Amnesty International: Arrest of 10 people in Pakistan suspected of the attempted assassination of Malala signifies the need for better protection of human rights defenders. http://bit.ly/1tRAZIb
Human Rights
THE UPSURGE OF NINJA MEDIA: in 2014, the Brazilian collective of independent media and networked activism aims to go GLOBAL
NINJA MEDIA RELEASES NEW WEBSITE AND EMERGES
AS ONE OF LATIN AMERICA’S STRONGEST ALTERNATIVE MEDIA EXPERIMENTS
www.midianinja.org
By Eduardo Carli de Moraes @ Awestruck Wanderer
To rage against the corporate control of mass media is one thing; another, quite different and much harder to accomplish, is to really invent, build and sustain an alternative. Punk-rock screamer and political provocateur Jello Biafra – former lead singer for The Dead Kennedys – used to say: “Don’t hate the media… become the media!” This message, as I hear it, can be translated something like this: we can’t sit still on the denouncing-and-hating position, we need to struggle to be really constructive in co-building a truly free press.
In Brazil, Ninja Media has followed Jello Biafra’s advice, and in the last couple of years it emerged as a brand-new force in the country’s media landscape. N.I.N.J.A. stands for “Independent Narratives, Journalism & Action” (in Portuguese: Narrativas INdependentes, Jornalismo & Ação). During the whole extremely eventful month of June, in 2013, when hundreds of thousands of Brazilian citizens took to streets to protest a 20 cents increase in public transport fares, Ninja suddenly became hype.
The streets of Rio de Janeiro in Junho 17th, of 2013, when aprox. 500.000 “cariocas” demonstrated against public transport fare increases and police brutality (Photo by NINJA)
These mass demonstrations were colossal in size and scope; and they inaugurated a new era of mass communication, emerging in Latin America, in which civil society becomes increasingly more capable of organizing simultaneous events, aided by networking technologies and widespread use of social media. Journalism was evolving into new, mutated, cyber-communal incarnations. This new force was already acting in June 2013, as police forces and protesting citizens clashed on the streets, with huge clouds of tear gas enveloping the urban landscape in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and several other Brazilian capitals.
We suddently discovered that Journalism was beggining to mutate and evolve into radically new, and much more democratic, forms. It’s an ongoing experience, with a vast future ahead of it, open for explorers and adventures in the art of re-creation of mass comunnication. But even mass, corporate media couldn’t ignore the power of this Ninja experiment, suddenly becoming a relevant force in the public sphere as a form of radically new Citizen Journalism: thousands of us were becoming increasingly aware that we don’t need to hate the media, we can become it; we can reclaim the airwaves (they belong to the people); we could make ourselves stronger by mirroring and reverberating our deeds and discourses through the World Wide Web, broadcasting live from the streets, with cellphones and digital cameras who were there both witnessing and acting on the political scene in unprecedented ways.
One of the most memorable scenes from the June 2013 mass demonstrations in Brazil: the roof of the National Congress in Brasília is occupied.
In this context of popular demonstrations and uprisings, Ninja emerged in Latin America’s media landscape. International sociologists and communications theorists, such as Manuel Castells, as well as foreign newspapers and TV networks, took an interest in this new phenomenon. The volunteer citizen journalists’ collective Ninja “used the recent demonstrations in Brazil’s major cities as a stage for their guerrilla approach to journalism, using smartphones and social media platforms to reach their audience” – reported Rafael Spuldar on indexoncensorship.org.
Ninja’s upsurging popularity shook the traditional media out of its elitist slumber – to the point that “even Globo, Brazil’s media colossus, has started to run ninja footage and follow stories that started with Ninja coverage”, wrote Jonathan Watts on The Guardian, which is by the way one of most renowned English newspapers and who wrote several articles about this “band of volunteer citizen journalists”, the Ninjas of Brazil’s revolution-in-media:
- Brazil’s ninja reporters spread stories from the streets – Band of volunteer citizen journalists are setting the news agenda with their ‘no-cuts, no censorship’ approach (by Jonathan Watts, at The Guardian, August 23, 2013)
- How social media gives new voice to Brazil’s protests – Street protests continue to rock Brazil and, frustrated by mainstream media coverage, a new group of citizen journalists is using digital tools to tell a different side of the story (by Luke Bainbridge, April 27, 2014)
See also:
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Back when the outburst of protest happened in June 2013, while the mass media was paralysed in perplexity with the popular uprisings (who were also against them, the corporate media and its machinery of deceit, indoctrination and lies!), Ninja was doing something quite different: it was there, at the eye of the hurricane, at the pulsating heart of the masses on the streets, broadcasting live on the Internet. Ninja unmasked contradictions and struggles as they were unfolding, in all its urgency, intensity and un-predictability. Documenting Brazil’s turmoil in amazing photographs and thrilling written articles, it soon skyrocketed in popularity and reached more than 300.000 followers on Facebook.
