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Monday, March 28, 2022

Macedonian court sentences ringleaders of a sexual predators’ Telegram group to four years in prison

“Public Room is a Crime” banner on the February 3, 2021 protest against impunity for sexual predators in Skopje, North Macedonia. Photo by Vančo Džambaski, CC BY-NC-SA.

This story is based on original coverage by Meta.mk. An edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and the Metamorphosis Foundation.

The Basic Criminal Court Skopje passed sentences convicting two men in the “Javna Soba” trial to 4-years prison sentences on March 11, 2022.

“Javna Soba,” meaning “Public Room” (an allusion to the term “public house,” a synonym for a brothel), was a sexual predator group on Telegram with over 7,000 members, used for sharing private nude photos or videos of girls and women from North Macedonia and abroad, including child pornography.

The group’s founder, Darko Kostovski and the group’s moderator Mihail Panevski were found guilty of misusing nude photographs of women and girls and sharing personal data (first and last names, telephone numbers, and personal addresses) in the “Public Room” group on Telegram. As a result, apart from their previous 13 months of house arrest, the court sentenced them to four years in prison.

The court found both men found guilty of distributing illicit text and audiovisual content between December 19, 2019, and January 28, 2020. They were also charged with allowing group members to share videos containing child pornography, including sexual abuse involving a four-year-old child.

The court considered both men flight risks and ruled sentenced them to house arrest until they are sent to prison.

The incident came to light about two years ago after women and various NGOs came forward to complain about the group’s activities.

Protestors holding banners reading “Stop victim blaming” and “Just because I move through public space doesn't mean that my body is a public space!!!” in front of Public Prosecution Office in during February 3, 2021 protest against impunity for sexual predators in Skopje, North Macedonia. Photo by Vančo Džambaski, CC BY-NC-SA.

Public dissatisfaction exploded with a massive protest against impunity for sexual predators in January 2021. The group continued to operate freely a whole year after their existence became widely known, sparking the protest on the one-year anniversary of the scandal. Sixteen women's rights organizations, human rights groups, and numerous activists organized the protest that demanded accountability from the Ministry of Interior and the Public Prosecutor Office.

A screenshot of messages announcing the opening of the new group after the original “Public Room” was busted. The message says “!! A new group has been created. DM me to send you an invite!”

The Public Room Telegram group is currently closed. Toward the end of 2021, there were efforts to reactivate it at least three times. During that time, more than 200 people joined in a single day and 61 photographs and 14 videos were shared without the subjects’ consent. The police reacted quickly and as a result, the group and its content were blocked for the members.

At that time, the authorities announced they were investigating the “Public Room 2” case which is currently, it’s in a preliminary criminal investigation phase.

Journalist Katerina Dodevska expressed concern that thousands of sexual predators in these groups will suffer no consequences at all.

Only two men who were part of “Public Room” [groups] have been convicted… However these verdicts don't bring much hope to the victims because they are only two, while the public is aware that the Telegram groups “Public Room 1″ and “Public Room 2″ combined had around 12.100 members. Telegram refuses to provide the members data to the Public Prosecution Office, which means that the prosecutors have their hands tied in regard to conducting investigations about these cases.

Protestor holding a sign reading “Placing blame on the victim is the dirty secret of our society” during February 3, 2021 protest against impunity for sexual predators in Skopje, North Macedonia. Photo by Vančo Džambaski, CC BY-NC-SA.

Gender Equality Platform, an informal network of civil society organizations and individuals that organized participated in the 2021 protest and continued to demand accountability and protection for the victims of gender-based violence, issued a joint statement after the verdict for the two sexual predators was announced on March 11. One point of concern addressed involves the fact that the verdict of four years in prison is bellow the legal minimum of five years for such crimes, and twice as short as the legal maximum, which in their view promotes imputnity.

Civic organizations express deep dissatisfaction with the resolution of the “Public Room” court case in the first degree. With this verdict, the court sends a message that the punitive policies in the country are insufficient, inappropriate and incomplete regarding crimes which include those covered by Article 193-a of the Criminal Code. Namely the law proscribes a prison sentence of minimum 5 and maximum 8 years, while the court ruled a sentence which is half of the minimum proscribed by the law. Moreover, this sentence applies to organizers and creators who enabled thousands of other perpetrators to engage in organized sexual violence in different forms, while their victims include enormous number of women and girls who still suffer the consequences of those actions.
We know that the court is independent institution and that some might consider this reaction as an attempt to influence the judiciary, but what we are trying to do is send a message that the court must take care of both special and general prevention. On one hand it must stop all other perpetrators from committing such acts, and on the other hand to make those who had already perpetrated such acts to realize the seriousness of the crimes and not to repeat them. Therefore we consider the verdict to be insufficient, inappropriate and incomplete.

