07 Oct 20 | News and features
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Kyrgyzstan has been plunged into chaos this week after parliamentary election results on Monday led to wide-scale protests throughout the country, which have seen the prime minister resign as a result.
Protests began as soon as the results were announced and quickly became violent, with protesters storming the parliament building and setting parts of it on fire. “By 9 o’clock there were the sounds of explosions and grenades,” said journalist and writer Caroline Eden in our interview with her, who has been watching the protests unfold from the capital city Bishkek.
One group managed to break into prison and release former president President Atambayev from jail, where he was serving a sentence for corruption. Hundreds have been injured in the protests and one person has died.
Many in the country felt the elections were irrelevant even before they took place, and some had called for them to be postponed due to the Covid pandemic. Despite this, the elections went ahead but arguments between the current and former leaders of the governing Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan meant that the party did not take part, with many smaller splinter groups taking its place.
In the event, just four parties on the ballot managed to get a big enough share of the vote to win some of the 120 seats in parliament that were up for grabs. The party that won the smallest number of seats – just 13 – was the only one of the four that were in opposition to the incumbents.
The Central Electoral Commission annulled the result a day later.
Listen to Eden’s interview in full about the atmosphere on the ground and what it all means for freedoms in the country.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also like to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
02 Oct 20 | Argentina, China, Japan, News and features, South Korea
“When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.”
– Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist
When populist governments rise, or when free speech is threatened, it so often falls to the steely wisdom of older generations to fight for justice.
Every age group has its heroes and, so often, older generations are the champions of the young.
Index has covered a range of groups since its inception in 1972 and elderly protesters have often featured. Here is a look at some of the most significant.
Belarus
Across the country, Belarusians are mass protesting current president Aleksander Lukashenko after elections in August appeared to be rigged.
At the forefront of the ongoing protests is 73-year-old Nina Bahinskaya.
The former geologist has certainly become identifiable with the demonstrations. Index’s Mark Frary spoke to her.
“I decided they [the authorities] would not be so harsh to an old lady, that’s why I decided to organise some activities myself,” said Nina.
Bahinskaya began her protesting after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, distributing leaflets critical of the Soviet regime, so has experience demonstrating against oppressive governments.
“I don’t want it to continue because I have children, grandchildren and even a great-grandchild.”
President Lukashenko recently met with Vladimir Putin. In a showing of support, Putin agreed to give the Lukashenko government a sizeable loan. It has furthered concern in the country about the increase of Russian influence.
Bahinskaya echoed this worry, she said: “This is quite obvious that some kind of new annexation is happening.”
See Index’s most recent coverage and Bahinskaya’s interview with Mark Frary here.
Argentina
In 1976 the National Reorganization Process seized control of Argentina. The military junta were responsible for a number of atrocities. Backed by the United States as part of a ‘dirty war’, the Argentinian government committed acts of state terrorism upon its own citizens, including the forced disappearances of close to 30,000 people.
A higher value was placed upon young children and babies due to a waiting list for trafficked children. Those hopeful of adopting the trafficked children were military families and supporters of the new regime.
Lucia He spoke to one of Argentina’s ‘famous grandmothers’ for Index in 2017. Buscarita Roa, part of Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, has campaigned since 1977 for disappeared victims to be identified.
She told Index: “Even if you’ve found your own grandchild, you stay because you think of the grandmother who is sick in bed and still hasn’t found hers. To us, the grandchildren we are searching for are all ours.”
The group began protesting at the height of the fear spread by the junta. One of the two founding members of the organisation was disappeared. Its high profile led to infiltration. In 1986, an extract from the book Mothers and Shadows by Marta Traba was published in Index. It spoke of the ‘notorious’ Captain Alfredo Astiz, whose access to the group led to 13 further disappearances.
Despite its reputation, Roa insisted there was little glory in being part of the organisation.
“Being a Grandmother of Plaza de Mayo is not something to be proud of, because having a disappeared grandchild is not something to be proud of.”
