Official photo of Nigeria's President, 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 shut down the country's Twitter network, several days after it deleted a dangerous tweet by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari claiming the government will aggressively deal with Igbo.
Despite the removal, messages continued to circulate on social media, raising the pain of the civil war that has claimed the lives of more than a million people.
But his tweet sparked a movement on social media to stand with the Igbo people.
In a series of tweets published on June 1, 2021, Buhari is threatening to deal with Nigerians in the east in the least common language, referring to the civil war in Nigeria between 1967-1970 against the separatist movement of the Biafra Republic, in southeast Nigeria.
The tweet was written in the wake of a series of attacks against the government and security forces in the area, which is blamed on it by a militant group linked to the Biafra Indians (IPOB), a movement of people desperate for the Biafra to liberate.
The group has denied responsibility for the attacks, according to Voice of America.
Most of those reporting today were children to understand the devastation and loss of people during the Wenyewe vs. Wenyewe fighting in Nigeria, said Buhari's tweet, which has now been deleted:
Screenshot of Nigerian President Buhari's threats to his Twitter account
The tweets in response to these comments by Buhari who appeared angry at the State House, the country's capital Abuja, about the nature of the attacks against election officials.
I think we've got a good platform.
They have said what they want, but now they want to take over the country, he said, appearing to be speaking of the separatists:
Buhari speaks with his throat
Buhari, a retired general, was in the army during the civil war in Nigeria.
The war resulted in the death of over a million Igbo ethnic people and residents of the Eastern region, according to Chima J. Korieh, a professor of African History at the Marquette University in the United States.
For many Nigerians, the separatist war in Biafra provinces is generally a tragic event, but for Igbo people, it remains a tumultuous reality, says Nigerian journalist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.
(Dondoo: the writer is from Igbo.)
The Twitter policy on hate speech restricts tweets that preach violence and intimidate people on the basis of race, class, and national origin.
Similar tweets, like Buhari, are filtered by the company or the users themselves, who then charge them to remove content that goes against the policy.
Lai Mohammed, Nigerian minister of information, described the removal of the president's tweet by the social media company as an unprecedented move:
Twitters Mission In Nigeria Is Suspicious, Says Lai Mohammed pic.twitter.com/6hbAKsnjVM
Tweets with threats are still online
An investigation by Digital Africa Research Lab (DigiAfricaLab) found that a threatening tweet by Buhari was still visible on various accounts two days after it was deleted by Twitter, in response to being retweeted by others:
More than 30 hours after Twitter @MBuhari deleted the tweet of Nigerian president @MBuhari for violating the law, the tweet was corrupted #ScamBailOuts — Oromo Network (@Oromo_NT) October 27, 2014
By entering different accounts through different devices, DigiAfricaLab was able to see over 17,000 tweets quoted by users before the social media company removed the tweets from the accounts of @MBuhari and @NGRPresident, both of which are legitimate Twitter accounts used by President Buhari.
Furthremore, DigiAfricaLab was able to reframe President Buhari's tweet after it was deleted.
Those tweets that are filtered can't be displayed by Twitter users because the Aapi (api) is a sort of over-the-top (over-top) application that links to Twitter data by URL.
Another factor, according to J. D. Biersdorfer of New York Times, is that deleted tweets may still be found and visible in the online search results until the site is re-posted a new version of the tweets on the main account.
#IAmIgboToo reaction
The tweet of President Buhari's threats prompted a heated debate from Nigerians tweeting with the hashtag #IAmIgboToo to express their grief.
Likewise, Nigerian Twitter users from various ethnic groups also used the Igbo language names to stand up with the Igbo people.
Analysts conducted on June 4, 2021 by Global Voices using Brand Mentions revealed that in seven days, the hashtag #IAmIgboToo has been mentioned 508 times, used 319,200 times, reached 457,500 people, and shared 313,100 times on Twitter and Instagram.
Screenshot of the words listed under the hashtag #IAmIgboToo
Human rights activist Aisha Yesufu using the name Waigbo Somtochukwu, endorses God's praise while condemning how President Buhaari has intimidated the Igbo people by saying that the attack on the Igbo people is an attack on me:
My name is Aisha Somtochukwu Yesufu.
Any threat to Igbo people is justifying me.
Attacking Igbo people is attacking me.
I condemn the 1967 Presidential threats from President Buhari to the Igbo people
No Nigerian is more than any Nigerian
Musician and producer Jude Abaga (M.I.Abaga) was encouraging the country to go on with this offensive:
To say that Nigeria is taking the Igbo people for granted is an understatement and leaves out that same unchanged mindset.
#KomeshaSars Rinuola [Rinu] Oduala, a Ugandan activist who coined the name Ochiaga, referring to the commander in chief of troops, remembered with pride the contribution of the Ugandan women in the history of Nigeria, referring to the Aba Women's Movement in November 1929:
I am remembering the Women’s Liberation March where at least 25,000 women protested against colonial violence.
I come from a very similar area of women, born with the same bravery & tolerance as many years of oppression & injustice.
My name is Rinu Ochiagha Oduala #MimiNigbo
Blossom Ozurumba, Global Voices' Igbo translator, noted that threats start with a threat to the human dignity:
The human rights discourse is becoming easier to alleviate the moral concerns of murder, discrimination or torture others for the sake of ethnicity.
If they don't look human, it's easier to justify the violence against them.
Saying no to humanity, according to Ozurumba, makes it easier to drive away the moral stigma and acts of murder, discrimination, or enslavement simply because of their ethnicity.
Photo by makeitkenya, CC PDM 1.0
On March 27, a lively debate arose on Kenyan social networks over the comments made by three radio presenters during the morning Breakfast Show.
The presenters were discussing a continuing kortini case involving Eunice Wangari, a woman who was pushed out of the 12 floor building and a man with whom she was in a relationship.
On Twitter, angry Kenyans prompted hosts Shaffie Weru, Joseph Munoru, and Neville Muysa to respond to their comments on the alleged sex abuse case, calling on the reporters to condemn the incident.
Shaffie insists that the woman was pushed out of the 12th floor of a building in Nairobi after saying no to her husband because she was too independent to put herself in a similar situation.
What a sad day!
The case has divided netizens as some of them agree with the broadcasters.
Although the three had been fired from the station, it revealed how disproportionate the Kenyan public space has been for women.
There are 21.75 million internet users in Kenya, or 40 percent of the country’s population according to a data study by DataReportal in 2021.
Nearly 11 million people are social media users, a 2.2 percent increase over the year 2020.
According to another report by the GSMMA, the number of mobile phone subscribers is roughly equivalent to the number of women and men with nearly five percent more mobile subscriptions than those for male subscribers.
In the past few years, more and more women in Kenya have claimed Internet freedom.
And although in 2018 the Tanzanian relatively new online violence law was passed in which it defines behavior as solidarity that can cause the feelings or fear of violence to them or the destruction or loss of property to them with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, the online violence is still very real.
Below are two other prominent events that have occurred in the past 12 months of social media used as a platform of abuse for women in Kenya.
The COVID-19 patient
In March 2020, Brenda Iyv Cherotich became the first patient of COVID -19 in Kenya.
After he died he came back and narrated his journey as the world came to terms with this new Russian.
But Cherotich was not received as warmly as expected.
After conducting a media interview in April 2020, she was faced with harassment and suspicion from Kenyan On Twitter (popularly referred to as #KOT, a term often used to describe Kenyan tweeps who engage in offline conversations or chats) who sought to harass and ask the truth about her story.
Other online satirists took control of his personal life, his personal conversations, and his pictures widely circulated, presumably after he was discovered by a friend or nearest friend.
Her hairstyle looks like the famous Corona
After this criticism, Kenyan health minister Mutahi Kagwe came forward to defend Brenda, calling for the arrest of the scum and labeling them as an awful defeat to the government's response to the COVID19.
Minister of Health Mutahi Kagwe telling the police to arrest social media users for slapping Brenda
And this wasn't all it was, another victim recently fell victim to the #KOT: TV host Vyonne Okwara was targeted after defending Brenda and supporting the minister's accusation of cyber-dissidency.
I am totally against Yvonne Okwara.
Your report is unnecessary.
Comfortably and loosely manipulated.
Where Where is your voice when your fellow women wore YOU (Lonyangapuo) naked and shared your nude pics?
This is a poison
Okwara criticized the attackers for targeting women.
He said that Brian Orinda, the three-year-old victim of COVID-19, was present when he offered a medical trip with Brenda, but received no response.
This triggered vuvuzelas at the hands of vigilante soldiers on Twitter who were attacking Okwara.
Users are all free to download the app.
Women should first protect their dignity.
Blogging such as this one is also a violation of the moral code.
A dull and ridiculous scene from Okwara.
By the way, it's wonderable if Corona was actually eating ubongo.
Male nude was also on the go.
She has immediately gained notoriety for choosing this.
At the beginning of the year, White House spokesperson Kanze Dena also suffered from Kenyan online violence.
When he was offering a press conference at the ceremony, netizens stormed his body because of his weight.
It quickly became a trending topic on social media, with part of Kenya and media taking the Dena case.
He's so sharp, so long, so short!
Who established the standards for how women should be seen?
Why is our problem that @KanzeDena has added more relevance?
Well, she's a new mother, but, she's not got any money!
Pray blessing please!
This is a new flaw we must resist
An article in The Elephant, one of Kenya’s largest digital publications, noted that the Kenyan and global online spaces have become the epicenter of hate speech and harassment.
There is no arguing that social media has become an important tool for social and professional development, especially for women.
Many of women have started their own condos and, in the process, learned how to join others.
Many have subscribers to purchase and sell their products in the country.
Others take advantage of the platforms for allowing speech, and generate hundreds if not millions of social businesses that are not only driving the growth of the economy but also directly empowering men and women economically.
They have also learned how to improve their skills in contemporary entrepreneurship.
Of course, social media has come in as a great place to do business.
This is especially important for economic empowerment and public recognition for women.
Source, The Elephant.
It seems that for women to engage in meaningful conversations on topics that directly affect their lives, the Internet should be a safer place than it is now.
A rainbow flag.
Photo by Marco Verch on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
Caribbean states, one after the other, have been reforming their law to reflect equality for homosexual and transgender individuals by excluding clauses from the colonial era that prevented behavior of intercourse.
In 2016, it began in Belize.
Two years later, Trinidad and Tobago followed, although their move has not been translated into a law-change.
Three years after the court declared unconstitutionality of the laws, Trinidad and Tobago appears to be on the path to reforming the Equal Opportunity Act (EOA) related to homosexuality.
The Act aims at achieving a common goal, preventing some forms of discrimination and promoting equal opportunities between people with different backgrounds.
For that reason, the Commission for Fursa and the Honduran Court for Fursa Sawa were established to address those issues but until now, they have failed to address issues of discrimination against homosexuality.
Current laws dealing with gender, race, religion, sex, or disability in employment, training, education and so on.
The push to amend the current Act has intensified after the Scotiabank in Trinidad and Tobago announced on April 14 that it will pay out health care fees for married couples, as well as for heterosexual couples.
The announcement sparked a lively debate in the country, sparked by the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) chairman Ian Roach, the chairman of the Tume of Fursa Sawa, who was quoted in a discussion with Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, saying:
It is a good step forward for the private sector and particularly for the bank, which has a diverse banking sector.
It's important that others also take a step, despite what the law says.
The Office of the Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said he is encouraged by the Bank's move to protect people's rights and that the doors are open to doing what is needed to drive down the various forms of discrimination currently prevalent in the country.
Al-Rawi's position seems to have changed in the face of criticism after the 2018 Supreme Court ruling; immediately after the unconstitutional decision, the government announced its intention to appeal the decision.
While Trinidad and Tobago have made great progress in eliminating the worst forms of discrimination, when it comes to the country's LGBTIQ population, their fear of being discriminated against through religious arguments has not diminished.
Looking at the reactions of citizens to the bank’s offer on social media platforms like Facebook the protest was massive.
In the meantime, homosexuals continue to fight not only the apartheid, but also the violence, most of which ends in death.
In the recent case, the death of Marcus Anthony Singh, a member of the LGBTIQ community in his hometown, prompted a lively debate online regarding the difficult situations that gay people face in terms of their safety and discrimination.
Many of these conversations have been done using Twitter Spaces, a web-based conversation platform that enables discussion and safe education.
While the Attorney General Al Rawi has yet to give the public time to reverse the law’s change, for gays and their associates, the hope remains that private firms like the Scotiabank will not be long before taking the government to task, and eventually to bring about a meaningful social change.
Duval, French engineer and founder of Gaël Institute.
Photo used with permission.
For internet companies and technology companies, gathering information from internet users has become their main source of income.
However, this income-making strategy puts users at risk, as evidenced by the maraufest rise of online business information sharing, leaked information and surveillance.
Is there a way to improve the privacy of Internet users?
Google and Apple have invested more in daily data collection, especially from mobile phones, and the integration of various tasks such as tasks and goals.
Several cars have been monitoring the whereabouts of people, and on the other hand health and sports centres are focusing on gathering data of subscribers.
It is believed that information is gathered and analysed to give the user what he needs in a quick way.
However, the reality is that both Internet users and technological makers do not know they are openly sharing their information and sharing it free of cost.
Users of the online privacy policy have, such as the Austrian Max Schrems, expressed their concern about the systematic use of the internet to generate income through user data.
He looks at the risk of an increasing number of incidents of violence and violations of the privacy law.
One such incident was indirectly documented in a Facebook case called Cambridge Analytica, where the Cambridge Analytica consulting firm disclosed information belonging to 87 million Facebook users without their consent to help candidates for presidential election Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in 2016.
Schrems says he alerted Facebook officials about the Cambridge Analytica collection of data, but was unable to convince them to act:
Facebook officials without warning went on to say that in their opinion, when you use a property hosting platform you are allowing those people to upload their domains (such as mobile phones and other devices) to gather information about the user.
However, why don't you ask about your privacy right online if you have nothing to hide?
Activist Edward Snowden addressed this question on a Reddit Reddit discussion in 2015:
Thinking that you don't care about privacy online because you have nothing to hide is the same as thinking that you don't care about the right to express yourself because you have nothing to hide.
Real damages to the use of media platforms
French programmer and data specialist Gaël Duval has been involved in the creation of servers and a Linux based system Mandrake (with the name of Linux Foundation) which everyone has the right to improve and share with others.
Duval decided to create a dedicated system which helps ensure the protection of data of mobile users: /e/OS.
Global Voices spoke to her to learn about how technology has impacted people's lives, the opportunities and the effects.
Here is his take on the development of new media:
This is a colonial question.
Personally I have a strong fascination with information technology because I am always embroiled in this discipline.
But sometimes I feel a weakness, and remember the times when you need to call, and you go to a specific place.
Of course that was a hard life, very fast-paced.
Young people may wonder that, up to my age, home was empty of telephones and television.
There was a time when I imagined that I had spent my life in a completely different world, and which is now virtually unexistent.
On the other hand, it makes so much fun when we try to imagine what we can do with the existence of modern technology, like communicating with someone from a very different part of the world through videos of super high quality and experiences electric cars filled with gasoline.
For those who recall, sifting through the nostalgic academy of the post-partition era, we are now facing a serious risk to the future of information technology.
A 2018 study, conducted on children’s psychiatry and the associated use of smartphone apps, found that the abundance of smartphone users suffered various ailments, such as deficiencies in denial of development (ADD) and infections.
A study published in 2020 by Common Sense Media found that 50 percent of young people in Los Angeles said they could not function without their smartphones.
The impact of the use of these technologies has recently been recently identified by several sources within the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, which documents the testimony of former employees of Google, Twitter and Facebook who describe how they handled social media to incite potential users to build their own embarrassing careers in the interest of income.
Some governments have tried to deal with the problem by making laws to increase awareness of users and reinforce companies' accountability.
In 2018, the European Union (EU) passed the Mother Data Protection Act (GDPR).
The law has strengthened the criteria for censorship including the right to have an anonymous access to information and the requirement that companies must remove such information after three years without a review.
It also puts a heavy fine on those who do not comply with these regulations.
However, its implementation is facing a lack of skilled work in the authorities, and it's also limited to EU member states.
A mechanism for communicating to media users
Duval was inspired by creating a tool that allows people to take responsibility for their own data, as he explains:
Our motto is that your reports are ours, because our reports are ours, and for those who think it shouldn't, they do not want freedom and peace, or own a media business - because personal data can help them sell their ads at more expensive.
This is how the system he created works:
/e/ is a digital divided 3D phone case that doesn't expire in a week (from Google) as you search, where you are and which is entrusted with the user's privacy.
The system does not automatically encrypt any information from the user.
It also provides basic online services such as email, hosting, kalendary, protecting communications related to the enterprise mobile telephone system.
Duval says that, when it comes to personal data, Google and Apple have similar priorities they are primarily targeting the commercialization of Google, which is actually expected to spend 8 to 12 billion euros annually to put Google’s search bar on iPhones and iPads.
Duval added:
With an iPhone, user sends an average of 6 MB of data to Google, a day.
It is twice the amount sent by Android users.
Nevertheless, Apple’s external hardwired system has been shut down substantially, with a complete lack of internal transparency.
We are just supposed to believe.
We, for our part, are free to change our privacy policy: all /e/OS functionalities and basic functionalities of the web hosting system (used in this case) are free to use.
The system can be questioned and censored by experts.
In the face of such a rapid rise in smartphone usage, it is clear that the only legal framework is not enough to create awareness, provide users with the right tools and knowledge to protect their data and this is where digital tools should be of more importance.
Information and awareness are crucial to protecting ourselves from the 19th-day prime virus.
A photo shows Kenyan health workers educating the public about the dangers of the UVIKO-19.
Photo: Victoria Nthenge and Trocaire licensed by CC by 2.0
The start of the testing phase of the HIV/AIDS vaccine in Kenya has been marred by accusations of corruption, favoritism and corruption that have left many poor and elderly people waiting in long lines outside public hospitals at a time when the country is facing the third blast of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Kenyans are paying up to USD $100 to be registered, as quoted in various Kenyan accounts online as well as in Kenyan and international media.
Early in March, Kenya had bought more than 1 million Oxford-AstraZeneca tablets via the World Health Organisation’s program COVAX.
The closure of the clinics coincided with the launch of a free abortion campaign in public and private hospitals.
The distribution of the drugs was divided in three steps: health workers and immigration and customs officers, 58 year old and older people with specific health problems, and vulnerable populations such as those in informal settlements.
The country expects to receive 24 million US dollars through COVAX.
According to The Washington Post, Kenya plans to kuch 50 of its citizens by June 2022 in cooperation with COVAX and donor countries.
In a press release, UNICEF country Representative in Kenya Maniza Zaman congratulated the launch of the first sugarcane in Kenya.
Following the arrival of these newborns, UNICEF and its partners are applauding COVAX's pledge to make sure that people from impoverished countries don't fall into the international plan to save lives by vaccine, he said.
However, the third was interrupted after the exercise began because of the final minutes' decision to extend the second phase of the program as a way to deal with a third wave of perceived risks, conflicting political interests, and the failure of the government to communicate and inform citizens.
In a post questioning the continuing adoption of the HIV/AIDS vaccine in Kenya, Patrick Gathara, a Kenyan journalist and award winning political cartoonist, said:
With a lot of selfishness, politicians claimed that they are the ones to be given the priority to build trust, even though the Ministry of Health had already threatened to silence the critics.
Since the government has ignored the need to explain its plan to the public, there has been widespread confusion about where and when people are expected to stand in the line.
Despite the government's directive prioritizing the people aged 58, Kenyan media reported that businessmen and politicians aged below had access to services contrary to the schedule, underlining the widespread abuse of the elderly and poor.
Meanwhile, the well-behaved and poor Kenyan men, who do not have access to family members and money to rebuild their lives, appear to be in line all the time from 6 am to 6 pm, and may be asked to come back some other day because the drugs are dying, according to a report 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 help complete the process, what would you do?
A similar incident was reported at another government hospital by @Sativa, a Nairobi-based Twitter user, who is also Kenyan.
On the Twitter handle, she described what her aunt had found, a former teacher who was over 60 years old.
While the elderly waited for the concession, a nurse called them names and young men came forward and passed the test.
When his aunt asked what's going on, the investigator gave him a 'phone number' where he could use money, he said on Twitter.
Following news of increased enthusiasm for the vaccine, Kenyan Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe told the media:
I think we have come to a place where we have created the conditions so that anyone can go to a nearby health center and receive care.
I want to put this clearly, those who provide contraceptive services will provide a balance sheet on how much medicine they have used and that the used medicine must be handed to the person who is doing the service.
Kenya National Rescue Committee President Alfred Obengo asked Kenyans not on his priority list to avoid standing in a chanjo line.
Reacting to the Kenyan government's confusion on the implementation of the plan, Gathara concludes his post by saying:
We could not escape 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 mbien for this plan and not as a kolonie being exploited and kuned.
It is sad for Kenya, their own colony doesn't know how to do that.
Last December, the world was concerned about Argentina, where abortion was legally allowed in the country.
But how much are girls and women being forced to become parents in other parts of the world?