Ninja transmitted live from the protests and marches – including the Marijuana Marches and the Slut Walks, the demonstrations by the Landless Movement (MST) and the Homeless Movement (MTST), not to mention the resistance of indigenous populations against the advancement of ecocidal and genocidal agrobusiness and big dams such as Belo Monte… And it broadcasted images with no make-up, ideological dressing, nor censorship from advertisers and share holders.
The fact that Ninja reporters were there as witnesses also quickly transformed the political scenario completely: Ninja emerged also as a power, in Brazilian society, defending basic human rights, including freedom of expression and demonstrations, from abuses by the repressive apparatus. Since Ninja became a new player in Brazil’s power scene, the abuses and fascist practises of the Brazilian Military Police were brought to light and attention. Our police force is mainly an inheritance of the U.S.-backed Military Dictartorship, which ruled our country from 1964 until 1985. Police brutality, its murderous practices (before Ferguson had their martyr in Michael Brown, Rio de Janeiro had its own with Amarildo, murdered by Brazilian police in 2013), this practises of deadly Fascist Police State Measures were no longer easily kept concealed from public knowledge. Police violence against demonstrators, a phenomenon so common in reality as it is uncommon in the Big Media’s TV shows and mainstream magazines, was now being massively revealed.
In São Paulo, in June 2013, when the police went trigger-happy on their rubber bullets, hitting photographer’s eyes and severely hurting journalists (and kick-starting Black Bloc retaliation campaigns against banks and ATMS…), the Police’s abuses couldn’t be concealed. Citizens around the scene had emerged spontaneously as journalists, documentarists, photographers, eye-witnesses. The practise of mass incarceration during protests, for instance, was brought to ridicule: Ninja’s cameras, together with other alternative media and individual smart-phone broadcasters, showed how ridiculous were the cops excuses for emprisonment; many people were being arrested, for instance, because of possession of vinegar!
Our military police has already been declared by the United Nations and by Amnesty International as an institution stained by frequent Human Rights violations – it kills thousands of poor Brazilians each year in our cities slums and favelas, frequently justifying itself behind the pious crusade of The War on Drugs; one of the main issues of our protests are exacly the police force – usually an instituion which acts in highly racist ways, filled with corruption and bribery, with a tendency to constitute militias and mafias for vampiristic greedy profit (just watch Elite Squad, the two awesome films by José Padilha, for a handful of examples of such a fascist behavior…) – this Police Force is also what’s being protested against.
Rio de Janeiro, January 25, 2014. The avant-garde black-flag reads: “No Rights? No World Cup!”
Ninja emerged to give voice to the voiceless, to denounce abuse of power against the powerless, to be an eye-witness to some occurrences in Brazilian History whose newness really demand a new media, capable of making sense of it. Ninja emerges as a collective endeavour at building not only an alternative media, but also an alternative social reality: if you’re looking for authenticity, boldness and a will-to-truthfulness, Ninja is one the Brazilian media’s tenets to be tuned on to.
As the 2014 FIFA’s World Cup began, and the world’s attention turned massively to Brazil – and not only to the soccer arenas, but also to the turmoils and struggles of Brazilian society – Ninja Media released its new website (hosted at Oximity) and now aims to go global. A team of translators – myself included – are already working very eagerly in order to translate Ninja’s articles to English, Spanish, French, German and an ever-growing number of other languages. Please share the news, if you want to help consolidate this emerging project of independent media: Ninja is alive and kicking @ www.midianinja.org and a lot of material is already available for reading in foreign languages. What follows is but a small sample of the multi-language content already published there:
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Some members of Fora do Eixo / Brazil
ONE STEP FURTHER – MORE ABOUT NINJA @ OXIMITY: Ninja was born from a history of more than 15 years of free media production in Brazil, from experiences that go from small magazines to independent blogs of Fora do Eixo. Fora do Eixo is a network based in more than 200 cities in Brazil that develops technologies for culture, communication and content publication. Today NINJA is a decentralized network of people that use new mechanisms of production and distribution of information. It has thousands of members who are using collaboration as a way of life and as a tool to transform society.
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Brasília, May 2014.