Japan
In 2018, Annemarie Luck covered one of Japan’s forgotten scandals: the South Korean ‘comfort women’ or, more accurately, sex slaves.
It took until 1992 for survivors to tell their story
Luck reported that some members of the survivors’ group still meet at the same spot every Wednesday outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul.
They were first issued with a signed apology in 1994 by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and in 2015, an agreement was reached between Japan and South Korea for the equivalent of $9 million.
Victims, as well as South Korean state officials, viewed the agreement as inadequate and protests have since continued.
239 women had registered with the South Korean government by 2016 as survivors of sexual slavery.
The House of Sharing in the city of Gwanju is home to many of the survivors. Team leader at the facility, Ho-Cheol Jeong, told Index of the impact the women he calls the ‘grandmothers’ have had.
Ho-Cheol said: “In a way, these women could be thought of as the original pioneers of the movement against sexual abuse and harassment that’s spreading throughout the world right now.”
Ukraine & Russia
In 2014, Index reported on the Russian government covering up its own soldiers’ deaths from the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Bereaved families were ‘discouraged’ from talking to media organisations.
Since the conflict broke out in February 2014, an estimated 5,665 soldiers have been killed
73-year-old activist and grandmother Lyudmila Bogatenkova faced a retributive accusation of fraud in response to drawing up a list of military casualties.
Bogatenkova was at the time head of a Soldiers’ Mothers branch in the city of Stavropol. The organisation provides legal advice to soldiers, as well as education programmes.
The allegation threatened Bogatenkova with up to six years in jail, before Russia’s human rights council intervened.
At the time, the BBC reported that local journalists were unable to meet the families of perished soldiers due to threats from ‘groups of aggressive men’.
China
Not all grannies are equally ready to stand up in the face of repression.
In 2013, after Chinese media frequently drew attention to stories of neglected pensioners, a new law was introduced.
The legislation stipulates that adults can face jail time or be sued if they do not visit their parents regularly.
Though brought in to Chinese law, it faced derision from across China and the globe and was not expected to be widely enforced. Many believed it was introduced to serve as an ‘educational message’.
However shortly after it was introduced a 77-year-old woman sued her daughter, who was subsequently ordered to provide financial support as well as bi-monthly visits.
The country struggles with the problem of an ageing population that, as numbers continue to reduce could cause economic growth in the region to fall.
15 Sep 20 | Belarus, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114819″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]On 9 August, Belarus went to the polls to elect their president. Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, was seeking a fifth term.
When the result was announced, Lukashenko had won 80% of the vote. However, the Belarusian people believed the election was rigged and took to the streets in their thousands to protest peacefully.
One of those protesting was 73-year-old great grandmother Nina Bahinskaya, who has become a famous face on the streets of Minsk as she squares up to Lukashenko’s riot police.
She has been arrested and fined half of her pension but still comes back for more.
Index on Censorship’s associate editor Mark Frary spoke with her to find out how she became an unlikely protestor, why she always carries a flag and whether she fears for her safety in the face of police brutality.
With thanks to Franak Viacorka, Radio Free Europe, Euroradio and Alina Stefanovic (interpreter).[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/4Ap8jtyRVKc”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Aug 20 | Belarus, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114603″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“As long as you don’t kill me, new elections won’t happen,” Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko told workers at the MKZT truck factory in Minsk, the capital city of Belarus last week.
The speech followed a presidential election on 9 August in which Lukashenko claims to have won a landslide victory to serve for a sixth term with just over 80% of the vote, a result heavily contested domestically and internationally. Mass anti-Lukashenko protests have been held across Belarus since the results, with many people saying the result was fraudulent and a result of vote-rigging, while the UK government does not recognise the result and The Council of EU stated that the election was “neither free nor fair”.