Watch or listen to this episode of Global Voices Insights (air live on April 7, 2011), where our South America editor Melissa Vida talks about reproductive rights with the next-coming experts and activists:
Debora Diniz (Brazil): a cultural studies professor who runs research on gender ethics, women's rights, human rights and health.
She teaches at the University of Brasilia, but also researches at Brown University, and is a feminist activist.
Her documentaries on abortion, equality in marriage, separation from the government and religious issues and research on seli mundu have won national and international awards and won awards.
Joy Asasira (Uganda): a leading healthcare advocate for reproductive health in Africa, Human Rights, and reproductive rights activist and feminist, campaigner and campaigner, and campaigner and managing director.
Joy was awarded the Uganda Law Society’s (ULS) Award for Woman’s Best Human Rights Prize for 2018/2019 and recognized as the youngest woman’s leader in global health care at the Stanford University in 2017.
Emilie Palamy Pradichit (Thailand): founder and director of Manushya, established in 2017 (Manushya is a Sanskrit term for someone), with the aim of mobilising the power of local communities, especially women human rights advocates, to fight for their rights, equality and social justice.
Emilie is an international human rights lawyer who specializes in social justice.
R Umaima Ahmed (Pakistan): a freelance reporter.
Mwanzoni was the Deputy Editor for The News on Sunday and The Nation.
R Umaima has over 10 years of experience in online and print content.
She focuses on digital security, women and animal rights.
He is also a member of Global Voices.
Dominika Lasota (Poland): a 19-year-old climate rights activist who is also a part of the Fridays For Future and Women's Strike movement.
Mobile money operators waiting for customers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Under the 2020 content regulation, freedom of expression is restricted by high fees and bureaucratic powers to clear unsanctioned content.
Photo by Fiona Graham/WorldRemit on Flickr, CC BY SA 2.0.
This post is part of UPROAR, a project of small media that asks governments to address digital rights challenges in Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
In early March, as Tanzanians started asking about health and where President John Magufuli was, many citizens took to social media to raise questions and express concerns.
In response, the government threatened to arrest anyone who used social media to spread misinformation about the president.
Authorities in Tanzania issued the Tanzanian Cybercrime Act 2015 and Electronic and Postal Communications (EPOCA) Regulations set forth by 2020 to describe the possibility of arrest and detention of those who violate these regulations.
This was a follow up to government measures, which have often used cybercrime laws and online content regulation to restrict and curtail digital rights and freedom of speech in Tanzania.
On March 17, former Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan announced on state television that John Magufuli had died.
A few days later, Hassan was sworn in as Tanzania's sixth president.
At the time, at least four people were arrested in different parts of the country for spreading false information about health and where Magufuli is.
Many are now asking whether Tanzania will re-establish online content regulation after Magufuli's rule, or whether these laws will be applicable until 2025 when Magufuli's remaining president Samia Hassan is overthrown.
Early in March, Innocent Bashungwa, Minister of Information, Culture, Sanaa and Sports in Tanzania, warned media groups against spreading rumors about Magufuli, who had been missing from February 27.
Further, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Mwigulu Nchemba, also threatened Internet users with a suspended account on his Twitter account for spreading idle gossip, referring to Section 89 of the Cybercrimes Act and Section 16 of the Cybercrimes Act.
Police chief Ramadhani Kingai expressed an interest in finding out whereabouts of a Twitter account named Kigogo, which has long been used to exposing government lies.
Human rights activists have condemned the actions taken by state officials and the fear building up around these principles and the threats to their implementation.
Cyber Content Regulations: A broader set of digital rights
For more than a decade ago, Tanzania was experiencing strong connectivity and rapid communications development.
Despite these advances, the government has been preserving the control of media and discussion platforms and therefore the independent media is failing to distinguish what is published and what is not.
The Internet has created a new platform for Tanzanian young bloggers and social media activists to voice their concerns, but the government is not willing to accept this new reality.
In 2010, Tanzania published the Electronic and Postal Communications Law, the first of its kind in the country.
By 2018, specific regulations regarding online content were issued via the Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Act 2018.
The government claimed that the regulations were intended to strictly regulate social media use, especially, in light of hate and phishy media.
However, the regulations were not only used against mainstream media but also against individual bloggers and content service providers, who were shocked at the new legal requirement to pay over $900 USD for a license.
This was also the case of anyone who prepares and airs any broadcasts of a TV or radio online.
A great controversy swired on social media regarding the sudden price hikes as many bloggers and content creators decided to abandon their work because of the expensive.
Opposition politicians and social media users were harshly criticizing the regulations for granting social media and civil society freedoms.
In 2020, Tanzania introduced a new online content regulation, under Sec. 103 of the Electronic and Postal Communications Act, 2020, and commenced effective July 2020, by publishing in Tangazo No 538 in the Public Gazette.
Some of the major differences between the 2018 and 2020 edition of the Electronic Content Regulations o (EPOCA) are:
First, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) created a new set of fees and added several new categories under internet content: information & info, entertainment and education or religion, and continues to ban individuals from uploading content.
Online Content Regulation 2020, VI, Section 116:
Any person who uses the internet without obtaining proper authorization, commits an offence and the fines of not less than 6 million Tanzanian shillings (around US$2,587) or imprisonment for a term not less than 12 months or both.
Second, TCRA added a list of prohibited content in addition to, among others, content that encourages the censorship of people’s phones, forging communications, stealing data, surveillance of communications, and access to communications or conversations without their permission.
The Electronic Content Regulations (EPOCA 2020) have also significantly reduced the period in which a licensed person can work in violation of content regulations by being suspended or deactivated.
Under the 2018 regulations, the licensed had 12 hours to do so.
But under the rules of 2020, under Section III, Article 11, the period for disciplinary action on content violations was reduced to 2 hours.
Imposing this timeframe gives the authorities a mandate to interfere, either by blocking or by removing an account.
Global Voices spoke with some of the law and human rights experts who criticized the amendment to the 2020 content guidelines, saying they violate digital rights and civil society rights.
They said the regulations violate digital rights and stop bloggers and journalists from taking up content online.
The problem here is that there is no real guidance on how to restrict these authorities, and in the current situation, they have dire consequences on freedom of expression in Tanzania, said one of human rights experts who asked for anonymity.
After Magufuli: What does the future hold for digital rights in Tanzania
Under Magufuli's rule, civil society, the media and digital rights have been fragile due to the attacks, step by step, on freedom of speech online.
After his sudden death, many now wonder about the future of digital rights in the country after six years of leadership that revealed signs of greed.
Global Voices spoke with some government officials, asking to be anonymous about the new regulations and the human rights situation and free speech online.
A Tanzanian human rights expert told Global Voices, with a promise of not being mentioned:
These regulations are unfair because no one can be liable, especially since not many citizens understand the meaning of these regulations.
Another one thought that the government is taking social media as a joke.
He also warned citizens should be cautioned when speaking on public platforms because the government has legal powers to access all information pertaining to the owners of those platforms.
The 2020 online content regulations make it virtually impossible to be anonymous when online, under the 9th Regulation (e), internet café operators are required to register with their identity verified, to provide only one IP address and to set up security cameras that monitor all activities in their workplaces, according to this analysis by the Tanzanian Media Council.
These regulations contribute to criminal defamation, preventing unawareness, punishment for breaches of these regulations and handing over huge powers to TCRA and its agencies under it.
The Electronic Content Regulations (EPOCA) are in contradiction with international accepted standards for digital rights.
The whole thing, these regulations are aimed at curbing freedom of speech and press freedom in Tanzania.
However, the Tanzanian government is committed to respecting and promoting the right to freedom of expression and assembly of people including journalists, civil society members, and opposition politicians, according to Tanzania's constitution and international treaties.
These rights are fundamental to the purpose of ensuring the right to vote.
Tanzania is on its way to digital rights.
Under President Hassan who has recently been sworn in, the question remains: will the ruling party the internet shutdown and curtailment of digital rights in the country?
Editor's note: The author of this article has requested his name not to be known for security reasons.
Pushing Tanzania forward was never going to be possible, especially when President John Magufuli first took office in 2015.
His slogan was Right to Work, depicted in a green and yellow, the colors of Tanzania's ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, led by Magufuli.
Photo by Pernille Baerendtsen, used with permission.
Thousands of people are gathering at the sports stadia, airports and crossings, in various parts of Tanzania, where the late President John Pombe Magufuli’s body was flown from Dar es Salaam to commemorate the whole week in Dodoma, the headquarters of the government, Zanzibar, Mwanza and Chato, his home, on the outskirts of Victoria Falls, where he will rest.
Magufuli was announced dead at the age of 61, on March 17, in a speech by his then Deputy President Samia Suluhu Hassan, broadcast on state television, anouncement that was just after weeks of rumors about the state of the health of the president and his whereabouts.
He was reportedly dying of a heart attack:
Report of the Death of the President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
The mysterious death of Magufuli, however, has left Tanzanians, and others, enraged by the irony of politics and leadership in the East African country.
On Friday, Hassan was sworn in as Tanzania's sixth president, writing his first post as president of Tanzania, his second born on Zanzibar islands, and the first Muslim-majority president to take up the top post in the country.
Under Tanzania’s constitution, Hassan will serve as president for the remaining five-year term of Magufuli administration up to 2025.
In this short video, widely circulated on social media, Hassan underscores any doubts about her own leadership potential as a woman:
To those doubtful that this woman will become the next president of the Republic of Tanzania I would like to tell you that the one who stands here is the president.
[makofi] I would like to repeat that the first president of the United Republic of Tanzania, a female head of state.
While many Tanzanians are grieving over Magufuli and continuing to reflect on the sudden change, many seem optimistic about Hassan.
Opposition politician Zitto Kabwe, leader of the ACT Wazalendo, hopes and experiences of Hassani in his activism and work as a civil society member.
A very good history of President @Samia from the 20 minute marks of his assassination.
He says he was an activist.
He was a Civil Society figure.
Thank you Chambi for doing this.
It is not enough to listen to it.
While Hassan is fondly known as a passionate statesman, calling for unity and peace during the transitional period, Magufuli is fondly known as the bulidoza, a nickname he owes to his then Minister of Infrastructure to recognize his efficiency in getting roads built.
To remember Magufuli
Kanga remembers John Magufuli, Tanzania's fifth president, who died last March 17, 2021.
May our father rest in peace / We will remember our hero's legacy
Many Tanzanians and Africans in general remember Magufuli on social media in good times and in bad.
The good things of Magufuli cannot be compared to the good ones, and that means the memories he has left behind are complex but meaningful.
The Kambis supporting Magufuli and those against Magufuli won't agree and the debate will continue for years.
Magufuli attracted a following in the early days of his presidency for his aggressive anti-corruption campaign.
His efforts to initiate large scale projects aimed at strengthening infrastructure and industrialization saw a decrease in confidence of many Tanzanians after decades of international aid.
Last April, on a public eve, Magufuli refused a $10 billion (US dollars) concession from China for a major port project proposed to be implemented in Bagamoyo near Dar es Salaam, saying he was the only tree willing to comply with these terms.
This Kanga cheers President Magufuli ahead of the elections of last year.
It reads: U promised Umetenda We thank you.
It is highlighted by photos of Magufuli's successful participation in the construction of roads, the purchase of aircraft, the construction of bridges and the modern transportation.
Photo by Pernille Baerendtsen, used with permission.
His anti-corruption stance also shocked the West, with the media initially writing his stance in a positive light.
To some, Magufuli is considered a true African citizen and a South African advocate who fought for Africa's interests.
Others remember him as a famous president who passed more attention to patriotism than anything else:
I have been monitoring Tanzania and mourning John Magufuli.
We opposed his dictatorship and criticized his habit of ignoring science, but he was known by looking at people standing in the roadside.
But Magufuli’s rule was flawed and hence has severely affected 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 violations of civil and human rights.
Tanzania fell in sixth place on the Index of Freedom of Expression that measured democracy and freedom between 2020 and 2021.
As the parliament debated the January 2019 Movement Freedom Law, a law criticized for suppressing political parties, it was interpreted as a bad sign for a bundle to be seen inside the building.
Magufuli's administration has often used various laws, such as the Electronic and Postal Communications Act (EPOCA), or the Cybercrime Act to give voices to opposition and free expression.
The a set of rules by 2020 aims to prevent citizens spreading news that could cause peace or confrontation and contain information about outbreaks or risky diseases without the informed by the government through its top officials.
Citizens were unable to talk about the earthquake that shook the coastal regions last month, aside from reports of an earthquake in Myanmar a few months later.
And during the two weeks of speculation about his illness and health in March, at least four people were allegedly arrested for writing about the president's illness.
Or died of Korona?
Magufuli reportedly died of a heart disease where he has been seen for 10 years.
But Magufuli's sudden death left many wondering if he might have been infected with the Korona virus (UVIKO-19).
For many especially the Western countries Magufuli will be remembered for his denial of the presence of Korona in his country.
When the disease infected Tanzania, the government took a measured stance and provided some guidelines to fight the disease spread, but lately, President Magufuli has seen the reluctance of people to carry out their business is more a threat to the economy than the virus.
He was often opposed to international health guidelines such as wearing masks, avoiding confrontation and confinement, and asking the public to depend on traditional requests and treatments as an alternative.
After Magufuli blocked the release of the figures for Korona's mortality last year, he insisted that Korona has failed due to the force of prayer.
Shortly thereafter, he announced that Tanzania had no Korona disease.
Although it is impossible to say how much Korona impacted Tanzania, what we know is that Korona did not disappear.
When the new Korona explosion occurred in January, many Tanzanians took to social media to share their experiences with the disease, commonly referred to as Korona.
Knowing that they could be arrested for having discussed Korona, the discussion went in the name of renewed vigor and toughness.
But Magufuli maintained a stand-by in a speech at his home in Chato, on January 27:
If a white man can come up with a cure, he will discover a cure for AIDS; he will discover a cure for tuberculosis; he will now know the cure for malaria; he will have a cure for cancer.
This statement may be taken as a backwards move by Magufuli’s predecessor, President Jakaya Kikwete, who served as the world’s ambassador to health in early 2016.
Last month, Magufuli finally admitted that his country has a heart problem, urging Tanzanians to wear their own creations of snow.
Observers say Magufuli's move to change the mindset about the korona was interwoven with the death of Zanzibar's Seif Sharif Hamad.
Several high profile politicians close to Magufuli are dead from the disease.
While large crowds continue to pay their last respects to the late president, on the other hand he has passed away peacefully.
Shortly after Magufuli's death, journalist Elsie Eyakuze took to social media to openly talk about life during the Korona outbreak in Tanzania, when the president first expressed an intention to vaccinate the Korona virus.
Over the long haul 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 pollution of Korona began to trend worldwide.
Tanzania was not left.
But in April of 2020 we were done with all of our efforts to collectively combat tuberculosis in the country.
In one of his last tweets, he said:
He might have died of Korona?
Oh, yes.
Whole hell.
And them.
Tanzanians.
And everywhere.
But not those you want to talk about right?
Them are not the stories themselves.
It is part of the story.
A friend is looking for him.
Will you?
Can we do this same for each other?
Please do so.
I will.
Tomorrow.
In an open letter to Magufuli, Eyakuze describes the changing attitudes of Magufuli, but uses the tactic of empathy, which seems to overcome Magufuli's own troubles and forgiveness.
Tanzanians are agreeing with the controversy and importance of Magufuli's death and the memories he left behind, with his eyes closed looking forward.
Who has the power to decide what is current and what should not be seen online?
This is the crucial question being asked by activist and writer Jillian C. York in her new book Silicon Values,* which is expected to 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 interview about his book, which, as he explains in the document, is looking to dig deep into the history of how the major Silicon Valley communication platforms have created its own unique system, the system that governs how we express ourselves online.
Jillian, Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a prominent member of Global Voices, where she fights to write about digital freedom and freedom of expression in the Middle East.
The show is free and open to the public and live on Facebook Live, YouTube, and Twitch.
We look forward to seeing you joining us on Sunday, February 10 at 2:00pm GMT (click here to find your time zone)!
* Buying this book through the link will help contribute to Global Voices.
A young man watching his mobile phone in Tanzania, December 9, 2018.
Photo by Riaz Jahanpour, for USAID / Digital Development via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
The first snow storm of Korona was reported in Tanzania in mid- March, 2020.
However, after the figures started to rise to 509 cases and 21 deaths in late April, the Tanzanian government declared that no more patients of the age of 19 were affected in June.
That same month, Kassim Majaliwa, the country's prime minister, told parliament that there were only 66 patients in the country, but he did not specify more.
Since then, the government has kept silent on the Korona virus with politically motivated statements denying the presence of the virus appearing unverified with all the data on the cases and deaths.
Today, a lot is going on as usual, including the Tanzanian tourism sector, which attracts thousands of visitors into the country through unregulated airports.
Zanzibar Airport got a minimum of two stars in the health and safety assessment by Skytrax Monitoring the Airports’ Security Situation against the UVIKO-19, a single indicator that confirms the airport authorities’ responses being taken during the outbreak.
According to the Skytrax repot, two newly-diagnosed South African patients were confirmed to have travelled to Denmaki on January 19 from Tanzania.
The annual lively music festival, once every year, will take place in central February in Zanzibar, in conjunction with the European Union in Tanzania and some European embassies in Tanzania, at a time when the country is facing the threat of a new Russian-language version of the trumpet that is currently circulating in Britain, South Africa, and Brazil.
On January 24, the Arusha Catholic University issued a written warning to its members against the presence of the HIV/AIDS virus in Tanzania, urging them to take all necessary health precautions to avoid the virus spreading to churches.
Although records indicate that Tanzania has fewer sickle-cell anemias compared to other countries, public closures about the UVIKO-19 figures have raised concern among health professionals and human rights activists, who have been barred from speaking about the subject on social media.
The country made the 2018 version of the Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations, banning material related to the outbreak of a critical or incurable disease in or around the country without the consent of the relevant authorities.
Although prevention measures to counter the virus have been taken, nowadays schools, colleges, offices, and other socio-economic activities are back to normal.
Still, the virus is spreading throughout the country.
President John Magufuli has expressed concerns about the quality of roads and the integrity of officials after a secretive inspection of roads by helicopters and goats found evidence of the virus.
The president said said releasing the data was a cause of dismay and shortly thereafter, he fired Nyambura Moremi, the country's healthcare director, for allegedly exaggerating the results of a survey.
The cabinet reshuffle created by the minister ended up being dissolved.
In June, Magufuli thanked God for freeing the Russian president from Tanzania, following three days of national prayers.
He released the announcement publicly on Sunday Mass, at the center of dozens of praying, claiming that God has answered their prayer.
President Magufuli accused the faithful of not wearing a sack, as well as a call by the World Health Organisation to wear sack to prevent the spread of the virus.
Magufuli, who was dubbed the bulldozer because of his strong anti-corruption stand, was elected for second time in October 2020 in an election which was widely criticized for his opposition-led.
Before the election, Tanzanians were appalled by the shutdowns of networks all major social media platforms including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Twitter were blocked.
As of today, many Tanzanians cannot access Twitter without using virtual private networks (VPNs) on their Mac.
For more than five years, Magufuli's administration has tightened the country's democracy and civil society freedoms, while curtailing freedom of expression and access to information on digital media platforms.
Following the heavy hand of the government to denounce the presence of the HIV/AIDS Fact Sheet, Tanzanians are not allowed to share any known HIV/AIDS figures that the government has not verified, meaning that ordinary citizens including journalists and health professionals are prevented from commenting on the HIV/AIDS Fact Sheet on digital platforms or accessing important information.
The right to access information about HIV/AIDS has been turned into a privileged class, according to a national hospital doctor who spoke with Global Voices on the condition of anonymity, fearing for being fired.
Unlike other countries with special teams working on the UVIKO-19, Tanzania has a website with a few updates on the UVIKO-19.
The denialism of the existence of the UVIKO-19 seems to be adopted by many Tanzanians, including health professionals, who ignore the necessary precautions to avoid confrontation.
Global Voices visited several hospitals including Muhimbili, a government hospital in Dar es Salaam, the country's capital cultural capital, as well as Benjamin Mkapa Hospital in Dodoma, a political capital, and witnessed a few tailored treatments being given to treat the spread of the cardiomyopathy virus.
People are allowed in and out of the hospitals without a shower, there are few clean facilities and there are handcuffed and dehydrated facilities, such as the one that was tested, for example, in the case of Muhimbili's pregnant woman.
While the Magufuli administration has not shown any concern about the impact of the virus on everyday public life, many of his government ministers and his agencies officials accept that the UVIKO-19 exists.
Tanzania's Finance Minister calls for all financial staff to protect themselves from the korona virus, while saying Tanzania does not suffer from the 19b HIV/AIDS.
Photo from Mwananchi newspaper.
For example, when Magufuli was inaugurated last year, authorities took a lot of measures against the UVA (19%), forcefully depriving all attendees of body heating and sweeping their hands to specially-made facilities and equipment.
On January 25, Tanzania's Finance Minister, Dr. Philip Mpango asked his staff to warn against the HIV/AIDS bill and, at the same time, denounce the presence of the disease in Tanzania, during his meeting in Dodoma, his political capital.
Many insiders are scared to speak out, for fear of action.
Global Voices spoke to a health expert who believed Tanzania could be experiencing a second wave of an explosion but wondered why people were leaking this information.
