.0
On March 27, a heated debate erupted on Kenyan social media over the remarks made by three radio hosts during the morning show Breakfast Show.
Reporters were discussing the ongoing court case involving Eunice Wangari, a woman who was pushed out of the 12th floor of the building with a man in question.
On Twitter, angry Kenyans lambasted hosts Shaffie Weru, Joseph Munoru, and Neville Muysa for their comments on allegations of sexual violence, calling the two hosts victims-who-a-punch.
Shaffie insists that the woman was pushed off the 12th floor of a building in Nairobi after saying no to the man because she had seen enough and was independent enough to keep herself in such a situation.
What a hell!
The case is divided between netizens as some are agreeing with the broadcasters.
Although the three had been fired by the station, it revealed how prestige in Kenya has grown for women.
There are 21.75 million internet users in Kenya, or 40 percent of the total population in the country, according to data report by DataReportal in 2021.
Nearly 11 million people are social media users, an increase of 2.2 percent compared to the year 2020.
According to anotherGSMA report, the number of mobile phone subscribers is nearly equal to women and men, with just five percent more women owning or able to access media compared to men, in three Kenyan internet users one of them is a woman.
As Kenya is a digital divide, women in Kenya have increasingly become the target of online violence.
And although 2018 brought new cybercrime law into the country which criminalizes such behavior as harassment of others in a way that could cause concern or fear of violence or the destruction or loss of property to them to a maximum of 10 years in prison, the abuses of many people online are still very serious.
Below we share two other popular cases in the past 12 months where social media has been used as a platform of violence against women in Kenya.
The COVID19 patient
In March 2020, Brenda Iyv Cherotich became the first victim of COVID -19 in Kenya.
After kupona came back and spoke about his trip as the world started to understand this new Russian.
But Cherotich didn't receive as much warmth as she expected.
After he gave a press interview in April 2020, he was facing abuse and harassment online from Kenyan On Twitter (a popular #KOT neno used frequently to describe active Kenyan twitter users in Kenya who participate in offline debates or podcasts) who sought to humiliate him and ask the truth of his story.
Other cyber-crimes took control of his personal life, his personal conversations and photos of him were widely shared online, possibly by a friend or close friend.
The finish of her hair looks like a Corona.
After hissirement, Kenyan health minister Mutahi Kagwe came out to defend Brenda, calling for their arrest and labelling them as a shameful initiative by the government's efforts against COVID19.
Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe told the police to condemn social media users for killing Brenda
And that was not all of it: another victim recently collapsed to #Kot: TV host Vyonne Okwara was targeted after defending Brenda and supporting the minister's argument against cyber-dissidents.
I totally agree with Yvonne Okwara.
Your report is unfair.
It is bold and bold.
Where was your voice when fellow women wore MWANAUME (Lonyangapuo) naked and shared nude pics?
This is a poison
Okwara criticized the oppressors for targeting women.
He said that Brian Orinda, the three COVID19 victims, who was on the kupong when he left for the surgery with Brenda, received no response.
This prompted whistlesblowers - who had their day on Twitter - attacking Okwara.
The use of a gender-only card.
Women should first protect their dignity.
Sending such photos and participating in them is also obscenity.
Okwara is another stupid and ridiculous thing to talk about.
So look up, you wonder if he was blindfolded.
The men's nude was also trending.
She has all of a sudden picked this up.
At the beginning of the year, State House spokesperson Kanze Dena was also affected by sexual harassment in Kenya.
As he appeared to be delivering a press conference at a party, netizens burned his body because of his energy.
It instantly became a trending topic on social media, with part of the Kenyan community and media groups defending Dena.
He's too big, too long!
Who defined the standards for women’s visibility?
Why is it our problem that @KanzeDena has increased the noise?
Well, she's a new mom, but, she's got no pay for anyone!
Give a blow please!
This is the new chini we mustkatalyrize
The Elephant, one of Kenya’s leading digital publications, noted that continental social networks in Kenya and the world have become borders of words full of danger and violence.
It is no resentment that social media has become a important tool for social andalam development, especially for women.
Many women have started their businesses in the condo and, in the process, have learned how to connect with others.
Many have subscribers to their purchases and sale of products in the continent.
Some reclaim the platform for expression, leading to hundreds if not millions of social media businesses that not only fuel growth but are directly empowering young men and women financially.
They have also learned how to improve their skills in entrepreneurship.
Indeed, social media has suddenly become a great place to do business.
This is vital for economic empowerment and popularity of women.
Source, The Elephant.
It seems that for women to participate in meaningful conversations around subjects that directly affect their lives, the Internet has to be a safer place than it is now.
A rainbow flag.
Photo by Marco Verch on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
Caribbean countries, one after the other, have been amending their laws to reflect more equality for people who are interested in homosexuality by excluding a section of the colonial legacy that marked the bridging of homosexuality.
In 2016, it began in the Belize.
Two years later, Trinidad and Tobago followed, although her move has not translated into a law-changing move.
Three years after the courts declared that the laws are unconstitutional, Trinidad and Tobago appears on the way to amend the Electronic Frontier Act (EOA) related to homosexuality.
The law aims at, among others, preventing certain forms of discrimination and promoting equality between people of different situations.
Out of this context, the Fursa Commission and the Sawa High Court were established to address these issues but so far, the two courts have failed to address issues of discrimination against homosexuality.
The laws currently apply to discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or disability in employment, training, education and so on.
The push to amend the current Act increased after the Trinidad and Tobago banks announced on April 14 that it would cut subscriptions to health care for transgender employers, the same as heterosexual employers.
The announcement sparked intense local discussion and was echoed by the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) and Ian Roach, chairman of the Sawa Commission, who was quoted in a discussion with Trinidad and Tobago newspaper as saying:
It is a good step for the private sector as well as for the banks, which has a diverse range of employees.
It is important for others to take the initiative, despite what the law says.
Government Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said she is inspired by the Scotiabank's action to protect people's rights and that the doors are open to doing what is needed to stop the persistent ethnic discrimination in the country.
Al-Rawi's stand seems to have shifted slightly from his position after his 2018 Supreme Court ruling; soon after the unconstitutional decision was released, the government announced its intention to petition.
While Trinidad and Tobago have made progress in eliminating different forms of discrimination, but when it comes to the discrimination against homosexuals in the country, the fear of homosexuals being subjected to religiously motivated arguments has not changed.
Judging from the reaction of citizens to the Scotiabank advert on social media platforms like Facebook the opposition was massive.
Meanwhile, homosexuals continue not only to fight discrimination, but also brutality, often leading to death.
The recent case, the death of Marcus Anthony Singh, a member of the LGBTI community in his hometown, sparked a lively debate online about the difficult situations gays face in terms of their safety and treatment.
Many of these conversations have been conducted via Twitter Spaces, a voice-over tweetathon platform that enables discussion and safe education.
While Government Attorney General Al Rawi has yet to officially hand in the matter of the law’s change, for homosexuals and their associates, the hope remains that privatisation measures like the Scotiabank loans will not take long for the government to finally make a meaningful shift in society.
Duval, a French engineer and founder of Gaël Institute.
Photo used with permission.
For internet companies and technology, online gathering has become their main source of income.
However, this form of income making is also vulnerable to users as evidenced by repeated incidents of commercialization, misinformation and exploitation.
Is there a better way to enforce the privacy rights of Internet users?
Companies like Google and Apple have invested heavily in aggregating customer data, especially from mobile phones, and a cross-ection of applications such as kalenda and agenda.
Carriers have been tracking the whereabouts, while health and sports channels have focused on gathering data about the condition of customers.
It is believed that these data are being collected and analyzed to give the user immediate access.
The fact is, users of both the internet and the technological centers simply know that they provide free information without any charge.
Austrian privacy activists like Max Schrems have expressed concerns about the practices of internet companies and surveillance centers, where they earn a living from customers' data.
He notes the high risk of repeated violations and breaches of the privacy law.
One such incident may have been best indicated in the Facebook event of Cambridge Analytica’s Cambridge Analytica study in which Cambridge Analytica’s private consulting firm found 87 million Facebook users unintentionally to help presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in early 2016.
Schrems says that he had warned Facebook officials about the Cambridge Analytica data collection incident, but was unable to action:
Facebook representatives without warningning say in their opinion, when you are using a property rights platform it has been allowed for them to upload data to its servers in order to gather user data.
Then, why would you care about your privacy right when you don't have anything to hide?
Activist Edward Snowden chimes in on the question in the 2015 Reddit discussion:
Thinking that you don’t care anything about the right to privacy online because you have nothing to hide is the same as thinking that you don’t care anything about the right to express yourself because you have nothing to hide.
Real damages from the use of news platforms
A French software engineer and data specialist, Gaël Duval has been involved in the building of servers including a Mandrake Linux deployment which is a complex (and Linux-based) system that everyone has the right to review and share with others.
Duval decided to create a framework which enables the encryption of mobile data: /e/OS.
Global Voices spoke to her to learn about how information technology has impacted on people's lives, their opportunities, and its implications.
Here is his take on the development of new media:
This is a philosophical question.
I personally have a mixed feeling about information technology because I am always embracing technology.
But at times I feel depressed, I remember those moments when you don't need to call, you go to a special place.
So it was a very young and fast-paced life.
Young people may wonder that as I was five years old, home had no phones or television.
I sometimes think that I lived a world that was very different, and that was not the case at all.
On the other hand, it makes so much fun when we try to think about what we can do with the availability of modern technology, such as connecting with someone from a different part of the world through drones of high quality images and experiences driving through gasoline cars that fill our bags of carbon emissions.
For those who recall, sifting through the years of the analogia era, we are now faced with a high risk of uncertainty in information technology.
A 2018 study, conducted on the subject of children's mental health and the use of whistleblowers, found that excessive use of whistleblowers leads to a variety of problems, including the Adolesight Deficiency Disease (ADD) and Vision Delay.
A study published in 2020 by Common Sense Media found that 50 percent of young people in Los Angeles said they would not get married without using their smartphone.
The implications of this new technology were recently revealed by reliable sources in a documentary by The Social Dilemma, which documents the testimony of former employees of Google, Twitter and Facebook companies, who describe how they were handled when it came to encouraging users to build self-employment accounts in the form of income.
Some governments have tried to change the law to create awareness among users and increase accountability for the companies involved.
In 2018, the European Union (EU) passed a controversial General Information Protection Act (GDPR).
The law creates several restrictions on access to information including for granting unauthorized access to information andtakating the companies to remove these data after a three-year period without a search.
It also provides huge compensation for those who do not comply with these regulations.
However, its implementation is experiencing difficulties in the implementation by state bodies, and it is mainly about EU member states.
The tools for enabling users of information technology
As things get worse, Duval was convinced to develop a tool that allows people to take responsibility for the security of their own data, as he explains:
Our motto is that your data is ours, because our reports are ours, and for those who think that it should not, they do not want freedom and peace, or they want to own a commercial- because personal data can help sell ads at a lower price.
This is how the new system works:
/e/ is an endeavor mobile app that doesn’t censor information such as you search, the place and the encryption of user’s privacy.
The system does not censor in any way the personal data of the user.
It also offers basic online services such as email, storage, kalenda, emailing and SMS encryption.
Duval says that, when it comes to personal data, Google and Apple have similar interests because they share the same approach with Google's commercialization system, which roughly depends on 8 to 12 billion USD per year for the inclusion of Google's search results on iPhones and iPads.
Duval added:
With an iPhone, the user sends an average of 6 MB of data to Google, per day.
It's exactly the amount that's being sent in by users of the Android system.
In contrast, Apple's external system is quite shut down, leading to a complete lack of transparency.
We are just expected to believe.
We, for our part, are allowing to change the privacy policy: all /e/OS and /e/hardware tools for online censorship (used in this case) are free.
This system can be questioned and challenged by experts.
In the face of such a rapid increase in smartphone usage, it is ironic that only digital tools can help users to be more responsible and harness more resources and knowledge to protect their data and here’s the need for digital tools that help users to be more responsible and accountable.
Information and awareness are essential to protect oneself from the risk of HIV/AIDS.
A photo shows health workers in Kenya educating the public about the risks of HIV/AIDS.
Photo: Victoria Nthenge by Trocaire licensed BY 2.0
The launch of the HIV/AIDS vaccine in Kenya has been marred by allegations of corruption, favoritism and corruption that have left the majority poor and the elderly waiting in long lines outside public hospitals, in a situation where the country is facing a third blast and death from the virus.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Kenyans are paying up to USD $100 to be first identified, as shown in several Kenyan online accounts along with Kenyan and international media.
In early March, Kenya had purchased more than 1 million dozen Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines through the Global HIV/AIDS Access Program, which is being spearheaded by the World Health Organization under a program called COVAX.
The emergence of radiotherapy began a campaign to free radiotherapy in public and private hospitals.
The delivery of the drugs was divided into three steps: health professionals and immigration and customs officers, 58-year-olds and older adults, and vulnerable citizens such as those living in illegal settlements.
The country is expected to receive 24 million US dollars through COVAX.
According to Washington Post magazine, Kenya is expected to generate up to 50 percent of its population by June 2022 with the combination of COVAX’s project and international aid.
In a press release, UNICEF Representative in Kenya Maniza Zaman praised the arrival of the first clinical trial in Kenya.
Following the arrival of these vaccines, UNICEF and its allies applaud COVAX's pledge to make sure that people living from impoverished countries don't turn the screws in the international humanitarian plan to save lives by vaccinations, he said.
However, the third initiative broke out after the initial exercise because of the final minutes' decision to fasten the second phase of the program in response to a third wave of viral diseases, dissent political interests, and the government's failure tocommunicate and inform citizens.
In his post on the current status of the Tanzanian HIV/AIDS vaccine in Kenya, Patrick Gathara, a Kenyan journalist and political cartoonist won an award-winning political cartoonist, said:
In a loud and passionate voice, politicians claimed that they are the ones that should be given priority to build trust, although the Ministry of Health has already leaked the absence of any opposition to the vaccine.
Since the government ignored the obligation to explain its plan to the public, there was widespread confusion about where and when people were expected to stand in the line.
Despite the government's emphasis on the well-being of 58-year-olds, Kenyan media reported that businessmen and politicians not in this age have been getting services unprecedentedly, showing the gross mismanagement of the poor.
Meanwhile, the elderly and poor Kenyans, who have no access to help and no money to re-establish their lives, appear to be queuing up at 4 am every day, and being told to go back one day because the medicine is running out, according to a story in The Washington Post.
They have another door for their friends, Mary Njoroge, 58, one of the teachers, told The Washngton Post.
Without someone to guide you through all the process, what would you do?
such an incident was reported in another government hospital and @_Sativa, a Nairobi-based Twitter user, was Kenyan.
On Twitter, he described what his aunt had found, a retired teacher of over 60 years.
As the elderly waited in the hall, a nurse called them names and young people came forward and went through the test.
When his aunt asked him what's going on, the nurse gave him a number where he could use money, he said on Twitter.
Following reports of an increase in interest and enthusiasm for the vaccine, Kenyan Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe told the media:
I think we have arrived at a place where we have created the conditions where anyone can go to a radio station and receive care.
I want to put it clearly, those who provide radiotherapy will make a hesab on every single drug they use and that the supplied medicine must be procured by the person who deserves it.
President of the Kenya National Rescue Party Alfred Obengo asked Kenyans not on the list of priorities to stand in queues.
Explaining how the Kenyan government could avoid the confusion in implementing the program, Gathara concludes his post by saying:
We could avoid this if the Kenyan government and its allies in the world, including the World Health Organization and the West African governments, worked with Kenya as a pilot of this initiative and not a toxic colony.
It is sad for Kenya, their kolonious country, doesn't know any other way to do it.
Last December, the world was concerned in Argentina, where legal abortion was legally allowed.
But how much are girls and women forced to become parents in other places in the world?
Watch or listen to Global Voices Insights (played in live on April 7th), where our Latin America editor Melissa Vida talks about reproductive rights with the following experts and activists:
Debora Diniz (Brazil): a cultural expert who runs research projects on cultural values, women’s rights, human rights and health.
She teaches at the University of Brasilia, but also researches at Brown University, and is an activist for reproductive rights.
His documentaries on abortion, equality in marriage, government separation and religious issues and research on seli mundu have won national and international awards and won awards.
Joy Asasira (Uganda): a feminist advocate for reproductive health in Africa, Human Rights, and issues of gender, and a global advocacy activist, campaigner and campaigner, and co-director of organizing and planning.
Joy was awarded the Uganda Bar Association’s (ULS) Best Female Lawyer of Human Rights in 2018/2019 and was identified as the youngest woman leader in global health at the Stanford Women’s Summit in 2017.
Emilie Palamy Pradichit (Thailand): founder and director of Manushya, founded in 2017 (Manushya is Sanskrit for Mantu), with the aim of mobilising the power of local community members, especially women human rights defenders, to fight for their rights, equality and social justice.
Emilie is an international human rights lawyer who specializes on marginalized communities.
R Umaima Ahmed (Pakistan): an independent writer.
Mwanzoni was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The News on Sunday and The Nation.
R Umaima has a 10-year experience in online content and print media.
He specializes in digital security, women and animal rights.
He is also a Global Voices author.
Dominika Lasota (Poland): a 19-year-old climate rights activist who is part of the Fridays For Future and Women's Strike movement.
A mobile money company waits for customers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Under the content regulation of the 2020, freedom of expression is slapped with a high price and government authorities’ power to remove unsanctioned content.
Photo by Fiona Graham/WorldRemit on Flickr, CC BY SA 2.0.
This post is part of UPROAR, a media petition asking the government to address the challenges of digital rights in Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
In early March, as Tanzanians started to question health and the whereabouts of President John Magufuli, many citizens took to social media to raise questions and express concerns.
In response, the government had threatened to arrest anyone who used social media to spread misinformation about the president.
Authorities returned to Tanzania's Cybercrime Law 2015 and the Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Act (EPOCA) rules that weretung in 2020 to provide for the detention and prosecution of those violating these laws.
This was the continuation of government measures, which have been repeatedly infringed on online content laws and online content regulations to regulate and curtail digital rights and freedom of expression in Tanzania.
On March 17, the then Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan announced on national television that John Magufuli is dead.
A few days later, Hassan was sworn in as Tanzania's sixth president.
By that time, at least four people were arrested across the country for allegedly spreading false information about health and where Magufuli was born.
Many are now wondering whether Tanzania will review its online content regulation after the Magufuli regime, or whether these laws will be enforced until 2025 when Magufuli's remaininglegacy is overthrown by President Samia Hassan.
In early March, Innocent Bashungwa, the Tanzanian Minister of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, warned the press to avoid spreading rumors about Magufuli, who has been missing in public since February 27.
Mwigulu Nchemba, also has threatened Internet users with imprisonment on his Twitter account for spreading ridiculous rumors, referring to Section 89 of the Penal Code and Section 16 of the Cybercrime Act.
Police chief Ramadhani Kingai expressed an interest in learning about a Twitter account named Kigogo, which has long been accused of exposing state abuses.
Human rights activists have denounced the actions taken by officials and the fear that these regulations and threats to the implementation of them have created.
Online Content Regulations: More restrictions to digital rights
Over the past decade, Tanzania has benefited from a strong Internet and new developments in communication and technology.
Despite this progress, government has been innovating with controlling companies and forums and this is why independent media outlets are not able to separate themselves from the kind of opinions published from the face of their representatives.
The Internet has created a new platform for Tanzanian young bloggers and activists making use of social media to raise their voices, but the government seems not to agree with this new reality.
In 2010, Tanzania published a Communications and Postal Communications Law, the first of its kind in the country.
By 2018, specific regulations regulating online content were issued through the Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations 2018.
The government claimed that the regulations were intended to strictly regulate the use of social media, particularly, to fight hate and slander online.
However, the regulations were not only used against the mainstream media, but also for bloggers and content providers, who were shocked at a new legal requirement to pay over $900 USD for a license.
This also applies to anyone who is planning and publishing a broadcast on TV or radio.
A great deal of Giza broke out on social media regarding this unprecedented tuition hikes when many bloggers and content creators decided to abandon their work due to the high cost.
Opposition politicians and social media users criticized the regulations widely for stifling social media freedom and civil society.
In 2020, Tanzania made a new addition to online content regulation, under Section 103 of the Electronic and Postal Communications Act, 2020, and rolled out in July 2020, broadcasting through Tangazo No 538 in the Government Gazette.
Some major differences between the 2018 and 2020 edition of the Online Content Regulations o (EPOCA) are:
At first, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) created a new sub-mission categories and increase the submission categories under the online content: information & news, entertainment and education or religion, and continues to ban personal content.
The 2020 Content Regulation, Part VI, Paragraph 116:
Any person who provides internet services without obtaining a proper license, commits an offence and the punishment is the punishment of a fine of not less than 6 million Tanzanian shillings (USD 2,587 USD) or imprisonment for a term not less than 12 months or both.
Second, TCRA added an unrestricted list of content including, among other things, content that encourages users to report on people’s phone calls, surveil data, surveil communication, and access communications without a permit.
In addition, the ECC Regulations on Online Content (EPOCA 2020) have also significantly reduced the number of times that a licensed person can apply to violations of content regulations by suspension or deleting accounts.
