· January, 2010

Stories about Ethnicity & Race from January, 2010

Azerbaijan: Democracy is…

Önər Blog [AZ] posts a video [EN] made by the OL! Azerbaijani Youth Movement for the Democracy Video Challenge. OL! has been exemplary in its use of new media in...

29 January 2010

Belarus: “Hating Haiti?”

Andrei Khrapavitski writes that Haiti “has become a popular topic” for Belarusian bloggers “to chatter about and for some to sarcastically grin at the pain of Haitians. It hurts to...

28 January 2010

Australia: An Australia Day of Celebration and Protest

Celebrated on January 26, this year's Australia Day was characterized by an increase of flag-waving patriotism. However, the day was also commemorated with the Great Australian Internet Blackout, where Australians protested the government's plan for an internet filter.

27 January 2010

Nigeria: Bloggers discuss the massacre in Jos

On January 17th, violence erupted in the central Nigerian city of Jos. In the following hours, reports of the conflict spread as witnesses reported mobs armed with knives and machetes roving among burning houses, mosques, and churches. The conflict is ostensibly sectarian: Jos is a major city along Nigeria's “Middle Belt” – the fault line which divides the country's Christian-majority south from its Muslim-majority north.

26 January 2010

Russian Blogger Harassed For Marrying Chinese

RuNet Echo

Maria Gromakova became a victim of comprehensive virtual attacks of Russian extreme nationalists. Online harassment eventually turned into a real-life nightmare forcing Maria and her family to leave Russia. She tells her story to GVO.

24 January 2010

Sudan's First LGBT Rights Organization?

Throughout 2009, the Sudanese blogosphere has been in slumber mode. However, many previously inactive bloggers are blogging again along with new ones that have arrived on the scene recently, writes Sudanese Drima, who brings us the latest online discussions.

24 January 2010

Armenia/Azerbaijan: From Home to Home

Global Voices Online's Caucasus editor interviews journalist Seda Muradyan on her documentary film, From Home to Home, for the Frontline Club blog. The film tells of how Armenians and Azerbaijanis...

23 January 2010

Sri Lanka: Tamils And Democracy

Lankanyyz at Musings from Toronto explains the reason for the claim that the Tamils in Sri Lanka don't have a voice: “the Tamil population don't have a strong political presence...

22 January 2010

Turkey: Solve the Hrant Dink case…

Erkan's Field Diary comments on the case of Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian journalist who was assassinated in broad daylight in Istanbul, Turkey, three years ago this week. The blog...

20 January 2010

Azerbaijan: 20th anniversary of Baku pogrom and Black January

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Black January, the day when the fledgling independence movement in Azerbaijan was brutally suppressed by Soviet troops ostensibly to curtail inter-ethnic tensions in the capital, Baku. Bloggers in Armenia and Azerbaijan, however, remember the date differently.

20 January 2010

Turkey: Third anniversary of Hrant Dink assassination

Three years ago today, Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was gunned down outside the office of the Argos newspaper he edited in Istanbul, Turkey. Often ignored, loathed or detested when he was alive by nationalists on both sides for his message of tolerance and peace, one blogger compares Dink to Martin Luther King Jr.

19 January 2010

USA: Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 and became arguably the American Civil Rights Movement's most prominent advocate and speaker. In the United States, he is honored by a national holiday, observed the third Monday in January of each year. Today, many bloggers in the United States are honoring his memory with dedicated posts, linking his legacy of social justice with issues of today, demonstrating that 42 years after King's assassination, his words are just as relevant.

19 January 2010

Azerbaijan: Baku pogroms

The Armenian Observer comments on the twentieth anniversary of the pogrom of Armenians in Baku at the beginning of the conflict with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh....

14 January 2010

Iraq/Saudia Arabia: The Clerics War

Saudi-Iraqi relations have plummeted to a new low following remarks by Saudi Sunni cleric Mohammad al-Ureifi against Iraqi Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani during a Friday prayer sermon. Bloggers react to the development in this round up by Tarek Amr.

12 January 2010