The expert did not want to be identified, fearing for action.
Another health expert told Global Voices with the permission of a anonymous mention that people should know the basics of the HIV/AIDS situation so they can take steps to protect and prevent the virus from entering their communities.
He said that leaving people in the dark should be their job but he believed that the Tanzanians should try to be self-defensive by taking all the precautions that the WHO advises.
She told Global Voices:
Politicians have taken over the whole issue of the UVIKO-19 and they are playing a dangerous game, but when people start to die they will start cutting in health workers.
Another physician who spoke with Global Voices under a pseudonym said that although he hopes to be protected, the Tanzanian government's denial of the presence of the disease will jeopardize his access, as the government has not taken any action to bring it to the global market, preferring to farm medicine.
In December 2020, Minister of Health Gerald Chamii expressed concerns at the global vaccinations, telling East African magazine:
It takes not even six months to get a vaccine or treatment for a disease.
We have been really crippled since the initial attack began, I am not sure if it is wise to deploy such a protection and spread it to citizens without conducting medical tests to confirm its safety for our people.
Access to information is critical for democracy and development.
Tanzanian internet regulations have been abused to silence voices and those speaking out against the way in which Tanzania is dealing with the issue of UVIKO-19.
Freedom of expression, including the right to access, receive, and spread information, are guaranteed by international law.
In Tanzania, the right to be informed, to access information and to spread information is recognized by Article 18(1) and 18(2) of the United Republic of Tanzania Constitution.
However, these rights seem to be more complex than reality.
With the government denouncing the presence of the HIV/AIDS NRC and the legal obstacles preventing people from sharing information and commenting on this disease, both online and on the street, Tanzanians are left without substantial information and many are scared to speak.
This post is part of a series of posts that investigate digital rights violations during censorship measures against 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 Africa Digital Rights Foundation and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Image showing the culmination of police training in Mozambique | image on August 19th, STV Youtube, by the owner
Msumbiji police records leaked to the media in early August indicated that 15 students were pregnant in a police training school in Matalane, the district of Maputo province.
The documents state that the pregnancies are a result of a sexual relationship between students and students without specifying if the relationship was spontaneous.
It has been determined that pregnant students will not be able to continue their training now, and will be traveling back to their homes with police on board.
Finally, the report said the students were fired.
As told in August 8 by the newspaper O País, Military Intelligence Commander Bernardino Rafael said that all involved will face disciplinary action.
It didn’t take long for the case to be widely condemned on social media.
Several netizens expressed their discontent on the decision of the school and demanded justice for the women.
Activist Fátima Mimbire wrote on Facebook:
The Matalane issue should be taken seriously.
I am seriously broken hearted by the issue of the maternal pregnancy of 15 students at Matalane College.
This is a huge deal.
It's too big because as the documents showed the students are students.
Now one in control another imposes pregnancies and the result is a process?
This reminds me of a teacher who allegedly offered sex to students to earn a living or to not abuse them in the classroom because they are idiots, and instead of being charged, the teacher was transferred to a different place.
And there’s his revenge.
Txeka, a feminist activist also contemned the situation on Twitter:
The Matalane Case
Building a social welfare community in order to ensure equal human rights and development needs a strong education and development policies that address human development and scientific knowledge and values and a strong sense of patriotism.
The Matalane Case
Accusing violence against women is a common story in patriarchal societies, known for harassing women and enslaving them to the will of men while decreasing the blame of victims and decreasing the responsibility of victims.
Universidad professor Carlos Serra said:
Matalane?
A tiny piece of snow shoveled away by Matalane is ours.
I wonder when they will start talking about their differences, starting with their childhood.
Also the journalist and activist Selma Inocência said:
Very few teachers have been brought to court, charged and sentenced.
They are responsible for leaving their childhood thousands of girls.
School is not a safe place.
Statistics show that hundreds of girls get pregnant in school and other roles including students, teachers, and headmasters.
The petition has been passed and calls for the punishment for the officers involved.
So far more than 3,8000 people have signed on.
For the government this issue is more important and it is being investigated at the level of ministry and national army of Mozambique.
The state can not and will nottolerate such matters.
The law should not be taken for granted and it should be for everyone.
Nobody is above the law.
The investigation goes on to investigate the whole case and consider the psychological and emotional condition of the pregnant women because they deserve to be respected.
The Other Case
This is a continuing case of violence faced by Mozambican women that are not reported in the media.
One of the recent cases that recently made headlines is that of Alberto Niquice, the secretary of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo), who is facing a criminal case for raping a 13 year-old child in 2018.
Early this year, 30 civil society organisations in Mozambique called for Niquice to be suspended after being re-elected in 2019.
However, the vice president has assumed office and is working normally in the parliament.
Another press release is about the brutality of Josina Machel, the daughter of Mozambi's first president, Samora Machel.
In October 2015, Josina was beaten by her three-year-old boyfriend Rofini Licuco with a single blow.
Licuco was sentenced to 3 and 4 years in prison plus a one-year fine of 300 million pesos (US$ 4.2 million) to Josina.
Rofino however appealed his appeal and in June this year the Superior Rufaa Court ruled the case out of court with the claim that there was little evidence to prove the case.
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Desemba 2004.
You had to be a university student on Facebook, Twitter had not been used yet, drawing students were still living on the illusion of a universal story.
Our phones were still out of sight, so a leak would mean a watermeal and you would have a fundibomba to repair, and yet Amazon.com was not able to sell some of the items.
There were many news sites, blogs were there and they were active, and we were able to speak online.
That’s where Global Voices comes in.
We've been there for 15 years!
For dogs, it is 110 years.
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Today, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our globally inspiring authors and contributors for giving Global Voices so much power and sustainability.
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Travelers 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 fast-track to dealing with the 19th HIV/AIDS crisis.
The African Centre for Disease Control (ACDC) formed a working group on UVIKO-19 February 5, before the continent had seen at least one patient.
Today, Africa is for the moment the world's most affected region with 1,293,048 confirmed cases of the diseases of the UVIKO19 and 1,031,905 patients reporting to the disease, according to the African CDCP.
The region represents less than 5 percent of all patients reported worldwide and less than 1% of all deaths from all over the world.
Now, if African countries led by the African Union are merely enforcing the COVID-19 and preparing to reopen their economies and borders, most governments are using good technology.
Jointly, the adoption of an African technology able to track the spread and consolidation of COVID-19 plants across the continent has led to the deployment of PanaBIOS, the technical observation technology for the African Union.
PanaBIOS has developed a web-based programu with a database to follow vulnerable populations and has a track record of sample sizes from asilia to continents.
This technology is created by Koldchain, an upcoming Kenyan institution, and financed by AfroChampions, a collaborative public and private partnership designed to bring together African resources and institutions to support the development and success of the African private sector.
Ghana is the only country in the region to be using PanaBIOS while opening its borders.
PanaBIOS makes sure that passengers can use the vip results from other countries to satisfy the bandara needs of the countries they travel through through through the PanaBios software or to add the new software to the transportation documents.
Health officials in the port are using a commercial-application program to manage health certificates in a equal way for all countries.
Complete data protection laws and regulations
A coalition of Africa and Africa CDCP invites all member states to unite the unified platform, PanaBIOS that will enable all results across the continent to be shared.
But the ever-increasing health implications have raised many questions about sanitation and accuracy of data.
Government surveillance and ambiguity could both intimidate and stifle free expression, particularly on a continent where only 27 out of 54 countries have comprehensive data protection laws.
Other countries in Africa, such as Ghana have recently changed the law to give the president temporary powers to deal with a disaster by requiring the telecom company to provide customer data such as user data, gateway data, money transfers from unused phone numbers, traders’ names, and emails.
hakiing data security and stability, all of the techniques of the machine learning system used by PanaBIOS are centrally recorded in the general data.
Those data gathered are edited for statistics, not personal data to target people, but for analytics, where it would be more useful to reach out to the targets.
To ensure surveillance, the African Union, PanBIOS, and their allies must demonstrate how they will take into account the protection of data by different countries, ensure surveillance of data and avoid engaging in data-sharing.
Now, this pragramu-tumizi does not have a public data policy, which describes users' rights to collect and share data.
The challenge is how such a privacy policy will be implemented, subjective, national, and regional to data protection laws such as the African Union Protocol on Internet Security and Personal Data Protection, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on data protection, the Economic Community of Eastern Africa (ECOWAS) Additional A/SA.1 / 01/10 on the Protection of Personal Data within the ECOWAS and Eastern African Union (EAC).
Technological solutions have been successfully defeated at the COVID-19 Africa
Despite PanaBIOS, some Afika states have ratified the need for technology to deal with the spread of the COVID19 disaster.
For example, scientists from Sengali have created a kupima COVID-19 that costs $1 and is a 3D readingmare for patients.
Wellvis, a founding institution in Nigeria, created a virtual instrument COVID-19, an open-source software instrument to help insects identify the risks of an orally tested HIV infection based on their signs and history.
The South African government used a WhatsApp group to address common questions about the myths, phenomenon and treatment of COVID-19.
And Uganda, women of the market used Soko Bustani to sell their products at home using this software, then a pikipiki text appears to take the sale price.
Africa's success in censorship and repression of COVID-19 has to do with limited public space, limited personnel ability to censor and track those killed, and the possibility of presenting both SARS-CoV-2 virus and HIV/AIDS among other Africans.
But, it is clear that technology-focused solutions have contributed to the success of COVID-19, despite the leadership at the beginning of the disaster.
Solomon Zewdu, a medical doctor and Bill and Melinda Foundation have reported how, on January, as the rest of the West cried out, Ethiopia started a massive noise at the gates of Addis Ababa.
Rwanda Rwanda is the first country in Africa to put an end to regular violence on March 21, with several African countries following the initiative closely: South Africa implemented mass punishment while suffering from 400 cases and two deaths.
(And with that number of citizens, Italy reached over 9,000 cases and 400 deaths when it took action.)
In contrast, the number of dead Americans is just six times the African average.
Public health experts also projected that the disaster would affect the East African continent with the dead bodies lined up the streets.
Bayana, Africa confirmed the other.
The story is based on the factcheck Lab, a fact-checking agency based in Hong Kong, who is also a partner with Global Voices where the writer is a member.
From September 22, news and social media publications widely circulated on Chinese media revealed that the World Health Organisation's (SAD) senior scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, said Chinese vaccines against the COVID-19 had been proven to have an effect.
This report and publication quotes the source of a minute-long video produced by China’s TV via China’s video-maker China Miaopai.
The video shows SAD CEO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaking about the importance of introducing the 19-year-old vaccine, followed by the statements of Dr.Swaminathan.
In a CCTV video, where the brief statements from WHO's chief scientist: China's nuclear reactors are proven to have an impact (), here is the report from Swaminathan:
As you know, they have a program for breast augmentation and some of your breasts are going through clinical trials, this is also our interest, we’ve followed it closely.
Others have confirmed their usefulness in the ongoing clinical trials.
But, the original Dr.Swaminathan speech was edited.
His last sentence, surely, started with a word when, and a deafening accent made it appear as if he confirmed it instead of confirmed it.
The objective statement of Dr.Swaminathan is the following :
We've engaged in the debate in China for the last few months because, he knows, those also who have programmed for years to develop vaccines and have thousands of them present in the clinical trials, this is our business, so we're closely following.
We've had a constructive discussion and they've always insisted on voluntarism around the world with some of their clinical trials ongoing (more on this note).
So when I think about the conversations going on, it's still very clear and we have got plenty of other countries to criticize.
This statement was made at the SAD 21st Writing conference on September 21.
The full text of the hour-and-a-half event can be found here.
The Summit also called for presentations about a program that would cost 18 billion dollars by WHO and other organizations to deliver the HIV/AIDS vaccine to the future world.
To date, 156 nations have registered for the program; not China nor America is among them.
As predicted, the CCTVT video, as well as the news reports and printed materials, has attracted a lot of national attention.
Posts in Weibo and Daily Economic News have received more than 337,000 views.
Below are some popular comments:
I am so proud of my country.
This is the gift of National Day and the Festival of the Sun.
You cannot lie to China's intelligence.
I love my country.
China has saved the world.
After the elections they confirmed Dr.’s statements were corrupt, the media houses, including CGTN and CCTV, deleted their social media content.
Among them is the Chinese Communist Youth League, whose chap was inspired by Twitter user @Emi2020JP before disappearing on Weibo:
Tedros should be aborted first.
As @Emi2020JP, many Twitter users believed WHO was assisting China with distorting the video, and shared a negative comment about Tedros:
Tedros is the show of choice!
I'll pay for Tedros an extra present!
Yesterday, my mother told me, the local news said America is buying lots of beads from China.
I don’t have to explain it. Let them live in their imagination.
A great job, from tracking the spread of the virus to promotion of vaccines!
Although Chinese publications have been filtered, copy postings are still circulating on social media, like this public post WeChat.
Prominent Beijing brands, such as Speak Out HK (and Today Review), have also published stories about the video.
There are about 200 UVIKO-19 vaccines out of the world's clinical trials, many of which have been sourced from Chinese libraries.
None has passed the 3rd phase of trials at the moment.
Protest against the death of daktari 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 to protest police brutality.
The protests started after shocking news came out about the death of 35-year-old physician Silvio Dala, who died on September 1 under police observation.
According to authorities reports, Dala had left his car from David Bernardino Children’s Hospital in Luanda, where he works as the director of a clinic, and was stopped by police because he did not wear a mask.
The doctor was taken to Catotes police station in Rocha Pinto’s neighborhood, and when he started showing signs of being arrested and started kicking him, he fell on the head and suffered a short head injury, stated the official.
It also said that Dala died while police officers were evacuating him to the hospital.
The Medical Association of the Philippines denied the report.
The party's president, Adriano Manuel, told Voice of America (VOA) that there is a controversy in the authorities' statement that suggests that the doctor was intubated.
Manuel told Deutsche Welle (DW) that the causes of death determined by the police are not real.
Anyone who is a doctor and has studied medicine would know that this was not what killed Silvio.
According to the DW, a news source from the Ministry of Interior says the investigation was made before the family and the prosecutor and it was concluded that the doctor is not a victim of the attack.
The party has said it will take the police to the task.
Meanwhile, the Angolan government has formed a commission with the Ministry of Health to investigate the incident.
The organizers did not believe the police's report about Dala's death.
Posters used by protesters around Luanda said: There is no longer a Killing, You are paid to protect us, not to kill me, I am Silvio Dala, They killed Silvio Dala.
Some also called on Interior Minister Eugénio Laborinho to resign.
The protests were organized by the Medical Association and associated organizations and civil society organisations.
Protest against the death of daktari Silvio Dala in Luanda.
Photo by Simão Hossi, CC-BY 3.0
Protest against the death of physician Silvio Dala hiko Luanda.
Photo by Simão Hossi, CC-BY 3.0
Since the beginning of the korona epidemic in Angola, there have been several reports of police using excessive force during the investigations that sometimes lead to civilian deaths.
Speaking to Lusa, the musician Brigadeiro 10 Pacotes, whose real name is Bruno Santos, asked for Lugarinho to resign and also asked the police school to improve its recruitment structure.
The police force is an institution that should give people strength, but today people are lack of strength, they say when they encounter a policeman, he adds.
Protest against the death of daktari Silvio Dala in Luanda.
Photo by Simão Hossi, CC-BY 3.0
Many also spew their protests on Facebook and WhatsApp.
Activist and scholar Nuno Álvaro Dala wrote on Facebook:
NCHI OFFICIALS ARE CITIZENS WITH THE EXCELLENCY OF THE SILVIO DALA
Photography is sharp and well documented.
We must all demand justice.
The police of this country must pay tribute to their crimes.
Things cant continue like this.
On Twitter, Isabel dos Santos, the former chair 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 os health professionals, outros sindicatos e sociedade civil, contra a violent policial in memory of Sílvio Dala, 12:30hLargo da Mutamba pic.twitter.com/blRs117IdY
Isabel dos Santos (@isabelaangola) September 11, 2020
#IAmSilvioDala.
On Saturday the National Syndicate of Angolans (SINMEA) announced a silent and peaceful strike demanding that health workers, other parties and civil society institutions denounce police brutality and pay tribute to Doctor Silvio Dala, at 2:30pm in Largo da Mutamba
The title: Angolans took to the streets to protest police brutality and demand murder.
Meanwhile, also on Twitter Alejandro questioned the participation of online influencers in Angola:
When o George Floyd was morto os chamados Influencers Angolanos mostraram o seu apoio ao movimento Black Lives Matter, 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 anglo-Nationalitian activists clapped hands and joined the Black & Peace procession, but in the death of anglo-Saxon Dr. Silvio Dala, they weren't doing anything about it!
Hachalu Hundessa interviewed by OMN via Firaabeek Entertainment / CC BY 3.0.
Editor's note: This is a two-part analysis on Hachalu Hundessa, a popular Oromo musician whose killing sparked ethnic and religious violence as a result of misinformation shared on social media.
Read Part 2 here
Ethiopian musician Hachalu Hundessa gained notoriety for his creative and public identification of the Oromo people.
He died in the streets of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on June 29, 2010.
Night that same hour, as Hachalu got out of his car, a man named Tilahun Yami walked down the hall to his car and gunned down his chest.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was officially declared dead.
It was later learned that the shot had seriously damaged his internal organs.
The chief of Addis Ababa police reports that two suspects have been arrested.
After a few days authorities convicted the two murderers and their two accomplices.
In honor of his death, the country has come through a very difficult time to sort out the previous riots.
The fact that Hachalu’s killing was not clearly exposed and as a result, rumors started to circulate after politicians and activists took serious note of the conflict between the Oromo and Amahara leaders of the largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia.
On his funeral day, vigils were held in the streets of Addis Ababa and other cities in the Oromo province.
The next morning that followed the Oromia Media Network (OMN) TV station, where Hachalu had his last interview, they broadcasted his interview on TV and internet and presented his coffin which was delivered from Addis Ababa to their home in Ambo.
The slow-motion service soon turned into a battlefield between government authorities and opposition leaders, with a clash between Hachalu and the OMN to air its message; they were reportedly forced to return to Addis Ababa.
Eleven people were killed and several injured in Addis Ababa.
The clash led to the arrest of some opposition leaders including Jawar Mohammed, the leader of OMN and opposition leader Bekele Gerba, who were accused of inciting violence.
A conflict arose more after authorities took Hachalu’s remains and brought them to Ambo by helicopter, where both sides continue to fight for the family of the dead to have a proper burial.
After that chaos and violence followed.
The clashes took three days to destroy some areas in Oromo and Addis Ababa and the serious damages are: the death toll of 239 people and many hundreds wounded, more than 7,000 people detained for the violence and the destruction of worth millions of dollars 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.
Several people were shot by security forces but some media outlets including Voice of America and Addis Standard reported that ethnic Oromo mobs attacked people from various factions in the country's capital and suburbs, in the southeast of Oromo, targeting mostly ethnic communities of non-Muslims in the region.
The most communal violence took place in the region between the Amahara-Oromo ethnic group and religion might have played a major role because of the understanding that: the Eastern Oromo community is recognized as a mixed Muslim ethnic group and the Afan-Oromo language users.
A local farmer said that we thought Hachalu was a Muoromo after seeing the live broadcasts of Hachalu's funeral in line with the traditions of Ethiopia's Tewahedo Church.
According to reports, many of the victims were Hired Christians, Oromo Christians and Gurage Christians.
One witness said that the mobs roamed and burned houses and set fire to heads and belongings of victims.
The Mahojiano Tales
While reports on Hachalu's death were mostly unanswered, a diaspora news source reported on his death and the last interview he gave to Hachalu to be interviewed by an OMN TV reporter, run by Guyo Wariyo, aired the week before he was killed.
During the interview Gayo repeated himself to ask Hachalu questions about his support for the ruling party and occasionally he interrupted his answer.
Hachalu was adamant in supporting the ruling party but also criticized the conflict and division in Oromo’s political parties, highlighting his freedom of thought as a musician which has made him the target of online attacks until his death.
Guyo however, asked Hachalu about the historical abuse committed against the people of Oromo by the King Menelik II who created Ethiopia today.
Hachalu surprised many listeners when he said that the horse belonging to Menelik in a museum in Addis Ababa was the property of a Rwandan gourd, Sida Debelle, and Menelik had owned the horse.
The responses received a lot of praise and criticism from different people on Facebook and Twitter.
Hachalu was killed a week later many members of the Oromo diaspora in the Diaspora felt that Hachalu's criticism of the Menelik II art was angered those who supported the kingdom and the death of him.
On social media citizens became increasingly vocal for Hachalu's comments against Menelik, and this led to widespread rumors of lies.
The other part of the interview includes information about division and conflict within the Oromo community.
In all of the interviews Guyo praised Hachalu for the continuing political change in the country and for the anti-government movement, asking the question about Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who is Muoromo and whether the government had been able to meet the demands of the Oromo people since his coming into power in 2018.
Hachalu went on to say that he was not involved in Oromo's politics but criticized those who condemn Abiy's patriotism.
He defended his position against the main opposition leaders who rose up against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which had long been associated with the country's oldest and most historic Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Front (the EPRDF).
TPLF became an opposition party after Abiy dissolved EPRDF.
