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March 01 2012
Azerbaijan: Massive protests in Quba
Emin Milli's blog posts photos and video of massive protests in Quba, a regional center in Northeast Azerbaijan. The blog says the house of the governor of the region has been burned down and that military units are reportedly being dispatched to the city.
February 29 2012
Armenia: Sumgait Pogrom Anniversary
The Armenian Observer posts the harrowing details of at least 26 ethnic Armenian victims of the Sumgait pogrom which took place on 27 February 1988 and which seriously escalated the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Six Azerbaijanis were also killed in the inter-ethnic violence which broke out after reports of violence against ethnic Azeris in Southern Armenia reached the industrial town in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, a day earlier, Azerbaijanis marked the 20th anniversary of the massacre of their ethnic kin in Khojaly during the height of fighting in Nagorno Karabakh.
Azerbaijan: Khojaly Massacre Anniversary
As Azerbaijanis worldwide, as well as Turks in Istanbul, commemorated the 20th Anniversary of the Khojaly massacre, the most serious during the fighting with Armenia in Nagorno Karabakh during the early 1990s which left 613 civilians dead, Tamada Tales comments on the release of the full transcript of an interview with Serge Sargsyan, currently the Armenian president, in which he admits the tragedy albeit while also mentioning that a humanitarian corridor had been left for Azerbaijani civilians to leave before ethnic Armenian forces entered the town. A day later Armenians also marked the 24th anniversary of the 1988 anti-Armenian pogrom in the Azerbaijani industrial town of Sumgait.
February 23 2012
Georgia: Online campaign targets Russian president's Facebook page
With Russian soldiers stationed in Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a group of Forum.ge users proposed to mark the Defender of the Fatherland Day on February 23 by posting anti-occupation comments on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's Facebook page.
Cyxymu, a Georgian blogger who was the target of attacks on Facebook, Google Blogger, LiveJournal and Twitter, forcing the latter offline for two hours on 7 August 2009, posted a photo on Facebook alerting many Georgians to the campaign.
More than 200 users of the social networking site then started to post comments and continue to do so.
“Дмитрий Анатольевич, я требую вывода российских оккупационных войск из Грузии!”
“Dmitry Anatolevich, I demand the withdrawal of Russian occupational forces from Georgia!”
An hour later comments started to disappear from the page, reported Cyxymu. Georgians, however, did not stop posting the comments and taking screenshots of Medvedev's Facebook page.
Facebook users later reported that the page was no longer accessible in Georgia, with some alleging it had been blocked. Later, when it was available, many comments left by Georgians users were found to have been deleted.
February 22 2012
Georgia: Assassination attempt on Abkhazia leader
ЖЖ Сухуми სოხუმი cyxymu [RU] updates its readers on another assassination attempt made today on the defacto President of Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region, Alexander Ankvab. The blog reports one bodyguard was killed, with another two wounded, in the fifth attempt on Ankvab's life since 2005.
February 16 2012
Armenia: Former foreign minister returns to politics
As Armenians prepare to go to the polls in May to elect a new parliament, Unzipped comments on the return of former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian to active politics. The blog especially criticizes the ex-official for his position on bitterly disputed elections in the past.
February 10 2012
Georgia: Allegations made online against billionaire opposition politician
As parliamentary elections approach this year in Georgia, to be followed by a presidential vote in 2013, allegations against Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire opposition politician, have appeared on the Internet. The alleged exposé of life in the Ivanishvili household by American teacher, Patrick Downey, formerly employed by the businessman turned politician, have been met with skepticism from other expatriates in the former Soviet republic, and not least because of claims also made against Georgia in general, the U.S., and ['his ancestral homeland of'] Ireland. Downey had sought asylum or residency in the latter, according to a video blog, “in light of recent uncontrolled and willfully ill-advised policies concerning the mass emigration of non-Irish persons to Ireland […].” Ivanishvili has responded by saying that Downey “is suffering from psychological problems.”
February 07 2012
Kyrgyzstan: World Bank country director slams the door leaving public bewildered
For Kyrgyzstan-based netizens the story of last week was undoubtedly the sudden and violent meltdown of Alexander Kramer, head of the World Bank's Bishkek office, at a high level government-donor round table on February 3. Kramer appeared to boil over during a speech by his IMF counterpart, Koba Gvenetadze, during which he rose from his chair, lobbed a drinking glass in the direction of Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Jomart Otorbayev, and stormed out of the meeting.