Under the 2018 regulations, a licensed had to have at least 12 hours to do so.
But in the rules of the 2020ts, under Part III, Article 11, the time of admission of content violations was reduced to 2 hours.
failure to respect these deadlines will give you the right to interfere, or to suspend or remove the account.
Global Voices spoke to some legal and human rights experts who criticized the Amendment to the 2020 Content Regulations, saying they undermine digital rights and civil society rights.
They said the regulations violate digital rights and ban bloggers and journalists from having access to online content.
The problem is that there are no proper precautions taken against these authorities from the start, and in the current situation, they have a considerable impact on freedom of expression in Tanzania, said one of the human rights experts who asked for anonymity.
After Magufuli: The future of digital rights in Tanzania
Under Magufuli's administration, civil society, the media and digital rights have been slowly fading away due to the fragmentation, step by step, of online speech.
After Magufuli's sudden death, many are now wondering what the future holds for digital rights in the country after six years of a reign of power that continued to show signs of aggression.
Global Voices spoke to some government officials under the condition of being anonymous about the new regulations and the state of human rights and freedom of expression online.
A Tanzanian human rights expert told Global Voices, with the condition of not being mentioned:
These regulations are unfair because anyone can be found guilty, and not many citizens understand the ambiguities of the regulations.
Other suggest that the government considers social media a luxury.
He also warned citizens to watch what they say on the public platforms because the government has the powers to obtain all information required by the owners of the platforms.
The 2020 Internet Content Regulations makes it virtually impossible to be anonymous when you are online, under Article 9(e), operators of Internet cafés are required to register with their identified numbers, to establish an IP address and to install security cameras that record all activities which go on within their workplaces, according to this analysis by the Tanzanian Media Council.
These regulations contribute to criminal defamation, restrict the right to freedom of expression, severe punishment for violations of these regulations and vast oversight powers to remove content from TCRA and its under-taking agencies.
TheEPOCA code of content (EPOCA) is contrary to internationally agreed digital rights standards.
Above all, they undermine free speech and press freedom in Tanzania.
However, Tanzania's government is committed to respecting and protecting the right of people to free expression and expression, including journalists, civil society members, and opposition politicians, according to the Tanzanian Constitution and international treaties.
These rights are vital for the purpose of ensuring the right to vote.
Tanzania is on a digital rights front.
Under the recent inauguration of President Hassan, the question remains whether the Party of the Revolution will continue to silence and restrict access to digital rights in the country?
Editor's note: This author of this article has requested for his name not to be revealed for security reasons.
Bringing Tanzania forward was impossible when President John Magufuli first came to power in 2015.
His slogan was Here to Work, featuring green and yellow, the colors of Tanzania's ruling party, the United Party, which was led by Magufuli.
Photo by Pernille Baerendtsen, used with permission.
Thousands of people are gathering at the sports stadia, airports, and along the roads, in Tanzania’s various areas, where the late President John Pombe Magufuli’s body was flown from Dar es Salaam to make a formal funeral in Dodoma, where the headquarters of the government are, Zanzibar, Mwanza and Chato, home, on the Victoria Island, where he will be buried.
Magufuli was announced to have died at the age of 61, on March 17, in a speech by former Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan, broadcast on National TV, after weeks of speculation about the president's health status and where he was born.
It is alleged that he died of a heart attack:
The President's Death Report of the United Republic of Tanzania.
Magufuli’s sudden death, however, left Tanzanians, and others, unaware of the future of politics and leadership in the East African country.
On Friday, Hassan was sworn in as Tanzania's sixth president, documenting Tanzania's first woman to be President, Tanzania's second born in Zanzibar which is part of Tanzania, and the first Muslim woman to take the top job in the country.
Under Tanzania’s constitution, Hassan will serve the rest of the five-year term of President Magufuli’s administration running until 2025.
In this short video, widely circulated on social media, Hassan denies any doubts about her ability to lead as a woman:
To those doubtful that she will be the president of the Republic of Tanzania I would like to point out that the one who stood there is the president.
[makofi] I would like to repeat that the one standing here is the president of the Republic of Tanzania, a woman.
While Tanzanians are mourning Magufuli and continuing to reflect on the sudden change, many seem to have high hopes for Hassan.
Opposition politician Zitto Kabwe, leader of the ACT Wazalendo, echoes the hope and impact of Hassani in his activism and work as a civil society member.
A very good history of President @SuluhuSamia in 20 minutes being told by him Whom.
He says he was activist.
He was a civil society man.
Thanks Chambi for making me see this.
It's too late to listen.
While Hassan is more popularly known for his passion for reconciliation, calling for unity and calm in this transitional phase, Magufuli is also known for the nickname of the office that he used as the Minister of Interior to recognize his effectiveness in ensuring highway construction.
Remembering Magufuli
Kanga mourned the late John Magufuli, Tanzania's fifth president, who died on March 17, 2021.
May our father rest in peace / We will always remember our hero.
Many Tanzanians and Africans in general are remembering Magufuli on social media with sad and good.
Magufuli’s bad and good can’t be confused with his goodness, and that means that the memory he’s left behind is questionable but meaningful.
Campaigns for Magufuli and his opponents will not tolerate the debate and will continue for years.
Magufuli achieved popularity during his first years as a president with his clear commitments to tackling corruption by force.
His efforts at launching high-profile projects aimed at strengthening infrastructure and industrialisation boosted the hope of many Tanzanians to independently after decades of relying on international aid.
Last April, however, Magufuli refused a $10 billion (US$) from China for a proposed mainland port project in Bagamoyo near Dar es Salaam, saying he was the onlylevile to comply with theseconditions.
This banner is in salute of President Magufuli and his bid for the elections in January.
It reads: You promised You'll delivered We thank you.
It is being celebrated Magufuli's achievements in road construction, air purchases, bridge construction and modern lines.
Photo by Pernille Baerendtsen, used with permission.
His anti-corruption crusade also attracted many Western countries, and the media initially wrote his position from a positive angle.
To some, Magufuli is remembered as the true African son and the African advocate who fought for Africa's interests.
Others remember him as a popular president who offered more sacrifice than anything else:
I have been following Tanzania mourning John Magufuli.
We opposed his dictatorship and criticized him for his disingenuous behaviour, but clearly, by looking at the people standing in the streets [to say goodbye], he was popular.
However, Magufuli's rule was strict and severely infringed on human rights and freedom of expression.
For more than six years, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Global Voices and others have been tracking the declining protection of civil and human rights.
Tanzania took sixth place in the ranking of freedom of expression whichpicked democracy and freedom between 2020 and 2021.
As the parliament debated the January 2019 Excise Duty Law, a law criticized for suppressing political parties, it was interpreted as a bad sign for the head of the House.
Magufuli’s rule often used various laws such as the Electronic Communications and Postal Communications (Online Content) Act (EPOCA), or the Electronic Crimes Act to harness negative voices and opinions.
The changes to the 2020 regulation were intended to prohibit citizens from spreading news deemed dangerous or threatening peace or sedition with materials containing information about lethal infections or risky diseases without the informed consent of the state through its higher officials.
Citizens were unable to say anything about the earthquake that shook the coast last month, aside from reports of a countrywide blast a few months later.
And during two weeks of whispers about his whereabouts and health in early March, at least four people were allegedly arrested for tweeting about the president's illness.
Or died of cancer?
Magufuli is said to have died of a heart attack that he says had been acting for 10 years.
But Magufuli's sudden death left many wondering if he might have been infected with the HIV/AIDS virus.
To many especially in the western countries Magufuli will be remembered for his denial of the presence of cardiomyopathy in the country.
When the disease hit Tanzania, the government took a warning and issued a series of steps to combat the spread of the disease, but later, President Magufuli has always seen the people's business ban as more a threat to the economy than the virus.
He often opposed international health guidelines such as wearing a mask, avoiding intercourse and vaccinations, arguing that citizens should expect prayers and traditional medicines as alternatives.
After Magufuli prevented the announcement of the numbers of the Korona outbreak last year in April, he insisted that the disease had been unbearable.
Shortly thereafter, he declared that Tanzania does not have a cardiomyopathy.
Although it is impossible to say how much korona cost Tanzania, we know that korona did not go down.
When the new series of Korona explosions occurred in January, many Tanzanians took to social media to share their stories about how they were affected by the disease.
Curious that they could be arrested for discussing Copts, the debate went in the name of new empowerment and repression.
But Magufuli maintained his opposition to the vaccine in a speech he gave at Chato, on January 27:
If a white man can get a disease, he would know the HIV virus; he would know the measles; he would know the malaria virus; he would have a disease.
The statement may be taken as a back-up to Magufuli's predecessor, President Jakaya Kikwete, who served as the world's ambassador to the security in early 2016.
Last month, Magufuli finally admitted that his country has a nuclear crisis, forcing Tanzanians to wear self-made snow caps.
Industry experts say Magufuli's change of heart about the death of Zanzibar's Zanzibar Vice President Seif Sharif Hamad.
Several top politicians close to Magufuli have died of the disease.
As large crowds continue to pay their last respects to the late president, some are crying over his death.
Shortly after Magufuli's death, writer Elsie Eyakuze took to social media to talk freely about what life was like during the country's korona outbreak, when the president first expressed an intention to cut off the Korona virus.
In a long time on Twitter, he said:
Now."
For the real story I have been at a loss to tell for too long.
#uzi.
In March 2020, the global Korona blast kicked off.
Tanzania was not left out.
But in April of 2020, we stopped all attempts to regulate the spread of the disease in the country.
In his last tweet, he said:
Did he die of korona?
Absolutely, I suppose.
Here he is.
With them.
Tanzanians.
And elsewhere.
But not those you want to talk about isn't it?
Them are not the stories.
It is part of the story.
A friend is looking for you.
Can you?
Can we do this with all of us?
Please do so.
I will do so.
Tomorrow.
In an open letter to Magufuli, Eyakuze explains his changing positions but uses a different tactic, which seems to beat Magufuli himself once again and forgive him.
Tanzanians are agreeing with the controversy and urgency of Magufuli's death and the legacy that he left behind him while their tears are closed looking forward.
Who has the power to decide what is available and what is not available online?
This is the key question being asked by activist and writer Jillian C. York in her new book Silicon Values,* which will be released on March 23, 2021.
On Wednesday, February 10 at 2:00pm GMT, Jillian will join Global Voices managing director Ivan Sigal for a video conversation about his book, which, as he explains in the making, we are looking to explore the history of how the major Silicon Valley communication platforms have created its unique system of governance, one that controls all of how we can express ourselves online.
Jillian, who is Director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a prominent member of the Global Voices community, is writing about digital freedom and freedom of expression in the Middle East.
The show is free and openly available on Facebook Live, YouTube, and Twitch.
We look forward to seeing you join us on Monday, February 10 at 2:00pm GMT (click here to check your time zone)!
* The purchase of the book through this link will help contribute to Global Voices.
A young man watching his mobile phone in Tanzania on December 9, 2018.
Photo by Riaz Jahanpour, USAID / Digital Development Cooperation project on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
The first Russian Korona virus was reported in Tanzania in mid-May, 2020.
However, after trends rose to 509 cases and 21 deaths in late April, the Tanzanian government declared none of the cases of HIV/AIDS last June.
That same month, Kassim Majaliwa, the country's prime minister, told the parliament that there were only 66 patients worldwide, but he did not specify the exact numbers.
Since then, the government has been silent on the virus while widespread political statements denying the virus have continued to be made without any significant data on the number of patients or deaths.
Today, many activities are going on as usual, including within the tourism sector in Tanzania, which attracts thousands of visitors to unregulated airports.
Zanzibar’s airport received a low score of two stars in the health and safety assessment by Skytrax Assigned Airports’ Assessment of the Safety Situation at the Airports Against HIV/AIDS, a single concrete testimony to the actions undertaken by local airports to monitor the spread of the disease.
According to the Skytrax report, the two newly admitted South African defectors were successfully admitted to Denmaki on January 19, 2011, from Tanzania.
The ever-awaited music festival, Sauti za Busara, will take place in the middle of February in Zanzibar, under the sponsorship of the European Union in Tanzania and some European ambassadors in Tanzania, at a time when the country is facing the lingering dangers of a new tip of Russian Korona that's circulating in Britain, South Africa, and Brazil.
On January 24, the Arusha-based Catholic Church issued a warning to its faithful against the presence of HIV/AIDS in Tanzania, and directed it to follow all relevant health guidelines to protect them and their communities from the spread of the virus.
Although records show Tanzania has fewer infections compared to other countries, the government's silence about the HIV/AIDS figures has raised concerns among health professionals and human rights activists, who have been restricted from speaking out about the HIV/AIDS figures on online forums.
The country issued a 2018 version of the Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations in July, banning materials containing information about the country’s viral disease or plaguing it or locating it without the authorities' permission.
Although early treatment for the virus has been taken, now schools, universities, offices, and other social activities are back to normal.
However, the disease is still circulating in the country.
President John Magufuli has raised concerns over the quality ofbaras and confidence of his constituents after a secretive investigation revealed that they have been affected by the virus.
The president said he was providing a false alarm to the public and shortly after, he fired Nyambura Moremi, the director of the nation's healthbaras, for allegedly exaggerating the clinical results.
The UVIKO-19 team created by the minister went dissolution.
In June, Magufuli thanked God for pulling the Russian out of Tanzania, following three days of national prayers.
He made the announcement public at a Sunday Mass, amidst all the praying, claiming that God has responded to their prayers.
Magufuli accused the faithful of not wearing sacks, in addition to a World Health Organization call for the population to wear sacks to prevent the spread of the virus.
Magufuli, who was dubbed the bulldozer because of his strong anti-corruption stance, was elected for second time in October 2020 in an election that has been criticized for containing opponents.
Before the election, Tanzanians were perplexed by the shutdowns where all major social media platforms including Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter were blocked.
By today, many Tanzanians cannot access Twitter without accessing a VPN.
For more than five years, Magufuli's administration has restricted democracy and civil liberties, while curtailing freedom of expression and access to information on digital platforms.
Following the government's strong denial of the presence of the virus, Tanzanians are not allowed to share any exact numbers of the virus that the government is not confident of, which means that ordinary citizens including journalists and health professionals are blocked from commenting on the virus on digital platforms or accessing vital information.
The right to access information on HIV has become a privileged class of people, according to a national hospital doctor who spoke with Global Voices on the condition of temporary unemployment, fearing for his or her colleagues' release.
Unlike other countries with special teams working on the UVIKO-19, Tanzania has a website with very few published reports and historical perspectives on the UVIKO-19.
Their opposition to the presence of the virus seems to have been met with widespread disapproval by many Tanzanians, including health experts, who ignore the necessary precautions to protect themselves such as wearing a mask and avoiding conflicts.
Global Voices visited several hospitals including Muhimbili, the government hospital in Dar es Salaam, the country's cultural capital, and Benjamin Mkapa Hospital in Dodoma, the country's political capital, and witnessed a few precautions concerning the spread of the COV virus.
People are allowed to enter the hospitals without wearing a mask, there are only few sanitation facilities and bandages and the latter have no water or are damaged, as evidenced, for example, by the testimony of pregnant women in Muhimbili.
While Magufuli's regime has not shown any serious concern for the virus' impact on everyday life, many Cabinet ministers and ministries are acknowledging that it exists.
The Tanzanian finance minister urged his ministry officials to take all measures to protect themselves from the deadly CO2. Meanwhile, he said Tanzania was not affected by the virus.
Photo from Mwananchi.
When Magufuli was first inaugurated last year, authorities took a lot of measures against the threat of CO2.
On January 25, Tanzania's Finance Minister, Dr. Philip Mpango called his ministry officials to take alert to the threat of HIV/AIDS and during his rallies in Dodoma, the political capital.
Many local officials are afraid to speak out, fearing for action.
Global Voices spoke to a health expert who believed Tanzania might be facing a second wave of bombings but did not think the public was left with this information.
The medical doctor did not want to be named, fearing imprisonment.
Another health expert told Global Voices under the condition of anonymity that people should know how they are coping with the threat of HIV/AIDS so they can take steps to protect themselves and prevent the spread of the virus to their communities.
He said that leaving people in the dark made their job difficult but he believed that Tanzanians will try to protect themselves by taking all the precautions that the World Health Organization suggests.
She told Global Voices:
Politicians have taken for granted the whole issue of UVIKO-19 and are playing a dangerous game, but when the people start to die they will begin to fire health workers.
Another doctor who spoke to Global Voices under the condition of not mentioning his name said that although there is hope for the disease to be cured, Tanzanian government’s assertion of the presence of the disease will hamper its recovery, as the government has not taken any action to bring it to the global market, rather than to carry out farming interventions.
In December 2020, Health Minister Gerald Chamii voiced his concerns about globally-funded vaccines, telling East African magazine:
It didn't take even six months to get a vaccine or treatment for a disease.
We have been deprived of ourselves since the blast began, I am not sure if it is wise to introduce it and share with the public without conducting medical tests to verify its safety with our people.
Access to information is an important issue for democracy and development.
Tanzanian online laws have been abused to silence voices and those speaking against how Tanzania treats the HIV/AIDS issue.
Freedom of expression, including the right to have, to receive, to and to spread information, has been guaranteed by international law.
In Tanzania, the right to be informed, to get information and to spread information is recognized by Article 18(1) and 18(2) of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania.
However, these rights seem to be more about theory than reality.
While the government denies the presence of HIV/AIDS and the existence of laws that prevent people from sharing information and commenting on the disease, on the Internet and on the streets, Tanzanians are left without basic information and many are too scared to speak out.
This post is part of a series of posts on digital rights violations during the arrests attempted to contain and control the spread of HIV/AIDS in nine African countries: Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Algeria, Nigeria, Namibia, Tunisia, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
The project is financed by the Children's Rights Foundation of Africa and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Photograph shows the end of police training in Mozambique | image on August 19, STV Youtube, by the owner
Mozambican police documents leaked to the media in early August indicated that 15 students had been pregnant at a police vocational school in Matalane, a district of Maputo state.
The documents state that the pregnancies are the result of a sexual relationship between students and students without further detail.
It is however noted that pregnant students will not be able to complete their studies now, and have to be transported by police.
At the end of the report, it said the student trainers who were involved will be fired.
As reported by the newspaper O País on August 8, the Commander-in-Chief of the Police Force General Bernardino Rafael said that all participants will face disciplinary action.
It didn't take long before the case was widely condemned on social media.
Several netizens expressed their discontent at the school's decision and demanded justice for the women.
Activist Fátima Mimbire wrote on Facebook:
Let the Matalane case be treated with serious seriousness.
I am very broken hearted about the issue of the pregnant 15 Matalane school students.
This is a huge issue.
It's significant because as the documents showed the actors are students.
Now one in control over another gives birth and it is just a process?
This reminds me of a teacher who allegedly offered sex to his students to get their money or to empower them in a classroom because he is ignorant, and instead of being prosecuted the teacher who was transferred to teach somewhere else.
And she continues her humiliation.
Txeka, a women’s rights activist, also condemned the event on Twitter:
Matalane's case
Building a social just society to protect the rights of all citizens takes the right to education and development policies that care about the development of citizens and the right to scientific and patriotic knowledge and skills.
Matalane's case
Blaming violence on women is a familiar sight in patriarchal societies, notorious for harassing women and encouraging male members to bring about impunity and avert the victims from suing them.
University professor Carlos Serra said:
Matalane?
Matalane is our zao.
I think it will be the day they begin to describe theirhibu to their children, who have been missing since their childhood.
Also, journalist and activist Selma Inocência said:
A few teachers have been put to trial, charged and sentenced.
They are responsible for depriving thousands of girls from their childhood.
Schools are not safe places.
Records show that hundreds of girls get pregnant in school and some in their roles as students, teachers, and principals.
A petition has been passed demanding the punishment be given to the officers involved.
So far more than 3,8000 people have signed on.
For the government this is a fundamental issue and should be investigated on the national level by the minister and the head of the Mozambican police.
The Jamuhuri can not and will not take such issues.
The law must take equal measures and they are equal to each other.
No one is above the law.
The investigation continues to examine the details of the case and consider the psychological and emotional condition of the pregnant women because they deserve to be respected.
Again. #OscarPistorius @CBSNewYork — Dennis R. Tusiime (@drwatooro) October 21, 2014
This is a continuation of the brutal cases of Mozambican women that are not being reported in the media.
One of the most recent cases that recently received media attention is that of Alberto Niquice, the secretary of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo), who is facing a criminal court case for raping a 13 year-old baby in 2018.
Earlier this year, 30 civil society organisations in Mozambique asked Niquice to be recalled after his reelection in 2019.
However, the vice president took the office and worked normally in the parliament.
Another press release is about the violence that was visited on Josina Machel, the daughter of Mozambique's first president Samora Machel.
In October 2015, Josina was beaten by her three-year-old girlfriend Rofini Licuco in a carriage.
Licuco was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months and given a 300 million riyals (US $ 4.2 million) fine to Josina.
Rofino however appealed his decision and in June this year the Superior Rufaa Court dismissed the case on grounds that there was not yet enough probable cause in the case.
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December 2004.
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There were many news sites, blogs existed and they were doing well, and we weren’t evengun to speak online.
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We’ve been for 15 years!
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With 1000 years of internet, that is about 1000 years.
