Monthly Archives: July 2015

Religion + Belief

China News | Christians

1 Comment
Chinese officials target church crosses in demolition campaign throughout Zhejiang province
  • Locals described ongoing campaigns in which authorities allegedly sent in Buddhist monks to agitate Christian congregants, removed crosses from atop churches, and surveilled and intimidated social media protesters.
  • The demolitions come as part of the government’s “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign targeting structures it has deemed illegal around the country.
  • President Xi Jinping has targeted churches as potential threats to national security, claiming their growth could be driven by foreign influence.

“As well as the cross demolitions, the government is carrying out ideological work with all parties,” Zhang said. “It’s not just the crosses that they’re targeting. The government wants to turn the Protestant church into a truly Chinese institution, which is to say that it wants it to become a tool of the party.”

Read the full story at Radio Free Asia.

(Image Credit: via Radio Free Asia)

Age, Gender, Nationality + Migration

U.S. News | Immigrant Women & Children

U.S. federal judge rules mothers and children held in immigration detention centers must be released
  • The judge cited poor detention conditions and failure to comply with a 1997 ruling on the detention of migrant children as grounds for release.
  • Border officials resorted to the detention centers during the surge of undocumented migrant arrivals in 2014, many of whom were unaccompanied children.
  • The Department of Homeland Security will have to develop a release strategy by August 3, according to the ruling.

“It is astonishing that Defendants have enacted a policy requiring such expensive infrastructure without more evidence to show that it would be compliant with an Agreement that has been in effect for nearly 20 years. … It is even more shocking that after nearly two decades Defendants have not implemented appropriate regulations to deal with this complicated area of immigration law.”

Read the full story at BuzzFeed News.

Age, Gender

Turkmenistan News | Male Youth

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Turkmenistan cuts study abroad for boys to expand military conscription
  • As conflict in Afghanistan threatens to spill into Turkmenistan, the Turkmen government has ended sponsorship for its male students to study abroad for college in order to broaden the conscription pool.
  • The majority of Turkmen youth get their university degrees abroad in countries like Ukraine and Belarus, with only a little more than 7,000 of its 100,000 annual high school graduates choosing to remain in the country for study.
  • Turkmenistan’s isolationist policies have severely crippled its education system, with ailments like rife corruption, poor financial planning, and the implementation of a compulsory 12-year education system only in 2013.

Read the full story at The Diplomat.

Sexual + Gender Minorities

India News | LGBTQ

Inaugural flashmob draws crowds and attention to LGBTQ issues in New Delhi
  • Led by the queer collective Harmless Hugs, around two dozen youth created a flashmob performance in a major New Delhi commercial district in support of sexual and gender minorities.
  • Spending hours over weekends learning choreography, the group focused on using dance and other messaging to communicate acceptance and support of same-sex love and queer identities.
  • The event followed up on similar annual flashmobs organized in Mumbai.

“Through this dance, I hope the message reaches the government that if loving someone is a crime, then the whole world is a criminal.”

Read the full story at the Hindustan Times.

(Image Credit: Arun Sharma/Hindustan Times)

Nationality + Migration

China News | Immigrants

Shanghai debuts new work permit relaxing experience requirements for international students
  • The chuangye is one of a series of visa reforms recently rolled out to attract and retain foreign talent in Shanghai.
  • The residence permit waives the two-year experience requirement for international students graduating from a Shanghai university, allowing students to pursue internships or start-up work for two years after graduation while living in the city.
  • The first permit was issued to an Indonesian student, who reported that visa restrictions had proven a significant barrier to fellow classmates looking to remain in the city post-graduation.

Read the full story at Shanghaiist.

(Image Credit: The People’s Daily, via Shanghaiist)

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Interregional Feature | Kazakhstani & Indonesian Jews

Asian Jews from Steppe to Sea

One the “bridge between Islamic and Jewish countries” and the other the largest Muslim nation in the world, Kazakhstan and Indonesia have strikingly different attitudes towards their Jewish communities.  While the former hosts the largest synagogue in Central Asia despite being a Muslim-majority country, the latter pushes Jewish religious expression to the margins and sees rampant, politically opportunistic anti-Semitism.  The Jakarta Post takes a comparative look at the conditions faced by Kazakhstani and Indonesian Jews.

Read the full feature at the Jakarta Post.

Age, Nationality + Migration

U.S. News | Child Immigrants

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Audit finds U.S. border patrol violated rules in vast majority of deportations of children over five-year period
  • The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that from 2009 to 2014, 93% of unaccompanied Mexican and Canadian children under 14 were deported without documentation of the safety assurance process.
  • Unaccompanied Mexican and Canadian children undergo interviews with border patrol authorities to determine if they have been or will be trafficked, persecuted, or otherwise endangered in their home country.
  • Immigration lawyers and rights monitors have questioned the effectiveness and legality of having border patrol oversee the interviews, arguing their officers are not the appropriate figures to make such determinations.

“CBP just does not have the training, the understanding of humanitarian protection, to make the assessment of these children from Mexico before sending them back to their home countries.”

Read the full story at the Guardian.