TEAR GAS BOMBS ARE FIRED AT INDIGENOUS IN DEMONSTRATION AGAINST FIFA WOLD CUP (Translated by Marianna Olinger)
Brazil’s capital Brasilia had a ‘warm up’ session of what can happen during FIFA World Cup games in the city this wednesday, May 28th, 2014. According to the ‘Lei Geral da Copa’ (the special legislation passed by Brazilian congress to comply with FIFA requirements during the event), the “enemies of order” – technically any citizens who live up to their right to protest and express their opinions – are prohibited to approach places pre-determined by FIFA, like stadiums and FIFA Fun Fest gatherings. Today around 3000 protesters were repressed with violence by the Brazilian State, acting to protect the FIFA standards in the preparation for the tournament. People in the surroundings described this wednesday’s event as a “spectacle of bombs and military hostility”.
The act “Copa pra quem?” (World Cup for whom?), organized by World Cup Popular Committee, the Homeless Workers’ Movement, and the Indigenous Population Organization (APIB) took over the main bus terminal in Brasilia during the rush hour. The movement promoted a staged trial where FIFA, the Brazilian Government and World Cup sponsors were judged by crimes committed in their quest for guaranteeing FIFA World Cup standards. The staged trial attracted hundreds of passengers and people on their way to work, in addition to indigenous groups from over 100 different ethnic groups from all over the country. Indigenous groups are in vigil in the Capital fighting against the advancement of agribusiness over indigenous land.
“Instead of the Government standing for the Federal Constitution and concluding demarcation of indigenous lands, it is investing billions in an event that lasts for a month, prioritizing big businesses over ancestral peoples’ Rights. For whom does the government works, ultimately?” – questions Lindomar Terena, member of APIB’s coordination.
The crowd marched to the stadium hosting FIFA World Cup in Brasilia, where the tournament trophy was being presented, in a peaceful demonstration. Children, elderly people and pregnant women were among the protesters received by the military police cavalry with tear gas bombs and rubber bullets. There was no space for dialog or negotiation as the police was determined to prevent protesters to go near the stadium.
Earlier this month Amnesty International launched a global campaign “No foul play, Brazil” urging Brazilian authorities to ensure security forces to “play by the rules” and respect everybody’s Rights to freedom of expression during demonstrations expected to take place ahead and during the tournament.
“We are not vandals, as they like to say, we are being ripped off of our land and cannot get near to this coliseum”, indigenous leaders and homeless workers complained referring to the newly built stadium. After the demonstration groups got together at the bus terminal to wrap up activities in the form of an assembly. “Tomorrow is going to be bigger”, chanted the protesters following the violent police reaction.
See also: https://www.oximity.com/article/brazil-give-a-yellow-card-to-restricti-2
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La vague orange. Noirs et habitants des favelas, les éboueurs s’unissent pendant le carnaval contre leur syndicat, la mairie, l’entreprise de nettoyage et la Globo (principal réseau de télévision privée). Photo: Midia NINJA.
DE JUIN À JUIN (Traduction au français pour Oriane Descout)
Un an qui en paraît dix. Dix années intenses et vives. Les réseaux et la rue ont prouvé leurs liens, en créant un accélérateur de particules qui catalyse rêves et utopies en réalités. Si les luttes ont toujours existé, les conquêtes et les volontés ont gagné de nouvelles configurations. La population brésilienne fait des sauts quantiques de conscience et revient à la politique avec le goût de la participation et de l’interférence directe.
Des millions de Brésiliens sont sortis dans les rues pour les Journées de Juin, il y a un an. Ce fut un début qui ne surgissait pas de nulle part : le processus historique s’est condensé dans la pratique. Les insurrections ont germé ; ont fleuri, se sont accouplé. Le Mondial est alors arrivée. Avec lui, des événements non annoncés ou non autorisés. Pendant que le Brésil regardait vers l’intérieur, le monde observait le pays comme un horizon d’inventions. De la créativité à la volonté, nous avons montré que nous sommes capables de provoquer.
Un cycle se ferme, tant d’autres s’ouvrent. De la victoire carnavalesque des éboueurs (« garis ») aux Indiens venus s’inviter à la capitale. Le conflit ne vit pas seulement de réalités, mais aussi d’imaginaires! Et de mondes qui s’effondrent. Cette année de luttes et de renforcement des mouvements sociaux, initiée en juin 2013 et qui s’achève avec la Coupe du monde, est seulement la fin du début. Un cadre d’urgence politique s’est instauré, indépendant des choix et des processus qui vont suivre. La vague de protestations, à nouveau, fait bouillir dans les rues les principaux thèmes et débats du pays.