In December 2021, the Ministry of Justice of Republic of North Macedonia began a process to amend the Criminal Code by adding sexual harassment and stalking as separate criminal offenses, as recently noted by the Gender Equality Platform.

In this context, the Platform demanded urgent upgrade of the Criminal Code and the Law on Criminal Procedure in order to adhere to the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women.

The Platform also demanded urgent investigation of a Facebook group used for sexual harassment of Roma women, as well as a thorough, complete, and unbiased implementation of all necessary procedures that would ensure protection of victims of sexual harassment and related crimes. They also demanded that judges, lawyers, and public prosecutors receive proper education around gender consciousness and cases of sexual violence

Shortages hit hard in Sri Lanka as citizens protest and the government seeks IMF bailout

A fuel truck of Ceylon Petroleum. Image from Flickr by Dhammika Heenpella. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A Ceylon Petroleum fuel truck. Image from Flickr by Dhammika Heenpella. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

On March 18, 2022, the authorities announced that the final term examinations of schools in the Western Province of Sri Lanka would be delayed due to a shortage of paper and other materials required to prepare the examination papers. The printers of examination papers were unable to secure foreign currency to import the paper and ink they needed.

Twitter user @SriLankaTweet informs that the paper shortage has affected other things:

This is not the only predicament Sri Lanka is facing. Widespread shortages, such as fuel, gas, medicines, or even car parts, triggered by higher prices and foreign exchange shortages are making everyday life miserable in the country. On August 30, 2021, the country declared an economic emergency to control soaring food prices amid the foreign exchange crisis. Food inflation rose above 25 percent in February 2022.

The country is reeling from its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948 — its usable foreign currency reserves plunged below $1 billion in 2022. Sri Lanka may soon face a sovereign debt default and it has requested an IMF bailout.

An unprecedented crisis

Over the past five decades, Sri Lanka undertook several infrastructure development projects, which were financed through foreign loans. By 1989, Sri Lanka’s public debt (domestic and foreign) amounted to 109 percent of its GDP, but the country could manage it with the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as these were concessionary loans with low-interest rates — not market rates — and longer payback periods. So the government did not have to pay a huge amount of money as foreign debt repayments each year.

After the end of the 30 year-long civil war in 2009, the country needed infrastructural development and it did not generate sufficient revenue to meet its expenditure in the following decade. So it increased reliance on loans provided by export-import (exim) banks, especially from the Exim Bank of China. These loans were commercial with a shorter repayment period, and, by the end of 2020, more than half of Sri Lanka’s foreign loans were commercial, non-concessionary loans. That means the country has to repay the loan instalments within a short time or will face default. During the pandemic, the debt situation worsened and, in 2022 alone, the country has accrued a debt obligation of USD 7 billion.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka devalued its currency on March 9, 2022, causing the currency value to dip by over 30 percent.

The fuel crisis and the dominoes falling

Though the signs were there in earlier months, in early March, Sri Lanka fell into a severe fuel shortage as it did not have sufficient foreign currency to import and replenish stock. The market price of fuel rose more than 12 percent immediately. Public transport services were crippled as many buses were shut down and taxi drivers had to wait hours in queues to buy fuel as some filling stations capped the sale to a maximum of ten litres per customer. On March 20, two elderly people died while waiting for fuel.

Journalist and writer Kavinthan tweeted:

Scheduled power outages had started in February due to fuel shortage and, from March 2, power cuts were scheduled for over 7 hours in some areas. Sri Lankans on social media started reacting to the crisis.

Twitter user Rehana quipped:

Adilah Ismail, a writer based in Colombo, shared some photos:

By the first week of March 2022, approximately 1,000 bakeries had to close because of a severe shortage of cooking gas.

Storyteller and creative director Brandon Ingram tweeted:

Protests

On March 15, 2022, tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside the president's office, led by supporters of the opposition alliance the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (United People's Force) demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign.

Marianne David, the deputy editor of The Sunday Morning tweeted:

Citizens in different places in Sri Lanka, even in small numbers, are holding independent vigils and protests to show their anger against the government over the current crisis.

Writer Amalini talks about a protest in the Wattala suburb of the capital Colombo (read the whole thread).

Journalist Vajira Sumedha reported:

Twitter user Avanthi Ratnayake commented:

On March 22, Sri Lanka deployed soldiers at hundreds of petrol stations across the country to help distribute fuel and manage protests.

More loans required for the bailout

Last week, the Sri Lankan government formally requested the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a favourable support program to help the country.

On March 9, 2022, Sri Lanka imposed import restrictions on 367 non-essential items such as fruits, milk products and fish in a bid to tackle the foreign exchange shortage. On March 17, they signed a line of credit of USD 1 billion with neighbour India and a currency swap of USD 400 million was added to the deal.