Hachalu also spoke about the continuing political violence in Oromo region blaming both the authorities and militant groups the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) as well (also known as the OLF-Shane).
Following Hachalu's killing, the government took a 71-minute television interview into the public domain.
The campaign includes a message of death threats against Hachalu from the western part of Oromo, where the militant groups OLF-Shane are practicing.
Hachalu said he believed he would not be attacked online if he had praised the OLF-Shane.
He spoke of a direct conflict with Getachew Assefa, the Ethiopian Secret Service (PRF), during TPLF in power.
Guyo, who promoted the interview on his Facebook page with a promise to watch it before his airing, has been detained by police since then and the government is under surveillance of the 71-minute documentary to gather details about the killing of Hachalu.
Read more about the ramifications of Hachalu Hundessa's murder in Part II.
Image from Guardian YouTube video about female genital mutilation.
The tragedy of the COVID-19 disaster has severely affected women’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa; from rising violence in their homes to losing their jobs.
But there is one clear area where women are directly impacted by the crisis, and this is after the onset of the Korona disaster.
In April, the United Nations announced that in spite of the repression of efforts to tackle the korona crisis, there are 2 million korona cases out of which to date and which to prevent if the korona disease threatened the health of millions of people.
Eckles refer to acts of sexual intercourse or bypassing completely or partially the vagina, or sexually stimulating the place of uke without any real intention of treating it, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
This tradition is a spiritual and religious tradition that takes root in Africa, Middle East and Asia, and is practiced by traditional elders, who practice with bats, necks or bits of chupa.
Eating also known as pedophilia is believed to be one of the most consistent forms of violence committed against girls and women, and is still widely reported in the Middle East.
Estimates put at least 200 million women affected by them.
The issue is best explained by UNICEF in the video:
In the Middle East and North Africa region, desertification is a problem that primarily affects Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq and Zimbabwe.
Carlos Javier Aguilar, the Director of the Child Protection Sector explains more,
Somalia claims to have one of the highest number of sexual perverts in the country, with 98 percent of women aged 15–19.
In Djibouti, 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 varies according to socio-economic status, ethnicity and level of education in each country and in the urban and rural areas.
Equal fertility is often found between the poorest and the most educated in rural areas.
In Yemen, tourism is a catchment in the Pwani region but sparsely occurs in the northern region.
In Iraq, this practice has spread widely in the northern Kurdish province.
In Egypt it's mostly done for girls in the Upper Egyptian region.
In Mauritania, more than 90 percent of women from the poorest families have been reported to be sexually harassed compared to 37 percent of women from high income families.
URGENT: More Corruption
The width and length of the ukeketaji will be varied because the world has no real ukeketaji image, according to a joint report from March, compiled by Ecumenical Networks from Europe and the Web Against Violent Extremism from the United States.
The report showed that this tradition is growing and spreading in the Middle East and Asia, and the world is indeed over-reacting to it.
The recent small-scale surveys also show that some sex is also taking place in Iran, along with all Gulf countries such as Kuwait, the Arab Spring, Omani and Saudi Arabia.
Divya Srinivasan from Usawa Sasa told Reuters he was "very surprised" by the results of a quick poll from sites like Omani and Saudi Arabia that are usually not the places where you would expect to grow up knowing the issues of Ebola.
This report was published during the onslaught of the COVID-19 crisis in the Middle East and was not republished or translated in any Arab media or social media.
The lack of knowledge about ukeketaji can prove categorical that ukeketaji is not something to talk about.
Social norms
In the Middle East, there are vigils mourning women bodies where it is prohibited to discuss secrets such as rape which is rooted in traditional beliefs, religions, and cultures.
For example, in Egypt Muslims and Christians alike believe that the rape of girls makes them more likely to have more potential husbands andives, and they worry their daughters would not be married if they are not raped, according to the Center for Investigative Journalism in the Middle East, a campaign launched in 2013 to raise awareness about the rape and to tell the world that it does not only in Africa but also in many other countries in the Middle East and Asia.
The organization is continuing to gather more data on ukeketaji and has created a way of gathering information that helps one person or groups of people conduct small surveys on ukeketaji.
People like to avoid conversations and discussions and unless it happens to make headlines like the death of a 12-year-old girl who died after being queried in the South of Egypt in February, people speak.
Ghida Hussein, a Egyptian student, told Global Voices that:
Since we don’t talk about it, it’s as if this problem is completely gone.
Eats are held silently behind closed doors.
It happens away from the urban educated masses where activists and politicians sit in.
eketajibe is complex and unless the international community extends its support of financial and mobilization, you won't see a society dominated by men paying this important bill.
Breaking the rules and talking about injustice makes Human Rights defenders fall prey to hate speech.
In Oman, women rights activist Habiba al Hinai, founder of the Omani Human Rights Institute conducted a 2017 research study in Omani and found that 78 percent of women were discriminated against.
After publishing the results of her survey online, Habiba received attacks and threats:
I posted the results of the wanhu survey online and the response was massive.
I was attacked by a religious conservative who alleged that ukeketaji is an integral part of a Muslim mass.
In Omani, where the riots are unofficial, there is no security for the victims.
Habiba added this one in his report:
How would you tell him to stop talking about divorce and just imagine the all implications of an absence, even if your family or relationship is dissolved, you can still support him – if there is no official support platform.
I do not expect these women to stand up and speak up with courage and adapting to society.
To stop Ebola: It's too prevalent, Too expensive
In Yemen and the Arab League, consultation is limited to the health institutions, but not the homes.
In Mauritania, there is a legal embargo but not permanent.
In Iraq, abortion has been legal in the Kurdish region, but it is still illegal in the Middle Iraqi region.
There has been no end to this cycle.
The next ten years after the establishment of a women's rights institution, Egypt experienced an increase in violence in 2008.
Sudan, which has been in transitional political after 30 years of dictatorship, has become the first to cancel a request for a divorce in April.
But implementation of the law is a challenge because the inconvenience is still very high and the widespread inacceptance is also largely.
Although the law is not an important tool but it has not yet been investigated.
State bodies need a nationalized plan and strategy which can be implemented with police, judiciary, healthcare providers, and education for the civil society.
The series of regional tragedies and dictatorial powers have delayed change to stop the campaigning and resource squeaking of women’s lives.
Nowour world's attention is specifically drawn to the fight against COVID-19 and its impact on the economy and many programs which directly affect the rights of women in peril and provide social services have been postponed or perhaps not anymore.
With many poor families and many young girls who are being expelled from school or marry, pedophilia is like trying to make your way to the known world.
Image by Abubakar Idris Dadiyata, used with permission from The SignalNg.
Abubakar Idris Dadiyata, a prominent lecturer and government critic, was abducted at his home on August 1, 2019, in Barnawa neighbouring Kaduna, North West Nigeria.
A year after his kidnapping, Dadiyata has still not been found.
Abubakar Idris (Didiyata) was abducted from his home in the state of Kaduna, Nigeria.
Her whereabouts are not yet known.
Families and friends want answers to their questions: where is @dadiyata?
Abubakar the victim of disappearance #7YearsOfTerrorism #FreeHuruDadiyata.
Dadiyata was a student at the Dutsinma Public University, in the Katsina province.
As a member of the People's Democratic Party (People's Democratic Party) in Tanzania, Dadiyata regularly encountered members of the All Progressive Congress party on social media.
Read More: Fears End to the Case of Assault of Nigerian Critic
All state and federal government institutions have not compromised with anything
Dadiyata was violently abducted by the abducted when he arrived at his home, a year ago on August 1, 2019, reported the Premium Times.
Dadiyata’s wife, Kadija in an interview with the BBC she remembered that husband was on the phone while his car was in service, when he was arrested by the kidnappers.
Although Kadija could not hear what was being said or who was speaking to her on the phone, she recalls that her husband's kidnappers were following her and coming home.
Dadiyata’s wife stayed overnight in their room while his husband was taken away from the abducted.
Worse, you have no information about when Dadiyata will come.
It's sad, really how their children are still telling their missing father, Kadija told the BBC.
In his search for Dadiyata, the Nigerian security institutions have resorted to all manner of accusations related to his disappearance.
The Nigerian National Security Service, until January, refused to keep Dadiyata detained.
The State Department says that the fact that Dadiyata was taken from his home by armed individuals does not mean that they are employees of the State Department.
The head of the state attorney for Kaduna, Aisha Dikko, refused to know Dadiyata's whereabouts or anything about the kidnapping.
Whatever is against it is an optimistic view to believe that because he was abducted in Kaduna state the state government is involved, said Dikko.
However, his denialism to the State Security and the state of Kaduna do not change the mindset of the wife of Dadiyata and their two children nor does it diminishes her freedom.
Petitions for Dadiyata’s release are still circulating on Twitter with the hashtag #MwakaMmojaBilaDadiyata, demanding his independence from Nigeria.
Bulama Bukarti lamented the pain thisharam has brought the Dadiyata’s family:
It is wonderable how a Nigerian can disappear like that.
We must continue doing what we can to connect Diyata with his family.
There is no place here for such a gossip.
Those who kidnapped Dadiyata will come to pay.
If not then it must be next.
This Twitter user was surprised when he heard the interview of Dadiyata’s wife:
I was surprised to hear Mrs. Dadiyata's wife interview @bbchausa, this morning.
The only thing he wants is for the kidnappers to forgive him and let his husband come back to his family, especially his little kids.
Akin Akíntáyọ does not understand how Dadiyata can disappear unaccounted for over a year:
One question that I'm asking myself is how did Dadiyata and his car disappear without a trace for a year in Nigeria; nor does the government have any concerns about it, is looking for a victim instead of taking the responsibility for having been targeted because of his criticism?
The sad reality is, no one is concerned with the search for the critic:
Rather, all state and federal government institutions are struggling to avoid blame for doing nothing, said Professor Chidi Odinkalu in an interview with Vyral Africa:
In addition to being said they do not know him at all, no one has shown any effort to tell us what they have done to find him and how they are not allowed to be around him.
This shows how useless we are as young people.
The only thing we can do is ask Dadiyata where is he and why does our government not find him?
Students in the Federalist state of Kaduna, Nigeria.
Photo by Jeremy Weate, January 15, 2010 on Flickr / CC BY 2.0.
Rames armedly stormed a secondary school in Kaduna, North West Nigeria on August 24 and killed one student and abducted four teachers, reports the online news site, SaharaReporters.
People armed came to attack the Damba-Kasaya village in the Chikun state of Kaduna at 2.45 a.m. on a motorcycle and reportedly killed Benjamin Auta, a farmer, according to the online newspaper Premium Times.
The armed men headed to Prince High School where they took school teacher Christianah Madugu and four students Favour Danjuma, 9, Miracle Danjuma, 13, Happy Odoji, 14, and Ezra Bako, 15.
His father, Isiaka Odoji, told Daily Trust, a Nigerian daily, that the suspects are demanding money for 20 million Naira (US $53,000) in order to release their sons, but they are unable to gather that money.
The abducted students were pursuing their primary school's exams.
Due to the Korona epidemic, only school-going students were allowed to go back to school.
The state and the provinces of Kaduna remain silent on the fate of the abducted students.
It's Valentine's Day in Nigeria
Twitter user Ndi Kato called the incident a blessing for the nation:
Today in Kaduna state, children in secondary school who were asked to go onto school were abducted by armed men.
One person reportedly being killed, a small life is saved, and many others have disappeared we may never see again.
This must please any nation.
Yet it is a normal day Nigeria laments Twitter user Chima Chigozie:
Some students were abducted in Kaduna, one of the male students was killed during the abduction.
The boy’s life is cut short, he needed to shock the nation, but NO, this is a normal day in Nigeria.
The judge blames politics for causing the public to feel sympathy and anger over these students' kidnappings:
The abducted boys will not get the sympathy they've got from Chibok girls because firstly they are boys and secondly Goodluck Jonathan (GEJ ) is not the president.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) was President, while 276 school girls from the government school were abducted by militant group Boko Haram, from the north-eastern Chiboko town in April 2014.
This sparked a worldwide trending hashtag #FreeAlaa, with millions of likes on social media.
Read more: Nigerians Celebrate the return of the 82 Chibok girls at the hands of Boko Haram
Also on February 19, 2018, Boko Haram abducted 110 female students from a school of science and teaching in Dapchi, Yobe state, Northern East Nigeria.
Read more: Female student abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria Search for Murder
The kidnapping of Damba-Kasaya student and their teacher is a recurring 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 Shiites
Legal violence erupted northeast Nigeria in Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi and Katsina.
ACAPS, an independent organization working on humanitarian issues, confirmed that the violence is not related to the rise of Boko Haram in the north east:
These illegal violences started as a conflict between livestock and farmers in 2011 and have grown more violently between 2017 and 2018, with stolen livestock, kidnapping for money, rape and murder.
As of March 2020, more than 210,000 people will be internally displaced.
Rural communities remain vulnerable with between January and June this year killed 1,126 people from the north of Nigeria.
The southern cities of Kaduna are the most attacked, with 366 people killed in the first half of 2020, said the International Organisation for Human Rights.
Chikun LGA, the home of the abducted students has been subjected to attacks from gun groups which have been marred by extrajudicial abductions and murders and 45 communities forced to flee their home where they have lived since 2019, according to the report of the Southern Kaduna People's Association.
The people of Southern Kaduna claim that the lads are Fulani cattle who are plotting to loot the land, being assisted by the state and by the governor.
But the governor of Kaduna state, Nasir El-Rufai, refused to be accused of plotting to loot the land or was instigated by religious ideology.
On August 22, the governor of Kaduna province ordered people not to leave from 6 am to 6 pm, which in some areas is considered a part of the government’s plan to end the illegality.
However, the spokesperson of the People's Union of Kaduna, Luka Binniyat, lamented that hunger also kills because people don't go to their farms, our people are totally hopeless.
Henry Swapon and Lawyer Imtiaz Mahmood.
This collage is a collection of their images that went viral on social networks.
Two people were arrested on May 14 and 15. They posted their reactions on their Facebook pages.
The arrest has raised questions among the public on social networking sites.
Henry Swapon's arrest
On May 14, poet and journalist Henry Swapon was arrested at his home in Barishal, in the Central District of Bangladesh.
He has been accused of violating the Cybersecurity Act of Bangladesh.
A Christian parliamentarian, Swapon was previously accused by his brothers Alfred and Jewel Satkat of hurting Muslim and Christian sentiments on social media.
Bangladeshi poet and editor Henry Swapan was arrested under the cybersecurity Act!
#OurAwekweHuru #bangladesh #bangladeshiblogger #UhuruwaMaoni pic.twitter.com/MGoCec2nsR
According to Dhaka Tribune, Swapon posted a Facebook post criticizing Lawrence Subrata Howlader, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Barishal.
The Bishop chose to organize a traditional event in one of the Catholic churches on 22 April 2019, just a day after the Sri Lankan Terrorist attacks.
Swapon suggested that the Bishop would postpone the event in respect to the hundreds of missing people in the attack.
Other Christians praised the language the Bishop used and some even used threats to kill him.
Swapon has become a very active voice in social media speaking out against all forms of corruption and corruption in their town.
Netizen Swakrito Noman wrote on Facebook:
In Bangladesh, the accusing of attacking activists for insulting religious sentiments has become a routine practice for Muslim leaders.
Now we see that even the non-Christians have started to use this strategy.
I think that the one who hates this kind of criticism is the mentally ill.
Government should plan for treating these patients.
We are adamantly denying the arrest of American poet Henry Swapon and calling for his immediate release with no conditions.
Jailed Lawyer Imtiaz Mahmood
On the morning of May 15, police arrested High Court lawyer and writer Imtiaz Mahmud under a 2017 unused, related law, the Information, Communication and Technology Act in which one citizen, Shafiqul Islam, complained that Mahmoud's Facebook posts had triggered his religious sentiments and provoked crime in the South Eastern region of Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Imtiaz Mahmood secured a temporary bail; the case was dropped for the first time but the Khagrachhari court issued an arrest warrant against January 2019.
Mahmood made his comment during the ethnic riots after a Bengali motorbikeman was killed in Khagrachhari, prompting a group of Bengalis to set fire to several homes and shops of the residents of Rangamati in Chittagong.
Sources told Dhaka Tribune that the police did not take any steps to stop the incident.
Hundreds of such cases were filed from 2013 to 2018, when the Information and Communication Law changed to the Cybersecurity Act.
Bangladesh denies social media reforms.
Police has conducted a second in two days under the Cybersecurity Act.
Journalist Imtiaz Mahmood was arrested for a case under theICT Act on Wednesday morning.
#Freedom Expression #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 not seen any sedition words in his writing.
There is a huge mistake.
I hope the mistakes are quickly fixed.
PS: I have seen so many bad Facebook posts with dirty language and racism in it.
If the people are convicted today, will an arrest warrant be issued?
Many netizens have condemned the two arrests, demanding the law be severed.
Bangladeshi immigrant Leesa Gazi tweeted:
Very shameful.
The Bangladesh government is not able to guarantee public safety but is trying to arrest people under the draconian Security Management Act which is contrary to the spirit of Bangladesh’s Constitution.
https://t.co/1sFKY10OPV
Journalist Probhash Amin wrote on Facebook:
After poet Henry Swapon, lawyer Imtiaz Mahmood (reprisoned).
Freedom of expression is restrained.
I want all the draconian laws be canceled.
I want freedom of speech.
I want Henry Swapon and Imtiaz Mahmood be immediately released.
Despite warning it could undermine freedom of expression, Bangladesh's parliament passed the Internet Safety Act in September 2018.
This law replaced another repressive law, related to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was also used as an instrument to silence online critics.
The law punishes some online speeches from micro-blogging to messages that violate religious sentiments and prescribes high fines.
It also allows long-term prison terms for cyber-crime related incidents in public spaces and for the collective accumulation, transmission and conservation of information and government documents through digital media.
The Bangladesh Editors' Council said the rule is contrary to the already guaranteed freedoms, press freedom, and freedom of expression.
Read more: Freedom of Expression activists in Bangladesh say one Digital Security Act is designed to #hack
The law gives too much power to law enforcement agencies to initiate surveillance of any whose activities are suspected to be harmful and serious threats to security.
Khartoum, Sudan.
Photo by Christopher Michel from Flickr under CC BY 2.0.
After the Sudan revolution, transitional Sudanese authorities signed peace agreements with The Sudan Revolutionary Front, the main rebel group that has continued to operate after the ousting of its former leader Omar al-Bashir, last year.
This historic peace accord was signed on August 31, in Juba, South Sudan, and is supported by regional and international communitys such as the Trojan Horse, the European Union, Egypt and several Gulf countries.
This fascinating phenomenon is also fed up with the historical flooding that has affected some parts of Sudan, making it more difficult to maintain an economic boom that was already over.
Still Sudanese netizens celebrated the news on social media.
Sudanese blogger Waleed Ahmed wrote:
Today we are giving up, we are back home.
A video which shows the army (Sudan Liberation Movement (SLMAA) led by Minawi announced to be withdrawing its weapons from December 16, 2019, in support of the revolution.
Mini Arko Minawi, SLMA leader, wrote:
Mini Arko Minawi.
Yesterday’s signature will put Sudan into a new phase, both partyly and for the Sudanese people, organizations and social movements in solidarity with friends and neighboring regions.
We must build a strong platform for the new beginning of our nation.
Sudan's prime minister Abdalla Hamdok welcomed the peace accord with a statement:
I am expressing the peace we have signed today in our Sudanese Nation for our children who are born in shackles and camps, for father and mother who are wishing the villages and towns they are waiting for the Glorious December, the promise of a return, the promise of justice and the promise of development and security.
These agreements guarantee the freedom of self-rule of rebel groups in the areas they hold under the control of the central government.
The agreement will ensure that one-third of the parliamentary seats are people from rebel areas to submit requests and issues.
The agreement also guarantees the rights and freedom of all those convicted by the previous regime members, most of whom are not Muslims or non-Arabs.
This is not the first peaceful Summit in Sudan's history.
Some netizens said that the peace agreement is a common thread in Sudan and may not bring peace or calm.
Inbal Ben Yehuda wrote:
The event that occurs suddenly after 5-9 years is not a historical event but a myth.
Abuja Peace Agreement 2006
The Doha Peace Agreement 2011
The Juba 2020 Peace Agreement
Let us wait before defiance
The agreement will not be complete
Despite this historic moment, two rebel groups have not signed the deal. The SLMA group, led by Abdul Wahid al-Nur, and the Southern Sudan Freedom Movement (SPLM-N), led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, both refused to sign because of the unanswered questions of the coalition’s military structure and national identity.
Three days after the signing of the peace agreement the Sudanese Prime Minister traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to meet with al-Hilu to discuss the conflict according to the Sudanese solution
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok held a secret meeting with Abdel Aziz al-Hilu in an effort to clear the obstacles in the peace process undertaken by the South Sudanese government.
This meeting led to the signing of a contract that will ensure the respect of the peace accords held in Juba.
Sudanese social media was paralyzed by the publication of a copy of the agreement, written in English, in the 3rd aspect on religious and national issues:
A democratic nation must be proud of Sudan.
For Sudan to be a democracy in which the rights of all people are being respected, the constitution must be based on the principle of secularism and nationalism where personal rights must be respected.
