Stories about Ethnicity & Race from July, 2009
Turkey: Kurdish Newspaper Confiscated
Children of the Sun reports that the July 8th issue of the Kurdish newspaper Azadiya Welat was confiscated by authorities after it published allegations of a 23-year old woman who was raped by men claiming to the be the police. Reportedly, there have been more than 10 complaints of police...
China: Xinjiang People – Sorry and Thank You
China Digital Times has translated a popular post, Xinjiang people – sorry and thank you, written by a Han Chinese in Xinjiang that criticizes the social and economic development in the region.
China: Muslim blogger to be investigated
Muslim blogger Ismael is going to be investigated by police on his connection with Xinjiang Muslim: since Uighur riots in Urumqi on July 5, I try to defend those oppressed people on Chinese website. So Chinese police telephoned my father to stop me. Try to shut me up. My words...
Egypt: What's good for the goose is NOT good for the gander
When Marwa El Sherbini was shot dead in a German court Facebook users and the Egyptian blogosphere mourned her as the victim of the veil, the victim of racism, and the victim of her beliefs. But when a heap of bones wrapped up in a blanket named Ibrahim El Sayed Ibrahim was shipped back to Egypt from Libya - no one lifted a finger in his defense.
Fiji finds foreign friends?
Leaders of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands will lobby the 15-member Pacific Islands Forum to consider lifting Fiji’s suspension to re-start dialogue with the country to provide its military backed government time to complete reforms.
Puerto Rico, Cuba, U.S.A.: On Sotomayor
Cuban diaspora blogger 26th Parallel urges people to consider Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court based on merit, while The Voice of the Taino People Online reminds the media that “there is no more a Puerto Rican race than there is an American one.”
Iran: Armenian bloggers on plane crash
When a regular flight en route from Tehran to Yerevan crashed after takeoff yesterday, killing all 168 on board, many in Armenia and its Diaspora were distressed, and not least since there were 40 ethnic Armenians among the dead.
Turkey: Kurdish Freedom Movement Extend Ceasefire
Kurdish blogger Hevallo writes that “Kurdish political leadership Koma Civaken Kurdistan, (KCK) has announced that the ceasefire called by the Kurdish Freedom Movement to give the opportunity for solving the Kurdish Question in Turkey by political and peaceful means has been extended.” The original deadline was July 14th; it has...
Armenia: ‘Bloggers’ call for foreign minister's resignation
Following a July 10, 2009 statement by the U.S., Russian, and French presidents calling for Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve the longstanding conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, some bloggers in Armenia have launched a campaign demanding the resignation of the country's foreign minister.
St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Hypocritical
Michael Jackson's death gets Vincentian blogger Abeni thinking about hypocrisy in the Caribbean: “Look at the Man in the Mirror people. We may be closer to the persons we dislike than we think.”
Bermuda: Political Issues
Bermudian bloggers The Devil Island, 21 Square and Bermuda Jewel weigh in on different political issues that are on their minds.
India: Of Surnames and Globalization
In this post, Vinod Joseph discusses the problem that some Indians face while trying to split/fit their names into the conventional Western format of name plus surname and wonders if, in this age of globalisation, it would not be best to do away with this kind of templatising.
China: Free Tibet Concert
ChinaGeeks translated parts of Wosers's blog post on Taiwan's free Tibert concert on 11th of July.
Malaysia: No to English in Science & Mathematics
No more English in science and mathematics by 2012 in Malaysia. That is the long overdue decision from the Ministry of Education on the policy of teaching science and mathematics in English. The government refuted the claim of political influence in the decision-making process.
India:Vandalism of Tamil-Brahmi sites
Varnam writes about the importance of conserving the ancient Tamil-Brahmi scripts and rues the vandalism of the historical Tamil-Brahmi heritage sites.
Dominica: New Carib Chief Elected
Dominica has a new Carib Chief – Repeating Islands reports.
China: Xinjiang Info-War
Rebecca MacKinnon from Rconversation looks into the Chinese government's strategy in information control over the Xinjiang riot.
China: How did a protest become mass murder?
Black and white cat urges more investigation on how the student protest in Urumqi suddenly turned into a mass murder on July 5?
Lithuania: Russian charter challenges loyalty
Lituanica comments on news that a Russian NGO is starting to issue so called Russian charters – a certificate of allegiance to Moscow – to ethnic Russians outside of the country and sees it as a potential threat that state citizens of other countries may declare loyalty to Moscow.
Armenia: Flag display
517 Design [RU] posts a photograph of a billboard made up of the flags of those countries which will be entering films into the Golden Apricot festival in Yerevan. The blog notes the inclusion of flags from Azerbaijan and Turkey, countries with no formal diplomatic relations with Armenia because of...
Iran:”China is the new Israel”
Kourosh Alyani has published several photos of the Muslim Uighur minority riots in China. The post's title is ” Yellow Israel or unimportant photos that you may not see”.