(Image Credit: John Moore/Getty Images, via the Guardian)

Nationality + Migration

Germany News | Refugees & Immigrants

German anti-immigrant protesters and their opponents lock horns as anti-refugee violence continues
  • Far-right demonstrators clashed with opposition in Frankfurt an der Oder and Dresden, leading to injuries and multiple arrests.
  • Ongoing anti-immigrant sentiment has led to violence against refugees throughout Germany, including arson attacks on shelters.
  • In Frankfurt an der Oder, resources have been strained as authorities struggle to build shelters and expand schooling capabilities quickly enough to accommodate the intake of refugees.

Read the full story at Reuters.

Nationality + Migration

U.S. Feature | Guest Workers

The Low Tide of Slavery

The low-skilled counterpart to the U.S.’s highly promoted H1-B program, the H-2 visa program brings guest workers to the U.S. to fill low- or unskilled labor positions, including farm work, construction, household maintenance, and elements of the food harvesting supply chain. BuzzFeed News investigates how limited enforcement of regulations and workers’ unbreakable tie to their employer while in the country exacerbate employer-employee power inequalities in the program, leaving guest workers vulnerable to slavery-like exploitation including wage undercutting, visa and passport withholding, illegal fee leveraging, basic resource deprivation, and more insidious threats like sexual violence and death.

Read the full feature at BuzzFeed News.

(Image Credit: Ken Bensinger/BuzzFeed News)

Health + Ability

U.K. Perspectives | Schizophrenia

First Person: When Schizophrenia Arrives

Daniel Smith shares his experience of the arrival of acute schizophrenia in his life, from the early warning signs through his first psychotic break to treatment and management.  Providing a glimpse of the complex emotional development and life adjustments such an arrival catalyzes, Daniel discusses the importance of acceptance, ownership, and disclosure as a part of the management process.

“Being a master of disguise … is nothing to be proud of.”

Read Daniel’s personal account at VICE.

(Image Credit: Wellcome Images, via VICE)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Western Asia Feature | Middle-Eastern Christians

The Twilight of Christianity in the Region of Its Birth

The Middle East has seen its culturally diverse population fractured by ever-increasing fault lines over the last century, from colonialism and nationalism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Sunni-Shia sectarianism to fundamentalist Sunni extremism.  As a dwindling religious minority, Christians in the Middle East have seen the threat to their existence multiply exponentially after nearly two millennia of peaceful coexistence with other religious communities in their homeland.  The New York Times Magazine explores Christianity’s decline and contemporary existential threats in a region where extremism has subjected the community to exile, forced conversion, and execution.

Read the full feature at the New York Times Magazine.

(Image Credit: Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, for The New York Times)

Ideology + Affiliation

Malaysia News | Political Dissidents

Travel ban on Malaysian rights activists and political opposition imposed as investigations into PM’s alleged financial impropriety continue
  • An opposition MP and electoral reform advocate found themselves on expanding restricted-travel lists following calls for an impartial investigation into alleged embezzelement by the premier.
  • Malaysian PM Najib Hazak has been accused of directing millions of dollars from the state investment fund into his personal bank accounts.
  • Threats of public protest followed the travel restrictions as affiliates of the investment fund have seen their accounts frozen and their former chief gone missing.

“They are nervous, they are paranoid. … They are intimidating those whistleblowers. That is what is happening now.”

Read the full story at Channel NewsAsia.

(Image Credit: AFP, via Channel NewsAsia)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

U.S. News | LGBT

Texas Supreme Court rules Houston must repeal LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance or submit to popular referendum
  • The court overruled a state district judge who ruled that opponents of the ordinance’s passage failed to submit enough valid signatures to the city for a repeal referendum.
  • Houston’s mayor and city attorney overrode the city secretary’s sign-off on the petition, declaring many signatures invalid due to improper paperwork.
  • The city is expected to choose to submit the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity as locally protected classes to ballot, which observers expect to draw national attention and money to Houston’s local elections in November.

“You’re going to have money pouring in from all across the country on this issue because it’s extremely important. … We’re going to be looking at mayoral candidates, city council candidates that stand with us on this important issue. The eyes of the country are going to be looking at Houston.”

Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle.

(Image Credit: Cody Duty/Houston Chronicle)

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Sexual + Gender Minorities

U.S. News | Black Trans Women

Trans woman of color in killed in Florida, tenth in 2015’s increase in violence against trans individuals
  • India Clarke was found murdered in Tampa by blunt force trauma to the upper body.
  • India is the ninth trans woman of color and tenth trans person killed so far in 2015, which is consistent with a trend of year-over-year increases in violence rates experienced by the trans community.
  • Local police and media have persistently misgendered Clarke in reports and stated gender identity is not considered a factor in her death, instead focusing on Clarke’s history of sex work and drug activity.

“India Clarke’s death is a tragedy that is made worse by egregious misgendering by local police and media.”

Read the full story at BuzzFeed.

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

U.S. Feature | Garifuna Immigrants

From Honduras to the Bronx: The Garifuna of New York

Spanish photographer Elena Hermosa has trained her camera lens on the lives and culture of Garifuna immigrants in New York City. A genetic mix of African and indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, the Garifuna community has been pushed from Honduras by ongoing violence, with many having settled in the South Bronx of New York. From the precarity of the undocumented to endangered cultural traditions, the New York Times explores the subject and implication of Hermosa’s work.

View the full feature at the New York Times.

(Image Credit: Elena Hermosa, via the New York Times)