Freedom to believe and practice rituals and religious activities shall be given to all Sudanese citizens.
@adyadeel: If the government does not have a national religion, there will be no one country that will be excluded from the welfare state due to it.
Sudanese citizens have been divided in two groups on this issue: the first group sees that discrimination based on ethnicity and religion is a fundamental violation of Human rights; the second group sees that the transitional government has no authority to make decisions on this issue without the consent of the citizens through democratic elections.
After the meeting, the Prime Minister's Twitter account published a copy of the contract in Arabic which the contents differed from the original document in English.
While in English the emphasis is given to the argument that it is impossible to categorize religion and nationality, the Arabic language offers some discussion options on this controversial issue.
The two proposals have raised many questions about the substance of the agreement.
Historic Perspectives, Historic Flows
As peace reigning in Sudan, Nile River is continuing to erupt with unexpected disasters.
According to the September 8th of the General Security Council, there have been 103 deaths, 50 injuries, 5,482 livestock, 27341 buildings damaged and 42,210 houses damaged, 344 public buildings and 176 private schools damaged, 359 shops and 359 restaurants damaged and 4,208 crops damaged by the floods.
YouStorm shared a video with water rationing on the Nile River on July 16 and August 16:
Flooding in Nile River in Sudan on July 16 against August 30 #Sentinel2 in Northern Khartoum.
Created by #EOBrowser @sentinel_hub #Sudanfloods pic.twitter.com/l8LRNBFY9m
On September 3, the governor of the province of Sinnar, Ustadhi Elmahi Sulieman declared a state of emergency on his Facebook page:
Water supplies in the Nile River this night have been boosted by heavy rain that has resulted in the collapse of roads and protective walls of a state-built dam in the udder of Singa and the Umm Benin area, and water is beginning to flow in the city and in the homes.
We then call on all government agencies and private organisations to come forward to help rescue the population as soon as possible and to provide them with food, shelter and medical care.
The situation is quite bad:
In the Sinnar province | Singa city, the situation is tense after rain demolished the road block that allows water from Nile River into the city.
Sudanese youth from the Tuti island created a wall to prevent flood waters from entering their own island.
It was a sporting act, observed Hassan Shaggag:
They are the ones who will build Sudan..and the ones who are currently running for power.
Sudanese citizens are losing most basic necessities – bread, gas, medicines and electricity – after a six-hour drought.
Sudan's debt of Sudan has now exceeded 202 percent, according to Professor Steve Hanke.
However, so far the transitional government is not yet able to rule the market.
Now that there is a promise of peace, what is the government’s plan to improve the lives of the people?
Student leader Jutatip Sirikhan stripped naked as a sign of protest after her release.
Image and caption from Prachatai
This article is from Prachatai, an independent news source in Thailand, and is edited and published by Global Voices as part of a content sharing agreement.
Thailand Thailand Thai Student Union President Jutatip Sirikhan was arrested along his way to his university on September 1, as he was part of a massive July 18 protest.
Jutatip was arrested in a car on the way to the university Thammasat Kampala in Bangkok.
He took his revenge on Facebook at 14:50 p.m. on September 1, when police in plainclothes stopped the taxi he had paid and showed him a search warrant.
Jutatip was taken to the Samranrat police station.
A police officer followed him to the station in another car for fear of being unsafe to get into a private vehicle the day after the police came to arrest him.
He continued to be active on his Facebook, reading a passage in the Heart of Kawaida translated in Thai by Thomas Paine.
He waspelected to a Bangkok court of Criminal Law and given bail, and released at 5 pm, under the direction of a lecturer from Thammasat University.
The court did not charge him with cash, but he was given a condition that he must not repeat the charges against him. The same condition was given to each person who was arrested and released from the charges.
Jutatip was a 14-year-old activist arrested for taking part in a massive July 18 protest.
15 other participants of the protest have received the call and reported to Samranrat police station to set up a trial on August 28.
Jutatip was charged with sedition, violation of the Emergency Law and the Legislation on Impunity, among other charges.
Jutatip appeared before a court of law after her release and made a short press conference.
A color can be painted, but we can't paint a sight.
I didn't plan on running from before.
I knew I have a warrant for arrest
and I have been waiting for the arrest for a long time, but it never happened until today.
Every time someone is arrested, one has to say in unison that we are not protesting peacefully.
I am a student and I have been in the custody of the military for months, for years.
Why is there no compensation for me?
Why should there be no compensation for the police, who are the dictator's servants?
It would have been an initial call, but the police came out with a clear confession.
It's student abuse.
They got me by censorship of my phone calls from where I live.
They threatened people at my house, my family and took me home so now we have to justify our protests.
Everything is contentious under the constitution.
Pay our taxes, we should be protected by government not by government.
So today, I have self-promoted by promising that we can do this.
We must stand for our rights and freedoms.
Painting a face is also a thing that can be done.
Then Jutatip put a white handkerchief on her head, raising her arms above her three-finger salute to the Tiger Chief.
He said that white color represents equality and justice, and they demand a fair return.
We show that this is right, this is one of the kind of proof that we can do.
Even if it's being racist right now, it's a way to show that we can be racist at any time.
We can vote for those who are in power because they are convincing us and shooting us at any time and because they are power.
The paint can be painted but the dirt cannot be cleaned.
After that, Jutatip thanked the Mhadhiri who granted bail to the people who came to support and help the crowd to scrub the graffiti on the way of the footpath in front of the court.
We will not stop fighting until we have done everything, including the royal reform and the new constitution,” said Jutatip.
Screenshot from the video, by VideoVolunteers.
This post was written by Grace Jolliffe and originally published by Video Volunteers, an internationally-nominated group with headquarters in India.
An ex-Edited version is published below as part of a content sharing agreement.
As India goes through a general election sweep seven terms from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to elect its seventh Congress (Lok Sabha), a number of Indian voters have taken an unusual stand by boycotting the elections.
Read More: All you want to know about the Indian General Elections 2019
In Goa, a south Indian state, residents of a small village in the Cancona suburb of Marlem voted on April 23, in the third round of the general elections claiming that the government had become the problem in their village.
Their main complaints are that basic necessities and services such as good roads and clean water have never been provided by the government.
Social media host Devidas Gaonkar's video, the native of the goa tribe called the Velip, highlights the activities of the villagers:
In the video, Pandurang Gaonkar, a resident of Marli village, said that:
From Tirwal to Marlem are only three kilometres of road but they have not been completed.
To date no action has been taken by the concerned authorities.
They give us false promises with no implementation.
And that’s why we’ve not voted.
Residents of Marlem Village have been living in the Village for over 20 years now.
In 1968, the Forest Ministry declared Marlem as a safe settlement for wildlife.
This makes the construction of any roads or any development work in this area difficult to implement.
According to reports, a project to buy electricity in a concession to allow him to reach the destination had been approved but was recently blocked because of an opposition from the State Department.
Another factor in the distress of the residents is the lack of a good road.
One has to travel from the highway up to 2.8km in a bad road that has not been properly cleaned to find the first house in Marlem.
Lastly, access to electricity and safe water for villagers remains a challenge to villagers.
Despite posting their grievances on a regular basis, but unable to find answers to their needs, Marlem residents and residents from two other villages decided not to vote in order to draw the ire of the authorities over their worries.
The staff of our electoral commission came to talk to us about our decision to not vote and our position is there, added Pandurang.
Isidore Fernandes, an opposition leader from the Indian National Congress who is a member of parliament in Cancona, also met with the residents.
Listening to their cries he confidently assured them that he would help out.
It is the responsibility of any government to create roads, supply them with electricity and water.
So far all the government disasters have ignored these services in the Marlem village, said Fernandes.
Voting has now become the main channel of protest, though voting is not mandatory in India.
Unlike the village of Goa, villages in the Central and Eastern provinces of Madhya Pradesh, the Western province of Maharashtra, and the Eastern province of Odisha have been using this tactics to bring important issues before the heads of governments.
However, there is no major strike or strike action from the government.
Many voters are beginning to use this tactics as a sign of anger of politicians and government officials who ignore the marginalized communities during the electoral period and hope to get their votes, often despite their promises after the election.
But finally, if boycotting elections will not create a change in society, what can members of the community decide to do to draw the attention of the authorities 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 providing information to several independent media outlets such as Zitamar News and A Carta, was arrested on January 5 while conducting an interview with internally displaced people from the wilaya of Macomia in the northern state, Cabo Delgado.
Germano, a journalist with the local radio station Nacedje, has been missing since February 6 and was released from detention on February 18th.
According to a report from the African Press Agency (MISA), Amade and Germano were accused of spreading information deemed offensive against some of the heads of the Mozambican Army through their Facebook accounts, announcing the beginning of the clashes in the villages of Macomia district.
The team was released from the prison of Mieze in Pemba, the capital of Cabo Delgado, during an investigation, before being charged in a resident court in Cabo Delgado.
The case was originally reported on May 17.
Since 2017, armed groups like the visu have been attacking the rural villages of Cabo Delgado, burning houses and striking residents.
More than 90 people have been killed since the beginning of the attacks according to police reports.
To date no group has openly admitted responsibility for the attack.
In December 2018, the newspaper A Carta de Moçambique confirmed the presence of a Facebook page, which seems to be fake only when it describes the attacks on armed groups in Cabo Delgado
It is not known whether charges against Amade and Germano are related to the page.
The advocacy team says no connection is found with the page or other crimes taking place on Facebook pages.
Cases against these journalists have been frozen with many twists.
After Amade was arrested, police placed him under the custody of the Civil Protection Force.
He was then sent to a military prison where he spent 12 days without access to any communication and was then transferred to a civilian prison.
The team was only charged on the 16th of April, a violation of the 90 per cent limit on arrest, and imprisonment of Mozambique, in Abubacar's case.
In the run-up to their detention in the first place all journalists were convicted of crimes against the sharing of state secrets on social media and instigating social media using digital tools.
These charges correspond with charges against them in the past, when MISA interpreted them as sending hate-speech messages to some of the army chiefs of the Mozambican people on Facebook which linked to ethnically motivated attacks on civilians in the rural district of Macomia.
During During the 106 days in prison, Abubacar was subjected to hunger and deprived of medical attention, according to a report from Amnesty International.
Families told @Verdade newspaper that Abubacar was banned from coming to visit them anytime he was detained.
What has happened to these journalists is part of ongoing harassment against media workers in Northern Mozambique.
Independent investigative journalist Estácio Valoi was arrested in December 2018, also in Cabo Delgado for questionable legal reasons.
He was released later on without charges, but his mobile equipment remained in the hands of the military.
Justice
Cídia Chissungo, an activist and campaigner for #AmedeAwekweHuru celebrated the news saying:
#AmadeAbubacar and #GeramanoAdriano are finally FREE after being detained for 4 months.
Of course we celebrate but we won't forget how everything started out.
We have said it ourselves: Journalism is not a crime.
Thank you for supporting in
Angela Quintal, manager of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the African region said:
Now it's to make sure the charges are dismissed and that #AmadeAbubacar can continue his journalistic career without fear of arrest.
The fact is that he tolerated being detained without trial for 106 days pre-bail, is not the abuse he received.
He deserves no arrest!
Image of Iran's Revolutionary Leader Imamu Khomeini on the wall of a building in Sanandaj, in the Iran's capital Kurdistan appears through a satellite.
Photo by Jordi Boixareu.
Copyright Demotix
Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman has described him as an example of a class of people who love to share their local culture with others from other communities.
The idea was created through the framework of Global Voices and expresses the big role of community culture.
Since our work focuses on raising the division between our foreign view of Iran and the realities in the country itself, Global Voices Iran has started a series of interviews with an Iranian lawyer and journalist who will do so.
These interviews will be held to understand how and by whom these individuals have worked to tell this outside Iranian community about Iran and the difficulties and fascinations they face in telling it.
Golnaz Esfandiari: I think Iran's social media use and its benefits are growing
Golnaz Esfandiari is a senior radio presenter at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and one of the few journalists who specialize in Iran writing in English about the concerns and social problems of Iranian society and politics.
Photo used with permission of Golnaz Esfandiari.
Read more: Conversation with Golnaz Esfandiari, Daraja of reportage in English
In an interview with Global Voices, he said:
I think the use of social media in Iran has also increased and its impact has also increased.
Officials say that too and I see a lot of people in the country making use of social media.
I think that since 2009, the use of social media has gone way too much.
Some Iranians have told me they have joined Twitter after reading about the Iranian Twitter Revolution.
Social media allows for dialogue and sharing content that is blocked or deemed as a shame and people are sharing it openly.
People also often criticize government policies and attitudes in public spaces online.
Kelly Golnoush Niknejad: You need to be a journalist, psychologist, professor and listen to one voice at a time
Iranian media investor Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, founder of the Tehran Institute of Investigation and The Guardian, covers Iran and Iranian diaspora.
It is one of the leading sources of a diverse view on the country and its politics, culture and people.
Photo by Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, used with permission.
Read more: How the Tehran Institute of Kelly Golnoush Niknejad links Iran to the West.
On the negative side of Iran's invading the non-Iran people, he highlighted:
When it comes to Iran, I always find myself going back to 1979 and describing the changes that took a decade or so to make sense of the present.
It is sometimes hard for Iranians themselves to understand what is happening in Iran now that its not their people.
This shows how important it is to cover up Iran for the dust, leaving it in a special place for the ordinary people.
Getting to know a country and having information from a privileged elite is not a key or even essential to us as journalists.
That's why even the most careful observers do not understand basics of Iranian politics.
Of course if they are going to follow the statements from the Tehran Institute they will find a very different perspective.
Nina Ansary: I believe women will be the forefront of any change in Iran
Nina Ansary is an author of The Sacrifice of God: Unresolved Problems on Iranian Women, the first book to write about the issue of equal rights for women in politics from the late 19th century.
The front cover of the book Fear of God
The book explains how women have managed to make up Iran's current history and keep on doing so, while continuing to face and reject the inequality and egalitarianism of society that has been oppressive by nature.
Read more: Conversation with Iranian Women's Writer Nina Ansary on Iranian Night of Change
Ansary said he was positive about 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 unable to find a answer: women were not allowed to serve as judges but now serve as investigators.
Women were not allowed to read some of the fandies, but over the years they have managed to read them into the fandies that were mostly dominated by men such as beauty and therapy.
I am a little worried about the positives, but I firmly believe women will be at the forefront of any change in Iran.
Saeed Kamali Dehghan: They see Iran as a picture of black and white but Iran is not the same.
It’s like a vuvuzela that went viral.
With over 800 posts related to Iran, Saeed Kamali Dehghan is the first The Guardian contributor to write about Iran and is one of the few Iranians who have been hired by an English-language news agency.
Photo used with permission of Saeed Kamali Dehghan.
His most recent report is about human rights violations in Iran, but as he said in an phone interview, the major problem for Western media is that they see Iran as a black or white country, but Iran isn’t.
Iran is like the Sunflower, spreading colors
Read more: Saeed Kamali Dehghan writing for Iran in The Guardian
In the bitterness of writing a country which he is physically attacking, Saeed explains that:
As a Iranian I have my own feelings about the country, but when I write about it I try to be neutral.
But I'm allowed to express my feelings when I write news against and have been doing something like that.
I wrote about why Canada did not understand Iran so badly and this led the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs to accuse me on his Twitter account of being used by Iranian authorities.
I have been attacked by some people who have been accusing me of being an Iranian and have been accusing me of serving in the UK.
I hope this is an indication that I am doing my best.
Omid Memarian: Transformating your anger into something of constructive criticism is a art
Omid Memarian, a Iranian journalist based in New York.
Omid Memarian is a former Iranian journalist who now works in the US and has been covering Iran for users in both English and Persian.
Our interviewes wanted to explore the diversity of Iran's coverage for different languages and experiences as a Iranian journalist.
Read more: Iranian journalist Omid Memarian
Memarian shares his experience of writing and reporting in the Iranian social community as follows:
Still, there are people inside Iran who believe that while making it possible to support social communities, political communities and free speech, the Islamic government can change gradually by coming from within.
On the other hand, there are other forces struggling to prove that this is impossible and one of them is making the environment so dangerous that no one would dare to keep doing what they are doing.
When I insisted to continue doing what I was doing, writing and promoting the things I was doing when I was arrested and thrown into prison.
Hooman Majd: Iran is not unique: the difference here is that most people know very little about Iran.
Now we are in a major step towards American foreign policy.
In a few weeks ahead of Obama’s administration, it is almost certain that America will stop its long-time peace processing project with its long-time enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In the face of Donald Trump's presidential vision that promises to be very dark and very violent, I think it's time to step down from the media and journalist Hooman Majd.
His books, articles and publications highlight the unique features of Iran that were widely portrayed in the US media during Bush's presidency, when violence against the Iranian government became a major symbol at the beginning of the 2000s in foreign policy and the media view of Iran.
Hooman Majd has been known as the voice of Iran for the West.
Photo of Majd by Ken Browar, used with permission.
Read more: Conversation with Hooman Majd, abridge between Iranian and US media.
As an anti-Iran stance has brought a lesson to its readers since it published a book in 2008 that addressed the negative perceptions about Iranian society for American readers:
Ahmadinejad was the first to be clear to the media, which is the first source of negative information.
But Iranian Americans and European-born Iranians have written a lot about their culture in recent times, and there are a lot of trips between Iran and the US between Iranian Americans and Iranian-Americans.
Now they have a better understanding and a few more books.
Iran is not unique: but what is unique is that people are too ignorant to understand Iran.
Protesters in Rio de Janeiro: Education is our weapon | Marianna Cartaxo / Mídia NINJA/used with permission
On May 15, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets in all 26 states to protest against the government of Bolsonaro's cutback on public education funding that will affect hundreds of schools and universities.
In late April, Brazil's government announced an extension of 30 percent of what is said to be the budget that was for water, electricity, general operations and research.
While looking at the total of the government's budget for higher education could be anywhere between 3 and 5 percent.
However, the government has suspended the admission of more than 3,500 high school students sponsored by the government.
From the Paulista Avenue in São Paulo, the epicenter of animal protests to the indigenous farms in Alto Rio Negro, close to the border with Colombia, people went out to fight for public education.
In Viçosa, Minas Gerais, a group of 5,000 people protested with umbrellas as heavy rain set in.
An image showing a large crowd of protesters in Paulista Street in São Paulo protesting against the rush of education funding and scientific 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 offer undergraduate and postgraduate degrees freely without paying fees and some social services such as legal advice offices and hospitals.
Initially, the teachings would be done at three universities but later they were extended to all other universities.
Bolsonaro's education minister, Abraham Weintraub said that it is not a baby but a total reduction.
Weintraub explained that there is a hole in it because public universities are a piece of the destruction.
When she was asked by reporters to provide examples of the destruction she mentioned university gatherings and the occasional nude celebrations.
Weintraub was appointed as minister in April after his predecessor had been briefly removed because of his involvement in some conflicts.
The new minister has constantly made comments related to right-wing policies such as the drug trafficking was identified by Brazil as a communist strategy, and he wants to eradicate the culture of Marxism in universities.
Some university university officials have said the move could prevent them from opening their doors for the second term in office in January 2019.
The government prosecutor's office has posted a notice to the attorney-general regarding the alleged violation of Brazil's constitution.
Rio de Janeiro is looking good!
Hundreds and thousands are crying in Avenida Presidente Vargas at night. as they march against the budget for 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 a lot of conversations taking place on the app after it was announced a budget cut.
Researchers have created a software that will remotely track WhatsApp groups and be used by a major Brazilian fact-finding organization.
The lead researcher Fabrício Benevuto on May 8 said on Facebook :
[Theses include] non-colored photos/chapters/events fabricated based on the headlines and topics.
There are photos of naked people at a party (who don't even exist) and several jokes from the protesters that say they're taking 12 years to graduate because they're drug-addicted.
It is clear that this is a target set.
In the same way as the election campaign.
Who is satisfied with the fake news factory?
An article on the website Ciência na Rua (Censorship in Portuguese) alleges that universities produce 95 percent of the scientific research in Brazil.
The 2018 research study by the US-based Clarivate Analytics Institute indicates that out of 20 universities, 15 are part of the government network.
On the day of the protest, minister Weintraub was called to explain the budget cut in the lower Congress.
Bolsonaro is an enemy of education
Education is a act of love & courage#TsunamiDaEducacao pic.twitter.com/sEEOb5wDxz
Later on, Bolsonaro was in Texas in the US where he met with former US President George W. Bush.
Asked about the protests, the President said:
It is normal [after all that has happend], but now, many of the people there are zombies.
If you were to ask 7 times 8 times, they would not know.
If you drill them about how they will not get drunk, they don't know a thing.
They are anxious and useful and have been used by the minority with irony heads of public universities in Brazil.
Ugandan journalist Gertrude Uwitware Tumusiime has suffered from illness while working as a female journalist in Uganda.
Screenshot from The Other Side: Gertrude Uwitware Tumusiime on YouTube.
In Uganda, female journalists using digital tools reporting, commenting and accessing information face attack and harassment because they investigate and publish sensitive political content.
Online chats have become a new mechanism of censorship.
Women journalists are carrying a heavy load of perceived gender-based inequality online as well as threats related to political coverage.