Today we wish to use this opportunity to thank our amazing authors who spread the word around the world and our trusted readers and collaborators for giving Global Voices the strength and ability to keep going.
Since 2004, we helped write the world's biggest news.
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passengers cross the border between Ghana and Togo, West Africa, on January 25, 2016.
Photo by Enock4seth via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
African leaders have taken a quick decision to combat the virus.
The African Centre for Disease Control (ACDC) formed a working team on February 5, before the continent had seen at least one disease.
Today, Africa is the world's most affected least region with about 1,293,048 confirmed cases of the virus HIV/AIDS and about 1,031,905 reported death, according to the CDCP.
The region has less than 5 percent of the total number of fatalities reported globally and less than 1% of all deaths recorded in the world.
Now, as African states headed by the African Union broke the COVID 19 and prepare to reopen their economies and borders, many governments are using innovative technology.
The emergence of unity, of African technology that can track and monitor COVID19 outbreaks across the continent has led to PanaBIOS, a biological observation technology supported by the African Union.
PanaBIOS has released a program that simuls the web and uses databases to follow the most vulnerable populations and set a rekod for sampuli from the roots to the bars.
The technology is created by Koldchain, an emerging Kenyan institution, and AfroChampions, a non-profit and private partnership designed to bring together African resources and institutions to help facilitate the growth and development of the private sector in Africa.
Ghana is the only country in the world that uses PanaBIOS technology at the borders.
PanaBIOS makes it possible for passengers to use vipimo results from other countries to fulfill the bandarical requirements of the countries they travel through the PanaBios or through the addition of bio-fuel which is produced by the shipment system.
Health professionals in the port are using a commercialized software to censor health documents in a equal way to all countries.
A comprehensive set of rules to protect data and privacy
The CDCP coalition Africa and Southern Africa is encouraging member states to share a common platform, PanaBIOS that will enable results across the continent to be shared.
But, the highway between health and data has raised a number of questions about the accuracy and breadth of data.
Government surveillance and censorship can both terrorize and stifle citizenship, especially on a continent where only 27 out of 54 countries have full or partial protections and circumvention of data.
Other countries in Africa, such as Ghana, have already changed the law to grant the president temporary powers to oversight the disaster by requiring telecom companies to provide subscribers with personal data such as data of subscriber’s phone number, data of money transferred to unused mobile phones, currency information, and servers.
To guarantee the protection and convenience of data, all methods of machine learning used by PanaBIOS are recorded in the general data.
That is data assembled for analysis, not personal data analytical, but tailor-made for monitoring the recipient, where it will be possible to reach out to the detainees or victims.
To ensure data censorship, the African Union, PanBIOS, and its allies must provide how they can take into account different data protection laws to protect data, ensure data censorship and avoid unauthorized access to data.
Now, this personal note does not have a public policy focus, which describes users the kanunis of collecting and sharing data.
Challenges remain how best this privacy policy will be implemented for the various, regional, national, and regional purposes of data protection laws such as the African Union Convention on Internet Safety and Cyber-Censorship, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) laws on data protection, the Economic Community of Eastern African Nations (ECOWAS) Amendment A / SA.1 / 01/10 on Cyber-Censorship within ECOWAS and Eastern African Union Cyber-Censorship.
Technological solutions have been deployed to effectively combat COVID 19 in Africa
PanaBIOS, some Afikations have confirmed the potential for technology to combat the COVID19 outbreak.
For example, scientists from Sengali have produced a COVID-19 kit that costs $1 and delivers 3D depieces of patients.
Wellvis, a young Institute of Nigeria, developed a COVID-19 microscope, an open source instrument, to helpmizians self-diagnose the risk of having been infected with the virus according to the virus' status and history.
The South African government used WhatsApp to create a live tweetathon to answer common questions about the story of falsehoods, the symptoms and the treatment of COVID19.
And in Uganda, market women used SokoBustani to sell their products from home with this program, then use a motorcycle to rate the sale of the product.
Africa's success in reducing and managing COVID-19 has strong public control, automatic detection, and potentially presenting SARS-CoV-2 infections among other Africans.
But it is clear that the technology-driven ignorance has contributed to the devastation of COVID19, despite medical attention at the initial stage.
Solomon Zewdu, a medical doctor andlinda organization Bill and Melinda created how, in January, when many western nations prayed for, Ethiopia started a kabambe at the Addis Ababa highway.
Rwanda became the first country in Africa to put an end to the common thread on March 21, with several African countries following it closely: South Africa implemented the traditional ritual with 400 cases and two deaths.
(And with that mass number, Italy saw an increase of more than 9,000 cases and 400 deaths took place.)
By comparison, the number of Americans who died from suicide is six times the larger in Africa.
Public health experts projected that the disaster would affect the welfare of the mainland African and the dead bodies in the streets.
Bayana, Africa proves the other.
The story is based on factcheck Lab, a fact-checking agency based in Hong Kong, and Global Voices media-inspired speaker.
On September 22, news content and publications spreading on Chinese social media made it unclear whether theSAD chief scientific officer, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, had said Chinese anti-COVID 19 treatments had been confirmed to have effects.
These reports and publications quote a Chinese screen-timed video clip for China Miaopai.
The video shows SADC vice director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaking about the importance of treating the virus HIV, coupled with Dr.Swaminathan's comments.
In a CCTV video, which the subtitles say WHO chief scientist: China's HIV/AIDS drugs have been proven to have impact (), this is the report of Swaminathan:
As you know, they have a full programme of growth of vaccines and some of yours are going on trial and clinical trials these are also ours, we follow it closely.
Others confirmed beneficiaries from the clinical trials.
However, the original speech by Dr.Swaminathan has been edited.
His last sentence, surely, started off with the word whether, and the jingoistic tone made it sound like he just confirmed rather than confirmed.
Dr.Swaminathan’s full statement is that of :
We have engaged in a discussion with China over the past months because, as she knows, those who have programmed for growth of vaccines and have many vaccines in front of clinical trials are also our interests, so we are following them closely.
We have a constructive discussion with them and they have repeatedly stressed their commitment to the world while some of their vaccines have gone through trials in the ongoing clinics [more details here].
So while I think about the developments, they are still open and many countries will criticize.
These were the statements made at the SADC press conference on September 21.
A copy of the entire hour-and-a-half can be found here. This post is part of our special coverage South Sudan Referendum 2011.
The conference was intended to submit a memorandum of understanding about the $18 billion WHO-funded program that will bring HIV/AIDS to the forefront of the world.
To date, 156 nations have registered to the scheme; neither China nor the US are among them.
As estimated, the CCTVT video, as well as the reports of news and printed materials, has attracted many national interests.
The status on Weibo and Daily Economic News has been liked by 337,000 people.
Below are some popular reactions:
Im so proud of my country.
This is the gift of National Day and the Vuli Festival.
You won't fool China's stupidity.
I love my country.
China saves the world.
After the inspecters' acknowledgment of Dr.’s statements, a number of media houses, including CGTN and CCTV, deleted their social media publications.
Among them is the Chinese Youth League, whose banner was published by Twitter user @Emi2020JP before disappearing on Weibo:
Tedros is good to be slaughtered first.
As @Emi2020JP, many ridiculed Twitter users believed WHO was assisting China with distorting the video, publishing his outrageous views:
Tedros it's a shower of showers!
I will pay to Tedros a extra 5 stars!
Last week, my mother told me, the news in the country said America is buying many vaccines from China.
I don't have words to describe them.They are leaving them in their imagination.
A very good job, from predicting the spread of the virus to promoting chanjo commercials!
Although Chinese publications have been taken down, copys are still circulating on social media, such as the public post WeChat.
Some media houses in Beijing in Hong Kong, such as Speak Out HK (and Today Review), have also published stories about the video.
About 200 anti-retroviral drugs were killed in the very remotest of clinical trials in the world, and many of them have been sourced from Chinese libraries.
None has gone through the 3rd phase of the trials at the moment.
Protest against the death of Dr. Silvio Dala in Luanda.
Photo by Simão Hossi, CC-BY 3.0
Hundreds of Angolans took to the streets on September 12 in Luanda, Benguela and 15 other cities, protesting police brutality.
The protests started after dramatic news emerged about the death of physician Silvio Dala, 35, who died on September 1 under police surveillance.
According to authorities, Dala had left his car from the David Bernardino Children’s Hospital in Luanda, where he serves as the Director of the clinic and was stopped by police because he did not wear a mask.
The doctor was taken to the Catotes Police Station in the nearby town of Rocha Pinto, and when he showed signs of lifelessness and began running, he fell ill and headaches," stated the official.
It also said that Dala died when police officers rushed to the hospital.
The Medical Association of Ghana dismissed the report.
The president of the party, Adriano Manuel, told Voice of America (VOA) that there is a dispute with the authorities' explanation that the doctor was suspended.
Manuel told Deutsche Welle (DW) that the cause of death as indicated by the police is not real.
Anyone who is doctor and has studied medicine knows that this is not what killed Silvio.
According to DW, a news source from the ministry of interior says the investigation was done in front of the families and the prosecutor and it appears the doctor was not a hit person.
The party has said it will take the police to court.
Meanwhile the Angolan government has formed a commission with the Ministry of Health to investigate the incident.
Protesters do not trust the police's report on Dala's death.
Posters used by protesters in various parts of the city said: Not again the murderer, you are paid to protect, you are not paid to kill me, I am Silvio Dala, They killed Silvio Dala.
There are also calls for the resignation of Interior Minister Eugénio Laborinho.
The protest was organized by the Medical Association of Ghana and other civil society organisations.
Protest against the death of Dr. Silvio Dala in Luanda.
Photo by Simão Hossi, CC-BY 3.0
Protest against the death of Dr. Silvio Dala hiko Luanda.
Photo by Simão Hossi, CC-BY 3.0
Since the beginning of the Angolan epidemic, there have been several reports of excessive police power during investigations that have resulted in deaths.
Speaking to Lusa, thefokafoka musician Brigadeiro 10 Pacotes, whose real name is Bruno Santos, he asked for the resignation of Lugarinho and also demanded that the police school should improve its infrastructure.
The police is a institution that should kuwale citizens' courage, but today they lack that courage, that is, they lack, he continued.
Protest against the death of Dr. Silvio Dala in Luanda.
Photo by Simão Hossi, CC-BY 3.0
Many also joined the protests on Facebook and WhatsApp.
Activist and scholar Nuno Álvaro Dala wrote on Facebook:
THE NATIONAL CITIZENS OF THE COUNTRY ARE WITH THE EXCISE DUTY ACT SILVIO DALA
Images are powerful and relatively simple.
We must all demand justice.
The country's police should give to the criminals they know.
Things can't continue like this.
On Twitter, Isabel dos Santos, former chairman of the board of the directors of the Sonangol oil company, the daughter of former president José Eduardo dos Santos, said:
#EuSouSilvioDala sábado anunciada manifestação pacífica e silenciosa pelo Sindicato Nacional dos Médicos de Angola (SINMEA),convidando todos profissionais de health,outros sindicatos e sociedade civil, contra a violent policial em memória de Sílvio Dala, 12:30hLargo da Mutamba pic.twitter.com/blRs117IdY
Isabel dos Santos (@isabelaangola) September 11, 2020
#IAmSilvioDala.
On Saturday the Independent National Medical Association of Angola (SINMEA) announced a peaceful sit-in calling on health workers, other parties and civil society institutions to protest police brutality and pay tribute to the late doctor Silvio Dala, at Largo da Mutamba
The title: Angolans go out to the streets denying police brutality and demanding a massacre.
Meanwhile, Tweeter Alejandro questioned the participation of Angolan social media influencers in this event:
When o George Floyd was killed os calleds Influencers Angolanos mostraram o seu support to the Black Lives Matter movement, mas com a morte do medico angolano Sílvio Dala os tais irmãos influencers não fazem nada em relação a perda!
Ale Alejandro (@AlejandroCutieG) September 7, 2020
When George Floyd was killed those self-described Angola Internet influencers expressed their support for the Mandela Mandela Fellowship, but in the death of Angolaist Dr Silvio Dala, they claimed nothing about the tragedy!
Hachalu Hundessa in an interview with OMN via Firaabeek Entertainment / CC BY 3.0.
Editor's Guild: This is a double-part analysis on Hachalu Hundessa, an Oromo musician whose killing sparked ethnic and religious violence due to misinformation on social media.
Read Part 2 here
Ethiopian musician Hachalu Hundessa gained notoriety for his creativity and for his kip for Oromo people.
He was murdered in the streets of Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on June 29.
That night at 3pm, as Hachalu left his car, a man called Tilahun Yami walked down the street and opened his fire on his head.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was officially declared dead.
It was discovered later that the bullet had seriously damaged its internal organs.
Addis Ababa police chief reported that two suspects have been arrested.
After a few days authorities sentenced the killers and their two accomplice members.
With his death, the country has come under increasingly difficult time dealing with the next set of riots.
It is true that Hachalu’s murder has not been clearly exposed yet and rumors started to spread after political and civil society leaders took serious note of the ongoing crisis between the Oromo and Amahara leaders in Ethiopia.
On the eve of his funeral, vigils were organized in the streets of Addis Ababa and other cities surrounding Oromo province.
The next morning follows the Oromia Media Network (OMN) satellite office, where Hachalu had his last interview, where he broadcasted live on TV and also on internet and showed the time his coffin wassafirid from Addis Ababa to their home in Ambo.
The polemic hour turned into a clash between government authorities and opposition leaders, with several arguments on the whereabouts in Hachalu and the OMN had to re-tweet it; some said they had been forced to return to Addis Ababa.
Eleven people were killed and several injured in Addis Ababa.
The clash resulted in the arrests of some opposition leaders including Jawar Mohammed who is leader of the OMN and opposition leader Bekele Gerba at which they were accused of inciting violence.
A controversy arose further after authorities retrieved Hachalu's body and took it to Ambo by helicopter, as well that the two sides continue to fight and give the rest of their families the chance to bid their loved ones a farewell.
After that violence and clashes followed.
The three days battle took place in several parts of Oromo and Addis Ababa and the serious damages are: the death of 239 people and hundreds are injured, over 7,000 people arrested for the armed conflict and the destruction of millions of birr, Ethiopian currency.
On June 30, the government attempted to shut down the Internet to prevent the spread of inciting violence on social media and for three weeks.
Some people were shot dead by security forces but some media outlets including Voice of America and Addis Standard reported that angry groups from the Oromo ethnic group attacked people in various groups within the city and neighborhoods controlled by people of different faiths, located in the southeast of Oromo, targeting especially the families of non-Aoromo and non-Muslim Muslims in the area.
More violence took place in a region with mixed Amahara-Oromo ethnic groups and religion played a significant role because of the awareness that: the South-East Oromo community is recognized by the mixing of Islamic religion and the speaker of the Afan-Oromo language.
One local farmer said that we thought Hachalu was a Muoromo after seeing the live broadcasts of Hachalu’s funeral which follow the traditions of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
According to reports, the majority victims of the violence were Christians in Amhara, Oromo Christians and Gurgaons.
One witness said that the mobs discovered and burned property and killed people with the heads and feet of victim.
Mahojiano predictions
While reports on Hachalu’s murder went unreported, a diaspora news source reported on his death and the last interview Hachalu held with the OMN television station, lead by Guyo Wariyo, aired for a week before Hachalu was killed.
During the interview Gayo repeatedly asked Hachalu questions about his support for the ruling party and occasionally cursed him while he was answering.
Hachalu refused to support the ruling party while also criticizing the conflict and division within the Oromo political parties, highlighting freedom of thought as a musician which has remained a target of online attacks until the day he was assassinated.
However, Guyo asked Hachalu about the historical harassment of the Oromo people and the King Menelik II who modernized Ethiopia.
Hachalu shocked many listeners when he said that the horse drawn by Menelik in an Ethiopian museum was the property of the Oromo farmer, Sida Debelle, and Menelik named the horse.
His response drew praise and criticism from many people on Facebook and Twitter.
When Hachalu was killed a week later, many of the Oromo nationals based abroad felt that Hachalu's actions against Menelik II's statue angered the enemies of the kingdom and caused him to be executed.
On social media people were reacting to what Hachalu said about Menelik, and this sparked widespread rumors full of false information.
The other part of the interview contains information about division and conflict within the Oromo community.
Throughout the interview, Guyo favoured Hachalu on the political developments in the country and on the anti-government movement, asking the question about Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who is from Muoromo, and whether the government has been able to meet the aspirations of the Oromo people since incumbentship in 2018.
Hachalu added that he was not involved in Oromo's politics but criticized those who condemn Abiy's patriotism.
He guarded his position against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the once strong alliance of the country's main opposition party Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Front (the EPRDF).
TPLF turned into an opposition party after Abiy took over EPRDF.
Hachalu also spoke about the ongoing political violence in the Oromo region blamed both the government agencies and militants members of the right wing Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) which is also known as OLF-Shane.
Following the Hachalu massacre, the government conceived a 71-minute televised interview and threw it to the public.
The network contains messages of death threats against Hachalu from the western part of Oromo, where OLF-Shane militias are active.
Hachalu said he believed he would not be attacked online if he praised OLF-Shane.
He spoke of the direct conflict with Getachew Assefa, Ethiopian State security officer, during the TPLF-led period.
Guyo, who broadcasted the interview on his Facebook page called it must be seen only few days before it aired, has been arrested by police since then and authorities are undertaking an investigation of the 71-minute interview to find possible explanations for the Hachalu massacre.
Read more about the effect of the Hachalu Hundessa massacre in Part II.
Image from Guardian YouTube video about femicide.
The COVID19 epidemic has severely affected women’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa; from the increased violence in homes to the loss of their livelihoods.
But there is one clear area where women have been affected by cessation, and this is after the outbreak of breast implants and breast implants.
In April, the United Nations announced that in the wake of efforts to combat the korona epidemic, there are 2 million korona cases estimated to last decades where it fails to prevent if the korona disease surrounds the plan and efforts to prevent abortions and ukeketaji
Seating means kicking an object or kicking an extractionary part of the vagina, or kissing an object without any connection or prevention, according to WHO.
This practice is a cultural and religious tradition that rips across Africa, Middle East and Asia, and is practiced by traditional farmers, healers with knives, mangoes or sticks.
Skearing is also known as a genital mutilation believed to be one of the most persistent crimes against girls and women, and is still widely reported in the Middle East.
It is estimated that at least 200 million women are affected by them.
The issue is well explained by UNICEF in the video:
In the Middle East and North Africa, divorce is a problem that primarily hit Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq and Zimbabwe.
Carlos Javier Aguilar, our child protection advisor, explains more:
Somalia is believed to have the highest number of sexual victims, with 98 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 49 years old being raped.
In Madagascar, an estimated 93 percent are affected, Egypt 92 percent, Sudan 88 percent, Mauritania 69 percent, Yemen 19 percent and Iraq 7 percent according to figures released in June by the United Nations Fund for Population (UNFPA).
This balance can also change, depending on the social class, ethnicity and level of education in each country and in the urban and rural areas.
celibacy often occurs between the poorest people or in families that are not educated in rural areas.
In Yemen, prostitution has taken its epilogue in the Pwani region but it’s less common in the northern region.
In Iraq, the practice has spread in the northern Kurdish region.
In Egypt it's mainly about girls living in the Upper Nile of Egypt.
In Mauritania, more than 90 percent of women from the poorest families have been subjected to equations with 37 percent of women from high-income families.
GRAPHIC Arrests: More Brutal Incidents
The region of the ukeketaji will be affected because of globally unrealistic images of the complete ukeketaji, according to a joint report from March, has been confirmed by Usawa now, the European Network for Stop Torturing and the US Network for Stop Torturing.
The report indicates that this tradition is growing and even takes place in the Middle East and Asia, and the world has almost non-stop neglected it.
Recent archaeological surveys also reveal that kidnapping is also taking place in Iran, along with all other Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Arabian Falme, Omani and Saudi Arabia.
Divya Srinivasan from Usawa Sasa told Reuters that he was surprised by the low quality of poll from places like Omani and Saudi Arabia although generally not those that would see with immediate interest as to the issue of Birth.
This report was published as the COVID19 epidemic hit the Middle East and was not widely reported or interpreted by Arab media and social media.
The society's ignorance of ukeketaji could prove to be ukeketaji not worth trying.
Social rhythms
In the Middle East, there is a taboo that prohibits women from discussing sex in public, which is engendered by traditional practices, religions and cultures.
For example, in Egypt Christians and Muslims both believe that the rape of girls makes them more vulnerable to their prospective husbands and vice versa, while mothers fear that their daughters will not be raped if they are not raped, according to the Stop Torturing the Middle East campaign, a campaign that was created in 2013 to raise awareness about rape and to tell the world that rape is not limited to Africa but also in many Middle Eastern countries and Asia.
The organization is continuing to gather more information on ukeketaji and has created a mechanism to gather information that allows one person or a group of people to do a small survey on ukeketaji.
People like to avoid conversations with topics of sexuality or just when it happens that something is going to get headlines like the death of a 12-year-old daughter after she was hanged in Upper Egypt in February, people talk.
Ghida Hussein, a Egyptian student, told Global Voices that:
Since we don't talk about this much, it's as if this is completely unnoticeable.