David Trilling, Eurasianet's Central Asia editor, was one of the first to blog the news:
The incident occurred during a donor meeting at government headquarters, known as the White House, in Bishkek. According to one eyewitness, Kramer had just spoken for a few minutes, praising recent government initiatives and encouraging Bishkek to ensure officials are chosen for their merits. He defended the World Bank’s sometimes slow motions in the country, noting that development is “a marathon rather than a sprint,” according to EurasiaNet's source. During the next set of remarks, by the International Monetary Fund’s country director, Kramer suddenly stood up, yelled, “This is all crap!” and threw the glass, which shattered on the floor in front of Otorbayev.
Although the Kyrgyz government and the World Bank offered slightly different versions of the condition that caused Alexander Kramer to “totally freak out“, as one online news agency put it, both agreed that it was something to do with blood.
According to citizen media portal Kloop.kg [ru]:
The World Bank argues that the office head performed the act solely because of his sharply deteriorating health. The glass, they say, was thrown by accident, and now Kramer is in hospital.
“The act of A. Kramer was caused solely by the state of his health: there was a sudden onset of circulatory disorders of the brain, which led to the extraordinary and unusual behavior of A. Kramer,” said the World Bank in a press release.
The government press service similarly reported that the behavior of Kramer was the result of a “heart attack”.
Tellingly, Kloop's reportage continued:
The World Bank has apologized for the behavior of the head of its office and said that the incident had nothing to do with the person speaking at the time – the head of the International Monetary Fund in Kyrgyzstan, Koba Gvenetadze.
It is no secret that officials from the fund and the bank often regard each other with suspicion and occasionally even hostility. In fact, the dysfunctional relationship between the global economic order's bad and good cops was the subject of a fascinating chapter in ex-World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stieglitz's 2002 whistleblowing best-seller “Globalization and its Discontents”. But if the IMF's abrasive, take no prisoners approach to fiscal policy in the developing world was the source of Kramer's red mist, why did the tumbler land closest to Deputy PM Otorbayev?
Twitter user @Ahmadon had another theory:
“Hahaha, Alexander Kramer – hero, man, baike [elder brother in Kyrgyz], you see, he couldn’t be ****ed to listen to the empty chatter of our state officials,” @Ahmadon said.
A second tweet, @azzzik, compared Kramer to ex-presidential candidate turned nutty clairvoyant Arstanbek Abdylaev, the subject of this recent Global Voices Post. However, post-tumblergate, Abdylaev's premonitions of ruptures in the international political order seem suddenly prescient, and a third user of the service suggested Sabri bey, a Turkish man who thinks he can fly, was a more worthy parallel.
A few days on from the scandle, the focus of Bishkek Twiterazzi is on Kramer's future:
“Is it true that Alexander Kramer is already the ex-head of the World Bank in Kyrgyzstan and moreover, [already] overseas?” asked @ajoroev.
While the former has yet to be confirmed, various agencies have since reported that he is now recuperating in London.
Whatever happens to Alexander Kramer in the long run, it is clear that one projectile-throwing monkey don't stop the show. Yesterday, the World Bank announced that it would be providing nearly $20 million in infrastructural funding for Kyrgyzstan's two main cities, Bishkek and Osh, in 2012. Whether that package will include compensation for a certain smashed glass will doubtless be the subject of a future round table.
N.B: Last time Global Voices relayed the status of imprisoned ethnic Uzbek rights activist, Azimzhan Askarov, he had just had his life sentence - handed down initially by a regional judge - reinforced by Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court. While Askarov remains in captivity, a recent interview with Eurasianet journalist Nate Schenkkan found the activist “psychologically resilient” and still interested in the rights of others. According to Kloop.kg, on February 6, Shirin Aitmatova became the first Kyrgyz MP to visit Askarov since he was interred over one-and-a-half years ago. On Twitter, not all the tweets using Aitmatova's @thelostroom tag were positive about the visit.
February 06 2012
Azerbaijan: Qubanin Ag Almasi and Eurovision
Gultekin Garadaghly posts a rendition of Qubanin Ag Almasi, an Azerbaijani folk song. The YouTube channel of the young musical video blogger from Baku also features a cover of Drip Drop, her country's 2010 entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, as well as last year's winning Running Scared. Azerbaijan host the international music competition in May.
Armenia: Questioning pre-election developments
As the May parliamentary elections approach, Unzipped questions the arrest of an opposition journalist for an alleged motoring offense and the suspected political ambitions of a former foreign minister believed to be close to political forces within the ruling regime.