The Sri Lankan government is currently negotiating with China for additional funding of USD 2.5 billion. Since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, China has provided USD 2.8 billion financial assistance to Sri Lanka, including a USD 1.5 billion currency swap.

Not just the U.S.: Residente portrays all of America in ‘This is Not America’

Screen capture from Residente's “This is Not America” music video on Youtube.

Popular Puerto Rican rapper René Pérez, best known as Residente, recently released “This is Not America,” a track that puts the spotlight on Latin America's struggles for peace and justice. By incorporating bold symbolic images of state repression, racism, and exploitation, the video already gathered more than 9 million views on Youtube and counting.

Throughout the song, Residente externalizes a familiar exasperation that many Latin Americans feel when the word “America” is used to define the United States and not the continent ranging from Argentina to Canada. In an interview with the BBC, Residente said: “From the U.S. point of view, everything that happens in the video is not America.”

Elements of the title, lyrics, and video are a direct reference to Childish Gambino's “This is America,” which had vividly denounced racism against Black people in the United States back in 2018.

Accompanied by Ibeyi, an Afro-French Cuban musical duo, Residente denounces a list of ailments plaguing the continent on strong drum beats, such as colonization and extraction of natural resources, police violence, the killings of journalists, and forced migration.

Residente also hails Indigenous contributions, such as the Mayan calendar and Túpac Amaru, an Indigenous leader from Peru who gave rise to the “Great Rebellion” against the Spanish crown in 1780. Residente draws a parallel between the 18th-century Indigenous leader and famous California-born rapper Tupac Shakur (2Pac).

Tupac is named after Tupac Amaru of Peru.
America is not only the U.S., man

The music video is also very striking and tells a story of Latin America through a multitude of cultural, sociopolitical, and historical references.

It opens with a scene portraying the historical figure of Lolita Lebrón, a leader in Puerto Rico's independence movement, who attacked the U.S. Capitol in 1954 in an attempt to give full sovereignty to the island, followed by symbolic images of a vibrant culture surviving amidst social protests and the extermination of Indigenous peoples. The image of the Indigenous man pulled by four police officers refers to when the Spanish colonizers attempted to dismember Tupac Amaru with horses in 1781.

Forced migration of families towards the United States is also referenced in the video, with a mother breastfeeding her child who has been separated from her due to U.S. immigration policy. Central Americans fleeing gang violence — represented by people with tattoos — are also seen on Mexico's side of the U.S. border wall in Tijuana. The fresh twist is that gang members are shown as victims, refugees, and fervent Catholics rather than through their reputation of being “animals,” a dehumanizing term.

The women wearing black hoods over their faces represent the Indigenous Zapatista political movement in Mexico. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN for its acronym in Spanish) took control of southern parts of Mexico, in Chiapas, to install an Indigenous-led libertarian socialist government. For many, the Zapatistas have become an example of the Indigenous and peasant struggle for self-determination as these groups have been the most historically marginalized on the continent.

A large segment is dedicated to the juxtaposition of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro eating a steak and wiping his mouth on the Brazilian flag while an Amazonian Indigenous child watches him. In Brazil, Indigenous peoples have denounced Bolsonaro for committing genocide against their populations by encouraging the accelerated deforestation of the Amazon forest for industrial crops and pastures to raise cows for meat consumption.

There is also a significant critique of U.S. companies throughout the video, particularly making reference to megacorporations like Starbucks, Amazon, and McDonald's. Indigenous children in traditional attire interact with Western companies — such as the Amazonian child throwing away boxes of what looks like Jeff Bezos’ Amazon company. Another child is filmed eating a burger. Western fast-food companies have “aggressively expanded” in Latin America, “contributing to obesity and health problems,” according to the New York Times.

The scene where the soldier shoots the musician refers to the torture and killing of Chilean singer Víctor Jara at the national stadium at the hands of state forces after the U.S.-supported 1973 coup against Salvador Allende. Numerous shots show the frequent repression of student protests throughout the region, such as the 2014 Ayotzinapa abduction and disappearance of 43 students.

Above all, the song is a tribute to Indigenous, student, peasant, and Afrodescendant resistance to state repression and extraction of resources. For example, Residente makes a reference to Latin America's economic dependence on sugar production — which drives “killings, land loss, displacement, denial of free, prior and informed consent,” according to human rights reports — by stating that campesino workers can rebel.

The machete is not only for cutting cane,
It's also for cutting heads

On Twitter, where the response to the song was overwhelmingly positive, users were quick to analyze more references from the video in Twitter threads such as this one:

The visual references I was able to identify in Residente's video:
Lolita Lebron