Archive for
August 4th, 2007
Stories
Hundreds of bloggers support jailed students in Iran
A group of Iranian bloggers have started a movement to remember and create awareness about several university students that have been arrested in recent months, including three who are still in prison. The idea for the campaign is to rename as many blogs as possible to “August the 5th” (14th of Mordad in the Iranian calendar).
The detainees' families say the students — all in their early 20s — have been subjected to physical and psychological pressure ranging from verbal abuse to beatings with cables. It seems their worst charges are insulting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and inciting public opinion.
August 5th, 2007
According to the 14mordad blog, this date is:
The 101-st anniversary of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. But Iranian people still struggle for democracy and student activists are still sent to jails.
In support and memory of our fellow activists, some of whom are bloggers as well, a group of Iranian bloggers will change their blog titles on August the 5th to “August 5th: The day of support for jailed Iranian students”. We invite you, even as a non-Iranian blogger, to participate in this cause. You can join by sending us e-mail to 14.mordad@gmail.com
The blog says 397 bloggers have already announced their support to this initiative and more will join in next days.
Hamid City who supports this initiative has also published the photos of jailed student activists and some other political prisoners. The blogger suggests [Fa] that each person should encourage ten of his/her friends to join.
Mir remarks [Fa] that after 101 years after Constitutional Revolution, Evin Prison is still full of the brave children of Iran.
Fardayekvatan says [Fa] let’s write about justice and democracy and jailed students. Maybe each of us can become a candle in the heart of the desert.
Ganji calls for support
Akbar Ganji, journalist and a former political prisoner asks people to support jailed students in an open letter. Kamangir writes:
Akbar Ganji, the respectable political activist who spent over five years behind the bars, has written an open letter to Iranians asking for their help to release the imprisoned Iranian students from prisons. Remembering his days in solitary confinement and reminding everyone of the crimes the Islamic Republic has committed under the name of holiness, he writes “women rights’ groups and labor syndicates receive support from abroad because there are related organizations everywhere. Students, on the other hand, do not have a counterpart in the West and are more vulnerable.”
Islamist bloggers vs. Iranian TV
There are other bloggers who are busy with other issues. Several islamist bloggers have recently criticised Iranian national TV. One of main reasons is that about two weeks ago, Iranian TV anchor Farzad Hasani grilled police chief Sardar Radan on the mistreatment of women in latest crackdown.
Abdeto says [Fa], that anchors and their guests do not respect real Islamic dress code although they are on national media where people from different social classes watch them. It becomes worse everyday, says the blogger. Their way of dressing can influence millions of people and it becomes a fashion very soon. The blogger says the anchor tried to make chief police nervous.
Agahii writes [Fa] we consider national TV an instrument to educate our children with revolutionary values but by looking at films and series that are encouraging comfortable life and becoming wealthy I have a real doubt that TV works in this way. It needs to change. How can this organization hire anchors who do not respect Islamic rules? The blogger adds he is surprised to hear so much western music on Iranian radio.
Russia: Notes From Irkutsk and Poronaysk
Siberia-born photographer and blogger Oleg Klimov, who has been traveling across Russia since June 23 and whose sketch about the Baikal-Amur Mainline was translated for Global Voices here, wrote this (RUS) about his native land and its people when he reached Irkutsk in early July:
([Lake Baikal]). The landscape is almost like in [Sochi], only the atmosphere is different and the water is cold. In July, the mist is making its way to the shore of the “lake-sea” in thin ribbons that resemble cigarette smoke. An incredibly “live” sight. Sometimes it feels as if Baikal is breathing.
[…]
They respectfully call all those who came from beyond [the Urals] “Rossiyane” [the term that is normally used to denote all citizens of the Russian Federation, regardless of their ethnic or other backgrounds], and all those who are from closer locations - “Sibiryaki” [Siberians]. It's not that the locals take special pride in their origin, but more likely, they treat it ironically, and they express their respectful attitude to zauraltsy [those from beyond the Urals] because deep inside, at some genetic level, they feel that Siberia is not Russia.