Seating is done silently behind closed doors.
It happens miles away from the urban educated where activists and politicians are staying.
Skateboarding is complex and maybe the international community should provide some financial and mobilization resources, but you wouldn’t see a society dominated by a male population paying for it.
Breaking the boundaries and talking about obscenity makes Human Rights defenders vulnerable to being attacked in the language of insults and hate.
In Oman, women rights activist Habiba al Hinai, founder of the Omani Human Rights Institute conducted a low poll in 2017 in Omani and found that 78 percent of women are woman.
After publishing the results of his online survey, Habiba received threats and threats:
I posted the results of the survey on the web and the response was huge.
I was attacked by a religious conservative who said that ukeketaji is part of a Muslim vigil.
In the Omani, where the explosion is unofficial, there is no security for the victims.
Habiba added this in his report:
How you can tell him to talk about ukeketaji then sits in with all of the consequences including rejection, even the family or the relationship you could divorce, perhaps even the husband- if there is no official support.
I expect not to expect these women to stand up and speak up with courage and face society.
Stop Torturing: It's Ok, It's Not Investigating
In Yemen and the Arab Union, abortions are limited to the health institutions, but not in the homes.
In Mauritania, there is legal detention but not direct detention.
In Iraq, abortion has been legal in the Kurdish state of the central Iraq, but illegal in the Iraqi Middle Belt.
There has been a tendency to end ukeketaji.
The following years following the establishment of the women's rights organization, Egypt became deputies in 2008.
Sudan, which has been transitioning into a post-dikt political transition after 30 years of independence, has been the first to stall a crackdown on April.
But implementation of the law is a challenge because the injustices are still at a high level and are widely accepted as part of the solution.
Although the law is not a very important tool, it has yet to be investigated.
The countries need a national plan and strategy that works involving police, judiciary, health care providers, and provides education to the community.
A series of regional disasters and dictatorships have made changes to restrict campaigning and resource consumption and the vulnerability of women.
Now the world's attention is shifted to fighting COVID-19 and its impact on the economy and many programs which play critical roles in protecting women in vulnerable situations and providing social services have been postponed for or perhaps not worthy of attention.
With many poor families and lots of teenage girls taken out of school or marriage, sex is just as unknown in this region.
Image by Abubakar Idris Dadiyata, used with permission from The SignalNg.
Abubakar Idris Dadiyata, a leading lecturer and critic of the Nigerian government was abducted from his home on August 1, 2019, in Barnawa neighbouring Kaduna, North West Nigeria.
A year after his kidnapping, Dadiyata is still missing.
Abubakar Idris (Didiyata) was abducted in his home in Kaduna, Nigeria.
Her whereabouts are yet to be known.
His family and friends want answers to their questions: where is @dadiyata?
#WeRememberJuly11‬ Mr. Abubakar is the victim of the disappearance #OurTribeIsNotACountry.
Dadiyata was a student at the Dutsinma University, in Katsina.
As a member of the People's Democratic Party (People's Party), Dadiyata has been constantly interviewed by members of the ruling All Progressive Congress party on social media.
Read More: Fear mounts for Nigerian Whistleblower
All state and national government institutions are not chaotic and nothing
Dadiyata was violently abducted when he arrived at his home, one year ago on August 1, reported the Premium Times.
Dadiyata's wife, Kadija, in an interview with the BBC she recalled that her husband was talking on the phone while in her vehicle, still in operation, when he was arrested by the kidnappers.
Although Kadija could not hear what was being talked about or who was talking to on the phone, he remembers his husband's kidnappers were following him and they came home.
The wife of Dadiyata stayed for observation in their room while the husband was taken away from the kidnappers.
Worst of all, you have no information about Dadiyata's whereabouts.
It hurts, really how their children keep talking to their lost father, Kadija told the BBC.
In the search of Dadiyata, Nigeria's security institutions have resorted to any kind of blame for his disappearance.
The Nigerian National Intelligence Agency, until January, continued to keep Dadiyata in custody.
The State Department says that since Dadiyata was taken from his home by armed individuals, it does not mean that they are the employees of the State Department.
Also, the head of the state of Kaduna, Aisha Dikko, refused to know the whereabouts or anything of Dadiyata’s kidnapping.
Whatever is against and preemptive view of whether because he was abducted while in Kaduna state then the state government is responsible," said Dikko.
However, denying his involvement in the state of Kaduna did not remove the custody of Dadiyata and her two children from the state and did not return his freedom.
Appeals for Dadiyata’s release are still circulating on Twitter with the hashtag #MwakaMmojaBilaDadiyata, as a claim for his nationality from Nigerians.
Bulama Bukarti lamented the pain that this unrest has caused Dadiyata’s family:
It is wonderable how a Nigerian can disappear in such a way.
We must continue doing everything we can to connect Dadiyata with his family.
There is no place here for thisharamia.
Those who kidnapped Dadiyata will come to pay for it.
If not now then it must be next.
This Twitter user was surprised at the interview of Dadiyata's wife:
I was surprised to hear Dadiyata's wife interviews @bbchausa this morning.
The only thing she wants is for the kidnapper to forgive her and let her husband come back to family, especially his young children.
Akin Akíntáyọ does not understand how Dadiyata could disappear without any apparent reason for a year:
One question I'm asking is how Dadiyata and his car disappeared without leaving a trace for the whole year in Nigeria; neither the government is concerned about it, more is searching for a hidden gem instead of taking the search for him because of his criticism?
Unfortunately, no one is concerned with the search for the critic:
Instead all state and national government institutions are struggling to avoid blamed for doing nothing, said human rights activist Professor Chidi Odinkalu in an interview with Vyral Africa:
In addition to being said they do not know where, nobody has shown any attempt to tell us what they have done to deserve and how they don't want to be around.
This shows how insignificant we are as young citizens.
The least we can do is ask Dadiyata where is and why is our government not telling us?
Students in Kaduna State, Nigeria.
Photo by Jeremy Weate, January 15, 2010 via Flickr / CC BY 2.0.
Mercenaries with weapons attacked a secondary school in Kaduna, North West Nigeria on August 24 and killed one person and kidnapped four students, reported the online media outlet SaharaReporters.
The armed men reached the village of Damba-Kasaya in the local government of Chikun, state of Kaduna at 8.45 am on motorcycles and reportedly killed Benjamin Auta, a farmer, according to an online newspaper Premium Times report.
The armed men headed to Prince High School where they abducted teacher Christianah Madugu and four students who are Favour Danjuma, 9, Miracle Danjuma, 13, Happy Odoji, 14, and Ezra Bako, 15.
Happy's father, Isiaka Odoji, told Daily Trust, Nigeria's daily daily paper that the kidnappers are asking for $20 million (US $53,000) in alimony to release their children, but they are never able to afford that amount.
The abducted students were on their way to their final exams.
Because of the blast of the Korona virus, only school children were allowed to go back to school.
The Federal and State Government of Kaduna remain silent on the fate of the abducted students, along with their teachers.
It's a Day of Honor in Nigeria
Twitter user Ndi Kato said the incident is a blessing for the nation:
Today in Kaduna, children in secondary school who were ordered to go back to school were abducted by armed men.
One person has been reported dead, a young man has been imprisoned, some have left and we may not see them again.
That must have traumatised any nation.
But it's still a regular day Nigeria lamented Twitter user, Chima Chigozie:
Some students have been kidnapped in Kaduna, one of the girls has been killed during the kidnapping.
The boy is up, he should have done something about the Nation, but NO, this is a regular day in Nigeria.
Jaja blamed politics for causing public anger and outrage over this students kidnapping:
The abducted Kadunan boys won't get the sympathy Chibok girls because first they are boys and second Goodluck Jonathan (GEJ ) is not the president.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) was President, while 276 girls from government school were abducted by militant group Boko Haram, from the north-eastern town of Chiboko in April 2014.
The kidnapping sparked a worldwide trending hashtag #WeRememberMabintiZetu which grabbed millions of shares.
Read More: Nigerians Celebrate the return of 82 Chibok girls at Boko Haram
Also on February 19, 2018, Boko Haram abducted 110 female students from a school for girls of science and education in Dapchi, Yobe state, in the northeastern Nigeria.
Read More: Female Students of Boko Haram in Nigeria Alive
The kidnapping of the Damba-Kasaya student and their teacher is an unfortunate incident.
The only difference is that for now those who are responsible for this horrific incident are not Boko Haram but armed criminals.
The brutal murder of Kaduna State
Violent riots erupted in the north east in Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi and Katsina.
ACAPS, an independent organization devoted to humanitarian issues, confirmed that the violence is not related to the rebelization of Boko Haram in the north east:
The illegal movement started as a conflict between farmers and farmers in 2011 and has grown more aggressively between 2017 and 2018, including the looting of livestock, the looting of money, rape and murder.
As of March 2020, more than 210,000 people became internally displaced.
Village communities remain mostly shell-shocked and between January and June this year have been killed at least 1,126 people from Northern Nigeria.
State capitals in Southern Kaduna are the most attacked and have killed at least 366 people in the first half of 2020, said the International Federation for Human Rights.
Chikun LGA, the home of abducted students has been facing attacks by militant groups that have been linked to kidnapping and death and 45 communities forced to flee where they have remained since 2019, according to a report from the Southern Kaduna People’s Association.
People in Southern Kaduna say theharamia are Fulani herdsmen who are plotting to loot the land, supported and ignored by the main state government and the Federal Government.
But Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai rejected theharams as a result of the plot to loot the land or be inspired by religious ideology.
On August 22, the governor of Kaduna ordered people not to enter from 6:00pm to 6:00 a.m., in some areas perceived as part of a government crackdown.
However, the spokesperson of the Kaduna People's Union, Luka Binniyat, complained that hunger also kills us because people are not going to their farms, our people are completely lost hope.
poet Henry Swapon and Lawyer Imtiaz Mahmood.
This is a re-tweet of their photos that went viral on social networks.
Two people were arrested on May 14 and 15 by sharing their opinions on their Facebook pages.
The arrest has raised questions among the public on social media.
The arrest of poet Henry Swapon
On May 14, poet and journalist Henry Swapon was arrested at his home in Barishal, in the Central Bank of Bangladesh.
He has been accused of violating Bangladesh’s Cybercrime Act
A Christian organization, Swapon had previously been accused by his brothers Alfred and Jewel Satkat of inciting Muslim and Christian sentiments on social media.
Bangladeshi poet and editor Henry Swapan was arrested under the Internet Safety Act!
#MshairiAwekweHuru #bangladesh #bangladeshiblogger #FreeMaoni pic.twitter.com/MGoCec2nsR
According to Dhaka Tribune, Swapon posted a post on his Facebook page criticizing Lawrence Subrata Howlader, Bishop of the Catholic Church in Barishal.
The Patriarch chose to stage a cultural event in one of the Catholic Churches on April 22, just a day after the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks.
Swapon thought that the Bishop would postpone the concert based on the respect of the lives of the hundreds of people lost in the attack.
Some Christians abused the language the Bishop uses and even used as threats to kill him.
Swapon has become a regular speaker online, speaking about all forms of abuse and corruption in his town.
Twitter Swakrito Noman wrote on Facebook:
In Bangladesh, attacks on activists for allegedly exposing religious sentiments have become a routine practice by Muslim leaders.
Now we see even the unchanged Christians have started to use this strategy.
I think that people who resent this kind of criticism are mentally ill.
Government should organise procedures to treat these patients.
We immediately and unconditionally denounce the arrest of poet Henry Swapon and call for his immediate release.
Imtiaz Mahmood's arrest
On the morning of May 15, police arrested High Court defendant Imtiaz Mahmud under Section 2017 of the Act on Information, Communication and Technology (ICAP) Act where, a citizen, Shafiqul Islam, complained that Mahmood’s Facebook posts undermined his religious sentiments and incited crime in the South Eastern Region of Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Imtiaz Mahmood obtained bail for a temporary period of time, but the Khagrachhari court issued an arrest warrant against him in January 2019.
Mahmood added his comment during the ethnic conflict which occurred after a Bengali motorist was killed in Khagrachhari, prompting a group of Bengalis to burn several houses and shops in the Rangamati area in Chittagong.
Sources told Dhaka Tribune that the police did not take any steps to stop this.
Hundreds of such charges were filed from 2013 to 2018, as the ICT Act changed the Cybercrime Act.
Bangladesh repression of social media.
This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests. Police held second arrest within two days under the Cybersecurity Act.
Journalist Imtiaz Mahmood was arrested for a case under the Media and Communications Act on Wednesday in the morning hours.
#FreeAlaa #ICTLawhttps://t.co/eH8H38unCr
Journalist Meher Afroz Shao wrote on Facebook:
He loves the mountains and the people who live there.
They write about their rights.
I have never seen any use of sedition in his writings.
There is something wrong here. There are many mistakes.
I hope the mistakes are corrected soon.
PS: I have seen a lot of Facebook posts which have harsh language and discrimination in it.
If the men are charged today, will the arrest warrant be issued soon?
Many netizens have denounced the arrest, calling for a abolition of the law.
Bangladeshi immigrant Leesa Gazi tweeted:
It is a total shame.
The Bangladesh government is unable to guarantee public safety but is trying to arrest people under a repressive Security Act that is against the Will of Bangladesh’s Constitution.
https://t.co/1sFKY10OPV
Journalist Probhash Amin wrote on Facebook:
After poet Henry Swapon, lawyer Imtiaz Mahmood (arrested).
Freedom of expression is being restricted.
I demand the all criminal laws be lifted.
I want freedom of expression.
I want Henry Swapon and Imtiaz Mahmood to be immediately released.
Despite protests that the law would restrict free speech, Bangladesh's parliament passed a controversial Internet Safety Law in September 2018.
This law replaced the other repressive laws on media and Teknolijia, which were also used as a tool to silence critics online.
The law also criminalizes some online chats from spam to obscene speech and religious prejudice, including heavy fines.
It also enforces long-term prison sentences for cyberbullying with the purpose of collecting, sending and archiving information and sensitive government documents through digital services.
The Bangladesh Editors' Council said the new law is contrary to the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution, press freedom and freedom of expression.
Read more: Freedom of Expression Bangladesh activists say one Digital Safety Act is set for the purpose of obstruction
The law provides a great deal of power to law enforcement agencies to initiate investigations against those whose activities are deemed to be threatening their safety.
Khartoum, Sudan.
Photo by Christopher Michel from Flickr under CC BY 2.0.
After the Sudanese revolution, Sudan's interim authorities signed a peace accord with The Sudan Revolutionary Front, a rebel group that has continued to operate even after the ousting of its former leader Omar al-Bashir, last year.
The historic peace negotiation was signed on August 31, in Juba, South Sudan, and is supported by regional and international community members such as the Dominican Republic, the European Union, Egypt and some of the Gulf countries.
It’s also connected to the historical flooding that has affected some parts of Sudan, causing a further downward economic growth.
Yet Sudanese netizens still celebrated the news on the ground.
Sudanese blogger Waleed Ahmed wrote:
Today we are volunteering, back home.
The video which shows the military (Sudan Liberation Movement (SLMAA) headed by Minawi announced taking down arms on December 16, 2019, in support of the revolution.
mini Arko Minawi, leader of SLMA, wrote:
I love you.
The signature of yesterday will put Sudan into a new phase, for the Sudanese people, organizations and social movements in partnership with friends and neighbourhoods.
We must create a strong platform for the new history of our country.
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok welcomed the peace agreement by saying:
I attribute the peace that we have signed today in our Sudanese nation to our sons born in the camps and villages, to fathers and mothers who wish for their villages and towns to be loved by the December revolution, the promise of return, the promise of justice and the promise of development and security.
These agreements guarantee self-rule autonomy of rebel groups in the territories they hold under the control of the central government.
The agreement will ensure that one-third of the parliamentary seats are filled by people from rebel areas to submit demands and concerns.
Agreements also ensure the rights and equality of all those who were undermined by the previous regime, most of whom are not Muslims or Arabs.
This is not the first peaceful settlement in Sudan's history.
Some netizens said that the peace accord is a common thread in Sudan and that it may not bring peace or calm.
Inbal Ben Yehuda wrote:
The event that happens once every 5-9 years is not really a historical event. It is a myth.
The Peaceful Conversation of Abuja 2006
The Doha Peace Agreement 2011
Juba 2020 Peace Agreement
Bora we wait for the celebrations to begin. #2010memories — Khulekani.Mathe (@knmathe) June 11, 2015
The Agreement will be concluded
Despite the magnitude of the historic event, the two rebel groups SLMA led by Abdul Wahid al-Nur, and Southern Sudan Freedom Movement (SPLM-N), led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, resigned because of some questions about the arrangement of the coalition forces and national identity.
Three days after the signing of the peace agreement in Sudan, the PM persevered at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to meet with al-Hilu to discuss the issue in line with the Sudanese negotiation
On Wednesday, General Secretary Abdallah Hamdok held a secret meeting with Abdel Aziz al-Hilu in an effort to clear the obstacles on the peace talks held by the South Sudanese government.
The meeting triggered the signing of a peace accord based on the peace agreement in Juba.
Social media in Sudan was damaged by the dissemination of a copy of the agreement, written in English, with a reference to the 3rd aspect of religion and nationalism:
A democratic nation must be formed in Sudan.
To become a democratic nation where the rights of all are being respected, the constitution should be based on the principle of non-discrimination and to nationalism where personal rights must be respected.
Freedom of belief and worship and religious activities should be shared by all Sudanese citizens.
Government does notweke a national religion, there is no one being excluded for the sake of their religion.
Sudanese citizens are divided into two groups on this issue: the first group argues that separating citizenship and religion is fundamental to human rights; the second group argues that the transitional government is unable to decisions on the issue without the consent of the citizens through democratic elections.
After the meeting, the Prime Minister's Twitter page published a copy of the MOU in Arabic with the contents similar to what appears in a copy written in English.
While in English the emphasis is given to the idea that it is impossible to separate religion from nationalism, the Arabic language suggests a discussion on this controversial issue.
The two versions of the contract have raised many questions about the terms of this agreement.
Mythology, Mythology 2 Swahili for “history” 3 Swahili for “history” 4 Swahili for “history” 5 Swahili for “history” 6 Swahili for “history” 7 Swahili for “history” 8 Swahili for “history”
While peace brings joy in Sudan, Nile is fading fast and causing unwanted catastrophes.
According to the 8 September report of, the National Security Council, the casualties from the floods have been 103, people killed 50, livestock 5,482, houses 27,341 destroyed and 42,210 houses damaged, government buildings and private foundations 179 damaged, shops and stalls 359 damaged and 4,208 crops damaged by the floods.
YouStorm shared a video of water scarcity on Nile July 16 and August 16:
Flooding in Nile river in Sudan on July 16 ukiling August 30 #Sentinel2 in Northern Khartoum.
Created by #EOBrowser @sentinel_hub #Sudanfloods pic.twitter.com/l8LRNBFY9m
On September 3, the governor of the constituency of Sinnar, Ustadhi Elmahi Sulieman declared a state of emergency on his Facebook page:
The water supply in Nile Lake this night has increased due to heavy rains that have created the breakaways and protective walls of a dam by magunia made into the roads of Singa and Umm Benin area, and the water is beginning to flow through the city and into the homes of people.
We thus call on all government and private agencies to come and help evacuate the population as soon as possible and provide them with shelter, food and medical care.
The situation is quite bad:
In the province of Sinnar | the town of Singa, the situation is tense after the rain cracked the rain barrel in order to allow water from Nile River to enter the city.
Sudanese youth from the Tuti Island designed a wall to prevent the flood waters from entering the island.
It was a heroic act, said Hassan Shaggag:
They are the ones that will make Sudan a better place..and they are the ones that are running for power now.
Sudanese citizens suffer from shortage of basic necessities – bread, gas, medicine and electricity – after a day of power cuts.
Sudan's budget deficit now exceeds 202 percent, according to Professor Steve Hanke.
However, so far the transitional government is not able to control the market.
Now there is a peace pledge, what is the strategy of the government to improve the lives of its citizens?
Student leader Jutatip Sirikhan covered in white with the sign of a student protest after her release.
Image and caption from Prachatai
This article is from Prachatai, an independent news source in Thailand, and has been edited and published by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Thailand Student United President Jutatip Sirikhan was arrested along his way to the university on September 1, due to participation in the July 18 mass demonstrations.
Jutatip was arrested in a car on the way to a class at Thammasat kampasi Tha Prachan University in Bangkok.
He posted on his Facebook account at 2:50pm on September 1, when police in plainclothes stopped his taxi and showed him a criminal arrest warrant.
Jutatip was taken to Samranrat police station.
An officer accompanied him towards the station and put him on another bus because he didn't feel safe scaling up the private car the police showed him on.
She continued to post on her Facebook wall, accompanied by a passage from Kawaida translation by Thomas Paine.
He was tried in a Bangkok criminal court and given bail and released at 6.20pm in the evening under the direction of a lecturer from Thammasat University.
The court did not charge him with a total of 100,000 baht (US$3,190) on bail, but he was given a condition that he cannot repeat the charges, and these same conditions were given to each of the persons who were arrested and released from the charges.
Jutatip is the 14th activist arrested for taking part in a major protest on July 18.
15 other participants of the protest have called and reported at the Samranrat police station to take part in a hearing on August 28.
