Thursday 8 June 2017

Turkey educates 4,000 Rohingya children in Pakistan

Source AA, 7 June

Turkey's Diyanet Foundation is providing schooling to 4,000 Rohingya children in Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi, the project's coordinator has said.

Ahmet Kandemir told Anadolu Agency the scheme, which started in 2015 with 25 courses, now includes 100 courses.

Students enrolled in the program are taught Urdu, English, mathematics, religion, culture and the Quran. Books and logistic support for the schools are all provided by the foundation.

The project targets the coastal Korangi and Malir districts of the city, where the Rohingya population ekes out a living as cheap labor in the fishing industry.

A law passed in Myanmar in 1982 denied Rohingya -- many of whom have lived in Myanmar for generations -- citizenship, making them stateless, removing their freedom of movement, access to education and services, and allowing arbitrary confiscation of their property.

They have been fleeing Myanmar in droves since mid-2012, when communal violence broke out in Rakhine state between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.

For years, members of the minority have been fleeing to nearby countries, including Pakistan.

"The Rohingya have settled on the eastern shores of Pakistan, escaping political pressure from their countries," Kandemir said. "These people have no right to citizenship in Pakistan so they are deprived of any kind of service provided by the government.

"With the support and donations we get from Turkish people we are looking forward to give these children hope for their future."

Zafer Iqbal, managing director of Diyanet's Pakistan partner The NGO World, said the schools are monitored by the education directorate.

"The families in these areas have never had the opportunity to send their children to schools," he said. "Now they have a goal, a hope."

Reporting by Mahmut Serdar Alakus;Writing by Meryem Goktas

Monday 5 June 2017

Up to 150 children under five die each day in Aung San Suu Kyi's Myanmar

Source theguardian, 23 May

Government reforms do not reach children worst affected by conflict and poverty, says Unicef report, calling for an end to blocks on aid deliveries

As many as 150 children die every day in Myanmar before they reach their fifth birthday, the UN children's agency said on Tuesday, in a report calling for the government to end blocks on humanitarian access to conflict areas.

Despite reform and reconciliation efforts undertaken by the one-year-old government headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, children affected by widespread fighting and poverty are not reaping the benefits, Unicef added.

There are disparities across the country, especially for families stuck in war zones and unable to reach health centres, said Bainvel, adding that untreated diseases among newborns, such as pneumonia, are among the big killers.

The child mortality rate is estimated at about 50 per 1,000 live births in Myanmar, Bainvel said. In the UK, the rate is four per 1,000.

The report calls for improved humanitarian access to the estimated 2.2 million children affected by violence, and an end to child rights violations, including the use of children as soldiers.

Myanmar has been lauded worldwide for political reforms spearheaded by a military-aligned government in 2010, which eventually led to the huge election victory of Aung San Suu Kyi in November 2015, ending decades of oppressive army rule.

In spite of this progress, life for many children in Myanmar remains a struggle, Unicef said. Nearly 30% of children under five suffer from moderate or severe malnutrition and more than half of all children live below the poverty line.

The report acknowledged that an "unprecedented period of change and opportunity" was under way in the country. But, it said, "the optimism of 2015 and early 2016 has been tempered by slower than expected progress on economic and policy reforms. Even more worrisome is the escalation of several key conflicts in the country's more remote border areas."

Although barred from the presidency by a military-drafted constitution, Aung San Suu Kyi is the de facto head of state, working as state counsellor and running several ministries.

Children at the Baudupha camp for displaced people in Rakhine state
Children at a camp for displaced people in Rakhine state. Photograph: Brown/Unicef

The former prisoner of conscience promised to first focus on national reconciliation, yet the country – one of south-east Asia's poorest – remains entangled in brutal conflicts along its borders, with the army blocking aid deliveries.

Remote Kachin, Shan and Kayin states continue to experience recurrent clashes between the Myanmar military and ethnic minorities. Civilians find themselves at risk from poverty, statelessness and trafficking, while having only limited access to essential health and education services, Unicef said.

In western Rakhine state, 120,000 internally displaced people live in camps as a result of inter-communal conflict that erupted in 2012. Violence against Rohingya Muslims, for whom the government does not provide full citizenship rights, has surged since October following attacks on border guard posts.

Unicef's representative said aid access to Rakhine had improved slightly but remained very problematic.

"But when it comes to Kachin and northern Shan, access has been denied to us for almost a year, in spite of our requests … it is denied by the government," Bainvel added.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991, has been criticised by more than a dozen fellow laureates, who wrote an open letter to the UN security council in December warning of a tragedy "amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity" in Rakhine state.

Unicef said the laying of landmines by all parties to the conflicts must end, and mine clearance work should start wherever possible. One out of every three victims of landmines is a child, the report said.