In the continuing attacks, women journalists are being left out of the public debate and left the field of journalism to be dominated by men. Men's attacks have left women journalists.
Read more: Disruption vs. Diversity: The Two Fronts of Social Media in Uganda
Joy Doreen Biira, a journalist.
Photo by Wazabanga via Wikimedia Commons CC BY 3.0.
In November 2016, a Ugandan journalist Joy Doreen Biira, who worked on Kenya Television Network (KTN) in Kenya, returned to Uganda for a religious ceremony.
While Biira and their Ugandan security forces clashed with the Rwenzururu Kingdom guards in the western Rwenzori region of Uganda, their presidential palace was set on fire.
The firing of shots resulted in the death of 62 people, including 16 policemen.
Biira responded to the news about the military operation by publishing a comment on Facebook on November 27:
It's very sad what I saw today on my own eyes the tiny kingdom in the outskirts of Rwenzururu, setting itself on fire.
I felt as though I was miraculously lost in my eyes.
Biira was also arrested and accused of spreading harsh images of violent clashes between security forces and the Rwenzururu Kingdom's guards on a WhatsApp group with many members, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPIJ).
He also posted a Instagram video of a kingdom lighting fire and wrote his Facebook updates, CPJ said.
Ugandan security forces allegedly forced Biira to delete social media posts and digital devices, according to a Freedom House report in 2018.
Biira was charged with supporting terrorism by taking video of a military attack on the kingdom's palace, which is punishable by death under the Anti-Terrorism Act if found guilty.
But one day later, he was released on bail.
Biira's story made waves on social media with slogans such as #FreeJoyDoreen and #JournalismIsNotaCrime.
The network accused Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni of silencing journalists:
#FreeJoyDoreen President @KagutaMuseveni should stop suppressing journalists.
This is a severe violation of our universal human right.
Biira’s lawyer, Nicholas Opiyo, tweeted regarding the official charges against Biira:
Joyanayesh dhamana arrested for supporting terrorism (executions!)
#journalism is not a crime @KTNKenya @KTNKenya #FreeJoyDoreen
Opiyo told Global Voices that Biira’s case was thrown out of court in March 2017 after the regime investigations and found no evidence to lodge a complaint in court.
With such cases, one picks a thread in the fabric but leaves it open to abuse, 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 feeling the anguish of being detained is a feeling that he says is never going to make up for.
Cyber attacks
It is very rare for female journalists who are faced with online injustice have access to justice, and they are often faced with difficulties in making sure their complaints are seriously treated and corrected.
In April 2017, Gertrude Tumusiime Uwitware, a Ugandan broadcaster on NTV, defended Stella Nyanzi, a conservative activist who criticized Museveni's regime for not fulfilling the campaign promises to deliver child porn materials to poor girls.
Leaders forced Uwitware to delete both Twitter and Facebook posts in support of Nyanzi.
He received threats on Facebook, and was sexually harassed by unknown people for about eight hours, according to the Uganda Human Rights Report 2017.
His captors allegedly questioned his relationship with Nyanzi, his mistreatment and even forked his hair.
Read more: Is it a nasty word?
Women's activist Stella Nyanzi continues on to fight in court
Uwitware was later found at a police station in Kampala.
However, the regime has not released any further information until today about the alleged abduction.
Political journalists especially those who focus on the opposition political parties are frequently subjected to more threats than those on the other hand.
But female journalists are in a worse situation because the government believes they are weak and are being intimidated more easily, according to Mukose Arnold Anthony, Secretary for Media and Human Rights in the Uganda Union of Journalists (UJA), who spoke with Global Voices on WhatsApp on April 3.
When it comes to sexual abuse on the internet, few female journalists are as afraid as they are willing to go out and fight for their rights, Anthony said.
It happens that women journalists are subjected to psychological torture, the violation of their privacy, the destruction of their identity, limited access to online content, censorship, and loss of property because of their work, according to the UNESCO report on freedom of expression in Africa published in 2018.
And, according to the 2018 Human Rights Netizen Report for Ugandan Journalists, 12 percent of female journalists have experienced abuse and violence, including death threats and arrests.
Three-quarters of female journalists have faced injustice at the hands of government officials such as police, district chiefs and security officers.
Attacks and attacks
Ugandan journalist Bahati Remmy has suffered attacks and abuse while working as a woman 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 left her work in Uganda because she felt she was distracted by a disturbing election story in Uganda in 2016.
Ugandan police arrested Remmy as he broadcasted a live broadcast on NBS private television during the detention of the main opposition leader Dr.Kizza Besigye at the town of Kasangati.
Remmy told Global Voices:
Police prevented a sense of excitement during the detention of journalists on the news of Besigye.
Police grabbed my matiti in their car, stripped me naked at the station and left me naked in front of the camera, according to Remmy.
He was also followed and sued by a police officer on Facebook because the Ugandan government thought that he was collaborating with Besigye to shame the country.
She told Global Voices that a text message from an anonymous person had gone missing on the door-steps, posing as a threat to her if she refused to reveal the pathway Besigye would take from her home.
After the Remmy arrest story, the Ugandan Media Rights Network ran a opinion poll regarding the story.
They asked: The Ugandan police alleged that NBS TV reporter Bahati Remmy turned over legitimate orders and also stopped the police from doing their job in arresting him.
Are you OK with this?
Magambo Emmanuel wrote:
It is a false and lies because there is a video clip showing how Bahati was arrested.
The police should stop channeling problems with journalists.
Davide Lubuurwa wrote:
Anyone who tries to mislead the public about the state of the country should be arrested.
A new serious problem comes to Uganda soon.
What I am disgusting at is that anyone who tries to say something in support of the current regime is considered siphoon by the Ugandan people.
Many women journalists in Uganda have left work in the media especially those critical of the government out of fear of attacks and oppression.
Journalists have described how the government and security forces call editors and ask them not to publish negative government information.
These attacks are not reported by women, which makes it more difficult to understand the real problem.
Remmy attracted the government of Uganda at the Uganda Human Rights Commission, but so far, no has been done about his case.
The commission lacks the necessary freedom to make decisions on the side of those who file complaints against the government.
Seven of his comrades, including his chairman, are appointed by the president, with the consent of the Parliament.
They have a privileged profile, Remmy said, adding: They have a file number, and most of the cases they want to attend are those filed by the government.
Most of the attacks on women’s media outlets online are indirectly related to the abuses against them in the outside world.
Remmy believes that the rights, status and reputation of women journalists should be considered at all times as the attacks against women in particular are oppressive to the journalistic sector in general.
As Uganda prepares to hold elections in presidential and parliamentary elections in 2021, attacks and intimidation of women journalists by the authorities should be stopped because it adversely effects the access to information, freedom of expression and democratic rights of Ugandans.
Journalist Freedom is about being exploited as a country's child, Remmy told Global Voices.
This post is part of a series called The Wall of Identity: The platform for censorship of online threats to freedom of expression in Africa, which seeks to address hate speech or discrimination based on gender and geographic background, fake news, and harassment (especially against women activists and journalists) in seven African countries: Algeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, Tunisia and Uganda.
The project is financed by the African Institute for Digital Rights (African) and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Tree roots on the 15th-century wall of the island of Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania.
In 1981, the island 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 based on a Twitter campaign organized by Global Voices Sub-Saharan Africa on the Rising Voices Fellowship each week, in which different language activists shared their thoughts on digital rights and African languages as part of the project, Matriki Identity: an Endangerment of Internet freedom in Africa.
According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), cultural diversity is essential to the people of the world in an effort to strengthen social cohesion and solidarity.
This cultural and linguistic diversity prompted a UNESCO World Heritage Summit to declare International Mother Language Day (IMLD) on November 21, a common February 21 each year.
To promote IMLD, the United Nations (UN) declared the International Year of Mother Languages (IYIL 2019), taking into account the risk of adoption of indigenous languages around the world.
Today, there are more than 7,100 languages spoken around the world, with 28 percent of them spoken only in Africa.
Despite this, English is trending online in this area.
Twenty years ago, 80 percent of web content was in English.
Currently, however, English content is reported to be around 51 to 55 percent.
The more pressing question, therefore, is: why, when studies are showing that people now speak more English as their second language, considering that it is only 15 percent of the world population who speaks English as their first language?
Swahili: A Sign of Inviction?
Swahili is recognized as one of the official languages of the African Union (AU), Kando and English, French, Spanish and Arabic.
Swahili is also the use of the Commonwealth of African States (EAC).
Rwanda, a member of the EAC, through its lower house, passed a legislative bill to make Swahili official in 2017, along with Kinyarwanda, French and English.
Despite the regime's use, Swahili will still be included in the country's education system.
In Uganda, on September 2019, the government approved the formation of the Swahili National Assembly.
Section 6 (2) of the Ugandan Constitution also described that Swahili will become the second official language in Uganda and will be used as much as the Parliament can procure by law.
2018, South Africa, a country with 11 official languages, introduced Swahili as a dictionary, starting in 2020.
In 2019, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will adopt Swahili as the fourth official language of the organisation.
The finish of Swahili Online
Photo by Rachel Strohm, September 20, 2019, (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Despite being the most widely spoken African language in East Africa, the sub-Saharan region, southern Somalia, and other regions of southeast Africa, the English-language online publicity is low.
John Walubengo, a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, observes in his article at Nation, an all-time Kenyan daily, that online languages and cultures are forming a small global community.
Walubengo explains that many Sisalithic cultures end up depriving them of their identity from the English way of life.
This sad reality however could only be changed if local communities start defending their identity both online and off, he says.
However, all is not lost on us.
Several organisations have volunteered to frontline the development and promotion of Swahili online.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN, an international organization with a large number of stakeholders regulating the Domain Name Network (DNS), Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and IP numbers, introduced International Identification Numbers (IDNs), which enable people to use IP addresses in their languages and texts. They are, therefore, guaranteed to be uniquely written, in Arabic, Chinese, or in Swahili.
These markers are then enriched with Unicode and used as permitted by the IDN, the set of standards outlined by the Internet Agency Bodi (IAB), and its small-scale groups; the Internet Engineering Institute (IETF) and the Internet Research Institute (IRTF).
The Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG)
UASG is a cross-disciplinary group of industrial leaders, controlled by ICANN, that creates communities online for billions of users in the future.
This is achieved through a process known as U.U. Translation (UA), which makes sure that both programming and web applications addresses all high-level domains (TLDs) and email addresses addressed in an effective manner, including those in Latin American and more than three-dimensional text.
UA serves netizens worldwide in their native languages and in the form of names that represent their culture.
Thus, expand the global language web.
ICANNWiki
The non-profit organization, which provides a wiki on communities' issues of ICANN and E-government, has long forged partnerships with organisations, institutes, and individuals in Kenya and Tanzania.
This has enabled East Africans to build, interpret and add resources to their vision, language and context.
The Swahili project which I as a writer have officially initiated is a news portal for Web Governance by demonising the ICANNWiki content to increase participation in the targeted communities.
Localization Lab
Localization Lab, a worldwide community of volunteers who aid in the translation and adoption of applications and security hardware such as TOR, Signal, OONI, Psiphon.
These technologies focus on safety, privacy, and inventiveness by ensuring that Slovak language activists have the safest means to access information on the web.
Localization Lab has translated over 60 devices into 180 different languages around the world,
Kondoa Community Network (KCN)
KCN is the first network operator to test the popular TVWS, a wireless connectivity technology that uses un-used radio waves in spaces of 470 to 790 MHz to address the challenges of rural connectivity in Tanzania.
KCN trains villagers to build and maintain original content based on their local values and context.
Matogoro Jabhera, founder of KCN and assistant lecturer at the University of Dodoma, Tanzania, told Global Voices on Skype, that he believes original content makes more people abroad want to go online because they can understand their original content more easily, compared to the current situation when many content is written in English.
billions of users online
The world is expected to connect the next billion Internet users and 17 million of these users are estimated to be connected online, using their language as their digital identity.
Thus, the lack of original content may have had a profound impact on the digital divide.
Bayana, while affecting digital rights, access to online content, and the right to use their languages to create, share, and spread information and knowledge online.
Therefore, it is essential to put into place strategies that develop ICT applications and services, as well as local languages, to ensure digital inclusion of all people.
This initiative, coupled with strategies such as the promotion of onlinecurriculum, and the implementation of TEHAMA in rural zones, may spark a digital revolution, thereby promoting the digital rights of internet users and dissolving the digital divide.
Finally, this process will focus on the protection, respect and development of all African languages and languages of minority online as prescribed by the African Declaration on Digital Rights and Freedom.
An innovative identity project financed by the Digital Rights Foundation of Africa (CIPESA) and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)
Internet cafe TEDGlobal.
Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Erik (HASH) Hersman, June 3, 2007.
(CC BY 2.0)
Global Voices, along with its South African Zone authors and the Rising Voices project will conduct a Twitter campaign as part of what is known as, Identity: a platform to manage threats to freedom of expression in Africa, from April 20 to May 22, 2020.
Read more: MatrikiUtambulisho': A New Vision for Digital Rights in Africa
As the continuation of #FreeAlaa: Politics and digital rights in Africa, this five-week social media campaign will share a discussion with @GVSSAfrica representatives of five African languages, who will highlight language diversity and digital rights.
The project is financed by the Computer Rights Africa Foundation 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, ki-Yorùbá, sambamba with French and English.
They will also share their experiences and their own knowledge from a linguistic perspective on the challenges threatening digital rights.
These conversations explain how the threat of insecurities around the Internet is affecting online content in African languages; the spread of hate speech in various African languages online and what is being done by companies or social organizations about this; the impact of cheaper Internet access in areas with African-speaking communities; the importance and challenges of the right to access to information in digital African languages.
They will also consider the issue of local government policies, and the ongoing challenges that citizens face in terms of their ability to express themselves in their language.
Meet the moderators of the discussion on Twitter
This Twitter chat will be hosted by Denver Toroxa Breda (ki-Khoekhoe/ki-N|uu/English) from Africa Kusiki, Adéṣínà Ghani Ayẹni (ki-Yorùbá/ki-Ingereza) from Nijeria, Kpénahi Traoré (ki-Bambara/ki-Faransa) from Burkina Faso, Roseblossom Ozurumba (ki-Igbo/ki-Ingereza) from Nijeria and Bonface Witaba (ki-Swahili/ki-Ingereza) from Kenya.
Some of the participants took part in the online campaign @DigiAfricanLang to mark the International Year of Mother Languages 2019.
April 20-24: Denver Toroxa Breda (@ToroxaD)
Denver Toroxa Breda.
Photo used with permission.
Breda, a Khoeese speaker, a Kuwiri or activist, is a writer who is working on the novelization of Khroe and kin|uu, the two first languages in South Africa.
Khoekhoe is spoken in Namibia, it is read in schools, but south Africa is where it comes of its origin, only 2,000 people speak it, not a recognized language, unschooled.
Kin|uu has one speaker, not an official language, not a common language, and is a language at risk of disappearing.
Kpénahi Traoré.
Photo 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, a Berber language newsroom at Radio France Internationale (RFI).
It has been a good experience for Traoré to work in Bangla.
Before that, he thought that it would never be possible to do any media in Bangla.
Samogo was Traoré's mother language, although she had a dialect calleddioula in Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso.
The people call him Bambara, the Guineans call him Macho, and the Latin Americans call him Macho.
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 mean the good thing.
Ozurumba is engrossed with Igbo language and culture and is dedicated to making sure that several people learn at some point to speak, write and read.
Ozurumba is the founder of a Wikimedia group and very often will bring to the conversation about the Wikimedia Foundation without being pressured.
She lives in Abuja, Nigeria, and loves the peace and glitz of the city.
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 cultural media to develop awareness, preservation and dissemination of the cultural heritage of Kiyorùbá both online and offline.
As a spokesperson, she has produced a Kiyorùbá radio campaign for Nigerian Radio and TVC.
He is also the founder of Yobamoodua Cultural Heritage, a platform that has dedicated its life to spreading Kiyorùbá language and culture.
Ọmọ Yoòbá is also the language manager of the Global Voices website Yorùbá.
She is a language teacher of Kiyorùbá in tribalingua.com where she teaches students from around the world.
He has also worked with Localization Lab, an international community of online translators, coders, and translators who work together to translate and promote digital security and anti-censorship software.
Ọmọ Yoòbá has written a book titled Ẹyà Ara Ẹdá Ọmọ Ènìyàn, a collection of works of anatom and biological structures that operate as a surprise in 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.
Photo used with permission.
Writer, original content creator and activist, student, researcher, and consultant for web governance and policy.
He is the founder of ICANNWiki Swahili, a virtual homepage whose mission is to expand, translate, articles and forums 10,000 hours of web governance to Swahili for 150 million Swahili speakers by 2020.
Also, Witaba runs a youth project aiming at empowering students, scholars, and individuals in the broader educational and; governmental sectors, through scholarly workshops on internet governance.
Protesters push for the removal of former president Robert Mugabe (now- dead) from power on November 18, 2017.
Image by Flickr user Zimbabwean-eyes (Court for Use).
In the morning of November 15, 2017, Zimbabweans woke up to news that the late Robert Mugabe, had been ousted in the coup, and was still in his home, at the Presidential Palace, with his family.
Major General Sibusiso Moyo, who is now Minister of External Affairs, announced on state television that the president was safe under government protection and that the situation was getting worse.
As soon as the announcement of General Moyo made, Zimbabweans flooded with excitement on social media especially WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook to get updates on the situation.
For the first time, the popularity of social media to provide livelihoods and encourage protests became a popular theme among Zimbabweans, as protesters took to the streets to support Mugabe’s eviction.
The new government, led by Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, has re-energised the power of social media.
As former minister of state security, Mnangagwa also recognized the importance and role of disinformation in the Zimbabwean political landscape.
In March 2018, in recognition of the time and for the political power laid on him to ensure a win in the presidential and parliamentary elections in the following year, Mnangagwa ordered the coalition of young members of the ruling ZANU PF (Zimbabwe National Union-Patriotic Front) to break out their silence on social media and internet, and to poach and harass opponents.
In Zimbabwe after Mugabe, his plan has created a disinformation and fake reporting crisis, leaving Zimbabweans with only a few reliable sources to get information and know about what is going on during the transition and the protests against the government.
While the new government claimed to condemn fake news and information circulated on social media that they saw as a threat to the incumbent regime, it did also abuse its power to mislead the public about the nature of the protests against the government.
The impact of free speech online
Zimbabwe has seen a rapid increase in Internet use on mobile phones and social media in the past few years.
Internet penetration rate increased by 41.1 percent, from 11 percent of total 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.
That means that half of the population is now connected to the Internet, compared to only 11 percent in 2010.
However, spoofing and spreading of false information has received mixed reviews for various reasons: widespread discontent in media, government proposals to regulate social media, limited access to official communication methods and poor education among Internet users.
During the January 2019 anti-government protests, when government security forces arrested and attacked hundreds of protesters, the news of repression contrasted with claims by the government that it was false or when it was completely absent.
The government blocked Internet access in order to curb the flow of information and spark widespread confusion.
Government officials and their supporters also used scare tactics to censor reports about the protests and spread fears about any kind of illegal information spreading under the name of the fake news.
Usually, in Zimbabwe, citizens take any information given by government ministers seriously.
For instance, the Deputy Minister for Information Energy Mutodi came forward to convince people that everything was fine and that the videos and images of the soldiers patrolling the streets were by a few hooligans.
Mutodi further misleaded the nation when he claimed on national television that there was no Internet censorship but rather chaos on the Internet.
In another suspected government-supported case, millions of people were wiped out on social media during the January 2015 protests.
Others downloaded VPN software to stay online, but information was disseminated that the download of such software would lead to arrest, leading to fear and caution.
In March 2019, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) tweeted a report condemning the government's brutal crackdown on January 2019, pro-government supporters used Twitter to poke fun at and attack HRW.
One user tweeted that the organization was spreading an open lies and called it a neo-colonial organization tasked with working with the innocent countries to defend U.S. interests.
Another one backed the government's claim and safeguarded that the violence was by hooligans who were trying to *sic* the president.
Naive comments about government policies and other public interest events have proliferated after the January 2015 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 Zimbabwe Hospitals Association (ZHDA).
He was kidnapped on September 14, 2019, following a public strike in the health sector.
The Secretary of ZANU PF for Youth Affairs described Magombey as a clever, hardworking individual.
ZANU PF Patriots reported that the alleged encryption of his account was 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
Zimbabwe's media censorship is a reflection of a colonial 20th century policy, which was paid for by the use of violence to push the political authorities in front of it.
The Rhodesian government led by Ian Smith focused on propaganda and controlling information as his most effective tool, not only enhancing the legitimacy of the state but also spreading lewd information about the war.
The colonial government passed a large number of decrees suppressing the free expression or denying Smith’s racist policies and implemented them violently to the colonialists.
Information censorship was a common scenario before and during the 1980s, and this situation served as a model for governments in their communications policy and control of media for many years after that.
As the South African award-winning journalist and author Heidi Holland writes in her book, Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter Who Became a Tyrant:
Many people in the ZANU PF fraternity have lived through carnage in their daily lives that is deemed to be normal.
Forest wars, or Chimurenga’s 2nd World War, have never ended in Zimbabwe.
Today, Mnangagwa is preserving this heritage, silencing criticism through the use of online disinformation and surveillance.