Tout cela est en partie le réflexe de 40 millions de personnes sortis de la ligne de l’extrême pauvreté. Mais c’est aussi le résultat de l’épuisement d’une politique institutionnelle qui a prouvé son échec : la crise de représentativité fait paraître moins fou à l’Etat de poursuivre l’extermination de la banlieue, l’isolement politique des Indiens, l’avancement de l’exploitation minière, l’inexistance de politiques de communication, le manque de sensibilité pour les enjeux culturels, la négation de la diversité, la vague conservatrice.
Mais le récit de la résistance doit gagner, une fois de plus. Pour chaque pas en arrière, deux en avant. Pour chaque Juin, de nombreuses victoires. En avant!
Victoire du MTST. Plus de vingt mille Travailleurs Sans Toit immobilisent Sao Paulo quelques jours avant le Mondial, en lutte pour un logement. Toutes leurs revendications furent acceptées. Photo: Midia NINJA.
http://www.midianinja.org
Mass Incarceration in the U.S.A. – 21 Amazing Facts
Mass Incarceration: 21 Amazing Facts About America’s Obsession With Prison
#1 There are more than 2.4 million people behind bars in America as you read this article.
#2 Since 1980, the number of people incarcerated in U.S. prisons has quadrupled.
#3 The incarceration rate in the United States is more than 4 times higher than the incarceration rate in the UK and more than 6 times higher than the incarceration rate in Canada.
#4 Approximately 12 million people cycle through local jails in the U.S. each and every year.
#5 Overall, the United States has the largest prison population and the highest incarceration rate in the entire world.
#6 Approximately one out of every four prisoners on the entire planet are in U.S. prisons, but the United States only accounts for about five percent of the total global population.
#7 The state of Maryland (total population 5.9 million) has more people in prison than Iraq (total population 31.9 million).
#8 The state of Ohio (total population 11.6 million) has more people in prison than Pakistan (total population 192.1 million).
#9 Incredibly, 41 percent of all young people in America have been arrested by the time they turn 23.
#10 Between 1990 and 2009 the number of Americans in private prisons increased by about 1600 percent.
#11 At this point, private prison companies operate more than 50 percent of all “youth correctional facilities” in this nation.
#12 There are more African-Americans under “correctional supervision” right now than were in slavery in the United States in 1850.
#13 Approximately 90 percent of those being held in prisons in the United States are men.
#14 The incarceration rate for African-American men is more than 6 times higher than it is for white men.
#15 An astounding 37.2 percent of African-American men from age 20 to age 34 with less than a high school education were incarcerated in 2008.
#16 Police in New York City conducted nearly 700,000 “stop-and-frisk searches” in 2011 alone.
#17 The “SWATification” of America has gotten completely and totally out of control. Back in 1980, there were only about 3,000 SWAT raids in the United States for the entire year. Today, there are more than 80,000 SWAT raids in the United States every single year.
#18 Illegal immigrants make up approximately 30 percent of the total population in our federal, state and local prisons.
#19 The average “minimum security” inmate in federal prison costs U.S. taxpayers $21,000 a year.
#20 The average “maximum security” inmate in federal prison costs U.S. taxpayers $33,000 a year.
#21 Overall, it costs more than 60 billion dollars a year to keep all of these people locked up.
(Read Full Text) (Photo Credit: OK Observer) (Share this on Facebook)
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Recommended videos:
A great animated short-feature:
Angela Davis’s lecture Slavery and the Prison Industrial Complex:
DEADLY ENVIRONMENT: The Dramatic Rise in Killings of Eco-Activists (The Global Witness Report 2014)
DEADLY ENVIRONMENT
Urgent action required to challenge impunity of perpetrators, protect citizens and address root causes of environmental crisis
Killings of people protecting the environment and rights to land increased sharply between 2002 and 2013 as competition for natural resources intensifies, a new report from Global Witness reveals. In the most comprehensive global analysis of the problem on record, the campaign group has found that at least 908 people are known to have died in this time. Disputes over industrial logging, mining and land rights the key drivers, and Latin America and Asia-Pacific particularly hard hit.
Released in the year of the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Brazilian rubber tapper and environmental activist Chico Mendes, Deadly Environment highlights a severe shortage of information or monitoring of this problem. This means the total is likely to be higher than the report documents, but even the known scale of violence is on a par with the more high profile incidence of journalists killed in the same period (1). This lack of attention to crimes against environment and land defenders is feeding endemic levels of impunity, with just over one per cent of the perpetrators known to have been convicted.