February 03 2012
Kyrgyzstan: “Putin is a complex bio-robot”
Arstanbek Abdylaev, scourge of the Kyrgnet, has struck again. Noted on Global Voices before for predicting a planet shorn of seasonal transition, this ex-presidential candidate and current head of the “People’s Academy” is back to tell the universe what he really meant, having been cruelly mocked and misunderstood by netizens back in November.
Now, with the help of a new sidekick, a kalpak-sporting, silver-tongued ethnic Korean called Alexander Pak, he is even dabbling in political philosophy. The world, the pair told an expectant press conference on January 27, is run by figures who are standing behind the figures we think run the world. And if that sounds a bit Zeitgeisty, then Abdylaev has added an original twist: Russia’s under-fire prime minister, Vladimir Putin, is a “complex bio-robot.”
Not much of this will make sense until you tune into Abdylaev’s first press conference where his utterance “Зима не будет”, or “there will be no winter” made him an overnight online sensation. Along with that pearl of wisdom, his helper, Mirlan Asakeev, suggested that life had “begun with the Kyrgyz”, and would begin again with the Kyrgyz, at the end of the year 2012. Adam and Eve, he argued, to the astonishment of the assembled hack-pack were “63.5% Kyrgyz.”
This time round, Asakeev was limited to a bit-part performance, his coveted position as Abdylaev’s number 2 apparently usurped by Pak. Pak, whose mastery of Russian exceeds that of both his colleagues, proceeded to explain that the original phrase “there will be no winter”, had been taken too literally, and that actually it had a “big energetic and informational bloc” capable of creating a “total quantum leap” for humanity.
A New World Order
Besides the assertion that Kyrgyzstan would be the “informational centre of the 21st century”, Abdylaev revealed that he had forewarned the Kazakh and Russian governments of the political dangers rippling accross the globe :
“Four months ago we wrote to the Kazakh ambassador – we said, you are going to [suffer] terrorist attacks – mass upheavals – they laughed at us. We wrote to the leader of the Russian Federation – Putin. We said that there would be war in Arabia, and they laughed at us, but there was [war]. Now my words are being proven, not by a historian, or an academic, or paper, but time,” Abdylaev said.
Where could the press conference go from there? Well, despite apparently being ridiculed by the Russian leadership, journalists heard, Moscow still has a place in Abdylaev’s New World Order – chiefly as the brawn behind Kyrgyzstan’s brain. Since Europe will soon be starved, disease-ridden and submerged under water, he reasoned, Russia would have to turn East.
“Why are we writing to Russia? Russia and Kyrgyzstan will conserve humanity. That’s why I call Putin “a complex bio-robot”… We will give a program to the Russian leader, Putin, and he will do it, because he has the power,” Abdylaev said.
And for the dull reporter lost on the difference between an ordinary bio-robot and a complex bio-robot, Abdylaev elucidated:
“With a bio robot, you give him a program and he does it, correct? But Putin is a complex bio robot – he himself does it.”
Perhaps this difficult, semi-mechanic nature is the source of Putin’s reputed marital troubles….
As the press conference wound down, Alexander Pak summed the group's message up as follows:
“This phrase [there will be no winter]… is also a code. Anyone who has heard the phrase “there will be no winter” has already received the code and they are using it, even if they are not fully conscious of this. That code contained here among the Kyrgyz should arrive in every person, and through it every person should come to a condition of over-standing; they will become more than human and they will be aware of their true capabilities and their real meanings as human beings… This is why Arstanbek [Abdylaev] called Putin a bio-robot. Barack Obama is also a bio-robot. Other bio-robots stand behind these people and behind these people are other people and today these people are all bio-robots. This code [there will be no winter] allows these bio-robots to become human and write constitutions for the future era, the era we have called the golden era.”
So, who are the “People's Academy?” Aside from strange letters to world leaders, do they have any publications? Academic accreditation? Increasingly they are beginning to sound like a cult, a fact that could get Abdylaev into trouble in a country where the state is often hostile towards obscure religious movements.
Inter-internet conflict?
On Youtube, Abdylaev’s second coming earned a mixed reception, both from local Kyrgyz internet users and from the broader Runet.
“In my brain after watching that clip I had a total quantum leap,” said [ru] underaszZz
“Who are they kidding, it has been -20 here for two weeks,” quipped [ru] alexxx8999 .
In among the good-natured banter, there were some seemingly derogatory comments from Russian internet users towards Kyrgyzstan, repositories of the Russian Federation's rising tide of nationalism:
“Is there a doctor in the studio! Or aren’t there any doctors in Kyrgyzstan? How can they allow abnormal people airtime?” asked [ru] breeedfrtf .