This post is part of a series of publications that investigate digital rights violations through techniques such as internet shutdowns and manipulation during political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Protesters participate in June 2018 Women's Protests in Kampala, Uganda.
Photo by Katumba Badru, used with permission.
In Uganda, the Internet has become a litmus test in the attempts of the government to silence the growing protest voices online.
For many years, Ugandan authorities have used different tactics to oppose the opposition and bring back the ruling National Resistance Movement and President Yoweri Museveni to power.
This includes blocking media sites, filtering SMS messages and blocking social media platforms.
As the 2021 Ugandan general elections approach, the administration's leaders are expected to develop similar tactics.
Prisoners during the 2016 elections
During the 2016 general elections, Ugandan leaders twice had to shut down social media platforms.
The first siege took place on February 18, 2016, during the first ceremony of the presidential elections, and affected social media platforms and mobile money.
The operation took four days.
On May 11, 2016, social media platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, and mobile money sent service were shut down again.
The period was one day longer and one day before President Museveni was sworn in for his fifth term as president.
Museveni has been in power since 1986.
The opposition to his leadership is growing: Based on a poll carried out in April 2019, a majority of Ugandans denounce the 2017 decision to decree the 75 year rule on presidential bid, which could allow the 74 year-old president to run again in 2021.
During the all-time highs in 2016, the Ugandan government identified the reason as national security concerns to block the Internet.
The removal was ordered by Ugandan security forces and Uganda Communication Commission (UCC), which regulates the sectors of communication, e-publishing, broadcasting (including radio and television), film industry, postal service, e-logging, and printing.
On February 18, 2016, MTN Uganda, a mobile and internet communications provider, tweeted confirming that UCC had ordered MTN to shut down all social media and mobile money services due to the threat of public security.
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 the closing of social media: The Internet should be shut down for security purposes to prevent many people from entering the darkness, it is just temporary because some people use it to say lies, he said.
On March 17, in an official statement during the Supreme Court ruling in which President Museveni's victory was denied, UCC managing director Godfrey Mutabazi explained that he received orders from Inspector General of Police, Kale Kayihura, to block social networking sites and mobile money transfers for security reasons.
Free detention has threatened the rights and everyday life of Ugandans who use the internet and social media platforms to access news, express opinions and do their daily business.
Ugandans campaigned hard for the 2016 elections to publish and discuss the elections using the hashtags #UgandaDecides and #UGDebate16.
Ugandan netizen participation was measured by presidential debates, the first one held in January and the second one week later.
Despite the bans on social media, many Ugandans continued to post information about the elections using a private VPN network called VPS.
On election day, citizens could engage in an active debate on the deployment of voting materials in distant polling stations, electoral fraud, and the timing of voters’ elections on social media.
Human rights activists say that strategical closures during elections reduce access to information, while access to information and citizens' voices is sorely needed.
A internet shutdown prevents people from talking about certain things that affect them, such as health, relationships with friends and discussing politics, Moses Owiny, the head of the Center for Multilateral Affairs, an independent policy analyst based in Uganda and Tanzania, told Global Voices in an interview.
According to Owiny, the imprisonment aims to prevent a political opposition based on the fear of the government that public opinion can harm the public, a claim that he believes is not based on verified facts but is based on fiction.
Uganda's history of blocking social media platforms and websites
On April 14, 2011, UCC ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to shut down temporarily on Facebook and Twitter for 24 hours to curtail connectivity and exchange.
The warning was made during the moto walk to work protests led by the opposition over the rising price of fuel and food.
The Ethiopian telecommunications authority said that security forces asked for a social media blackout to prevent violence.
In 2011, the elections were characterized by the filtering of text messages containing Egypt, bullet and people power.
Ahead of the presidential elections in 2006, the UCC ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to Radio Katwe’s website for publishing false and misleading information against the ruling National Resistance Movement and its presidential candidate, according to the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Ugandan authorities blocked the broadcasting of the local radio station and the Daily Monitor website for the free release of the election results.
The forums were quickly restored but very soon after the electoral commission announced the final results.
2021 elections: same lines?
President Museveni in May 2013.
He has been in power since 1986.
Photo: Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Flickr [CC BY 2.0]. In 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, who is also a member of parliament, has already announced his candidacy for the presidency.
Bobi Wine is currently facing a criminal prosecution for insulting the president and, if found guilty, will not be allowed to marry.
According to Human Rights Watch, the regime in 2018 targeted six opposition MPs, including Bobi Wine and Francis Zaake, before the August 15 polls in Arua (province of Uganda).
Police and military detained the group together with 28 other individuals on August 13, 2018, and prosecuted them for sedition.
They were released on bail later.
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 horrific shooting of Bobi Wine's driver by the military.
Read more: #FreeBobiWine: Protests mount over torture and arrest of a young political force in Uganda
As the 2021 elections nearer, it is possible that the Ugandan regime will further intensify opposition repression, including shutdowns on social media.
In fact, since the 2016, there has been no change in the legal framework that allows authorities to restrict the right to freedom of expression and access to information online.
According to the 2016 State of Internet Freedom in Africa report, the 2013 Communications Act grants UCC more power and is working under article 5 which allows the communications regulator to monitor, inspect, issue licenses, manage, and control communication services and set standards, enforce monitoring, and implement regulatory measures related to information.
In response to a government request, the UCC used this opportunity to ask Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to prevent the access of social media and mobile money during the 2016 elections.
The government is continuing to use these laws to limit public discussion and silence political opponents, especially during elections.
Owiny argues that the government has the capacity to shut down the website at anytime when it deems necessary: When the security of the government and the safety of its citizens are threatened, and when the security of the government is threatened, the government's safety and its uponture will be prioritized.
Non-governmental organisations and human rights advocates have been preparing in Uganda for a 2016 crackdown.
Several organisations have written joint letters to the African Community and regional organisations urging them to condemn the Ugandan government's decision to block internet access during the 2016 elections.
Unwanted Witness Uganda took the Ugandan government to court, including Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Telecommunication Regulator (UCC), in a case presented in September 2016.
The organization noted that the government-imposed internet shutdowns were contrary to the rights of Ugandans to freedom of expression and expression as expressed in the spirit of Article 29 (1) of the Constitution of 1995.
The judge ruled that the trial court failed to prove any breaches, Unwanted Witness told Global Voices.
Imposing a stronger online presence especially during the upcoming elections will require more support.
Owiny suggested that the need for dijitil activists to increase the dialogue between the government and the private sector to highlight the bad impact of arbitrary because the private sector is feared by the government.
Uganda was one of the first countries in Africa to introduce a new law to protect the right to access to information (ATIA), in 2005.
The law promises to provide an effective, transparent, accountability and transparency that enables the public to access, learn and participate in decisions that affect them as citizens.
Will the Government fulfill its obligation to promote the right to information?
And will he deliver his promises?
This post is part of a series of publications that investigate digital rights violations through techniques such as internet shutdowns and disinformation during major political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Students from the DCMA School performing to various instruments at Old Customs, Old Town, Zanzibar, 2019.
Photo courtesy of DCMA.
Thousands of foreigners who visit Stone Town, Zanzibar, a city rich in history, listen to a borrowing sound from DCMA, a music school dedicated to promoting and keeping the local folk song that has roots in the town and other parts of the Indian ocean.
Since 2002, the school has been promoting and advancing the unique Zanzibaran culture that combines therab, Indian and African traditions through music.
Its 17 years since the establishment of the school, it is now clearly facing financial hardship that threatens to close.
Almost 70 percent of the 80 percent of schoolgoing there are unable to pay tuition, a $13 USD per month, according to the DCMA public service report.
Although the school has received international grants and donors, it is currently facing a heavy load that will force it to close its doors and leave in the historical house of Zanzibar, known as Old Customs House.
Without the funds to sustain its activities, students and teachers of DCMA are concerned that the heard noise would emanate from the building's backyard and make the visitor's art experience unbearable.
The school not only teaches and promotes cultural and historic heritage through music, but is also led by a large group of young musicians who are seeking avenues for alternative living through art.
DCMA student learning to dance to a traditional taarab instrument.
Photo courtesy of DCMA.
We are beginning to adjust to financial hardship, says Alessia Lombardo, DCMA managing director, in the DCMA official video.
From now on, for the next six months, we are not sure that we will be able to afford to pay teachers and other workers a monthly payment.
Now, 19 teachers and a few small workers have been without salary for more than six months because the school has been struggling to gather support from friends while at the same time trying to create continuous income for the school’s development.
Although the island is known to many tourists because of its beaches and great-placed resorts, many inhabitants suffer from unemployment although some figures from the World Bank indicate that poverty is reduced on the island.
For more than 17 years, DCMA has worked tirelessly to promote and protect Zanzibar’s cultural heritage through music.
The birth place of the famous taarab singer Siti Binti Saad and Fatuma Binti Baraka, or Miss.
Kidude, Zanzibar is a music hub that emerged from a cultural fusion and cohesion between the Zanzibari people over the last hundred years.
Today, students can learn traditional music like taarab, drum and uke, as well as other instruments like drums, qanun and oud, as security guards and cultural interpretations.
Neema Surri, a talented Violin maker at DCMA, has been learning how to play the instrument when she was 9 years old.
I know of a many young people who want to learn how to sing but can’t afford the hefty penny due to poverty and unemployment, Surri said in a video posted by DCMA.
DCMA students practicing in the Old Customs House, where their school is, Old Town, Zanzibar, 2019.
Photo courtesy of DCMA.
After enrolling in DCMA's workshops, Astashahada and Stashahada, many DCMA students may work on international stages as an award-winning band or independent artists.
Amina Omar Juma, a former DCMA student and current DCMA teacher, recently returned from a visit in South Africa with her band, Siti and Bendi Yake, who are known for connecting the borders between Arabic and Western voices.
In collaboration with his fellow students, who are former DCMA students, he gave the first Fusing the Roots concert, in 2018, while performing at Sauti za Busara, East Africa’s biggest music festival, that same year.
Here is the Bendi's song Nielewe with a video, showing the Zanzibar approach to tell the story of a woman who struggles with domestic violence and music aspirations, as told by Omar Juma's personal story:
Read more: East African Women In Music Singers Against Mandomination
History of cultural and diplomatic tensions
More than 15,000 guests have gone through the school to enjoy free exhibitions, workshops and classes, and meet with local musicians who represent the future of culture and heritage in Zanzibar, according to DCMA.
With a strong emphasis on India, Pakistan and Africa, the school is delighted to be the culmination of various cultures, including the cultural ties linked to the Indian Bahari and the Persian Gulf.
The Sultan of Omani, a popular statesman between the 17th and 19th century, re-ignited his rule from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1840.
From the Old City, Omani leaders ran sea-trucks, including gold, bauxite, and textiles, a luxury luxury that accompanied the crossing of the Indian Ocean from India to Oman and East Africa.
Zanzibar’s youth are aware of the importance of understanding their history to determine if their future is bright or if the music that they produce today expresses the aspirations to build bridges between the past and the modern.
DCMA students and their teachers recently started TaraJazz, a bridge between tradition and modern convenience.
Felician Mussa, 20, has been studying to play a musical instrument called the violin for three and a half years; TaraJazz is one of the most wanted bands on the island, here with photographer Aline Coquelle:
The Swahili coast tells a story of cultural hybridity and DCMA develops this culture through a music partnership.
Each year, the school organizes a project called Swahili Encounters, which brings together musicians in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America to get the best of the week’s music in store.
At the end of the concert, the newest artists' teams get to perform in the Busara Voices, and usually the teams end up having a friendship that goes beyond language barriers, confirming that music is a global language.
DCMA puts on a sold-out show every week to show the talent of its students and friends visiting the musicians, Old City, Zanzibar, 2019.
Photo courtesy of DCMA.
The DCMA School of Music recognizes that music creates a sense of belonging to people regardless of their background or ethnicity and also employs young talent in an economy of unemployment and unequal employment opportunities.
With over 1,800 students taking part in the DCMA training, this school is the only music school they know, where they can learn and grow up as musicians and artists.
One local tourist, who recently visited the DCMA school, wrote on TripAdvisor: Personally, meeting the musicians was the best time I was on the island.
As Zanzibar’s tourism industry expands, the DCMA school believes that music has a place in celebrating, preserving and promoting the culture of Zanzibar, their heritage and history.
Zanzibar is more than a beach and its famous resorts are a marvelous part of a country rich in history.
Editor's note: The author of this article has previously volunteered at DCMA school.
Sierra Leone: Health professionals preparing to enter the Ebola outreach area.
Image by EC/ECHO/Cyprien Fabre, August 2, 2014.
(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Early on August 12, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a positive report on the progress of several clinical trials of anti-ebola drugs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
WHO said that the out-of-this-word ebola medicines showed a positive prospect for the survival of Ebola patients, while continuing to mention that two out of the four anti-retroviral drugs reported significant clinical activity against Ebola.
Who is responsible for the Ebola case?
His Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, Director General of the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) DR of Congo, dedicated a large portion of his life to the discovery of a cure for Ebola.
While the international media is mostly reporting on the extent of the Ebola crisis that has caused the highest deaths in Congo, the news about the scientist is sparsely covered by these media.
Muyembe-Tamfum explained : that we are no longer saying that Ebola (EVD) is not feasible.
Based on the Muyembe-Tamfum collaboration, scientists conducted four Ebola-related trials: ZMapp, remdesivir, mAb114 and REGN-EB3.
A conducted clinical trial with 499 respondents indicated that patients treated with REGN-EB3 or mAb114 showed significantly higher risk of survival than those treated with two medicines.
The study, under the observation of the institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB), the Congolese Ministry of Health and the three other organizations specialized in healthcare: the International Medical Corps (IMC) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
Congolese national responsible for the cure of Ebola
Muyembe-Tamfum has been researching for Ebola since the first reported cases in Congo where in 1976 he was the first researcher to visit the area where Ebola was first reported.I spent four decades trying to find a cure for Ebola. Thus, this is a success in my life-Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the Director General of the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and colleagues have discover a new cure for Ebola that can cure the symptoms of the disease within three hours.I spent four decades trying to find a cure for Ebola. Thus, this is a success in my life-
Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the Director General of the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale in the Democratic Republic of #Congo, and colleagues have found a new cure for the Ebola virus that can cure the disease in as little as three hours.
A professor of biotechnology at the Tiba University of Kinshasa- the Democratic Republic of Congo has spent almost 40 years treating this disease.
In 1995, he worked with WHO in implementing an Ebola prevention strategy after the first he worked with WHO in the observatory of Kikwit, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Professor Muyembe-Tamfum (speaking with a megaphone) speaking during an exercise in social education in Beni, North Kivu, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in September 2018.
Photo by MONUSCO/Aqueel Khan (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Following this development, the victims of Ebola are now much more likely to have their lives threatened and are being evacuated to the hospitals for more treatment.
If 90 per cent of the patients will be able to be admitted to health centers and receive treatment and return to full-fledged health, they will begin to trust the medicine and create trust in their communities and the rest of the world.
Jean-Jacque Muyembe-Tamfum
The reasons for the Ebola case attention
The first cases of Ebola were reported in 1976 near the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to the CDC, since then, the virus has slowly spread from the original source (supposedly unknown) to the African continent.
The Ebola epidemic since 1976.
Map from the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Magojwal
Between 2014 and 2016 there were more than 28,600 reported cases of Ebola in West Africa.
According to WHO's 2015 report:
2014 Senegal had one of its highest Ebola cases and without any reported deaths.
WHO declared Nigeria’s response to the Russian-ebola virus as part of a wider work to combat the urgently spreading disease.
In January 2015, Mali was reported to have 8 Ebola cases and 6 deaths.
However, the situation was worse between March and June2016 in three countries: In Sierra Leone: more than 14,000 people contracted Ebola and 4,000 died; Liberia: almost 10,000 people affected by Ebola and 3,000 lost their lives. Guinea: 3,800 patients and 2,500 deaths.
Total Statements on the Ebola Worldwide
Ebola which spread far and wide in African countries triggered shock and worry in 2015 when two Ebola patients were reported dead in the US, one in Spain, and one in Germany.
GabyFleur Böl, a researcher at the Berlin-based Disaster Recovery Institute in Germany, reported other reports of patients with Ebola in Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Switzerland.
At that time, Ebola was treated as a death sentence for lack of proper medical treatment.
As Böl once said, the rapidity of deaths from Ebola and/or sometimes misinformation in the media about Ebola contributed to raising fears around the world.
Such information was echoed in a 2017 study which Hal Roberts, Brittany Seymour, Sands Alden Fish II, Emily Robinson and Ethan Zuckerman analyzed More than 109,000 articles published in major news and blogs in the United States in July and November 2014, centred on the epidemic of Ebola.
They identified three prime trends in the US media and blogosphere on July 27, September 28, and October 15:
On July 27th, it was first reported that US medical personnel working in Liberia were infected with Ebola.
On Sept. 30, the press began to report on Thomas Duncan of the Texas Ebola epidemic and the first time the disease was reported in the United States.
On October 12, the news of an Ebola patient who is also a healthcare provider went viral in the United States.
After the 12th of October, another outbreak of Ebola has been reported in a series which has led to its demise.
It is possible that US media has been covering too much Ebola because of the recent events in the country.
Also, because of the popularity of social media outlets, the Ebola crisis has become the main topic of discussion in Europe and the United States.
However, what is still waiting is to see whether reports of an Ebola-prescription drug discovered by an African from the Democratic Republic of Congo that treats the African disease will be mainstreamed as it did in 2017.
Erick Kabendera teaches in 2012, Dare s salaam.
Photo by Pernille Baerendtsen, used with permission
On 29 July, 6 security forces violently arrested Erick Kabendera at his residence in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and detained.
Police say Kabendera allegedly acted of self-immolation to have been discriminated against as a Tanzanian.
Throughout the week the police searched the house of the bishop twice, confiscated his passport, all his personal documents and questioned his family.
On August 5, magistrates corrected him on charges of money laundering, avoiding taxes of US $75,000 and engaging in a criminal network, according to the petition filed by the CPJ.
Police say Kabendera has committed these crimes for the fourth year since 2015.
For the charges against Kabendera he faces up to 15 years in jail and is not allowed to seek a bail.
Tanzania's
Initially they kidnapped the journalist, when they heard the noise it made they claim he’s not a Tanzanian, and it’s outdated, he now faces charges of cybercrime and evasion of taxes.
To join Erick Kabendera, his job is as a journalist.
Media freedom has faltered considerably during this time of Tanzaniaya Magufuli reported by CPJ.
Representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in Sub-Saharan Africa, Muthoka Mumo says:
It appears that throughout the week, authorities have been searching for ways to confirm the reasons for the arrest, the free journalist, and the critic.
First they claimed they claimed that Erick Kabendera's citizenship is unnecessary, today they added two completely different charges, making us wonder about their motivation for arresting him.
As a journalist, Kabendera has been critical of President John Magufuli's administration and has often stood up for press freedom.
Amer Sweidan reports on local and international media outlets such as The Guardian, African Arguments and The East African on Tanzania’s politics and where it leads people.
JJebra Kambole, Kabendera’s lawyer, says the nightmare began against Kabendera in a statement published in The Economist, with the headline that John Magufuli is defending press freedom in Tanzania, noting that the charges were dropped later.
News grabbing over: journalist Erick Kabendera being charged with sedition over state comments in a blog post published by The Economist, arguing that John Magufuli is threatening press freedom in Tanzania, a statement from Zebra Kambole stated that Mr Kabendera is being denied bail.
Civilization used as a tool to silence people
The cabendera family says, this is not the first time the government asked about their nationality.
In 2013 the government also filed a similar charge but the case was dropped, according to The Citizen.
Kabendera was aware at that time that authorities wanted to use the case of detaining his citizenship as a repressive measure.
Last year, The Citizen reported on several cases in which the Tanzanian government used the issue of civil litigation to silence criticism in Tanzania.
Aidan Eyakuze, the director-general of Twaweza, a civil society organisation, dedicated to the voice of the Citizen, said authorities have confiscated his passport and detained him as a citizen investigation was taking place.
Two weeks before the event, Twaweza released a report on the results of a poll called Tell the truth to the Heads of State?
Public opinion on Tanzania's politics
The science and technology commission (Costech) claimed the research was unnecessary and threatened to take legal action but the case was later dropped, according to The Citizen's article.
Tanzania has recently come through a number of lawsuits targeting bloggers and media, civil society organisations, writers and cultural organisations, and scholars, as well as academics and researchers, that are being investigated by government critics as an attempt to control Tanzanian online speech and limitation of political freedoms.
Read more: Are Tanzanian Bloggers Going to Pay or Not to Pay Blog Tax'?
#FreeErickKabendera
Hundreds of journalists, human rights activists, concerned leaders have come together on social media demanding the release of Kabendera:
AFEX Africa calls the accusations a clear intention of violence
Only nine days have passed and Tanzanian police continue to arrest journalist Erick Kabendera investigated @AFEXafrica for fear of reprisals.
https://t.co/7UFZkzYzwV @MRA_Nigeria @FXISouthAfrica @gmpressunion #FreeErickKabendera #NoImpunity
AFEX (@AFEXafrica) August 6, 2019
Kabendera, who has often been training and inspiring young writers, sent a former student to share this tweet:
I met Erick Kabendera once in my life, and for only about 80 minutes.