Jutatip was charged with sedition, defamation and the Public Health Record, among other charges.
Jutatip left behind in front of the criminal court after being freed and had made a short press conference.
The color can be cleaned, but we cannot clean the sights
I didn't plan on running from there in the first place.
I know I am under arrest
and I have been waiting for a long period of arrest, but it did not happen until today.
Every time someone is arrested, it has to be said with condemnation that we are not protesting peacefully.
I am a student and I have been harassed by a cop for months, for years.
Why is there no compensation for me?
Why is there a fine only for police officers, who are dictator jobs?
There should be a call first, but what happened is that the police came with a direct arrest warrant.
It is humiliating for the student.
They got me monitoring my calls from the place where I live.
They met my house, my family and presented a house arrest warrant so now we have to stop our protests.
Everything is subject to the constitution.
We pay our taxes, we should be protected by the state, not harassed by the state.
So today, I have self-demonstrated that we can do this.
We must stand up for our rights and freedoms.
Painting is also possible.
Then Jutatip jabbed a white finger on her head and Raised her hand onto the three-fingered saluti of the Rugby Club.
He said that white represents equality and justice, and they demanded a justice return.
We show that this is justice, this is the kind of indicatement that we can do.
Even if it's a voting choice right now, it's a way to show that we can vote for any color.
We can vote for those who have the power because they are innocent and get shot at any time, because they have the power.
The paint can be cleaned but the stain cannot be cleaned.
After that, Jutatip thanked the lecturer who accompanied him and the people who came to support him and helped the crowd clean up the stainless paint on the marching shoes in front of the court.
We will not stop fighting until we win everything, including the royal reform and the new constitution, said Jutatip.
Screenshot from the video on YouTube, by Video Volunteers.
This message was written by Grace Jolliffe and originally published by Video Volunteers, an award-winning international web group, and its headquarters are in India.
An edited version is published below as part of a content sharing agreement.
As India goes through a seven-year electoral period from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to elect its seventh parliamentary majority (Lok Sabha), some Indian voters have taken an unusual step to boycott the elections.
Read More: What you want to know about Indian Elections 2019
In Goa, in the southern Indian state of India, residents of a small village in the Cancona suburb of Marlem voted on April 23 in the third election term with allegations that the government had become the problem in their village.
Their main concern is that the basic necessities and services such as good roads and safe and clean water have never been provided by the government.
The video by social media presenter Devidas Gaonkar, a native of the Goa tribe called Velip, depicts the protests of the villagers:
In the video, Pandurang Gaonkar, a resident of Marli village, said that:
From Tirwal to Marlem only three kilometres of the road has been completed.
To date no action has been taken by the concerned authorities.
They give only false promises no implementation.
And so for that reason, we have not voted.
Residents of Marlem Village have been living in the Village for over 20 years now.
In 1968, the forest sector declared Marlem as a safe haven for wildlife.
This makes any construction of roads or any development work in this area difficult to implement.
According to reports, the plan to connect a power plant at the site has been approved and recently stopped due to a protest from the State Department.
Another source of the casualties is the lack of a good road.
One needs to travel from the highway at 2.8km to a bad road and get cleaned so that he can build his first house in Marlem village.
Finally, distribution of electricity and safe water to villagers has remained a challenge to villagers.
Despite making their complaints public, but they have failed to receive the reply of their requests, the residents of Marlem and residents from two other villages decided not to vote in order to draw attention of the authorities to their complaints.
The staff of the electoral commission came to talk to us about our decision to not vote and our stand is consistent, added Pandurang.
Isidore Fernandes, an opposition leader from the Indian National Congress and a member of the Cancona Legislative Assembly, also met with the residents of the area.
After listening to their cries, he confidently promised that he would help out.
It is vital for any government to create roads, supply power and water to their people.
So far all government disasters have been ignored in Marlem Village, said Fernandes.
Now boycotting has become a means of protest, though voting is not mandatory in India.
The differentities between the villages of Goa, the villages in the Central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, the West Indian state of Maharashtra, and the Eastern state of Odisha have been able to bring important messages to the leaders of the authorities.
However, there is no full strike among these who have been taken by the government.
Many voters have started to use this as an expression of anger with politicians and government officials who turn the population around during the campaign season to hope for their votes, while defying their promises after the elections.
But ultimately, if boycotting elections doesn't create change in society, what can the communities do to draw attention to the voices of those with power who need to hear their voices and take action?
Journalist Amade Abubacar.
Photo: caiccajuda/Youtube.
Journalist Amade Abubacar and Germano Adriano, who were arrested earlier this year while covering a military conflict in the northern Mozambican region, were released without charge on April 23, 2019.
Amade, who has been contributed to various media outlets including Zitamar News and A Carta, was arrested on January 5 while conducting an interview with internally displaced people from the district of Macomia in the northern state of Cabo Delgado.
Germano, a journalist with the community radio station Nacedje, has been missing since February 6 and was arrested on February 18th.
According to a report from the International Association of Southern African Media (MISA), Amade and Germano were accused of spreading news of defaming some of the members of the Mozambican Army through their Facebook accounts where they announced the beginning of a clashes in the district village of Macomia.
The reporters were released from the Mieze prison in Pemba, the capital city of Cabo Delgado and were in custody during their trial in a resident court in Cabo Delgado.
The trial is scheduled for its first hearing on May 17.
Since 2017, armed groups like the visu have been attacking the villages of Cabo Delgado, burning houses and evacuating residents.
Over 90 people have been killed since the attacks according to police reports.
To date no group has come out publicly to say responsibility for the attacks.
In December 2018, the newspaper A Carta de Moçambique confirmed the presence of a Facebook page, a pseudonym that looks like the spoof where the page denounces the attacks on armed groups in Cabo Delgado
It is not yet known if the charges against Amade and Germano are related to the page.
The advocacy team says no links to the page or other crimes are being committed on the Facebook page.
The media case has been plagued by many confusion.
After Amade was arrested, police put him under the custody of the Civil Police.
He was placed in a military prison where he spent 12 days without communications and then transferred to civilian prison.
The team was only charged on April 16, in violation of the 90-day curfew, against the arrest code of Mozambique, in the case of Abubacar.
Through a series of court proceedings during their detentions, both journalists were convicted on charges of defaming the public on social media and inciting communities by using digital means.
These charges are in line with the earlier charges brought against them, which MISA has interpreted as spreading hate message against some of the Mozambican army chiefs through a Facebook page that tracked people attacks in the district of Macomia.
In a total of 106 days in prison, Abubacar experienced food insecurity and medical deprivation, according to Amnesty International's report.
His family told @Verdade newspaper that they were blocked from visiting Abubacar all the time he was detained.
What happened to these journalists is part of a growing wave of repression against media workers in Northern Mozambique.
Independent investigative reporter Estácio Valoi was detained in December 2018, also in Cabo Delgado for ambiguous legal reasons.
He was then released without charges, but his medical equipment was left to the military.
The Goal of Justice
Cídia Chissungo, an activist and campaign organizer of the #AmedeAwekweHuru campaign, celebrated the news saying:
#AmadeAbubacar and #GeramanoAdriano are finally reunited after being detained for 4 months.
We really celebrate but don't forget how everything started.
We've said since then that: Journalism is not a crime.
Thanks for supporting in
Angela Quintal, manager of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the African region stated:
Now is the sure thing that the trial is thrown away and #AmadeAbubacar can continue his journalistic work without the fear of arrest.
The fact is that he has been in custody without being charged for 106 days prior to bail, is not the abuse that he has suffered.
He should be arrested immediately!
Photo of Iran's uprising leader Imamu Khomeini on the wall of a building in Sanandaj, in Iran's capital Kurdistan seen via satellite.
Photo by Jordi Boixareu.
Copyright Demotix
Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman described it as a model for people who want to share their home culture with others from outside the community.
The idea was born through a system created within Global Voices and expresses the big roles of community culture.
As our work aims to link the gap between international perceptions of Iran and the realities within the country, Global Voices Iran has started a series of interviews with an Iranian expert and writer who will do so.
This interview will be held to understand how and why these individuals did their job by talking to an outside Iranian community about Iran and the complexity and ambiguity of its narrative.
Golnaz Esfandiari: I think the use of social media in Iran and its benefits are on the rise
Golnaz Esfandiari is a senior radio presenter at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and one of a few journalists who are based outside Iran writing in English about the pain and suffering of social and political Iranians.
Photo used with permission from Golnaz Esfandiari.
Read more: A conversation with Golnaz Esfandiari, a news generator in English
In an interview with Global Voices, he said:
I think the use of social media in Iran has increased and the pros have also increased.
Government officials admit this and I also see a lot of people in the country using social media.
I think that since 2009, the use of social media has increased tremendously.
Some Iranians have told me they have joined Twitter after reading about the allegations of the Twitter Revolution in Iran.
Social media is helping to dialogue and share content that has been cut or seen as obscene with people who are discreetly discussing it.
Also, many people criticize government policies and attitudes on social media.
Kelly Golnoush Niknejad: You have to be a journalist, a psychologist, a professor and a listener at the same time.
Iranian media investor Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, founder of the Tehran Institute of Journalism and a collaborator of The Guardian, writes about Iran and foreigners.
Its project is among the leading causes which give a different take on the country and its politics, culture and people.
Photo by Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, used with permission.
Read more: How the Kelly Golnoush Niknejad Institute connects Iran with the West.
In the best of circumstances for Iranian non-Irans, he explains:
When it comes to Iran, I always remember going back to 1979 and narrating the changes that took a decade or so to make sense of this time.
Sometimes it is too much for Iranians themselves to understand what is going on in Iran now to include non-Irans.
This demonstrates how important it is to cover Iran with ceaseless layers of snow, to put it in harm's way for the ordinary life.
Referring to the country only for the reporting of its academics or authorities that is not even a fundamental or essential thing for us as journalists.
That is why even the most dedicated observers do not understand the basics of Iranian politics.
It is true if they will follow reports from the Tehran Institute then they will have a different take.
Nina Ansary: I believe women will be the foremost pillars of any change in Iran
Nina Ansary is the author of God’s Day: Unfair Women Against Iran, the first book that advocates for equal rights for women in politics from the late 19th century.
A review of the book Johari za God
The book explains how women have managed to make an impact in Iran's current history and are still doing so, while continuing to work and suspend the fundamental principles of their rights and equality in communities they have historically oppressed.
Read more: A conversation with Journalist for Women’s Equality Nina Ansary at The Night of Change in Tanzania
Ansary said she had a positive view of Iran's future and the role of women in it:
and it's because I saw their return.
And this is because female activists were not given a concrete answer: women were allowed to serve as judges but now they are serve as investigators.
Women were not allowed to read some of the fiction, but over the years they have managed to educate themselves into a fan that was dominated by men, such as cooking and cleaning.
High on my memory, I miss positive things, but I firmly believe women will be at the forefront of any change in Iran.
Saeed Kamali Dehghan: They see Iran as black and white but Iran is not.
It is as if the Sun weren't rising.
With over 800 Iranian posts, Saeed Kamali Dehghan is The Guardian's first volunteer author who specializes in Iran and is one of the few Iranian journalists who were hired by a major English language news agency.
Image used with permission of Saeed Kamali Dehghan.
Most of its information is related to human rights violations in Iran, but as he said in an interview via phone, the biggest problem with Western media is that they see Iran as a black or white image but Iran is not.
Iran is a rainbow, it’s raining #Iran — Dil-emma (@baysharum) April 2, 2015
Read more: Saeed Kamali Dehghan Writing for Iran in The Guardian
In the struggle to write a country that is locked in psychology, Saeed explains that:
As an Iranian I have my own feelings about the country, but when covering her stories I try to step aside from bias.
But I am allowed to express my feelings when I write negative stories and have been doing just that.
I wrote about why Canada did not understand Iran very well and this led to the then foreign minister at the time accusing me of using his Twitter account for censorship from the Iranian authorities.
I have been attacked by some people who have accused me of being Iranian and some have even accused me of serving the UK.
I believe this is a sign that I am doing my best.
Omid Memarian: Transformating your anger into a resentment of selfishness is a art
Omid Memarian, a Iranian journalist living in New York.
Omid Memarian is an Iranian ex-writer who now works in the US and has been covering Iran for users in all English and Persian languages.
Our interview wanted to explore the diversity of writing stories about Iran for different users and her experience as a domestic and international journalist.
Read more: Iranian journalist Omid Memarian
Memarian describes her experience of writing and speaking in the Iranian social media community as follows:
There are still people in Iran who believe in the empowerment of social communities, political forces, and press freedom, the Islamic government can change gradually by starting out.
There are other forces behind it that make it virtually impossible and one of them is to make the environment so dangerous that nobody can ever keep doing what he is doing.
When I insisted on doing what I did, writing and inspiring about what I believed to be my arrest and imprisonment.
Hooman Majd: Iran is not unique: what is peculiar is that most people don't know much about Iran.
Now we are in the middle of a grand set of foreign policy steps by the United States.
In the weeks leading up to Obama's administration, it is highly unlikely that the United States will abandon its long-standing diplomatic ties with its long-time enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In the Donald Trump presidency which will be uniquely heavy-handed and brutal, I think it is the time to step down from the journalists and security personnel Hooman Majd.
His books, articles and publications explain the Iranian issue that was widely seen in the US media during the Bush era, when terrorism against the Iranian government became a symbol at the beginning of the 2000s in both foreign policy and the media view of Iran.
Hooman Majd has been known for being an Iranian voice to the West.
Majd's photo, by Ken Browar, used with permission.
Read more: Conversation with Hooman Majd, a bridge between Iranian and US media.
As for Iran, this has been a clear lesson from his book "The Term" in 2008 to counter the misconceptions of Iranian society among American readers:
Ahmadinejad was the first to be open to the media, which is the first source of negative information.
But Iranian Americans and Iranian Europeans have written a lot about their culture in recent times, and there are many trips between Iran and the US between Iranian Americans and Iranian Europeans.
At this point they are getting used to it a little better and there are a lot of books in it.
Iran is not a unique country: but what is peculiar is that many people don't know much about it.
Protesters in Rio de Janeiro: Education is our weapon | Photo: Marianna Cartaxo / Mídia NINJA/used with permission
On May 15, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets in all 26 states protesting against a government plan that will affect hundreds of schools and universities.
At the end of April, Brazil's government announced a reduction of 30 percent of what is said to be the budget expenditure for water, electricity, general operations and research.
With estimates running as high as 10% for higher education, that figure could be three or five percent.
However, the government has suspended the enrollment of about 3,500 high school students who were provided by the government.
From the Paulista Avenue in São Paulo, a temporary protest center to the natural parks in Alto Rio Negro, near the Colombian border, people went out to raise awareness.
In Viçosa, Minas Gerais, a crowd of 5,000 people protested in umbrellas as it rained heavy.
Aerial view showing a large crowd of protesters in Paulista street in São Paulo against a cut in education funding and research.#15M #TodosPelaEducação #TsunamidaEducação #NaRuaPelaEducação #MarchaPelaCiência pic.twitter.com/BmHEYBuF9F
https://globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WhatsApp-Video-2019-05-15-at-21.00.30.mp4
Brazil has 69 public universities and a large number of government universities and all of them offer undergraduate and postgraduate studies free of cost and some social services such as legal consultation offices and hospitals.
At first, the interns were made at three universities but thenyr went to all other universities.
Minister of Education of Bolsonaro, Abraham Weintraub said that it is not a demand but a change.
Weintraub explained that there is a division because the public university is a part of the destruction.
When it was asked by the journalists to point out the numerous examples of such destructionWhen he mentioned the presence of university social gatherings and the presence of religious people in the country.
Weintraub was appointed a minister in early April after his predecessor had temporarily resigned because of his involvement in some conflicts.
The new minister has constantly made comments in line with right-wing policies such as the drug-dealing strategy being recognized by Brazil as a strategy of the communists, and he wants to eradicate the Marxist culture of the universities.
Some university officials have said that the leaks could prevent their doors from opening early in the beginning of the second term in 2019
The government prosecutor's office has sent a report to the attorney-in-chief claiming that the violation violates Brazil's constitution.
Rio de Janeiro Looks GRowned!
Hundreds and thousands are occupying Avenida Presidente Vargas at night. As you enter the fight against budget education and science.#15M #TodosPelaEducação #TsunamidaEducação #NaRuaPelaEducação pic.twitter.com/8MIn91crKX
Researchers from the University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) who study WhatsApp groups in Brazil have found many conversations using the app after the announcement of a budget cut.
Research has created a software that will monitor WhatsApp groups and be used by an organization involved in mapping the truth in Brazil.
The lead researcher Fabrício Benevuto on May 8 on his Facebook page said :
[Photos include] uncolored photos/publications/photos that have been recycled because of their headlines and topics.
There are images of naked people dying in a funeral (which they don't have either. For example) and a few slogans by the protesters that say it takes 12 years for students to graduate because they are drug-ridden.
This is clearly a planned intention.
In the same vein as the election campaign.
Who is trusting this deceitful factory?
An article in the website Ciência na Rua (Cynic Streets in Portuguese) alleges that public universities produce 95 percent of the scientific research in Brazil.
A study by kamapuni toka America on Clarivate Analytics in 2018 indicates that out of 20 universities that are producing quality research, 15 are part of the government network.
On the day of the protest, minister Weintraub was called to explain the budget cut in the Congress's lower house.
Bolsonaro is an enemy of education
Education is a act of love & courage#TsunamiDaEducacao pic.twitter.com/sEEOb5wDxz
Later Bolsonaro was in Texas, USA where he met with former US President George W. Bush.
When asked about the protest the president said:
It is normal.
If you ask them 7 8 times, they don't know.
If you don't know, they don't know anything.
They are pathetic and whistleblowers and have been used by a few illiterate elites running several public universities in Brazil.
Ugandan journalist Gertrude Uwitware Tumusiime has had to experience several illnesses during her work as a female journalist in Uganda.
Skrini from The Other Side: Gertrude Uwitware Tumusiime on YouTube.
In Uganda, women journalists who use digital tools to report, comment and obtain information face attacks and harassment because they investigate and publish sensitive political content.
Online chatter has become a new approach to censorship.
Female journalists are carrying a worrisome burden of sexual harassment online as well as threats related to reporting political news.
#EndSHLast @263Chat @CynicHarare @deltandou @fingerray @SirNige @263Chat @CynicHarare @RangaMberi @ConorMWalsh #titleformorgans — Delta Milayo (@deltandou) April 5, 2015
Read More: Commons of difference: Uganda's social media agenda
Joy Doreen Biira, journalist.
Photo by Wazabanga via Wikimedia Commons CC BY 3.0.
In November 2016, Ugandan journalist, Joy Doreen Biira, who worked on Kenya Television Network (KTN) in Kenya, returned to Uganda for a religious ceremony.
While Biira was with them, Ugandan security forces clashed with the kings of the Rwenzururu region in western Uganda, and their presidential palace was set on fire.
The shoot-outs resulted in the death of 62 people, including 16 policemen.
Biira responded to the military attacks by publishing a note on Facebook on November 27:
It is very sad what I witnessed today in my own eyes at the end of the kingdom at the top of the kingdom, the Rwenzururu Kingdom, burned to the ground.
I felt as though I was being watched in horror before my eyes.
Biira was also arrested and accused of spreading controversial images of the violent conflict between security forces and the Rwenzururu king’s guards on a WhatsApp group with many members, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPIJ).
He also published an Instagram video of a King's bedroom burning and posted his updates on Facebook, CPJ said.
Ugandan security officials allegedly forced Biira to delete his social media content and digital equipment, according to a Freedom House report 2018.
Biira was charged with supporting terrorism by taking videos of a military attack on the kingdom camera, a crime which could be punishable by death under the Anti-Terrorism Act if found guilty.
Nevertheless, a day later, he was released on bail.
Biira's story prompted widespread condemnation on social media with hashtags such as #FreeJoyDoreen and #JournalismIsNotaCrime.
The network also accused Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni of suppressing journalists:
#FreeJoyDoreen President @KagutaMuseveni must stop harassing journalists.
This is a grave human rights violation on our continent.
Biira's lawyer, Nicholas Opiyo, posted a tweet showing the official charges Biira is facing:
Joyanayesh charged with support of terrorism (provocative!)
#journalism is not a crime @KTNKenya @KTNKenya #FreeJoyDoreen
Opiyo told Global Voices that the Biira case was dismissed in March 2017 after the regime investigated and found proof to drop the charges.
In many cases such as these, one might throw the bulk at the table but remain with feelings of resentment, injustice, and pain, said Opiyo, who is also the director of Chapter Four Uganda, a human rights organization.
Opiyo added that spending days in jail and enduring the ordeal is a feeling that never seems to be lost on any one.
Cyber attacks
It is especially hard for female journalists who are being subjected to abuse online to obtain justice, and they have often difficulties in making sure that their complaints are seriously examined and correctly treated.
In April 2017, Gertrude Tumusiime Uwitware, a Ugandan broadcaster on NTV, defended Stella Nyanzi, a young activist who criticized the Museveni regime for not fulfilling campaign promises to support the well-being of poor girls.
The leaders forced Uwitware to delete his Twitter and Facebook posts in support of Mr. Nyanzi.