“Who let them off the building site?” asked [ru] TheMacsander, a probable reference to the fact that many Kyrgyz work abroad in Russia as labour migrants.
“Judging by the commentaries, Russians differ from fascists only in their stupidity,” raged BeksKazama in response.
But other Runet types saw reasons to envy their small, mountainous Central Asian neighbour, and took Abdylaev's public appearance as a cue to bash United Russia, the political machine that took victory in Russia's recent elections to the state Duma - a vote tainted by allegations of massive fraud.
“Kyrgyz wake up, don’t call the Russians to your aid! Otherwise you will soon have United Russia and corruption, in other words the whole bouquet ‘from Russia with love!'” said [ru] marysimon79 .
“You know, I think it might be worth going [to Kyrgyzstan], given that they don't have United Russia there,” said [ru] TheSarajPictures
Another less politicized strand of commentators made the connection between Abdylaev's metaphorical/metaphysical musings and Kyrgyzstan's Chui Valley, something of a weed-basket for Eurasian marijuana smokers during Soviet times:
“What are they smoking?” asked [ru] SuperSascha2012
“O Great Valley of Chuika [Chui-grown marijuana] Ototo – there will be no winter,” said [ru] Mariyajuri.
“Great Chuika this year, I smoked and [got a] quantum leap straight away,” teased [ru] Mikkado31
But whether stoned or sober, the “energetic code” of Abdylaev's “Peoples Academy” is drawing some genuine followers.
“They are trying for us. We just need to become different, change our souls, become purer! It is great that they want to bring this to people. There is no point picking holes in their grammar. Come, let us be people, brothers and sisters. It will be easier for us to live this way,” said [ru] psipolza
And truly, who would lack the humanity to disagree with those sentiments? Perhaps only the bio-robots among us:
N.B According to Bishkek-based citizen media portal Kloop, Abdylaev's second press conference has already surpassed his first in terms of online popularity. Once again, the catalyst for a spike in viewing figures was a prime-time slot on Russian satirist Stas Davydov's internet show “Thisisharasho”.
January 23 2012
France, Turkey: Retaliations Expected for Controversial Law on Armenian Genocide
The Huffington post, in the launch issue of its Francophone version, publishes a column [fr] listing ”Five retaliations Turkey could take on France” as the French Senate is preparing to vote the final draft of this controversial “memory” law this monday, January 23, 2011. This bill will enforce a fine or even a prison sentence for anyone in France denying that the Armenian genocide actually happened.
January 20 2012
Turkey: Post-Murder Trial, Thousands Remember Hrant Dink
Thousands have marched in Turkey to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist and Agos newspaper editor Hrant Dink. Angering Turkish nationalists with his outspoken position that the 1915 massacre and deportation of as many as 1.5 million ethnic Armenians as the Ottoman Empire collapsed constituted genocide, Dink was shot dead outside his office in Istanbul on 19 January 2007.
His killer, Ogun Samast, was jailed last year, but the end this week of the trial of others involved continues to leave many questions relating to official involvement in the assassination unanswered. Writing on Critical Legal Thinking, Basak Ertür provides a comprehensive background to the case as well as the events leading up to Dink's death.
Hrant Dink’s murder was the culminating point of a persecution campaign that can be traced back to February 2004, when he published claims to the effect that Sabiha Gökçen, the adopted daughter of Atatürk and the first woman war pilot of the Turkish Republic, was of Armenian descent. Dink’s claim provoked a public statement from the Chief of Staff, the highest echelon of the Turkish army. A few days later he was summoned to the Istanbul Governor’s Office and “warned” by two people who were introduced to him as “friends” of the then Deputy Governor. Three and a half years after the assassination, the Intelligence Service admitted that these two people were its operatives.
[…]
[…] The deep state lurks menacingly behind the innumerable assassinations, disappearances, provocations, threats, disinformation campaigns, psychological operations and dirty deals of the past few decades. Though providing much fodder for what can be dismissed as conspiracy theorising, the very style and structure of deep state plots render them almost immediately recognisable to a public that has become all too familiar with them. Hrant Dink’s assassination was instantly widely recognised as one such plot.
Certain pieces of information that surfaced during the trial corroborated this view. One of the defendants testified that in his capacity as a police informant, he had repeatedly warned the security forces of the plan to assassinate Dink in the months leading to his death. Some documentary evidence supported the claim that the police was informed of the plan as early as eleven months before the assassination. Key defendants were remarkably smug during the hearings, occasionally signalling, though never disclosing their deeper connections.