According to our theory, the “Siberian mentality” has been formed as a result of enormous mixing of peoples and nations, as well as repressions, exiles, historical settlements, harsh nature and just an irrevocable love for freedom. […]
[…]
People here are surprisingly open-minded. Almost everyone you run into is ready to tell you the story of his or her life… People don't turn aggressive here when you start circling around them with your camera; more often they begin to smile and only ask what the hell you're doing there… and when you explain to them, you almost always hear this in reply: “Well, come on, take pictures of me!” By that point, it is often not interesting anymore, and so I just end up chatting with them “about life in general”… The problem is that I enjoy chatting and traveling no less than I love photography ;-)
Roughly half a month after he posted this Siberian update in his travelogue, Klimov was already on the island of Sakhalin, in the town of Poronaysk. Below are some of his observations from that remote place (RUS):
- Hey, bro! Where are you from?
- From Moscow.
- Give me a cigarette, bro…
- And where are you from?
- From [Kyrgyzstan]. Came here to catch fish.
- And how is it?
- They don't give us good jobs. They say you should go fishing to [Lake Issyk-Kul in eastern Kyrgyzstan]. Here I can only cut fish. Little money, much work…[…]
It smells like fish and caviar here. Everything smells like it. The town smells this way from the year it was founded, in 1947. Porridge, meat, bread - all smell like fish. [People] smell like fish. Along the coast, there are fish corpses, cut-up and rotten, with caviar already extracted from them, and they make the whole town smell like fish. People here are like fish themselves and if you get married here, you'll smell like fish for the rest of your life and will [sleep] with fish. There's only one prospect here - to rot on the shore or to [generate caviar] and then rot anyway.
[…]
In Poronaysk, red fish is bought from poachers (who are called fishermen here) for 3 rubles [$0.12] apiece, and red caviar for 100 rubles ($4) per liter. If a fisherman doesn't have a car, he just throws the fish away and puts caviar into a bottle. Right at the shore, you can exchange half a liter of vodka for one liter of caviar. Then you can drink it together with the fisherman and follow up with caviar. Russian business is good business.
[…]
Gastarbeiters [migrant workers] are disliked here as much as they are disliked in Moscow. They get the lowest-paying and the hardest jobs in fish processing. They are often cheated by various “agencies” - which first get the money for the tickets and the “tax”, then take them to the island [of Sakhalin] and desert them there… “the agency's representatives disappear… and after that people are forced to work for what little they are paid in order to return home.
[…]
Bahrain: Meet the Bloggers!
Thursday 2 August saw the 31st gathering of Bahrain's bloggers, and instead of giving you a summary of blog posts this week, I'm going to introduce you to the bloggers who attended the gathering this month.
We have to start with Mahmood Al Yousif, who organises the monthly get-togethers, and is of course Bahrain's ‘blogfather'. Mahmood's current blog, Mahmood's Den, has been in existence since April 2003, but he has had a number of sites over the years, and his first foray into online communication was very early:
I am fascinated by computers and their potential. Especially communication and how that marriage can bring disparate peoples together. I started one of the first BBS (bulletin board service) in the Gulf in ‘86. Called it Stray Cats BBS and proceeded to commandeer my wife’s monthly salary to pay the telephone company! I put a stop to that in ‘91 I think much to my wife’s happiness!
Mahmood says his philosophy is to keep things simple, and to enjoy what he's doing. He writes about everything, and he feels his liberal views strike a chord with people who don't always feel able to speak out. His site certainly is popular, with visitors from all over the world; Mahmood's Den has up to 10 000 unique visitors a day. (You can see the site statistics for 2006 here.)
Our next blogger is Ashish Gorde, whose blog is called Eureka Express. Ashish started Eureka Express in December 2004, as a venue for his personal reflections, and with the intention of developing and showcasing his creative writing. However after a while it became a place where he could ‘rant' about issues that concerned him. Ashish also feels his blog gives him an opportunity to try to work out his identity, as an expatriate born and brought up in Bahrain.
H. started his current blog, The Straight Forward Times, about a year ago (though he is another pioneer – he first blogged on Xanga, from 1999). At first he focused on reporting on public issues, but then his blog became more personal at a time when his life was undergoing many changes. These days he has lost the urge to discuss public affairs; he still has opinions, but doesn't feel the need to let off steam about politics anymore.
Butterfly began her blog in November 2006. Her blog, هذيان الحروف (Hallucination of Letters) is in Arabic, and she attracts readers from all over the Arab world. Her blog is a place for her observations and thoughts; she writes about a variety of topics, about anything that interests her, though her posts tend to be more about cultural issues than political matters.
Gardens of Sand is a Bahraini based in the USA, and she started her blog in 2006. She says she writes about anything that stirs her – ‘that makes me either happy or sad' – whether it is trivial or great. She writes in English, but sometimes posts material from elsewhere in Arabic.