He received threats on Facebook and was kidnapped for almost eight hours, according to the 2017 Human Rights Watch report.
The kidnappers allegedly interrogated him about his relationship with Nyanzi, assaulted him badly and even cut his hair several times.
Read more: Is a woman's hair a bad word?
feminist Stella Nyanzi continues on court battles
Uwitware was later found at a police station in Kampala.
However, the regime has not released any information yet about the abduction.
Political journalists particularly those who focus on the opposition are often seeing more threats than they are on other issues.
But female journalists face a much harder situation because the government believes they are weak and are being intimidated more easily, according to Mukose Arnold Anthony, Permanent Secretary for Media Security and Human Rights of the Ugandan Journalists Association (UJA), who spoke to Global Voices on WhatsApp on April 3.
When it comes to sexual abuse online, a minority of female journalists are choosing to remain anonymous because most of them are already kuume, Anthony said.
It happens that female journalists face more trauma due to psychological, privacy violations, damage of identity, reduced access to opportunities, censorship, and loss of property due to their work, according to the UNESCO report on freedom of expression in Africa published in 2018.
And, according to the 2018 Human Rights Network for Journalists in Uganda, 12 percent of female journalists have faced injustice and abuse, including death threats and arrest.
A third of women journalists have faced injustice at the hands of government officials such as police, district officials and security officers.
Attacks and humiliation
Ugandan journalist Bahati Remmy faced attacks and harassment while on her job as a female reporter.
Photo via Paydesk account of Bahati Remmy, used with permission.
Bahati Remmy, a Ugandan woman journalist who is currently working in the United States, told Global Voices that she had stopped working as a journalist in Uganda because she felt she had lost interest after horrific incidents during elections in Uganda in 2016.
Ugandan police arrested Remmy as he broadcasted a live NBS TV documentary about the detention of the main opposition leader Dr.Kizza Besigye in the town of Kasangati.
Remmy told Global Voices:
Police restricted the audience from seeing the news about Besigye.
Police slapped me in their car, they stripped my naked on the spot and left me nude in front of cameras, according to Remmy.
She was also followed and harassed by a police officer on Facebook because the Ugandan government thought that she was collaborating with Besigye to spy on the country.
He told Global Voices that a text message from an anonymous person had been left on the gate, posing threats to arrest him if he refused to give away the secrets of the way in which he will drive Besigye home.
After the Remmy arrest story, the Uganda Media and Human Rights Network held a live online referendum regarding the issue.
asked: The Ugandan police alleged that NBS TV reporter Bahati Remmy violated the official instructions and also stopped the police from doing their work and arresting him.
Are you agreeing?
Magambo Emmanuel wrote:
It is a weak and false reason because there is a video clip showing how Bahati was arrested.
The police should stop channeling problems with reporters.
Davide Lubuurwa wrote:
Whoever tries to Inform the people about the state of the state should be arrested.
A serious crisis comes for Uganda soon.
What really upsets me is that anyone who tries to discredit the current administration is considered a rebel and the people of Uganda should be taken for granted.
Many women journalists in Uganda have left for social media especially those critical of the government fearing being attacked and intimidated by the regime.
Journalists and security forces have also called editors and asked them to refrain from publishing negative information about the government.
These attacks are not only reported by women, it is also difficult to understand the full scale of the problem.
Remmy reported the government of Uganda at the Human Rights Commission of Uganda, but so far no one has reported about his case.
The commission lacks the freedom to make decisions on the side of those who file complaints with the government.
Seven of them, together with the chairman, are appointed by the president, with the consent of the Parliament.
They are biased, Remmy said, adding: They are ashamed of their case, and most of the cases they want to hear are ones coming from the government.
The most common responses to female journalists online have a direct connection to their online abuses.
Remmy believes that the rights, dignity and reputation of women journalists should be taken seriously at all times because violence against women is repressing the journalistic sector in general.
Uganda is preparing for presidential and parliamentary elections 2021, and attacks and denials on women and journalists by government should be stopped because it will affect the media access, freedom of expression and democratic rights of Ugandans.
The freedom of journalists is something that is forgotten in the patriarchal system, Remmy told Global Voices.
This post is part of a series called The Wall of Identity: an online platform to censor online threats to freedom of expression in Africa, These publications question sexually explicit speech or discrimination based on geographical or cultural origin, hate speech and harassment (especially against women activists and journalists) online in seven African countries: Algeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, Tunisia and Uganda.
The project is financed by the African Institute of Digital Rights Foundation (African Institute of International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Tree roots planted on a 15th-century wall on the island of Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania.
In 1981, the island's beauty pageant was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Photo by David Stanley, January 1, 2017, CC BY 2.0.
Editor's note: This personal blog post was written as a result of a Twitter campaign initiated by Global Voices Sub-Saharan Africa partnership with Rising Voices Every week, different language activists shared their thoughts about the conflict between digital rights and African languages as part of a project, Matriki identity: A Rising Voices Edge in the fight against online free speech in Africa.
According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), cultural and linguistic differences are strategically significant for people around the world in an effort to promote unity and social cohesion.
This cultural and linguistic difference prompted the UNESCO World Day to declare the International Mother Language Day (IMLD) in November 1999, a holiday that happens on February 21 each year.
To promote IMLD, the United Nations (UN) announced the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL 2019), in order to consider the dangers of global adoption of indigenous languages.
Today, there are more than 7,100 languages spoken around the world, and 28 percent are spoken in Africa alone.
Despite this, English is leading online in this space.
Twenty years ago, 80 percent of online content in the world was likely to be in English.
At present, however, English content is reported to be reduced by a range of 51 to 55 percent.
The sad question, therefore, is: how, to reduce the figure that people now prioritize their languages over English, considering that only 15 percent of the world's population speaks English as their first language?
Swahili: Déjà Vu?
Swahili is identified as one of the official languages of the African Union (AU), followed by English, French, Spanish and Arabic.
Swahili is also the multilingual language of the members of the East African Community (EAC).
Rwanda, a member state of the EAC, through its lower house, passed the Roadmap to become Swahili an official language in 2017 amidst strong disappointment in Rwanda, French and English.
Besides being used for administrative purposes, Swahili will also be included in the country's education system.
In Uganda, on September 2019, the government approved the establishment of the Swahili National Council.
Section 6 (2) of the Ugandan Constitution also stipulates that Swahili will become the second official language in Uganda and will be used as much as the Parliament can procure it through law.
In 2018, South Africa, a proud 11 language country, introduced Kiswahili as a derogatory subject in its policy, beginning in 2020.
In 2019, the South African Development Community (SADC) approved Swahili as the fourth official language of the Association.
The finest form of Kiswahili Online
Photo by Rachel Strohm, September 20, 2019, (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Despite being the most widely spoken, and approximately 150 million people populations in East Africa, the coastal regions of southern Somalia, and other regions of South Africa, online Swahili sightings are limited.
John Walubengo, a lecturer at the Kenyan University of Multimedia, observes in his column at Nation, a daily newspaper in Kenya, that inequal languages and cultures creates communities with limited global perspectives.
Walubengo notes that many of the co-religionist traditions are endlessly relegating their identity to the English-language state of affairs.
This sad reality can only change if ethnic communities fight to protect their identity online and offline, he says.
However, all is not news.
There are a number of organizations that are committed to fostering and growing Swahili on the web.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN), an international organization with many stakeholders regulating the Domain of Network Names (DNS), IP addresses and independent verification system, introduced International Identificationnumbers (IDNs), which enable people to use local ID names in languages and texts that are recognized, verified by different formats, such as Arabic, Chinese, orsiriliki.
The sentences are then translated into Unicode and used as allowed by the IDN, the sequence of standards outlined by the Internet Economic Bodi (IAB), and its divisions of small-scale companies; the Internet Science And Technology Commission (IETF) and the Internet Research Council (IRTF).
The Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG)
UASG is a community of thoughtful citizens, funded by ICANN, that creates communities online for the next billion Internet users.
This is achieved through a process known as Uganda Declaration of the World (UA), which ensures that programming and network infrastructure meets the highest standards (TLDs) and emails accordingly comply with the highest standards including those in Latin America and beyond.
UA represents digital citizens around the world in their original languages and with the regional codes that define their culture.
Therefore, promote multilingualism.
ICANNWiki
The non-profit organization, which provides a wiki page developed by the public on ICANN and E-government, has long collaborated with organisations, educational institutions and individuals in Kenya and Tanzania.
This has helped East Africans to build, translate and add more resources to their vision, language and context.
This Swahili project where I as a journalist have informally engaged with the issues related to Network Governance by disclosing the content of ICANNWiki to promote participation in the communities targeted.
Localization Lab
Localization Lab, an international community of volunteer volunteers who facilitate the translation and filing of user guides and security software such as TOR, Signal, OONI, Psiphon.
These technologies focus on safety, privacy, and anonymity by ensuring that local language activists have a safer access to information.
Localization Lab has translated more than 600000 devices from 180 different languages around the world,
Kondoa Community Network (KCN)
KCN network is the first to test the multichannel TVWS, a unmanned technology that leverages on wireless frequency ranges from 470 to 790 MHz to address the problems of rural connectivity in Tanzania.
KCN trains villagers to build and be the indigenous hosts of original content in their communities.
Matogoro Jabhera, a founder of KCN and Teaching Assistant Professor at Dodoma University, Tanzania, told Global Voices on Skype, that he believes original content encourages more people outside the network to join the site because they can understand their original information better [] compared to the situation now when most content is in English.
The next billion netizens
The world is expected to connect the billions of following users online and 17 million of these users are estimated to be connected in languages that mirror their digital identity.
In such cases, the irresponsible use of original content may have a profound impact on digital inclusion.
Various, while bound to affect digital rights, access to information, and the right to their original languages to create, share, and spread information and knowledge online.
It is therefore necessary to develop strategies that support the creation of ICT and services, as well as local languages, in order to ensure the full access of digital content to all.
This initiative, coupled with other initiatives such as the discovery of learning andfunzionment kits, and rural ICT initiatives, can trigger a digital revolution, and thus increase digital rights of oppressed users and diminishes the digital divide.
Ultimately, the project will promote the protection, respect and development of all African languages and languages online as stipulated in the African Charter on Internet and Free Access principles.
The Mantiki Identity Project is funded by the African Institute of Digital Rights Foundation and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)
TEDGlobal Internet dormitory.
Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Erik (HASH) Hersman, June 3, 2007.
(CC BY 2.0)
Global Voices, along with its South African regional authors, in collaboration with Rising Voices, will conduct a tweetathon as part of the project, Identity: A platform for the management of online threats to freedom of expression in Africa, from April 20 to May 22, 2020.
Read more: MatrikiUtambulisho': A New Gold Rush for Digital Rights in Africa
As a continuation of the Voices on Freedom: Languages and digital rights in Africa, this five-week online campaign to inspire communities will share the conversation @GVSSAfrica leads five African language activists, who will explore the balance of language and digital rights.
The project is financed by the Children's Rights Foundation for Africa and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Global Voices is one of the sponsors.
The activists will tweet in African languages such as Bambara, Igbo, Khoekhoe, N|uu, Swahili, Yoorùbá, along with French and English.
They will also share their experiences and cultural understanding about the challenges of digital rights.
The talk will explore how the impending threats on the Internet are affecting online content in African languages; the spread of false information in African languages in different online languages and what companies and organizations are doing about this; the impact of unfair price hikes in places with large communities of African speakers; the importance and challenges of the right to information in African digital languages.
They will also address the issue of corporate policies, and the ongoing challenges that are currently presenting in the ability of citizens to express themselves freely in their language.
Meet the discussion moderators on Twitter
This Twitter discussion will be submitted by Denver Toroxa Breda (ki-Khoekhoe/ki-N|uu/English) from Africa Kusiki, Adéṣínà Ghani Ayẹni (ki-Yorùbá/ki-Ingereza) from Nigeria, Kpénahi Traoré (ki-Bambara/ki-Faransa) from Burkina Faso, Roseblossom Ozurumba (ki-Igbo/ki-Ingereza) from Nigeria and Bonface Witaba (ki-Swahili/ki-Ingereza) from Kenya.
Some of these participants took part in the @DigiAfricanLang online campaign to mark the International Mother Language Day, 2019.
April 20-24: Denver Toroxa Breda (@ToroxaD)
Denver Toroxa Breda.
Photo used with permission.
Breda, a keenkhoe, or Swahili activist or activist, is a writer dedicated to the popularization ofkhoekhoe and kin|uu, the two oldest languages in South Africa.
Kikhoekhoe is spoken in Namibia, read in school, but in South Africa, where it's home, only 2,000 are speaking, not an official language, not in school.
Kin|uu has only one speaker, not a recognized language, in schools, and is a language at risk of disappearing.
Kpénahi Traoré.
Image used with permission.
April 27-May 1: Kpénahi Traoré (@kpenahiss)
Kpénahi Traoré was born in Côte d'Ivoire but his roots are in Burkina Faso.
She is the editor-in-chief of RFI mandenkan, abambara language newsroom at the Radio France Internationale (RFI).
It has been a good experience for Traoré to work in Bengali.
Back then, he thought it would not be possible to do any journalism inbambara language.
Sogo is Traoré’s mother’s language, although she had a dialect calleddioula in Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso.
malis call it Kibambara, Guineans call it Kimalinke, others are called Kimandingo.
May 5-8: Blossom Ozurumba (@blossomozurumba)
Blossom Ozurumba.
Photo used with permission.
Ozurumba is also known as Asampete, a name that can be translated from Igbo to meet him.
Ozurumba is a fan of Igbo language and culture and is committed to ensuring that a diverse group learns a bit more to speak, write and read.
Ozurumba is the founder of a Wikimedia group and regularly appears to be starting dialogue with the Wikimedia Foundation without being pressid.
He lives in Abuja, Nigeria, and loves the calm and downtown atmosphere.
May 11-15: Ọmọ Yoòbá (@yobamoodua)
Adéṣínà Ayẹni.
Photo used with permission
Adéṣínà Ayẹni, also known as Ọmọ Yoòbá, is a journalist and cultural activist who uses his media career to promote awareness, and spread the heritage of the Kiyorùbá tradition online and off.
As a sauti artist, she has worked on many of the Kiyorùbá radio campaigns for Nigeria and TVC.
He is the founder of Yobamoodua Cultural Heritage, a platform dedicated to spreading the Yoruba language and culture.
Ọmọ Yoòbá is also the language manager for Global Voices Yorùbá.
She is a linguist for Kiyorùbá at tribalingua.com where she teaches students from around the world.
He has also worked with Localization Lab, an international community of volunteer translators and users, computer programmers, and translators who work together to translate andbinate digital security materials and applications without bandwidth.
Ọmọ Yoòbá wrote a book called: Ẹyà Ara Ẹdá Ọmọ Ènìyàn, a collection of monumental sculptures and human forms that accompanies the movements of every part of the body.
She is a research participant at the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research.
May 18-22: Bonface Witaba (@bswitaba)
Bonface Witaba.
Image used with permission.
We are a writer, a original content creator and activist, a student, a researcher, and a consultant on web governance and policy issues.
She is the founder of ICANNWiki Swahili, a free, open source website dedicated to growing, translating, articles and techniques of web governance to Swahili for 150 million Swahili speakers by the end of 2020.
Witaba also runs a youth project aimed at empowering students, scholars, and individuals in the private sector and; by the government, through technical workshops on internet governance.
Protesters pushing the ousting of former president Robert Mugabe (who is now dead) from office on November 18, 2017.
Image by Flickr user Zimbabwean-eyes (used).
Early in the morning of November 15, 2017, Zimbabweans woke up to the news that his late cousin, the late Robert Mugabe, had been ousted from power in the ruling government, and was at odds with his home, the White House, and his family.
Major Sibusiso Moyo, who is now Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared on national television that the president was safe and in the custody of the government and that the situation was on a different level.
Zimbabwean netizens immediately turned to WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook to update their status information about the situation.
For the first time, the popularity of social media platforms to get information and encourage protests became a way of life for Zimbabweans, as protesters took to the streets to help push for Mugabe's ouster.
The new government, spearheaded by Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, took notice of the power of social media.
As former minister of national security, Mnangagwa also recognized the importance and role of disinformation in Zimbabwe's political landscape.
In March 2018, for recognition of the political forces positioned against him and for achieving presidential and parliamentary elections in the following year, Mnangagwa ordered the coalition of young people from the ruling ZANU PF (Zimbabwe National Union-Patriotic Front) to flout on social media and internet and harass and attack opponents.
In Zimbabwe after Mugabe, his agenda has strengthened the bitter conflict of fake news, leaving Wazimbabwe with few reliable sources of information to know and understand what is happening during the transitional period and anti-government protests.
While the new government claimed to condemn the falsehoods of information circulated on social media and which they viewed as threats to the regime, it also made it infamous to mislead the public about the way they were treated by the anti-government protests.
The rise of online free speech
Zimbabwe has experienced a significant increase in the use of mobile phones and social media over the last few years.
Internet penetration rate increased by 41.1 percent, from 11 percent of the population to 52.1 percent between 2010 and 2018, while mobile penetration rate increased by 43.8 percent from 58.8 percent to 102.7% during the same period.
This means that half of the population is now connected to the Internet, compared to only 11 percent in 2010.
However, the leaks and false information incidents have been met with severe setbacks: widespread discontent in the media, government proposals to regulate social media, few official communication channels and low education for internet users.
During the January 2019 protest against the government, when government security forces arrested and attacked hundreds of protesters, the news of repression competed with claims by the state that it was a story of lies or when it was completely disguised.
The government blocked access to the internet to cut off the flow of information and sparked widespread confusion.
Government officials and their supporters also used the tactic of denying information about the protests and creating suspicion in all the information that is welived into the name of false information.
In Zimbabwe, citizens usually take whatever information presented by government ministers for granted.
For example, Deputy Minister of Information Energy Mutodi came out to convince people that everything was safe and that videos and photos of soldiers patrolling the streets were by a few hooligans.
Mutodi demoralized the nation when he claimed on the national television that there was no Internet access but rather a net session.
In another case of alleged disinformation supported by the government, millions of people were hacked on social media during the January protests.
Somepaked virtual private network (VPN) applications to keep them updated, but information was spread that the uploading of such applications would lead to arrests, which would be extremely worrying.
In March 2019, when Human Rights Watch published a report denying the government's clumsy handling of the January 2019 protests, opposition politicians used Twitter to poke fun at and attack HRW.
One user tweeted that the organization was spreading a lot of lies and labeled it as a neo-colonial organization tasked with cracking down on innocent countries to advance US interests.
Another one backfired the government's claim and claimed that the violence was by hooligans who were trying to [sic] steal the president.
And misinformation about government policies and other pro-government events have continued to trickle after the January protests.
Recently, members of the ruling ZANU PF party used Twitter to mislead the public about the disappearance of Dr.Peter Magombey, the acting President of the Zimbabwean Hospital Association of Doctors-General (ZHDA).
He was kidnapped on September 14, 2019, following a public health strike.
ZANU PF's youth secretary described Magombey as a brave and professional candidate.
The account belonging to ZANU PF Patriots stated that the leaks were false.
Some spread false allegations that doctors killed many patients during the strike, including more than 500 people in one hospital.
Zimbabwe's silent history
Media control in Zimbabwe is rooted in a colonial 20th century policy, which was enforced by violence to break in front of political authorities.
The Rhodese government led by Ian Smith focused on propaganda and censorship as his most effective tool, not only enhancing the integrity of the government but also spreading scarce information about the war.
Acolonial government passed a massive number of anti-censorship laws and implemented them aggressively to target belligerent camps.
Censorship was practiced before independence in the 1980s, and this observation served as a model for government policy on communications and media regulation over the years.
As the South African journalist and author Heidi Holland wrote in her book, Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter Who Became a Tyrant:
Many people in the ZANU PF community have lived through the mostfuming violence in their daily lives that is deemed normal.
The forest wars, or Chimurenga’s second war, have never ended in Zimbabwe.
Today, Mnangagwa continues to develop this heritage, tondamify the voices of critics through the use of false information networks and the Internet.
This post is part of a series of publications that investigate digital rights violations through innovative means such as internet shutdowns and manipulation of news during important political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
This project is financed by The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Protesters participate in the Women's March 2018 in Kampala, Uganda.
Photo Credit: Katumba Badru, used with permission.
In Uganda, the Internet has become a wasteland when governments are trying to suppress the growing opposition voice online.
For many years, Ugandan authorities have used different tactics to repress the opposition and bring the ruling National Resistance Movement and President Yoweri Museveni back to power.
This includes blocking media sites, censoring SMS and blocking social media platforms.
As the 2021 General Elections in Uganda draws near, officials are expected to develop these tactics.
Bahrain elections 2016
During the 2016 general elections, Ugandan leaders were forced to shut down twice the social media platforms.
The first siege took place on February 18, 2016, during the presidential elections, and affected social media and mobile money platforms.
This search took four days.
On May 11, 2016, social media platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, and mobile money sent service providers were again shut down.
The imprisonment was one day long and one day before President Museveni was sworn in for his fifth term as president.
Museveni has been in power since 1986.
The opposition toward his leadership is growing strong: According to a poll carried out in April 2019, a majority of Ugandans are protesting the 2017 decision to lift the 75-year-old age limit to running for presidency, which could allow the 74-year-old president to run again in the 2021 elections.