[…]
This is what Fethiye Çetin, the lawyer representing the Dink family, meant when she spoke after the decision, referring to the case as a comedy: “They’ve been mocking us all along. And today, we saw that they saved the punch-line for the end.”
Nevertheless, if Dink was loathed by Turkish nationalists, he was also disliked by their counterparts in Armenia and its large Diaspora. Also calling for reconciliation and brotherhood between Armenians and Turks, it's therefore perhaps no wonder that most of those protesting the outcome of the trial as well as commemorating yesterday's anniversary were Turks, Kurds and Armenians living in Turkey.
@UtkuCakir: İnsanlık ölmemiş… Agos'un önünde görmüşler - Fotoğraf: Tolga Bozoğlu #kardesimsinhrant - Hrant Dink pic.twitter.com/ojlyXWoD
@BerxwedanYARUK: Ankara da Hrant Dink anması pic.twitter.com/KdA1Px1m
Erkan Saka, a Turkish academic and blogger, posts some of the many updates and photos sent out on Twitter in Turkish. However, there were also updates, with some translation into English, from commemorative marches throughout Turkey.
@umitalan: Taksim'le Agos arasında müthiş bır kalabalık var. Devlete, yargıya ve tüm katillerine en ıyi cevap bu. Bu dava burada bitmeyecek.
@449981: CNNTurk 30 bin kişi oldugunu soyledi şimdi.yayını taksimden yapıyorlardı galiba,grubun en arkası gözüküyordu roportaj yaptıkları yerden.
@pinarinfanta: Belki de içimi en çok burkan ayakkabısının altındaki delikti,sessizce kaldırımda yatıyordu..suçu sadece ‘Ermeni' olmaktı #kardesimsinhrant
@ETemelkuran: 2nd march in Istanbul today for #hrantdink case.1st one gathered thousands, ppl r gathering again. http://pic.twitter.com/FG1XEgSd via@efkanbolac
@ETemelkuran: One of the most prominent writers Vedat Türkali joined the protests for #hrantdink today. via @mungan_murathan http://pic.twitter.com/BenLfLQo”
@ETemelkuran: The protest in Bodrum tdy.In several cities ppl protested the unjust verdict in #hrantdink case via @beynigezmelerde http://pic.twitter.com/vmtJpkvo”
@ETemelkuran: Ppl of Istanbul r gathering to protest the unjust closure of #hrantdink case for the 2nd time today. The morning march was thousands.
@ETemelkuran: The march is begining inIstanbul.Ppl chanting:”Long live the brotherhood of the peoples!” #hrantdink http://pic.twitter.com/d3ok5oQ4 via@efkanbolac
@ETemelkuran: The streets of İstanbul city centre is shaking with slogans for #hrantdink! http://pic.twitter.com/4XMF4Duh via @efkanbolac
@ETemelkuran: The march in Ankara. After thousands gathered in Istanbul for #hrantdink now it is Ankara's turn. twitpic.com/896b80 via @matakanfoca
@techsoc: I keep thinking: This huge march symbolizes everything Hrant was. Such a shame that it was only his death that brought it about.
@techsoc: Here's a photo of Hrant's dead body. My grandma said: “I cried for days. Who could kill a man with holes in his shoes?” http://bit.ly/yqDn2N
@ETemelkuran: There was a whole under his shoe when #hrantdink was shot.pic shows”the crack in the justice system” pic.twitter.com/jgE3CjYn via@denizmistepe
Başka simply posted the statement in Turkish by ethnic Armenian journalist and writer Karin Karakaşlı made at the commemoration.
19 Ocak bir anma günü değil. Hiçbir zaman da olmadı. Zaten bu topraklarda ayrı ayrı yaşatılmış ne kadar acı varsa, hiçbirinin anma günü olmadı. Herkes acısının yaşatıldığı o tarih geldiğinde, kendince, bir başına kahroldu.
[…]
Dosya kapandı diyorlar bize. Kapandı mı bu dosya? Hrant Dink dosya değil ki kapatasın, o bir yara… Artık köprüden önceki son çıkıştayız. Oradan hakkıyla geçmeden tamamlanacak ödeşme, kurulacak düş, inanılacak adalet, yaşanacak memleket yok. Öbür türlüsü sadece yalan olur ve bir gün başımıza yıkılır. Altında kalırız hep birlikte.
O yüzden gün, sadece söz söylemek değil söz vermek zamanı.
Söz verelim mi birbirimize? Bu dava daha bitmedi.