Eyad began his blog in 2005, simply called Eyad's (though it is subtitled Eyad, who used to be Human – and he calls himself Eyad the Great). He covers any issue that touches him, tending towards the political. He recommends his most recent post, entitled One United Bahrain in My Office.
Three other people were present at our meeting: The Joker, who no longer writes, but has something up his sleeve to be revealed very soon; Tariq Khonji, a former journalist who is also taking a break from writing, and yours truly, bint battuta in bahrain.
The monthly blog meetings are being moved to Saturday mornings, to allow people who cannot make it on Thursday evenings to attend. So in future we hope to be able to report on much larger meetings, and introduce you to even more of Bahrain's bloggers.
Barbados: Crop Over Marred by Crashes
Crop Over is one of Barbados' most beloved festivals. Lasting about five weeks and designed to celebrate the end of the local sugar cane harvest, its Carnival-like atmosphere culminates with The Grand Kadooment - a parade in which large throngs of elaborately costumed revelers depict a variety of themes and basically have a great time at this all-day street party.
But the event that grabbed Crop Over headlines this year was not the opening gala or the Pic-O-De-Crop calypso competition. It was the terrible bus crash that claimed the lives of six Barbadians as they made their way to the Party Monarch Finals. The nation was suddenly thrust into mourning and Barbadian bloggers have been extremely vocal about it…
Barbados Free Press offered its condolences to the victims' families and linked to an online report which gave details of the accident and printed the names of the deceased. Barbados Underground linked to the same story, adding:
“We have some strong views on how this matter was handled yesterday; but we appreciate that it is the morning after and continues to be a very sensitive time for the family and the country.”
BU then issued this caveat:
“For those readers who do not want to read about our initial views which we will elaborate on at a future date you can stop reading HERE.”
The blog then goes on to say:
“We want to state for the record that Minister Dale Marshall should relax a little. This is not a time to score cheap political points…The Party Monarch Finals on the East Coast should have been canceled. Some novel way of splitting the prize money among on the performers could have been done. BU is abolutely sure that patrons would have understood. People in and out of Barbados would have understood.”
Cheese on Bread also had a few questions:
“Do the officials at the Ministry of Public Works drive around Barbados? Can't they spot potential road hazards just like the rest of us mere mortals? Why does it appear as if people have to die before the relevant authorities improve certain roads?”
Bajegirl posted an online poll to determine how many people were of the opinion that the Party Monarch Finals should have been canceled once news of the accident broke.
Notes From The Margin was full of praise for Barbados' emergency services, “for showing amazing grace under inhuman pressure”:
“Most persons do not know that Barbados has a very detailed, very well thought out system for dealing with mass casualty events. In the recent past it has been used most frequently for accidents involving ZR’s. Sunday was by far the most serious incident that it has been used for…I’m particularly impressed that a review process is being automatically done with a debriefing of the participants, and that counselling has been put into place for not just the victims but the first responders as well.”
As Barbadians the world over turned to the internet for information on the tragedy, Barbados Free Press noted that “as a matter of sad record, today has seen the highest number of visitors that BFP has ever had in one 24-hour period”:
“We point these statistics out with no joy or sense of accomplishment because, of course, we wish today had never happened the way it did - but the visitor statistics are an indication of the interest and concern shown by folks everywhere. All of us at BFP hope that the families and friends who are suffering at this moment can take some small comfort in knowing that the entire Bajan family at home and around the world is praying for them and sharing in their troubles.”
The blog also asked the question: “When will it be appropriate to ask ‘What Went Wrong?'”:
“Even families in the midst of tragedy are torn between their need of privacy and comfort with loved ones - and their realisation that if they don’t demand accountability, there may be none. Injected into all this is a reality that many…have doubts about the integrity of some in the police and the government. This lack of trust in our public officials makes things more difficult for everyone, even the police and public officials who are earnestly and honestly attempting to bring order and provide answers so that this never happens again. Some of our readers are already discussing possible causes, and some are being very quick - way too quick - to assign various levels of blame to named persons or the government.”
Living in Barbados suggests that accidents like these are “a common cost of fast development”:
“Barbados is made up mainly of narrow roads, and some of the driving that I have seen is totally out of keeping with an essentially rural environment, with vehicles being driven more like racing cars, especially buses. My hope is that Barbadians learn from the spread of this problem in other Caribbean countries and work hard to avoid such tragedies becoming common place.”