During all these shutdowns in 2016, the Ugandan government singled out the reason for national security to regulate the Internet.
The announcement was made by Ugandan security forces and the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), which overseees the communication, online publications, broadcasting (both radio and television), film industry, postal service, e-mail and printing.
On February 18, 2016, the MTN Uganda, a mobile-elephant communications provider, released a report on Twitter confirming that UCC had ordered MTN to shut down social media and mobile money transfers because of a security threat.
The order also affected other mobile operators such as Airtel, Smile, Vodafone, and Africel.
On the same day, President Museveni told journalists that he ordered social media shutdowns: The measures should be taken for security to stop many people from entering the dark, only temporarily because some people will use such tactics to say lies, he said.
On March 17, in an official statement during the Supreme Court decision in which President Museveni's victory was challenged, UCC director Godfrey Mutabazi explained that he received orders from the General Police, Kale Kayihura, to block social media websites and mobile money services for security purposes.
The imprisonment has struck down the rights and everyday lives of Ugandans who use the internet and social media platforms to get information, share views and do their daily business.
weeks away from the 2016 elections, Ugandans went out of their way to publish and debate about the elections using the hashtags #UgandaDecides and #GDebate16.
Waganda’s online civic engagement platform was ignited by the first ever presidential debate on television, first one held in January and second one, a week later.
Despite the blocking of social media, many Ugandans continued to report on the elections using a private VPN.
On election day, citizens were able to engage in contentious election-related activities such as distributing ballots at polling stations, electoral fraud, and the election time period on social media.
Human rights activists say strategic closures during elections slow down communications, while access to information and public resources is critical.
Internet shutdowns prevent people from talking about things that affect them, such as health, relationships with friends and political opinions, Moses Owiny, the head of the Center for Multilateral Affairs, an independent policy analysis platform in Uganda and Tanzania, told Global Voices in an interview.
According to Owiny, the detention serves to curb opposition in politics largely because government fears that public opinion can influence public discourse, which he believes is legitimate but wrong.
Uganda's history of blocking online platforms and websites
On April 14, 2011, the UCC ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to shut down temporarily on Facebook and Twitter for 24 hours to impede connectivity and media exchange.
The order was issued during the massive walk to work protests led by the protests following rising prices of fuel and food.
The communications authority said that security forces asked for social media shutdowns to prevent violence.
In 2011, the elections were characterized by a short SMS shortage containing Egypt, the bullet and people power.
Ahead of the country's elections in 2006, the UCC ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to Radio Katwe's website by publishing false information about the ruling National Resistance Movement and its presidential candidate, according to the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) website.
Ugandan authorities blocked access to a radio station and the Daily Monitor website for publishing an independent election results.
The forums were quickly restored but only after the electoral commission announced the results.
2021 Elections: The Future?
President Museveni in May 2013.
He has been in power since 1986.
Photo: Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Flickr [CC BY 2.0]. Since 2016, the regime has continued to arrest opposition politicians and journalists.
Robert Kyagulanyi, known as Bobi Wine, a singer and leader of the opposition People Power Party, and a member of parliament, has already announced his intention to run for president.
Bobi Wine is currently facing a criminal charge for insulting the president and, if found guilty, he will not be allowed to vote.
According to Human Rights Watch, the administration targeted six opposition MPs, including Bobi Wine and Francis Zaake, before the August 15 vote in Arua (Uganda).
Police and military forces then charged the group, and 28 other people, on August 13, 2018, with treason.
They were then released on bail.
On the same day, police also arrested two journalists, Herber Zziwa and Ronald Muwanga, as they reported on the elections and the associated violence, including the violent shooting of Bobi Wine's driver, carried out by the military.
Read more: #FreeBobiWine: Protests mount over torture and arrest of a young political force in Uganda
As the 2021 elections nears, it's highly unlikely that the Ugandan regime will continue to intensify opposition repression, including social media shutdowns.
Indeed, since the 2016, there has been no change in the legal framework which allows authorities to restrict the right to freedom of expression and online media access.
According to the 2016 State of Internet Freedom in Africa report, the 2013 Communications Act grants the UCC more power and works under Article 5 which allows the communications regulator to monitor, inspect, authorize, manage, and control communication services by setting standards, monitoring, and implementingative measures related to information.
On request of the government, the UCC used this section to order Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to social media and Mobile Money services during the 2016.
The government continues to apply these laws to curb public discussion and silence political dissent, especially during elections.
Owiny argues that the government has the capacity to shut down the Internet at any moment when it sees fit: When the security of the government and that of its citizens is threatened, the security of the state and its execution will be prioritized.
NGOs and human rights advocates have been preparing in Uganda for the same lockdown that was held in 2016 will not be repeated.
Several organisations wrote a joint letter to the African Community and local organizations calling on them to condemn Uganda's decision to block internet access during the 2016.
Unwanted Witness Uganda took the Ugandan government to court, along with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the UCC, in a case filed in September 2016.
It said that the government's Internet shutdown was in direct violation of the rights of Ugandans to freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 29 (1) of the 1995 Constitution.
However, the judge ruled that the prosecution failed to prove any breaches in the prisoner's life, Unwanted Witness told Global Voices.
Increasing online engagement in the upcoming elections will require further advocacy.
Owiny suggested that human rights activists should consider a dialogue between the government and the private sector to highlight the negative impacts of imprisonment because the private sector is feared by the government.
Uganda was one of the first countries in Africa to introduce a law on the right of citizens to access information, Access to Information Act (ATIA), in 2005.
The law promises to provide a more functional, easy to use, transparency and accountability that will enable the public to more easily and participate in decisions that affects them as citizens.
Will the government play a role in promoting access?
And will he meet his promises?
This post is part of a series of publications that investigate digital rights violations through mechanisms such as internet shutdowns and Wikisharing during crucial political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
This project is financed by The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Students from DCMA performing to various musical instruments at Old Customs Square, Stone Town, Zanzibar, 2019.
Photo courtesy of DCMA.
Thousands of visitors visit Stone Town, Zanzibar, the oldest city in the island nation, listen to a droning sound of music from DCMA, a music school dedicated to promoting and developing original musical genres across the island and other parts of the Indian Ocean.
Since 2002, the school has been promoting and upholding Zanzibar’s unique cultures through music.
Its 17 years since the establishment of the school, it is now clear that it is facing a financial hardship that threatens to put an end to its imprisonment.
Nearly 70 percent of 80’s students at the school are unable to pay tuition, a $13 USD per month, according to the DCMA public release.
Although the school has received support from international donors and NGOs, it is currently facing a thick wall that forces it to close its doors and head off to the Old Customs House.
Without adequate funding to keep its operations on, students and teachers at DCMA fear that the voices that recket the building’s walls and make the island a haven for art enthusiasm may fail.
The school is not only teaching and promoting traditional culture and heritage through music, but it is also dominated by a large number of young musicians seeking alternatives to their actual life through art.
A DCMA student learns to dance to a traditional taarab instrument.
Photo courtesy of DCMA.
We are beginning to deal with our financial hardship, says Alessia Lombardo, DCMA CEO, in the official video of DCMA.
From now until next six months, we are not sure that we will be able to afford teachers and other workers.
Currently, 19 school teachers and a few staff members have not paid their wages for more than six months because the school has been struggling to gather support from friends while trying to create a sustained financial system for the development of the school.
Though the islands are known to attract a lot of tourists due to their hiking and resorts, many inhabitants suffer from severe unemployment even though figures released by the World Bank suggest that poverty is minimal on the island.
For more than 17 years, DCMA has worked tirelessly to promote and protect Zanzibar’s great legacy through music.
Knowing the birthplace of the taarab rapper and singers Siti Binti Saad and Fatuma Binti Baraka, or Ms. Bakhshi Alkhawaja.
Zanzibar is the music venue that emerged from the cultural hybrid and collaborative relationship between Zanzibaris and Singaporeans over the past hundreds of years.
Today, students can learn traditional music like taarab, a dance and drums, as well as other instruments like drums, ukules and oud, as well as producers and translators of cultural and traditions.
Neema Surri, a student of the instrument called violin at school in DCMA, has been learning how to play the instrument from the age of 9.
I know of a lot of young people who wish to learn music but they can’t afford a little penny due to poverty and unemployment,” Surri said in a video from the DCMA.
DCMA students performing on the Old Customs Building, where their school is, Stone Town, Zanzibar, 2019.
Photo courtesy of DCMA.
After completing the DCMA, Astashahada and Stashahada workshops, many of DCMA students may seek to work in international stages as bands with the Olympic gold standards and freelance artists.
Amina Omar Juma, a former DCMA student and current DCMA teacher, recently returned from a visit to South Africa with her band's achieved titles Siti and Bendi Yake, a collaboration between traditional and contemporary music.
Also, in collaboration with two of his band members, who are former students of DCMA, he released his first album, Fusing the Roots, in 2018, continuing to perform at Voices of Busara, Africa's largest music festival in the region, at the same time.
Here you can hear the band’s Nielewe song and video, featuring Zanzibar’s madhari narrates a story of a woman who struggles with domestic violence and the dreams of music, as does Omar Juma’s personal story:
Read more: Ethnic Women in East African Music Festival Chants Against Impunity
A history of cultural confrontation and collaboration
More than 15,000 guests have gone through the school hall to enjoy extensive exhibitions, workshops and classrooms, as well as meet with the DCMA musicians who represent the future of cultural and archaeological heritage in Zanzibar, according to the DCMA.
Filled with a bit of Indian, Arab and African history, the school is pleased to be an extension of the cultural roots of various countries, as well as a cultural tradition associated with the Indian Sea and the Persian Gulf.
The Omani Sultan, a well-known king of the 17th-century, transferred his rule from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1840.
From the Old City, Omani rulers carried out sea-trade business, including sacks, gold, clothes, making textiles from the crossing of the Indian Ocean into the Oman and East Africa.
Zanzibar’s youth are now aware of the need to understand their past to determine if their future and the music they produce today represents the aspirations to build bridges between the past and the future.
Recently members of DCMA and their teachers introduced TaraJazz, a fusion of traditional taarab and modern comfort.
His musician, Felician Mussa, 20, has been learning to play the musical instrument called violin for the past three and a half years; TaraJazz is one of the searched bands on the island, here by photographer Aline Coquelle:
The Serbian coast tells a story of cultural hybridity and DCMA develops this culture through music collaboration.
Every year, the school organizes a project called Swahili Encounters, which brings together musicians from Africa, Middle East, Europe and North America as well as DCMA students to create a truly local musical experience over a week.
At the end of the meeting, the newly formed artists are supposed to perform on Voices of Busara, and often these teams have a new friendship that crosses the borders of language and culture, verifying that music is a global language.
DCMA hosts a live performance every week showing the talents of its students and friends who visit the musicians in Stone Town, Zanzibar, 2019.
Photo courtesy of DCMA.
The DCMA School of Music is recognizing that music can create a sense of belonging to people regardless of their culture and it alsoajiris young talent who feel invested in an economy of prosperity and unemployment.
With the 1,800 students who have gone through the DCMA training, this school is the only one of music they know, where they can learn and grow as professional musicians and artists.
One Chilean tourist, who visited the DCMA School recently, wrote on TripAdvisor: Personally, meeting the musicians was the most fitting time I spent on the island.
While Zanzibar's tourism sector is growing rapidly, the DCMA School believes that music has a significant role in celebrating, preserving and promoting the culture of the Swahili people, their heritage and history.
Zanzibar is more than its beaches and its luxury resorts are a place rich in history with spectacular sights and connections.
Editor's note: This author of this article has previously volunteered at a DCMA school.
Sierra Leone: Health professionals prepare to enter the Ebola Red Zone.
Flickr image by EC/ECHO/Cyprien Fabre, August 2, 2014.
(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
On August 12, WHO released a positive report on the progress of the clinical trials of several Ebola-diabetic drugs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
WHO declared that the contaminated Ebola treatments have shown a positive prospect for the livelihoods of Ebola patients, and continued to explain that two out of the four reported cases of Ebola were potentially caused by the virus.
Who is responsible for the Ebola disease?
His Excellency Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, the Director General of the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) DR of Congo, spent most of his life in search of a Russian Ebola cure.
While international media are mostly reporting on the Ebola crisis causing a high number of deaths in Congo, the stories about him are sparsely covered by these media.
Muyembe-Tamfum explained : that we will no longer say that Ebola (EVD) is not going to get killed.
Due to Muyembe-Tamfum's Muyembe-Tamfum work, scientists undertook a four-drug trial on Ebola: ZMapp, remdesivir, mAb114 and REGN-EB3.
A conducted biostatic survey of 499 respondents showed that patients treated with REGN-EB3 or mAb114 had higher chances of survival compared to those treated with two other drugs.
The study was under the direction of the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB), the Congo Medical Ministry of Congo and other organizations involved in the delivery of healthcare services: the International Organization for Health (ALIMA), the International Medical Corps (IMC) and the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
Congolese citizen involved in Ebola cures
Muyembe-Tamfum has been researching Ebola since the first case in 1976 and was the first researcher to visit an area where Ebola was first reported. I spent four decades of my life searching for effective treatment for the Ebola virus. That is a huge achievement in my life-Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale of the Republic of Congo, together with colleagues have discovered a new treatment for the Ebola virus that could treat the disease in only three hours. I spent four decades of my life searching for effective treatment for the Ebola virus. That is a huge achievement in my life-
Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the Director General of the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale in the Republic of Congo, together with others have discovered a new cure for the Ebola virus in only three hours.
A biotechnologist at the Congolese National University of Science and Technology in Kinshasa- Republic of Congo has spent almost 40 years studying the disease.
In 1995, she worked with WHO for the implementation of the he worked with WHO in implementing an Ebola prevention project in the town of Kikwit, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Professor Muyembe-Tamfum (speaking with a voice) speaking during the sex education community service delivery exercise in Beni, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, in early September 2018.
Photo by MONUSCO/Aqueel Khan (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Following this discovery, victims of Ebola are now more in the hope of early access to health care and may be referred to a hospital for more treatment.
If 90 per cent of the patients will be admitted to health centers and treated and return to school years, they will begin believing in the medicine and building trust in their communities and the general public.
Jean-Jacque Muyembe-Tamfum
Ebola case management tips and precautions — John Roberts (@JohnRobertsFun) February 24, 2016
The first Ebola case was reported in 1976 near the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to the CDC Center for Disease Control and Prevention, since then, the virus has been growing more insidious (not yet known) and it is on the rise on the continent.
The Ebola epidemic since 1976.
A map from the Center for Prevention and Combating Magojwal
Between 2014 and 2016, more than 28,600 have been infected with Ebola in West Africa.
According to the WHO 2015 update:
In 2014 Senegal had one Ebola case, without reports of any death.
WHO declared the Nigerian initiative to combat Ebola as part of a massive Ebola prevention work.
In January 2015, Mali reported 8 Ebola cases and 6 deaths.
However, the situation was worse between March and June2016 in three countries: in Sierra Leone: over 14,000 people contracted Ebola and 4,000 deaths; in Liberia: over 10,000 people contracted Ebola and 3,000 lived; in Guinea: 3,800 patients and 2,500 deaths.
General description of the Ebola case
The Ebola epidemic in Africa elicited widespread shock and worry in 2015 when two Ebola patients were reported to have died in the United States, one in Spain, and one in Germany.
GabyFleur Böl, researcher at the Berlin-based Institute of Disaster Reflections, Germany, reported other Ebola cases in Spain, Germany, Britain, Italy and Switzerland.
At the same time, Ebola were considered as a death sentence for inadequate and unreliable treatment.
As Böl once pointed out, the increase in deaths from Ebola is a result of this /a> while the reporting in the media about Ebola has contributed to creating fear worldwide.
These figures were echoed in 2017 by a study by Hal Roberts, Brittany Seymour, Sands Alden Fish II, Emily Robinson and Ethan Zuckerman which looked at Zaidi than 109,000 articles published in major US media and blogs between July and November 2014, with mostly focused on Ebola treatment.
They identified three golden moments when the most widespread coverage of the Ebola crisis in the US media and blogs took place on July 27, September 28, and October 15 in 2014:
On July 27th, it was first reported that US workers in Liberia were infected with Ebola.
On Sept. 30, the press were covering Thomas Duncan's personal experience with Ebola in Texas, for the first time in the United States.
On October 12, reports of an Ebola patient that is also a healthcare provider were widely circulated in the United States.
After October 12, another Ebola outbreak was reported consistently growing, day by day.
It is unlikely that the US media has been reporting heavily on Ebola because of the recent outbreaks of the disease in the country.
Ebola has been the most discussed topic in European and American media recently.
However, one phenomenally awaits to see whether the information on the Ebola vaccine discovered by an African from the Democratic Republic of Congo will make it available to the media as it did in 2017.
Erick Kabendera teaches journalists in 2012, Dare s salaam.
Photo by Pernille Baerendtsen, used with permission
On July 29, Tanzania's At least 6 Police Forces violently arrested Erick Kabendera at his house in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and detained him.
Police say Kabendera violated a self-immolation order to protest against his nationality as a Tanzanian.
Over the past week, police searched the Bendera residence twice, confiscated her passport, other personal documents and questioned her family.
On August 5, the court affirmed that Kabandera was charged with money laundering, failing to pay taxes of US $75,000, and engaging in criminal networks, according to the charge sheet of the journalistic defense (CPJ).
Police say Kabendera committed this crime for the past four years since 2015.
Under the charges, Kabendera faces up to 15 years in jail and can not be released on bail.
Magufuli of Tanzania
They grabbed the journalist, when they saw the noise was mostly from Tanzanians, and with a pinch of stigma, he now stands accused of cyber-crime and avoids paying taxes.
Joining Erick Kabendera, his crime is to be a journalist.
Media freedom has been cripplingly curtailed during this period of Tanzaniaya Magufuli reported by CPJ.
A representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in Sub-Saharan Africa, Muthoka Mumo says:
It appears that throughout the week the authorities have been looking for new means to confirm the reasons for keeping the journalist, an independent reporter and an critic.
First they claimed they claimed Erick Kabendera's citizenship was unfounded, today they have added another unfounded charge, which makes us wonder why they are holding her.
As a journalist, Kabendera has been critical of President John Magufuli's regime and has often stood the upper hand of press freedom.
He reports to local and international media outlets such as The Guardian, African Arguments and The East African on Tanzanian politics and on how people distribute.
JJebra Kambole, the Kabendera’s deputy says, nightmares also outraged Kabendera against the government in a post published in The Economist, titled John Magufuli is threatening press freedom in Tanzania, but these charges were later dropped.
The news arrived soon: journalist Erick Kabendera on charges of sedition against the government for an article published in The Economist, where he argues that John Magufuli is threatening press freedom in Tanzania, and a statement from Zebra Kambole stated that Mr Kabendera has been denied bail.
Crimes used as tools to silence the people
The kabendera family says, this is not the first time the government has asked about the nationality of the kabendera.
In 2013 the government also filed a similar lawsuit but the case was dropped, according to The Citizen.
Kabendera then noticed that the authorities wanted to use the question of his nationality to silence him.
Last year, The Citizen also reported on several cases in which the government has made the question of citizenship a hotly contested issue in Tanzania.
Aidan Eyakuze, executive director of Twaweza, a civil society organisation, who specializes in Citizen Voices, said the authorities have copied his passport and refused him to travel while his citizenship investigation is underway.
Two weeks prior to the event, Twaweza reported the results of a study called Say the truth to power?
Public opinion on Tanzanian politics
The Citizen's science and technology Commission (Costech) claimed that the study was unsanctioned and threatened to take legal actions but the case was later dropped, according to the same story.
Tanzania has recently introduced a number of laws that target bloggers and media organizations, civil society organizations, arts and culture organizations, and academics and researchers, as well as anti-government investigations, attempts to restrict Tanzania’s online speech and political rights abuses.
Read more: Will Tanzanian Bloggers Go through Paying or Not Paying Blog Tax'?
#FreeErickKabendera
Hundreds of journalists, human rights activists, concerned leaders and citizens are reacting on social media to Kabendera's release:
AFEX Africa calls the hearings a clear attempt at violence
Nine days on, Tanzanian police continue to arrest writer Erick Kabendera under investigation @AFEXafrica felt the need to end this open violence.
https://t.co/7UFZkzYzwV @MRA_Nigeria @FXISouthAfrica @gmpressunion #FreeErickKabendera #NoImpunity
AFEX (@AFEXafrica) August 6, 2019
Kabendera, who has often been training young journalists, has had her former student send this tweet:
I met Erick Kabendera only once in my life, and for not too long.
He came as a student who was asked to come to teach us (Public journalism and communications @ UniofDar).
But in spite of being with her for a short time, I learned a lot from him.
He really inspired me
#100K4Erick
Another netizen thinks Kabendera's arrest and conviction for this crime is a warning to other citizens:
I CAN’T Kabendera Because I’m Tanzanian Or The reason is a Journalist NAMTETEA Because I live in Tanzania and Erick.
If Justice is not at my disposal today, it will tomorrow be at my disposal.
Nobody is perfect at all. #2010memories — The Usual Suspect (@Jude_Mugabi) June 11, 2015
Ivan Golunov.