Belarus has been ruled by Lukashenko since 1994, after he became the country’s first president in the wake of Belarusian independence from the USSR in 1991. He rules the country with an iron fist; Belarus is the last country in Europe which still uses the death penalty, and many forms of freedom of expression are tightly governed. The state controls the media to the extent that Belarus is ranked at 153 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, one of the lowest rankings in the world, not just in Europe. How did a country, freed from the grips of Soviet Union and starting afresh with a new constitution, end up ruled by a man internationally dubbed as “the last dictator in Europe”?
Two years into his presidency, Lukashenko set about dismantling the aspects of the constitution which would have allowed for genuine democracy. In 1996 he demanded a referendum which asked the public to vote on extending his first term from five to seven years and to increase his powers. After the vote went in his favour (although the international community questioned the validity of the result), Lukashenko dissolved the elected Supreme Soviet parliament, who had resisted the referendum, and installed a handpicked collection of loyalists to hold seats in government, effectively wiping out any political opposition and obstacles to authoritarian control.
Another referendum in 2004 took Lukashenko’s desire to retain presidency a step further. Nearing the end of his second term, the maximum number allowed by the constitution, a referendum was held which asked the public to allow him to run a third time. When this passed with an apparent large majority, the limit on the number of terms a president could sit was essentially abolished and Lukeshenko’s grip on power tightened.
In the years between these two pivotal moments in Belarusian history, Index reported from the ground in Belarus about the deterioration of freedom of expression under an evermore authoritarian regime.
A 1997 Index article chronicling attacks on freedom of expression around the world reported that Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet was still in the hands of the Belurusian KGB. A “vocal critic of Lukashenko’s government”, Sheremet had previously been stripped of his journalist accreditation for “insulting the ‘president and nation of Belarus’.” Fifteen journalists who picketed for his release were also arrested and detained in a clear signal to the citizens of Belarus: any form of dissent, or support of a dissenter, would be aggressively crushed.
A 1999 report by Michael Foley confirmed this trend; he found that journalists in Minsk were worse off than those in any other former Soviet state. Just five years into Lukashenko’s rule, Foley reported that “the electronic media is almost totally state-owned and the print media is forced to use state owned printing plants”.
As Lukashenko won the election in 2006, securing a third term that never should have been, human rights and freedom of expression in Belarus continued to deteriorate.
LGBTQ rights were and continue to be all but non-existent, with gay marriage constitutionally banned and few legal protections afforded to LGBTQ people. Freedom of assembly has been violated by the authorities’ attempts to prevent Gay Pride events from taking place. A 2000 parade was banned by authorities just hours before the fact, and in 2006 a conference on human rights and gay culture was cancelled after its organisers were arrested.
In 2011, months after Lukashenko’s fourth election victory, James Kirchick reported for Index from Minsk that the regime still had a grip on the media: “the Lukashenko regime has effectively rendered political opposition moot through its near domination of the press. It has silenced critical voices through two means: state control of mass media outlets like television and radio, and onerous registration laws that make the practice of independent journalism a dangerous pursuit”.
In the 10 years since the 2010 election, there has been another election, taking place in this landscape that is weighed heavily in Lukashenko’s favour. As Andrei Aliaksandrau reported for Index in 2017, TV stations continue to be state-owned and Lukashenko continues to rule as a dictator. The 2015 election, similarly to those preceding it, was dogged by controversy and suggestions of an undemocratic process. “The [2015] election process was orchestrated, and the result was preordained”, said Miklós Haraszti, The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus.
The 2020 election result has seen scenes of protest unlike Belarus has experienced before. After 26 years of propaganda and authoritarian leadership, Belarusians appear to be prepared to tolerate it no longer. Journalists have gone on strike, refusing to be used as propaganda tools. Lukashenko shut down the internet across most of the country in the days following the election, in an attempt to quash dissent, and horrific accounts of intimidation and torture have come out of the country, as our interview with the wife of an arrested protester reveals. But now almost three weeks on the people are still making their voices heard. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Lukashenko’s only opponent during the election after other contenders were picked off, spoke to the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee from Lithuania where she has fled to escape violence: “The intimidation didn’t work. We will not relent.” Could this finally mark the end of Europe’s last dictator? We all hope so. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