Söz verelim mi birbirimize? İnsanlık daha ölmedi.
Söz verelim mi birbirimize? Devlet daha hesabını vermedi.
Sözümüz söz olsun. Bu adaletsizlikle yaşamak hepimize haramdır. Aksi için uğraşan hepimize helal olsun.
[…]
The dossier has been closed, we are told. Is this dossier closed? Hrant Dink is not a dossier to be closed. He is a wound. We are in the one but last exit before the bridge. There is no score to settle, no hope to harbour, no justice to believe in, no country to live in until you cross it properly. Any other way would be a lie and one day will come upon us. We will stay under the heaviness of it.
This is why it is time to make a promise, not to simply say we will.
Shall we make a promise to each other that this struggle has not ended.
Shall we make a promise to each other that the humanity has not died.
Shall we make a promise to each other that the state is yet to account.
We promise. Living with this injustice is forbidden for all of us. Be blessed all who struggle otherwise.
Judging from the commemorations in Istanbul and elsewhere, as well as from prominent figures and online commentary in Turkey, many appear to agree.
Global Voices Azerbaijan author Pervin Muradli provided the translations from Turkish into English for this post.
January 13 2012
Global: Pictures Not for Free
Edmond Terakopian, one of the UK's leading press photographers, comments on the tendency for some publications to expect photojournalists to supply images for free or for a token payment. The ethnic-Armenian World Press Photo Award winner is also using a Twitter hashtag, #picturesnotfree.
January 06 2012
Global Voices Most Read Posts in 2011
This post is part of our special coverage Global Voices in 2011.
Our top 20 list of most read posts on Global Voices for 2011 includes four from Japan, three from Egypt, and two from the Philippines. But only one story is about a giant crocodile!
It's been an incredible year for the reach and recognition of citizen media around the world, and that means Global Voices is no longer as lonely a media voice when it comes to reporting tweets and blog posts. Still, where mainstream media interest wanes, we're the ones who strive to continue documenting what local bloggers everywhere need the world to know.
Self Defence Forces arrive at the scene of the tsunami in Japan. Image by cosmobot, copyright Demotix (13/03/11).
Some of our proudest moments of 2011 will never be reflected on a top 20 list like the one below. This year we exceeded 500 active volunteer authors and translators of countless languages and countries, and we've published more than 2,600 long posts and 6,300 short ones in English alone.
Inevitably, many of the stories that don't get as wide a readership as they deserve are from countries that tend to be overlooked in international media. Unique coverage from across Africa, the Caucasus, Macedonia, the Russian language Internet, Latin America and indigenous rights are among some of the highlights. See the 2011 regional reviews by our editors and authors for a glance of what you may have missed.
Our Middle East and North Africa team deserves special mention this year. Throughout protests, blackouts, threats, they have managed to pull though and keep writing. The bloody images still proliferate, but our authors seek out constructive voices and angles for dialogue. So often, they've shared local humor and context that is difficult to appreciate from abroad without a guide.
Perhaps for the first time ever, China doesn't figure on our top 20 list of the year. These are particularly chilling times to blog about controversial subjects - something Global Voices authors in many other countries unfortunately also experience. This makes the stories that do come from anywhere free speech is frowned on even more precious.
Most read posts on Global Voices in 2011
- Egypt: Night Falls, After Day of Rage
- Japan: We're Losing to Apple, and Here's Why
- Mapping the Thailand Flooding Disaster (and also this one)
- Syria: ‘Gay Girl in Damascus' Seized (and this one)
- Philippines: Debate on Divorce Bill
- Japan: Tweeting from Fukushima
- Philippines: Lolong, World’s Largest Crocodile
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- Serbia: Reactions to the Story of Serbian Mercenaries in Libya
- Largest Earthquake in Recorded History in Japan
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- Africa, France: Who is Nafissatou Diallo? Victim or Conspirator?
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This post is part of our special coverage Global Voices in 2011.
January 03 2012
Georgia: Return of the Meskhetian Turks
The repatriation of the Meskhetian Turks to Georgia from Azerbaijan, Russia and Central Asia is not just a priority for the Georgian government, but also an obligation it has had to fulfill to the Council of Europe since becoming a member in 1999. Over 100,000 people were deported by Stalin in 1944 from the Meskheti region of Georgia, among them Hemshin (Muslim Armenians), Kurds, and Karapapakhs. By far the largest group relocated, however, were the Meskhetian Turks.