Bendera conceived by Meduza, used with permission
: This Russian-language version is a level of ease that when it comes to content it's also about how the number of Russian users that are moved by the arrest and detention of Ivan Golunov a popular journalist.
He was arrested on June 6 in Moscow on alleged drug-trafficking charges.
Golunov was arrested and rejected by the lawyers which is against Russian law.
Her lawyer confirmed that she is suffering from torture in the custody.
Afterwards to the hospital, he was released and placed in a specially-designated tent on June 8.
Russian soldiers first spotted a portrait of a suspected drug content taken from Golunov's bedroom but it was later removed.
Also, pro-Kremlin Russian outlet today confirmed that the photos did not be of Golunov's Gorofa.
The charges against Golunov could lead to up to 10 to 20 years in prison.
Golunov 36 years old works in Meduza, one of the few mainstream Russian-language communities still in Russia.
Meduza was registered in neighboring countries like Latvia, but has few offices and journalists in Russia.
Golunov has leading the investigation of several corruption incidents involving high-ranking officials.
Since Golunov's arrest, Meduza has been publishing Golunov's articles under a creative commons license and encouraged both media and individuals to republish them, which has gained backing from Global Voices.
Among the most important posts he has published are the stories about Mayor Pyotr Biryukov approving projects for his family and how the project to make moscow a tourist attraction with a much-detailed budget.
The story he was working on before his arrest was about the structure of funeral services in Moscow.
Golunov's arrest has sparked solidarity statements that were rare among journalists, activists and lawyers, and even popular singers and public figures outside Mscow and St. Petersburg.
On June 10, three major newspapers agreed to publish Golunov's pro-government version on their front pages.
Newspapers were taken down and set a new record.
Unprecedented media outlets like pro-Kremlin and Channel One, which have many readers, seek out fair investigations.
June 12 will be Russia’s Day, where free marches and public demonstrations are going to take place.
Under Russian law, public demonstrations do need a permit.
Supporters of Golunov have announced that they will take their own rallies without getting official permission.
Kremlin officials say the Russian government is considering purging the suit against the journalist before June 20.
The day President Vladimir Putin, whose ratings are among the highest in history in the country, will be having a live phone conversation during the annual public consultation period in which he receives questions from citizens via phone and social media.
Kenyan author Mkenya Binyavanga Wainaina at a book launch in Brooklyn, 2009.
A 48-year-old Wainaina died on Tuesday, May 22, in Nairobi, Kenya.
Photo by Nightscream, CC 3.0 and Wikimedia Commons.
It's just 24 hours since Binyavanga Wainaina Mwandish Mkenya disappeared from this world, but the existence and impact continues to be felt worldwide.
Indeed, thewazi journalist shoga mu-wazi criticized the confrontation and challenged the government with a revolutionary journalism that would open the door to thousands of writers who aspire to change their ways in writing and expressing Africa.
Journalist, teacher and LGBTQ activist Binyavanga Wainaina, aged 48, died on Tuesday, May 22, in Nairobi, Kenya, after a short illness.
Today I wondered: What will your life be like when they leave?
Binyavanga’s death made me think about what I was 5 or more years ago and how we were each other as a young man who embodied the passion and honger of change both on our continent and on ourselves.
Fungai Machirori (@fungaijustbeing) May 22, 2019
For minutes, friends, followers and fans based on social media sharing their memories and thanks and discussing his many and wonderful writings.
Wainaina is well known for his kuchokoza column, How to write about Africa, published in a 2006 newspaper.
He is also known for his 2012 biography, I am asha, published in Chimurenga, and Africa is a Country, published in 2014.
The post made waves on Twitter as people tried to prove the facts and newspapers called Wainaina one of 100 influential leaders in the world
In Namna of Africa, Wainaina calls the Western media and the support of all the factories in Nairobi to perpetuate unfaatory stereotypes about the African continent with a vengeance and irony.
Don't try to picture a good African in a book or in it except that it's based on a Nobel prize.
AK-47, good noise, clear vision: use this.
If you must include an African, include him in the Masai or Zulu or Dogon uniform.
His topic was Lawyer's Dignity, writes Nigerian journalist Nwachukwu Egbunike.
An article or book quoted by academics, NGOs and aid workers has had a profound effect on grassroots knowledge about Africa and the results are becoming more suspicious, bizarre and disgusting.
On the outcome, artist Pernille Bærendtsen writes:
For me, the following post has been my most followed post since I was promoted as a gift in 2008 by my friend Mkenya.
I am also one of the people harassed by Binyavanga: an IT worker hired in Tanzania by a Danish organization wrote about the results of his article.
This was at a time when development and industrial aid increased its effectiveness in getting subsidized to meet the growing demands of the industry.
I had many reasons to feel ashamed, but I also had time to plan for that change.
Binyavanga later described in Bidoun magazine how this article had happened only in life and has two effects: By exposing the risks faced by writers, NGO workers, musicians, shelters, students and writers who are studying these instructions on how or not to write about Africa, they start to cast doubt on his decision.
Wainaina was the son of a Kenyan father and mother mganda, and she questioned the deceitful narratives about Africa through a documentary she published in 2012 called One Day I will write about the place here.
With a lot of info, it attracted readers from his childhood in 1970s in Kenya to his teen years in South Africa where he spent many years in exile.
The criticism was met with praise for the book as real and true, but later Wainaina admitted that he had forgotten the important message of love in his life.
Mama, I am gay, Wainaina was the first Kenyan at the top of the pyramids and was open-minded when she spoke on social media, and she generated positive comments from the community.
It was seen as the face she lost in the memory.
Wainaina observed that he is gay for his mother when she was dying.
His article was ideally targeted as a campaign against the huge anti-gay rally and the anti-gay law was proposed in Uganda and later Tanzania where homosexuality is criminalized.
Read more: Tanzania's reaction to homosexuality cut the political agenda
But, unlike many of the journalists in exile, Wainaina returned home, as Nanjala Nyabola explains to the BBC on Twitter, she says it was important:
For those of us who included prominent Kenyan journalists in exile, detained, poor or unfairly treated or abused, he brought home that was important.
He was such an imbecile but he forgives me forever.
We have to say our minds
While Binyavanga himself received the support of various international groups, at home he criticized and condemned it under duress.
Binyavanga demanded a space for free speech and thoughtful expression.
With a pineapple victory in the LGBTQ community asserted that the march was necessary to change the course of the law.
In a similar tweet and response, the same year Wainaina wrote We Want to Say Our Thoughts, in Yuotube with the six-part message that carrys his thoughts on freedom and thought.
I want to live a life of freedom of thought, he explained in the first part.
I am asking this generation of parents to have young people who see Africans writing their own stories that is easily a political necessity everyone should have.
I have seen a continent where all kinds of thoughts are required not to be allowed to pass through.
I am an African, I want to see the continent change.
Wainaina echoed his passion for morality through his writings, education and leadership.
In 2002, after winning the best Caine for her home discovery, she funded a partnership with a similar organization to launch?
A newspaper aimed at fostering the voices and ideas that are emerging across the continent.
Why?
It continued to publish and have an online presence with writers from Lagos to Nairobi, Mogadishu to Accra.
Read more:We Work Prevention #ScamBailOuts': A Kwesitory term in East Africa
As she unequivocally stripped off Kenya’s social media identity as a gay and later revealed that she has HIV via Twitter on World AIDS Day 2016 she often came with backlash, struggle and pain.
Wainaina was a man of steel who fought back and forth often clashed because being a prominent gay was seen as the most tataable task in society for him.
He had fans but he was met with criticism by renowned journalist Shailja Patel, who accused Wainaina of being an homophobic hater.
Twitter user Néo Músangi shares his frustrations with the behaviour of Iranians in his tweet:
Not enough energy but Imlilia Binya as my love in the ugens and my advocacy.
I'm sorry that she hurts others.
I feel that he was wrong about himself as a human.
He will scream at us.
Journalist Bwesigye Mwsigire, the director of the Writivism Festival in Uganda, also described the confusion on Facebook:
her sexuality was a challenge.
Good and make up for the mistakes.
People weoshikilia because of their work and their ideas are only people.
It is human.
Are we ever ready to love them in their complexity?
Currently, much has been spoken about him.
There is no need to repeat what has been said.
People remind him of his pain.
This would alleviate the agony one feels at his death.
There are only two Binyavanga.
It's a rumour for now.
Lets celebrate his life.
The talent of the cynical
Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi tweeted after he sent a greeting message to Wainaina on Facebook; hate and homophobia followed his message.
Wainaina was a talented humanitarian who should be remembered:
I just sent a message over Facebook about Binyavanga's death, #RIPBinyavanga there were bad and embarrassing comments I've never read.
Even the thieves who run taxpayers and kill people do not have such a hatred as that.
The truth is Binya was a smart and talented educator and will be read and remembered
Ugandan mother rights advocate and writer Rosebell Kagumire highlighted what she learned from the declining use of the word:
Never open the woga.
Don't stop yourself.
He is saying what is needed to be said.
write it down.
Tell us your story and your heart.
When you will breathe in your last breath there will be millions of words containing the most meaningful words u gave to Binyavanga
Through his life and letters, he gave himself and countless others the permission to imagine life as it could be otherwise, and his sudden passing inspired poetic musings:
One day I will write about your beautiful hair
One day I will write down your laughter
#untrained One day I will write about your denialism
#2010memories@encanews I'll write about your imagination and how you can think. — Khulekani.Mathe (@knmathe) June 11, 2015
#untrained One day I will write about your refusal
Today I writes thank you.
Kenyan Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, a journalist and a true friend of the Indians, concludes with an ultimatum:
Who told you to leave?
from your body at night without leaving a new profile?
You lookinama, the eyes arechokers, he said, You have only 3 seconds to fix that manung'uniko you there.
Who told you to leave?
From your body and leave a new handle?
@SafaricomLtd #BeforeMPESA Who are people that can go crazy and get mad in writing? — Webster Madanhi (@FreedomTrapped) February 24, 2014
Now he is one of the greats, you can associate him with the Binya tribe with the magnitude of his work.
Front cover of Angolan newspaper de Angola about the win of Telstar.
Photo by Dércio Tsandzana, 19 April 2019 and with permission
Angolan President João Lourenço passed the government's offer for a mobile operator in the country, saying that the winner of the award Telstar did not meet the basic requirements for the service.
The presidential decision could expose divisions within the Angolan government.
The company was founded in January 2018 with the first 200,000+ stakeholders (approximately 600,000 US dollars), and its main stakeholders are Manuel João Carneiro (90 per cent) and businessman António Cardoso Mateus (10%), reports the Portuguese Observador.
According to Angolan netizens, the victory for Manuel João Carneiro was given by the incumbent president Eduardo dos Santos.
The Observador reported that 27 companies had participated in a petition initiated by the Ministry of Information and Technology under José Carvalho da Rocha.
According to Angolan newspaper on April 25, João Lourenço signed a new law for the adoption of a petition.
After the announcement of the first public consultation results, many Angolans questioned the integrity of the process.
Some went further by pointing out that the winner Telstar had never had a website.
This was echoed by Skit Van Darken, editor and lead overview editor, on Facebook:
Telstar Telecommunications, Ltd, was established on January 26, 2018, and the country's first 200,000 shares come from the newspaper Diário da República, the general Manuel João Carneiro (90 per cent) and António Cardoso Mateus (10%).
The dominant stakeholder is affiliated with Mundo Startel, a leading transnational company, registered INACOM, with a license despite its expiry date.
a company that has not even a website!
IMMENSLY EARTHQUAKE HAS BEEN POTPONED BY OTHER CAF Representatives
THIS IS INSANE
Joaquim Lunda, a journalist and regular publicityator on social media, praised the president's action and even claimed that the minister ran the risk of being expelled for failing to:
Tafsiriously I am thanking and it is a gesture of congratulation, towards the decision taken by the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, to cancel the government contract, for which the Angolan Telstar company won the licence to be the operator of communications in Angola the fourth telecommunications operator in Angola.
There were many reservations and a lot of points to clarify around the issue.
One does not see any value in the company that was founded in 2018 by the first 200 thousand square meters, awarded with a Creative Commons license.
I am sure that the days of the minister of information and communication technology are numbered.
After losing to ANGOSAT 1, now and this we are witnessing today, I am worried if Hofu will do anything.
Let's enjoy the game in silence!!
The presidential election comes after the country's only leading minister in 2017, the satellite project Angosat 1, is in trouble again.
Adriano Sapiñala, the main opposition candidate, also argues that the problem is in the government:
JLo should plan for his team because yesterday the Minister of Justice was saying that the appeal period is ending and Telstar should go ahead with the next step because it was a winner of the day and today JLo is showing up for the day again!
Is the communication not good?
Now maybe the Minister should take a stand or JLo should be expelled because if he denied it is because the process is not perfect and in order to not affect any persons the should be expelled!!
Blanka Nagy speaking at the January 2019 protests.
Photo by Márk Tremmel, CC BY-NC-SA 2.5.
This story was written by Tamás B. Kovács and translated by Anita Kőműves for the Hungarian non-profit newspaper, Atlatszo.
An edited version is available here as a complement to his collaboration with Global Voices.
Supportive media outlets have launched new attacks against Blanka Nagy, a high school student who has spoken badly against the government during numerous protests since the end of 2018.
Nagy faces many criticisms against him and he is also sexually harassed and one journalist called him a lazy man.
He has already filed a defamation case and won a case against three Lokàl, Ripost and Origo media houses, alleging that he wasfelting at a school.
But after Nady won the case against Origo, the source attacked her report again.
Nady told Atlatszo that he was thinking of suing Origo again because of their recent news.
Blanka Nagy has become popular in Hungary in the past winters after she gave a speech at the anti-government protests, in which she criticized some prominent politicians, with a strong tone.
His sharp words were widely circulated by social media users through his video speech.
Two months after the video hit the social networks, supportive local media properties and scholars like Zsolt Bayer started a series of attacks against him.
They said he was dreading a lot of his studies and had missed a lot of days of schooling.
They also labeled the untrained and lazy who wants to be famous and lazy.
Her defendant presented a results paper in court, showing that she was not perfect in her studies, and the papers were handed to the Origo representatives.
The news outlet then published a report from the results of Nagy's report saying that he has nearly given up his Historian lesson last term and is also in some class of honors too.
When #VyomboVinoseriallyHungary allegedly fabricated the story of little protester Blanka Nagy, accused her of insulting and winning.
They have been asked to apologize and correct the report, but they have refused and continued to shame him.
TV2 TV station ran an all-time reporting on the results, mentioning the materials sent to court but did not say what the sentence was https://t.co/MyllWb2Jwh
Joost (@almodozo) April 5, 2019
My defendant say we are thinking of suing the news source who published an opinion copy of my results from school, Nagy told Atlatszo in an interview.
He said that Origo had no right to publish the results.
She and her lawyers thought that Origo had no possibility to see the results when they represented her in court.
And their recent accusations aren't exactly true, Nady said.
Sift my Historian lesson, different from what they say.
I have a more than 2nd opinion (both of which are C).
They say it is a lie.
I would have died if it were true because in my family there was a Historian among my grandparents, he said.
I suppose all this reproaches against me is very strange but I don’t really care anymore.
It shows how I subject some of the Orbán government's top officials.
The fact that Zsolt Bayer himself was attacked by pro-government media who disseminated false information about me, proves that, he added.
Blanka Nagy a student of high school: Fidesz isatia, foolish, bad and accidental.
This pathetic group of insurgents, this few-government government, who fill their pockets for their retirement lives while you are living in Sub-Saharan poverty.
He told the truth.
This is Hungary.
Fake and pro- Hungarian information is the only silahs of the Hungarian government.
Some opposition authorities have responded by accusing the media of libel.
According to recent data gathered by Atlatszo, major propaganda sources have failed a majority of the cases, and were sentenced by the courts to 109 times in 2018.
They can't place their thoughts on our heads so they shot us #SOSNicaragua A sign of a protester during a rally for political prisoners in Managua.
August, 2018.
Photo: Jorge Mejía Peralta (CC BY 2.0)
Since massive protests against President Daniel Ortega took place in Nicaragua in April 2018, the government has banned protests, detained thousands without charge, and blocked access to public resources as well.
The attempt to hold the dialogue is over, but Nicaragua's future remains a difficult question.
The protests started with a protest against a change in the social security policies which would raise taxes on revenue while raising pensions.
The initial process by the authorities opened the upcoming nationwide protests calling on President Daniel Ortega, his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo to resign.
The death toll from the protests ispissed and not forgotten since last year because the barriers to information and memory have increased.
In December 2018, the government suspended some NGOs that have been tracking the police violence and human rights violations at the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) and Institute for Democracy Development (Ipade).
Also in December, two groups of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Special Rapporteurs on Nicaragua’s Monitoring Operations (MESENI) and the Committee of Independent Scholars Mbalimbali were expelled from the country, leaving Nicaragua with an independent body of human rights management and instigating a new round of violence, according to Women’s Rights Activist and Education Minister María Teresa Blandón.
Read more: We are Victims - Helping the Victims': Human Rights violations in Nicaragua
At least 19 injuries, identified by the government in August 2018, have climbed to 197.
However, Human Rights Watch confirmed a death toll of 322 people as of September 18, mostly from bullets on the head, neck and chest.
Blogger Ana Siú wrote on Medium recently about her experience with the April 2018 protests:
I saw my college friend being attacked by a mob via Instagram Mubashara.
I heard him screaming and trying to get hurt. [] Finally, the man who attacked him on motorcycle suddenly turned away but took his phone.
She did not know that he was still smiling.
She then said, let's go!
We have to take these phone calls seriously.
The incident lasted 20 minutes.
He also highlighted the May 30 protest, a historic march that was called on the day Nicaragua celebrates the Mother Day, with 15 people killed.
That day we changed our minds about the protests.
Some of us at the march saw how they were killing young people.
It is the first time the police have attacked a large protest with live bullets.
I have never been so close to death as that.
As students kissed themselves in the universities in the capital Managua, farm workers blocked roads in the countryside.
In June the protesters in Masaya declared the East a independent state out of the dictatorship.
The government attacked protesters who created the obstacles for self-defense and response to police aggression.
Protesters have multiplied violent incidents and violence, and as of August 2018 they have reported 22 deaths from police officers, according to state statistics.
In mid 2018, the police started what they call operación limpieza (Operationcleansing) to shut down detention centers and prosecute suspects suspected of engaging in vigilante violence.
Reports say security forces did the same in solidarity with the militant groups.
Many students, farmers movement leaders, rights defenders and journalists were targeted in the dangerous campaign and many of them have been charged.
And some health professionals who have assisted the wounded during the protests have reacted differently to what they are doing.
The Nicaraguan Medical Association has reported that at least 240 doctors were fired in public hospitals as a means to get relief.
Read more: Nicaraguan protesters and journalists faced serious attacks in the streets and on the Internet.
In September the protests were considered unlegal, and any activities now in the streets require a special permit from the authorities, which are usually refused.
On February 27, 2019, the table of talks between the government and the opposition,lianza Cívica por la Justicia y la Democracia (Cover for Justice and Democracy to Citizens), followed by the release of hundreds of people from prison.
In contrast with the past, this time's session did not include members of the farmers movement and students, because some are in prison, and others are in exile.
Not the new president but the new beginnings
As the country's crisis starts a second year, Nicaragua's national tensions are being fueled by the hashtag #SOSNicaragua, which goes viral everyday with claims, images, and indictments about students in prison and their families.
Read more: Nicaraguan Diaspora Activists carrying a log twice
Nicaraguan news channel Niú interviewed protesters who led the February protest in nearby Costa Ricans and described the living conditions in exile.
Alejandro Donaire, a student said that fled the country after taking part in a peaceful protest, told Niú how it was difficult to feel part of society and mainstream life, after spending a long time living by hiking, running and protesting.
Madelaine Caracas, spokesperson of a student group called Students for Democracy, also shared Niú's desire to see a change in Nicaragua that is beyond Ortega's:
We want to drive outdikt, gender oppression, selfishness and other selfishnesses that have been enshrined in the country’s political culture.
We more believe that Ortega will leave this year and that I will return to Nicaragua this year.
And I am sure because Ortega is currently in denial in international and economical spaces as well as because all those who participated in the April protests are now fully prepared for it.
This last round of talk between the Government and the opposition ended on April 3, with agreement on two of the four topics discussed.
The government promises to release all political prisoners and secondly respects the freedom of citizens.
There were no any agreements made on the rights of victims of electoral violence or formed for the 2021 elections.
The opposition group United Civil Society said that although the government has broken into the agreement, it was completely respectful.
It is reported that the Police have continued to disrupt the peaceful protests.
As of April 6, only 50 of 600 political prisoners who have been freed, and are currently being detained in their homes.
On April 17, under the new US sanctions scheme, more than 600 political prisoners were released and went on trial by home, but according to the Civil Society Alliance, it was the only 18 members of the group who were on the list of political prisoners who hoped to be released.
In the minds of people like activist and researcher Felix Madariaga, the new leader of the Nicaraguan Kesho has remained behind bars today.
Meanwhile, opposition groups have called for a march to mark the end of April 2018.
With new orders and bans from the march, there is also a prospect of new repression from the police.