Barbados Underground was critical of the fact that “the Barbados Labour Party Blog or their official website is in no rush to extend condolences via the online medium”:
“We acknowledge that they would have communicated sympathy in the traditional ways but at a time when technology makes the Internet a more effective tool in a communications plan, it speaks volumes for where we are as a people given our reluctance to use what is without a doubt the most effective and efficient means to communicate a message.”
To add fuel to the fire of controversy, Barbados Free Press broke the news that journalists at the scene of the crash were allegedly assaulted by members of the police force. This was soon followed by a post that claimed the police “might have been a wee bit hasty in destroying what would have been extremely useful evidence in reconstructing the accident scene”:
“You see, the Nation News journalist had taken photos that no one else took - not even the police - and in all the efforts to remove the living and the dead no one else took photos of the bus and the scene exactly as it was at that time. Only Culbard’s photos had those original details, and the police destroyed them. I simply long for a professional police force that sees respect for the rule of law as their highest duty and enforces it uniformly across our entire population.”
Notes From the Margin, on learning that the Nation News filed a complaint with the police department, says:
“There would seem to be the need for a clear policy on how the police/journalist interactions should take place in these events. It is unrealistic to believe that the press will not be present at a mass casualty situation. It is unrealistic to believe that they will not try to cover the event. While the victims have a right to dignity and privacy, there is the issue of freedom of the press and the right of the public to know. With the lack of a consistent policy on this matter, we will continue to see stories like this in the media.”
Another story like that did hit the media a few days later, when an Emancipation Day crash killed four family members. Barbados Free Press:
“My friends, I am lost for words. It has been a rough day…my faith sometimes wears very thin.”
Living in Barbados could say nothing more than:
“I have no particular comment at this time, other than a sense of numbness when I look at the result of the crash in the form of the overturned vehicle. Again, my sympathies go to the families and friends who are now grieving. It has been a brutal few days on this island.”
Links for Sat, 2007-08
Homeyra introduces us to Farshid Mesghali's creations. He has recently won the Icograda - International council of graphic design associations - Achievement Award in Tehran.
Blog politique au Senegal questions the wisdom of the government's plan to increase the airport tax (Fr) when most tourists come to Senegal, not in search of the country's unique culture, but for a cheaply-priced tropical getaway.
le blog de moi, a self-described Harry Potter addict (Fr), paid 43 euros to get her hands on the Deathly Hallows in Martinique; and finished the 607-page book in less than 24 hours.
For all you francophones out there, Harijaka (Fr) is posting French summaries of the recently released videos from the June 2007 TED Global Conference in Arusha, Tanzania. He's summarized Euvin Naidoo's opening address and George Ayittey on Africans taking responsibility for, and finding solutions to, African problems.
Szavanna joins the discussions about the cheetah and the hippo generation in Africa: “It is many times shocking what is going on in these non-profit organizations, there is a real “hippo behaviour” present amongst all of those people running the show and I feel many times I see no difference between government and non-profit politics - they make a big noise about issues - just like the Live Earth event - but no real change - as Femi Kuti says.”
Ishtar asks, “Will technology solve Africa's problems?“: On May 17th however, I stopped by a blog written by Erik Hersman (aka Hash aka White African), a Western TCK who was blogging about technology in Africa. He proudly presented his favorite post The Dark Continent: It’s Still Dark which was about Africa not being developed enough.
Ndagha wonders who is responsible for cleaning up streets in Lilongwe, Malawi: “I went to Lilongwe Old Town where there are generally lots of banks. The site is not as impressive as the inside of the beautiful buildings. I am not sure who is responsible for cleaning up.”
Emily discusses party politics in Kenya, “The question to ask is whether Kenya’s politics has truly ever had any roots in political parties. This has not been the case for a number of reasons. One, illiteracy and widespread poverty is a great curse that has prevented true democratic Party practices from taking root.”
Pokenosing defends the Nigerian Super Blog: “As a new comer, I personally think Naija Super Blog is a good thing and the administrators of Naija Live deserves some credit for their initiative, the Naija Super Blog displaying the whole content of a person’s blog page does not reduce the amount of visitors/clicks you get on your site but on the contrary, it motivates a person to visit the full page of the authors’ blog ………. but anyway I still stay don’t be offended to the likes of David and Akin (though they are not asking me for it), as this issue has made me an addict of their blog pages.”
Follow the summary of the whole debate here.
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