It is believed that at least 400,000 Meskhetian Turks now live outside of Georgia, although it has been unclear how many would return in a process that should have officially ended last year, but which might be extended. This has been one of the reasons why the process of resettlement has taken so long, especially as ethnic Armenians now make up the majority population in what is now the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. As a result, in order not to strain inter-ethnic relations, the Georgian government is settling Meskhetian Turks throughout the country.
East of Center recently touched upon the sensitivities surrounding the issue.
Thanks to Stalin’s paranoia, millions of Muslims and members of various non-Slavic ethnic groups in the Soviet Union were forcibly relocated to Central Asia during the ’30s and ’40s. It’s hard to think of any of these communities that has been victimized more often and so thoroughly ignored by the wider world as the Meskhetian Turks. […]
Clearly, however, Georgia is not capable of resettling that large a population anywhere on its territory, much less the underdeveloped Samtskhe-Javakheti region where the Meskhetians originally lived. And then there is the Armenian question, and a large dose of anti-Muslim feeling. […]
Salim Khamdiv of Abastumani village. Khamdiv was 14 when the deportation happened © Temo Bardzimashvili
However, in a two-year application period ending in July 2010, the Georgian government received only 5,841 eligible applications according to the European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI). This amounted to just 9,350 individuals. Ahıska Türkleri – Ahıskalılar explains what the Meskhetian Turks hope for.
We want to return our lands from which we were expelled unjustly. As of today, we have been settling down in 2000 different settlements at 9 different countries including USA. We have difficulty in getting citizenship, settlement permission and work permission in the countries where we live. Our culture and language is on the edge of vanishing. We want to return our country as Georgian citizens and to live in our lands from now on.
Osman Mekhriev (left) and Islam Niazov, elders of the Abastumani Meskhetian community, take a break from the holiday prayers during the end of Ramazan celebrations © Temo Bardzimashvili
Last year, Zaka Guluyev's Blog detailed the situation of some of those that have returned, mainly from Azerbaijan, to Samtskhe-Javakheti.
Muslim Arifov and his family has come back to Akhiltskhe three years ago from Saatly, settlement of Azerbaijan. Arifov says that now he feels happy coming back and live in his motherland Georgia. “My parents were unfairly deported from this region. Now I’m happy that I managed to come back and live in my home Georgia with my family.”
Two months ago Muslim’s relative Mehemmed Rehimov also decided to come back with his family from Azerbaijan and to live in his motherland Akhlstkhe. Mehemmed Rehimov says that Georgia seems better place to live in. “It’s very good sense to live in my motherland Georgia. two months already past after my coming to Georgia. I’m happy here with my family and I’m feeling myself very well”.
[…]
Ismayil Moidze, the chairman of the [Vatan Georgian Axhiska Turks] society says that, their organization was expecting more people to apply for returning. But he explains that many families refused to apply because […] many documents are required for applying [for] repatriat status in Georgia. […] That’s why many families decided to stay where they live”.
Rana Rajabova, a 24-year-old bride in the Azerbaijani village of Shirinbeili. Rana's grandparents, natives of the Arali village in Georgia's Adigeni region, were deported to Uzbekistan. Before the deportation they were told by the soldiers that they would return in 7 days, so no belongings should be taken. Her grandmother hid her gold jewelry at home with the hope of returning after a week, Rana's family has applied for the repatriation and says that they do not want to be "refugees." © Temo Bardzimashvili
Georgian Youth | Multiculturality | New Challenges looks at how the new arrivals are reintegrating.
In Samstkhe-Javakheti, the regional association “Toleranti” provides families of repatriated Meskhetians with legal counseling, medical assistance and language support. In the frame of its 3-year project “Provision of humanitarian assistance to repatriate Meskhs and prevention of “self-repatriation”, the association noticeably organizes classes for young repatriated Meskhetians twice a week. Youth who attend the classes hope to improve their chances of success at school, where they receive tuition in Georgian, and to support their integration in the community.
Considering how motivated they are to learn Georgian, and as quickly as possible, this integration is usually 100% successful.
[…]
As many others however, one thing prevents them from totally feeling home in Georgia: they are waiting for an answer to their application for the Georgian citizenship, which they sent two years ago. Without citizenship, they are not fully-fledged citizens in Georgia, and therefore struggle to have access to basic services like medical assistance. They have no choice, though: just like the others, they have to wait […] – this means a life of uncertainty in the long-term…
Portraits of Abdullah Gamidov, his wife Khalida, and her father Zia Chumidze lie on the checker board in the Gamidov's house in Kant, Kyrgystan. Zia Chumidze was fighting at the frontline when the deportation happened and never made it home. © Temo Bardzimashvili
Where's Keith comments on the work of Georgian journalist and photographer Temo Bardzimashvili who has been documenting the return of the Mskhetian Turks to Georgia as well as their lives in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. Some of Bardzimashvili's work, “The Unpromised Land – the Meskhetians’ Long Journey Home,” was exhibited in Tbilisi, sponsored by the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), and accompanies this post with kind permission.