Chico Mendes (1944-1988), Brazilian trade union leader and environmentalist, murdered in 1988. Wikipedia.
“This shows it has never been more important to protect the environment, and it has never been more deadly,” said Oliver Courtney of Global Witness. “There can be few starker or more obvious symptoms of the global environmental crisis than a dramatic upturn in killings of ordinary people defending rights to their land or environment. Yet this rapidly worsening problem is going largely unnoticed, and those responsible almost always get away with it. We hope our findings will act as the wake-up call that national governments and the international community clearly need.”
The key findings in Deadly Environment are as follows:
- At least 908 people were killed in 35 countries protecting rights to land and the environment between 2002 and 2013, with the death rate rising in the last four years to an average of two activists a week.
- 2012 was the worst year so far to be an environmental defender, with 147 killings – nearly three times more than in 2002.
- Impunity for these crimes is rife: only 10 perpetrators are known to have been convicted between 2002 and 2013 – just over one per cent of the overall incidence of killings.
- The problem is particularly acute in Latin America and South East Asia. Brazil is the most dangerous place to defend rights to land and the environment, with 448 killings, followed by Honduras (109) and the Philippines (67).
The problem is exacerbated by a lack of systematic monitoring or information. Where cases are recorded, they are often seen in isolation or treated as a subset of other human rights or environmental issues. The victims themselves often do not know their rights or are unable to assert them because of lack of resources in their often remote and risky circumstances.
John Knox, UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and the Environment said:
“Human rights only have meaning if people are able to exercise them. Environmental human rights defenders work to ensure that we live in an environment that enables us to enjoy our basic rights, including rights to life and health. The international community must do more to protect them from the violence and harassment they face as a result.”
Indigenous communities are particularly hard hit. In many cases, their land rights are not recognized by law or in practice, leaving them open to exploitation by powerful economic interests who brand them as ‘anti-development’. Often, the first they know of a deal that goes against their interests is when the bulldozers arrive in their farms and forests.
Land rights form the backdrop to most of the known killings, as companies and governments routinely strike secretive deals for large chunks of land and forests to grow cash crops like rubber, palm oil and soya. At least 661 – over two-thirds – of the killings took place in the context of conflicts over the ownership, control and use of land, in combination with other factors. The report focuses in detail on the situation in Brazil, where land disputes and industrial logging are key drivers, and the Philippines, where violence appears closely linked to the mining sector.
This week, a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected to issue a stark warning that governments are failing to reduce carbon emissions(2). It is likely to show the world is on course to miss the targets required to stay within the accepted 2C temperature increase that is generally considered a line that must not be crossed to avoid climatic upheaval. Global Witness’ research suggests that as well as failing to reduce their emissions, governments are failing to protect the activists and ordinary citizens who find themselves on the frontline of this problem.
“This rapidly worsening situation appears to be hidden in plain sight, and that has to change. 2012, the year of the last Rio Summit, was the deadliest on record. Delegates gathering for climate talks in Peru this year must heed this warning – protection of the environment is now a key battleground for human rights. While governments quibble over the text of new global agreements, at the local level more people than ever around the world are already putting their lives on the line to protect the environment,” said Andrew Simms of Global Witness, “At the very least, to start making good on official promises to stop climate change, governments should protect and support those personally taking a stand.”
The report also underlines that rising fatalities are the most acute and measurable end of a range of threats including intimidation, violence, stigmatization and criminalization. The number of deaths points to a much greater level of non-lethal violence and intimidation, which the research did not document but requires urgent and effective action.
Global Witness is calling for a more coordinated and concerted effort to monitor and tackle this crisis, starting with a resolution from the UN’s Human Rights Council specifically addressing the heightened threat posed to environmental and land defenders. Similarly, regional human rights bodies and national governments need to properly monitor abuses against and killings of activists, and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice. Companies must carry out effective checks on their operations and supply chains to make sure they do no harm.
Chico Mendes with his children. 25 years ago, in 1988, the Brazilian activist was murdered and one of the Voices of the Amazon was brutally silenced.
READ THE FULL GLOBAL WITNESS REPORT
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You might also be interested in:
THEY KILLED SISTER DOROTHY (2008, FULL DOCUMENTARY)
VOICE OF THE AMAZON (FULL DOCUMENTARY)
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Read also:
- THE GUARDIAN: Investigation by Global Witness reveals there were nearly three times as many deaths in 2012 than 10 years previously.
- HUFFINGTON POST: More Than 900 Environmental Advocates Slain In A Decade As Concern For The Planet Grows.
A W E S T R U C K _W A N D E R E R 