Facebook Bans Racist Word ‘Kalar’ in Myanmar, Triggers Collateral Censorship

Source globalvoice, 2 June
Burmese word "Kalar pae" means chick pea or split pea. Photo by Sanjay Acharya, Wikipedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

According to Myanmar Facebook users, their posts are being taken down by the popular social media company for containing the word 'kalar'.

Although the etymology of the word is still debated, it is traditionally used to refer to people of east Indian origin or as an adjective meaning "Indian" in general. Facebook is censoring the word "kalar" or ကုလား (in Burmese script) as part of its initiative to tackle the problem of widespread hate speech on the Burmese language social network.

In recent years, the rise of radical nationalist movements has given the word an extremely derogatory connotation. In particular, it is a word most used by ultra-nationalist as a hate speech against Muslims who constitute a minority population in Myanmar.

But in this effort to combat hate speech in Myanmar, the company has censored a good deal of viable content from its platform.

'Kalar' may be commonly associated with racism today, but the word on its own does not necessarily constitute hate speech. Context matters — many people have reported that posts in which they discussed the use of the term, or expressed concern about its usage, were censored as well.

Moreover, there are several Burmese words with completely different meanings that contain the same string of characters as 'kalar'. For instance, chair in Burmese is also written 'kalar htaing', which contains the same characters, as well as other words such as 'kalar pae' (split pea), 'kalar oat' (camel) or 'kalarkaar' (curtain).

Facebook user Aung Kaung Myat explained the different meanings of words that sound like 'kalar':

A post made by one of my friends was deleted today because there was the word, kalar, in it. However, he was wittily asking his friends if they know where he can cure his lower back pain by using a pun. The phrase, ku la — 'cure' (ku) + question word (la) in Burmese language — bears striking resemblance verbatim with the racist term but they are wholly different in context.

There have been various reactions to this initiative of Facebook. Zin Win Htet thinks that it will reduce hate speech posts of radical nationalists, but also stressed that Facebook needs to be more analytical before it removes any post suspected of promoting racism:

Facebook team is not manually deleting the word "Kalar". It automatically filters the word. That's why it won't understand any status you write. What it should do is that they should carefully analyse post and validate using the words beside it. For instance, "Kalar Htine" (chair) and "Kalar pae" (split peas). The good thing is that these dirty nationalists who are spreading hate-speech will have a pretty good lesson. Now it's time to curtail their nationalism.

While the move may send a strong signal to those spouting hate speech, the efficacy of this strategy might not last long. The experiences of social media platforms in China, such as Sina Weibo and WeChat, have proven that keyword censorship often becomes a game of cat-and-mouse, wherein social media users will simply begin using a new word or alternate spelling of the censored word in order to keep expressing their views.

Writer Aung Kaung Myat described how Facebook started to remove his posts when he simply notified his friends that the word 'kalar' is already banned on the social network:

…when I discovered this new policy of Facebook, I made a post telling my Facebook friends the word is banned. Ironically, my post was removed by Facebook and I was banned from liking, posting, and sharing content on Facebook for 24 hours because the post "doesn't follow the Facebook Community Standards".

Facebook has removed numerous posts by people who do not have any negative intentions or who were simply trying to show their opinions against the hate speech used by radical nationalists.

Patrick Murphy wrote that his post not related to hate speech was taken down:


Non-hate speech post removed by Facebook. In the post, the author was sharing his opinion on why extreme nationalism and religious fundamentalism in the country are bad.

Chan Myae Khine believes Facebook should have done more before launching this initiative like consulting the Burmese Internet community:

Facebook might have good intention to minimise racism in Burma through their platform but that's not how it works. Censoring such words will just bring more hatred among different communities. Plus, they seemed to initiate that without proper local context nor tech support hence banning words like "chair" and "pea curry". Even when they found out that they made mistakes, they don't attempt to rectify wrongly deleted posts. If only they could respect a bit more to 15 million user base that's generating a great revenue for them, it'd be great.

Facebook's automated censorship has made users to mock its approach. Instead of taking it seriously, users are now making fun of Facebook by deliberately writing the word 'kalar' in non-hate speech context to see if their posts would be taken down.

Here are some screenshots of Facebook posts that have been removed despite containing nothing resembling hate speech:

Used with permission.

The Burmese text says "I want to sit on a chair and eat split peas curry and watch an Indian movie. Just testing if Facebook will remove the post that contains kalar." Screenshot, used with permission.

The post reads "So if you are a doctor, do you cure people?" Screenshot, used with permission.

Over the past five years, Myanmar has seen the rise of extreme nationalist ideology and religious fundamentalistswho have been using social media to amplify their voices and influence. Hate speech is blamed, among others, for stirring communal violence in Myanmar, especially in the Rakhine state where clashes between Muslims and Buddhists displaced thousands of residents.

Facebook was criticitized for its failure to tackle the rampant hate speech occurring on its Burmese pages. But instead of simply deciding to censor the word 'kalar', it should have reviewed and learned from ongoing initiativesthat aim to combat online hate speech in Myanmar that focus on context, rather than code.