Delizia Flaccavento also posts photographs of a Meskhetian refugee community in Buffalo, New York, while ECMI says there is a “serious need […] to enhance public awareness on the right of deported persons to return and on the repatriation process […], in particular through the media and the educational system.”
Turkey: Remembering the Turkish Schindlers
Writing on the Huffington Post, Ziya Meral explains why honoring those Turks that saved Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is important. Meral argues that recognizing these ‘Turkish Schindlers' would go some way in defusing tensions between Armenia and Turkey, making the events of 1915 a shared tragedy. For this reason he has launched his own blog-based project to honor those that did save Armenians in what many consider to be the first genocide of the 20th Century at http://www.projectcommonhumanity.net.
January 02 2012
Caucasus: The Year in Review
As popular uprisings spread through the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, the Arab Spring also tried to take root in the South Caucasus. However, while opposition forces in the region sought to capitalize on the protests, especially hoping to benefit from international media interest in ‘Facebook Revolutions,' they failed to to achieve similar results.
In Armenia, for example, the low use of social media in political activism was particularly evident. With the number of Facebook users standing at just 123,000 at the time, few signed up for the ‘Armenian Revolution of Reform' although, as testimony to the importance of traditional grassroots political activity, around 10,000 people did turn out to protest.
At the same time, in neighboring Azerbaijan, where the use of social media is arguably more evolved than in Armenia despite a slightly lower Facebook penetration rate, thousands signed up for protest actions planned for March. Yet, despite that declared intention to attend, barely more than a hundred youth actually took to the streets and found themselves easily dispersed or detained by police.
Ironically, Facebook and Twitter was better used to report on those detentions in the Azerbaijani capital, and the same was true the following day when another protest action was staged by a traditional opposition party.
There was also criticism of the protests from some bloggers, although demonstrations still continued the following month. By May, however, attention had already turned to Eurovision. With the annual musical competition, launched in Europe in the 1950s, no stranger to controversy in the Caucasus, the event was to become even more interesting when when Azerbaijan unexpectedly won.
And as bloggers and activists turned their attention towards staging the competition in Baku later this year, some naturally used the opportunity to raise some other more sensitive issues. One of those was the continued incarceration of journalist and prisoner of conscience Eynulla Fatullayev, with Amnesty International especially making renewed calls for his release.
Channel 4 anchor Jon Snow.
The UK's veteran Channel 4 anchorman Jon Snow led the campaign launched on Twitter and two days later the journalist was pardoned and released. However, some online media observers such as Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman questioned whether the micro-blogging site had played as significant a role as it first might have seemed.
Indeed, despite Fatullayev's release, the year was also marked by the arrest of other activists in Azerbaijan such as Bakhtiyar Hajiyev and Jabbar Savalan, allegedly on trumped-up politically motivated charges, although the latter was pardoned in just before the end of December.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Georgia, Facebook resulted in the dismissal of a policeman identified through the social media site after the dispersal of striking veterans from the South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts. Even so, social media was perhaps better known for ridiculing opposition protesters in May or discussing the visit to Tbilisi by Sharon Stone and the appearance of a Georgian road sign in a Beyoncé video.
But, with more than 700,000 Facebook users in the country, that's not to say there wasn't any political engagement online with the Georgian government particularly active in this area. In fact, with parliamentary elections scheduled for Armenia and Georgia this year and presidential elections in all three countries in 2013, the use of social media will likely become more important as citizens become more engaged.
In Armenia, for example, Facebook has been used to petition the capital's municipality to end the killing of stray dogs and to call for the dismissal of a controversial regional governor. Moreover, while these were genuine grassroots initiatives, there also continues to be substantial funding from the US Government and other international donors, although it remains to be seen to what extent such projects will succeed.
The first test will likely be the May parliamentary elections in Armenia, with Georgia following in the Autumn or possibly earlier, so stay up-to-date with the latest developments on Twitter at @gvcaucasus. Շնորհավոր Նոր Տարի. Yeni İliniz Mübarək. გილოცავთ ახალ წელს. С Новым Годом. Happy New Year.
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