He came in as a student recruited to come to teach us (Journalism and mass communications - @UniofDar).
But in spite of being with us for a short time, I learned a lot from him.
He really inspired me
#100K4Erick
Another netizen thinks the arrest of Kabendera and the accusation of rape is a warning for other citizens:
SIMPLE GET UP Because You Are Tanzanian Or Because You Are A Journalist #IAMOUNTRY NAMTETEA Because I live in Tanzania & Erick.
If the Justice is Not Going Today And I Disappear, It May Be Tomorrow Again.
Nobody Has a Safe Labor While Reging
And we (All) are Ivan Golunov.
A Bendera seized by Meduza, used with permission
: The Russian-language version of the sentence is a little over-indulgence and over-reacting probably is a good way to present how the number of Russians hit by and arrested for the popular investigative journalist Ivan Golunov.
He was arrested on June 6 in Moscow on alleged drug-dealing charges.
Golunov was arrested and rejected by the lawyers in violation of Russian laws.
His lawyer confirmed that he suffered from humiliation while in custody.
After he was hospitalized he was put on a specially trained respirator on June 8.
Russian Mercenaries first showed us pictures of alleged drug-dealers hanging in the Golunovovovov's bedroom but they were later removed.
Also, Russian pro-Kremlin news agency today confirmed that the photos were not taken in the Golunovovov Goroezh.
The charges laid by Golunov could lead to a prison term of 10 to 20 years.
Golunov, a 36-year-old, works at Meduza, one of the few independent russian-language communities in Russia.
Meduza was registered in the neighboring countries of Latvia, but has a few offices and journalists in Russia.
Golunov has led the publication of several corruption cases involving high-ranking officers.
Since Golunov was arrested, Meduza has been releasing articles by Golunov under a creative commons license and has encouraged media and individuals to republish those stories, which has been backed strongly by Global Voices.
Among the important stories he published are the stories of mayor Pyotr Biryukov that reviewed projects for his family and the project to make moscow a more attracting city with a much higher budget.
A story he previously covered was about a run-down of funeral services in Moscow.
The arrest of Golunov has sparked ashikamano uprisings which were rare among journalists, activists and lawyers, and even famous singers and public figures outside Mscow and St. Petersburg.
On June 10, three major newspapers agreed to publish Golunov's pro-government front pages.
Newspapers went bankrupt and set a new record.
Unprecedented media outlets like the channel One and the others, which have a greater audience, are calling for fair investigations.
June 12th will be a Russian day, with street protests and public demonstrations permitted by local authorities.
In Russia's laws, public demonstrations are required for permission.
Supporters of Golunov have announced that they will carry out their own protests without getting official permission.
Kremlin observers say the Russian government is considering putting an end to the prosecution against the journalist before June 20.
A day where President Vladimir Putin, whose levels are as high as they are in history, will be live-tweeting the public event during which he will accept questions from citizens on both the phone and social networks.
Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina at the New York Book Festival, 2009.
The 48-year-old Wainaina died on Tuesday, 22 May, in Nairobi, Kenya.
Photo by Nightscream, CC 3.0 by Wikimedia Commons.
Its only 24 hours since Binyavanga Wainaina Mwandish Mkenya disappeared from the world, but his existence and impact are ongoing worldwide.
In fact, the gay journalist condemned the confrontation and challenged the government to resort to a revolutionary journalism that would open the doors for thousands of reporters who wish to change the worldview to write and tell about Africa.
Journalist, teacher and LGBTQ activist Binyavanga Wainaina, 48 years old, died on Tuesday, May 22, in Nairobi, Kenya, after a brief illness.
Today I thought this: What will your life be like when you leave?
Binyavanga’s death made me think about myself as to what I was 5 or so years ago and how we were looking at him as a young, passionate and change conscious man on our continent and one that we too.
Fungai Machirori (@fungaijustbeing) May 22, 2019
For minutes, friends, supporters and fans of his many wonderful poems flooded social media sharing memories and gratitude and discussing his inspiring poems.
Wainaina is known for his kuchokoza series, How to write about Africa, published in a 2006 newspaper.
He is also known for his 2012 biography, I am a Martyr, published in Chimurenga, and Africa is a Country, published in 2014.
The post sparked a stir on Twitter as people tried to prove the truth and newspapers named Iranians as one of 100 influential people in the world.
In Namna of describing Africa, Wainaina calls all western media and industrial aid in Nairobi that are perpetuating racist stereotypes on the African continent with a lot of irony and sarcasm.
Don’t try to portray a good African in a book or in a museum unless you consider that African has won a Nobel prize.
An AK-47, good taste, no killings: this.
If you must include an African in this case, reassure yourself in the form of a Masai or Zulu or a Dogon.
His accent was a little shy, writes Nigerian Nwachukwu Egbunike.
An article or his book quoted by many scholars, NGOs and aid workers has had the greatest impact on public discourse about Africa and the results are ongoing, shocking and disorienting.
As a result, lawyer Pernille Bærendtsen writes:
For me, the post has followed since I was offered as a gift in 2008 by my Kenyan friend.
I am sure one of the people who were insulted by Binyavanga: a development worker hired in Tanzania by a Danish NGO wrote about the results of her article.
That was at a time when development and industrial aid increased its effectiveness in obtaining legal tenders at a lower cost.
I had many reasons to feel ashamed, but I had also lots of time to plan my change.
Binyavanga later described in Bidoun magazine how the article has only had one life and two effects: By exposing the risks on writers, NGOs workers, musicians, shepherds, students and writers who are reading these instructions on how or not to write about Africa, she begins to ask for her consent.
Wainaina was the son of a Kenyan father and a senior mother, and she continued to question the deceit that is spoken about in Africa in the documentary that was published in 2012 called One Day I will write about the place here.
With a lot of background, it attracted readers from all walks of life in 1970s Kenya and a lifetime as a student in South Africa where she spent many years in exile.
The criticism praised the book as real and true, but later Wainaina admitted that she had forgotten a crucial part of her life:
Mama, I am gay, Wainaina was the first high-profile Kenyan to become globally inclusive by expressing herself on social media, evoking positive commentary from the outside world.
It seemed to be a distant memory in his life.
Wainaina saw that he is gay for his mother had nearly died.
His post came in the right place as a campaign against the massive anti-gay rally in Uganda Uganda and Tanzania also where homosexuality is a crime.
Read more: Tanzania's Sit-in on Homophobia tozimate political agenda
However, unlike some of the exiled journalists, Nineina returned home as Nanjala Nyabola explains the BBC via Twitter, saying it was significant:
For those of us who had grown together with some of the internationally renowned Kenyan writers, detained, poor or unable to reach or be rejected badly, he came back home and that was very important.
He was a hiding man but for this he deserves eternal gratitude.
We have to say our minds
While Binyavanga received international support, home she was criticized and subjected to inappropriate treatment.
Binyavanga demanded for the space for freedom of speech and expression.
With a strength in the community supported by LGBTQ he praised the independence of the oligarchies.
In response to some of the noise, Nina wrote We have to speak our minds, on Yuotube, with a six-part post covering her thoughts on freedom and freedom of thought.
I want to live a life of freedom of thought, he explained in the first piece.
I appeal to this generation of parents to have young Africans who write their own stories this simple act is an important political phenomenon everyone should have.
I have a privilege to see a continent where all kinds of thought need not be allowed to be allowed to exist.
I am an African, and I want to see this continent change.
Wainaina often expressed her sense of morality through her writing, education and leadership.
In 2002, after winning Caine's best literary prize for her home discovery, she used the prize to start her?
A paper dedicated to fostering new voices and ideas born across the continent.
Who?
It went on to be published and created a network connecting writers from Lagos to Nairobi, Mogadishu to Accra.
Read more: We work to prevent the bombs': A term widely spoken in East Africa
While he simultaneously insulted and opposed Kenyan social media who came out in public as a gay and later revealed that she had HIV/AIDS on Twitter on World AIDS Day in 2016 it often came with backlash, struggle and pain.
Wainaina was a tough person who fought with difficulties and often fought back for being a rising star in society as a person of the people.
He had the fans but he faced criticism from renowned journalist Shailja Patel, who accused the Iranian people of being homophobic.
Twitter user Néo Músangi sums up the innuendoes of the behaviour of the Indians in his tweet:
I don't have much power but I use Binya as my partner in defence and my support.
I'm very sorry that he hurt others.
I deeply regret that he was humanized.
Take a shower.
Writivism Festival director Bwesigye Mwsigire, also described the confusion on Facebook:
Her standard of living was a problem.
Good and perfect.
People we dismiss because of their work and their ideas are people.
He is human.
Are we ever ready to love them in their complexity?
Now, more has been talked about him.
There is no need to repeat what is said.
People reminded him of his pains.
This would ease the pain for the person he has been hearing after his death.
There is only one binyavangaina.
He's just a fool at the moment.
Lets celebrate his life.
Adisicious talent
Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi tweeted after he had sent a message of praise for the Indians on Facebook; hate and homophobia followed his message.
Wainaina was a talented statesman who should be remembered:
I just sent a message over Facebook regarding Binyavanga's death, #RIPBinyavanga there were bad comments and I'm very sorry to have never read them.
Even thieves who run the country and kill people have no such hatred.
The truth is, Binya was a genius and will be missed and forgotten
Ugandan feminist and writer Rosebell Kagumire highlighted what she learned from the insistence of the Indian public to speak up:
You don't allow fear.
Don't stop me.
Focus on what is needed to be said.
Write to us.
shift up to you and to your heart.
Whenever you reprimand your last breath, there will be millions of words of encouragement 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
One day I will write about your disappearance
One day I will write about your genius
One day I will write about your refusal
Today I write this thank you
Kenyan Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, a journalist and author of Dust, and a true friend of theinaina, concludes with last thoughts:
Who told you to leave?
from your body at night without leaving a new account?
You look you see, the tears are lifted, he said, You have only 3 seconds to make up your mind here.
Who told you to leave?
From your body without leaving a new account?
Who has the nerve to go into fear and trembling while typing?
Now that he is famous, you can join the Binya tribe without lifting a finger.
Front cover of the de Angolan newspaper on the Telstar win.
by Dércio Tsandzana, 19 April 2019 and with permission
Angolan President João Lourenço on 18 April passed the government award for the mobile operator in the country, noting that the winner of the award Telstar didn't meet the basic requirements for the service.
The president's decisions might reveal a division in the Angolan government.
Telstar was established in January 2018 with a first 200,000 shares (approximately 600,000 US dollars), and its main stakeholders are Manuel João Carneiro (90 percent) and businessman António Cardoso Mateus (90 percent), according to the Portuguese Observador newspaper.
According to reports the Angolan website, the victory of Manuel João Carneiro was declared by the incumbent President Eduardo dos Santos.
Observador reported that 27 companies participated in the submission process which was opened by the Ministry of Information and Communications under José Carvalho da Rocha.
According to the Angolan newspaper on April 25, João Lourenço signed a new contract describing the new regulations for the opening of the bookshelves.
After the results of the first public referendum were released, many Angolans questioned the integrity of the process.
Others went on to say that the winner of the election had never been without a website.
This was shared by Skit Van Darken, editor and lead of the vip tours on Facebook:
Telstar Telecommunications, Ltd, was established on January 26, 2018, with the first 200,000 shares from Diário da República, whose stakeholders are the general Manuel João Carneiro (90 per cent) and António Cardoso Mateus (10 per cent).
The most prominent stakeholder is with Mundo Startel, a start-up company based in Portugal, registered with INACOM, a telecom regulator with an active license although it has expired.
A company that has no website!
IMMENSLY UNFAIR TAXATION AGAINST ENOUGH TAXATION
WHO THINKS THIS IS INSANE
Joaquim Lunda, a journalist and regular publicity presenter on social media, praised the gesture of the president and I even conceded that the minister who ran the risk of being expelled from the task:
Tafsiri Nin thank you and it is an act of rebuke, the decision taken by the President of the Republic of Angola, João Lourenço, to cancel the license for 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 and the first 200 thousand leads, awarded with a Zambian equivalent of $1.
I am sure that the days of the minister of information and communication technology are numbered.
After losing at ANGOSAT 1, now and today's show, I'm worried if this will ever do anything.
Enjoy the silent battle!!
The president's decision came after the same minister who led the 2017 project, Angosat 1, went into administration again.
Adriano Sapiñala, formerly vice president of the opposition party, found the problem lay in the government:
JLo [João Lourenço] should plan his team very well because yesterday the Minister of Finance was saying that the complaints period was end and the Telstar should go ahead with the next step as it was the champion of laziness and today JLo is showing up and wearing the bag!
Communication is not good?
Now maybe the minister should take a stand or JLo should bargin with him because if he has the papers it is because the process is not good and for no serious person should the people be held accountable!!
Blanka Nagy speaking at the January 2019 protest.
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 independent Hungary's newspaper, Atlatszo.
An edited version is available here as a part of his partnership with Global Voices.
Media supporting the Hungarian government has started a new attack on Blanka Nagy, a high school student who spoke badly against the government during several protests since the end of 2018.
Nagy tolerates criticism against him and he was also sexually harassed by a local media outlet who called him a coward.
She has already filed a defamation case and won a case against the three Lokàl, Ripost and Origo newspapers which support the government, alleging that she wasfelishing at school.
However, after Nady won a case against Origo, the source retaliated by publishing a school report.
Nady told Atlatszo that he was thinking of suing Origo again because of their recent news.
Blanka Nagy became popular in Hungary in the last cold years after she gave a speech at the anti-government protests, where she criticized some prominent politicians, while using a strong language.
His passionate words were widely shared by social media users through video of his speech.
Two months after the video's publication it attracted a lot of attention on social media, government supporters and academics like Zsolt Bayer started a series of attacks against her.
They said he was busy with his studies and had missed many days of school.
They also labeled the untalented as a beggar.
His defendant presented a result paper in court, showing that he was unfelicial in his studies, and the results were handed to Origo's representation.
The news channel then published a report from the Nagy results report saying that he had nearly given up his Historian lesson and was also on the run from other studies.
When #OurMoveIsNotAllowedserikalisHungary fabricates a story about young protester Blanka Nagy, who they accused of defaming and winning.
They have been tried to apologize and correct the information but have refused and continued to mislead.
TV2 channel was covering the whole fiasco, mentioning the papers presented in court but didn't say what the verdict was https://t.co/MyllWb2Jwh
Joost (@almodozo) April 5, 2019
My Justice and I think it is time to sue the media who published a copy of my results from school, Nagy told Atlatszo in an interview.
He said that Origo had no business to publish the results.
He and his lawyers thought that Origo had no right to see the results when they represented him in court.
And their recent accusations were not the real ones either, Nady said.
I'm not questioning my History, contrary to what they said.
I have a nice score 2 (which is equal to the C grade).
They say it is lies.
I would have laughed if it were true because in my family there was a Historian among my grandchildren, he said.
I think that all of this against me is so wonderful but I just don’t care anymore.
It shows me in some way that I'm afraid of some of the high-ranking positions of the Fidesz party.
The fact that Zsolt Bayer himself attacked the pro-government media for allegedly spreading false information against me, confirms that, he added.
Blanka Nagy a school girl: Fidesz comes with a virus, a plague, a epidemic and a tragedy.
This band of hooligans, this minority government, is filling their pockets of silver for their retirement while I will save you the poor from exile.
He told the truth.
This is Hungary.
Accusing and reporting false is the only weapon of the Hungarian state.
Some opposition authorities have responded by accusing the media of defaming them.
According to the latest data gathered by Atlatszo, the major propaganda outlets have won a majority of cases, and were sentenced to 109 times in 2018, according to the court.
They can't put their thoughts in our heads, so they're shooting us #SOSNicaragua This is the poster of a protester during the March for political prisoners in Managua.
August 2018.
Photo: Jorge Mejía Peralta (CC BY 2.0)
Since the massive protests against President Daniel Ortega took place in Nicaragua in April 2018, the government has banned protests, arrested thousands without charge, and shut down many mainstream and alternative media outlets.
The attempts to hold a dialogue were defeated, and so for Nicaragua remains a difficult question.
The protest started with an opposition to the renegotiation of social security reforms which would raise the rise of taxes on social security while lowering the cost of living.
Initially the process being carried out by the authorities opened a door to nationwide protests calling on President Daniel Ortega, his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo to resign.
Records of deaths from the protests are pooling and not being recorded since last year because the restrictions on censorship of information and memory have grown.
In December 2018, the government suspended some NGOs which were closely following the police violence and human rights violations such as the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) and the Institute for Democracy Development (Ipade).
Also in December, two groups of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)’s Special Rapporteur on Nicaragua’s Monitoring Activism (MESENI) and a group of Free Brazilian Scholars were expelled from the country, leaving Nicaragua with no independent agency to monitor Human Rights and launching a new aggression, according to Nicaraguan Women’s and Education activist María Teresa Blandón.
Read more: We are the Victims we help the victims': Reflections on Human Rights Violence in Nicaragua
Estimates put the number of casualties, identified by the government in August 2018 at approximately 197.
However, Human Rights Watch has recorded 322 deaths as of September 18, most of which were inflicted on the head, neck and face.
Blogger Ana Siú wrote in Medium recently about her experience with the April 2018 rally:
I watched my college friend being attacked by a mob via Instagram Mubashara.
I heard him screaming and trying to get out of trouble. Eventually, the man who attacked him on a motorcycle got out but took his phone.
She didn't know he was still in high school.
Then she said, let's leave!
We have to demand these phone calls be taken down.
The event lasted 20 minutes.
She also reflected on the May 30 rally, a historic rally on the day Nicaragua celebrates Mother Day with 15 people killed.
It was the day we changed our minds about protests.
Some of us at the protests saw how they were murdering young people.
It is the first time that police have attacked a large protest in such a heat.
I never been so close to death.
As students broke the internal walls of universities in the capital Managua, farm workers blocked roads in rural areas.
In June protesters in Masaya declared the Eastern city to be an independent city from the dictatorship.
The government attacked protesters who set up barricades to counter the police's attacks.
Protesters have also increased their participation in violence and fighting and in August 2018 there were 22 deaths from police officers, according to state figures.
In mid 2018, the police started what they called operación limpieza (Operation Cleaning) to clear the blocks and prosecute suspects accused of doing so.
Reports say security forces did the same in collaboration with the militant groups.
Many students, farmers activists, rights defenders and journalists were targeted in the dangerous campaign and many of them have been charged.
And some health workers who assisted the wounded during the protests have suffered from what they were doing.
The Nicaraguan Medical Association has said that at least 240 doctors had been fired in public hospitals as a way to end their strike.
Read more: Nicaraguan protesters and journalists faced brutal attacks on the streets and on the Internet.
In September the protests were declared not legitimate, and any activities right now in the streets demand a special permit from the authorities, which are often rejected.
On February 27, 2019, the focus of the conversation shifted between the government and the opposition, Alianza Cívica por la Justicia y la Democracia (Citizenship for Justice and Democracy for Citizens), followed by the release of hundreds of people from prison.
Compared to past conversations, this meeting did not include representatives from the agricultural movement and students, because some of them are in prison, and some are in exile.
Not the new president alone has a new beginning
As the crisis in the country comes in a second year, the concerns for Nicaragua's future are fueled by the hashtag #SOSNicaragua, which is being used daily with claims, photographs, and slogans juur to protesting students and their families.
Read more: Nicaraguan Diaspora activists carry a burden twice
Nicaraguan news outlet Niú interviewed protesters leading to the February demonstration in nearby Costa Rican towns and described the difficulties of living in exile.
Alejandro Donaire, a student who said that she fled the country after taking part in a peaceful protest, told Niú how it is difficult to feel part of the community and everyday life, after spending a long time living in the shadows, fleeing and protesting.
Madelaine Caracas, a spokesperson for the student union Students for Democracy, also shared Niú's desire to see a change in Nicaragua that is more than Ortega's leaving:
[We want to] to abolish dictatorship, sexual oppression, individualism and other characteristics that have been pervasive in the country's political culture.
We hope more that Ortega will leave this year and that I will return to Nicaragua this year.
And I am sure because Ortega is now in peril in international and economical spaces as well as because all those who participated in the April protests are fully prepared for the work now.
This period of talk between the Government and the opposition ended on April 3, with two agreements on each of the four topics discussed.
The government promises to release all political prisoners and secondly respects civil liberties.
There was no consensus made on the rights of victims of electoral violence or the national unity for 2021 elections.
A supporter of the coalition, Occupy Movement, said the government has failed to respect the terms of the agreement.
It is reported that the police have continued to disrupt the peaceful demonstrations.
Just like on April 6, only 50 of the 600 political detainees released, and detained in their homes.
Later on April 17, following a new extension of the US sanctions, more than 600 political prisoners were released and able to continue their imprisonment in their home cells, but according to the Civil Society, only 18 members of the group were on the list of political prisoners who hoped for freedom.
In the minds of people like Activist and researcher Felix Madariaga, the new Nicaraguan Leader is still in prison today.
Meanwhile, opposition groups have called for a commemoration day in April 2018.
With new sanctions from the authorities and a secrecy free access to the protests, there is also a risk of new police crackdown.