Management agreed to meet several union demands

Originally published on Global Voices

Workers set up a strike camp outside the industrial gate. Photo from the Facebook page of ALL Nexperia FIGHT. Used with permission.

Labor activists in the Philippines saw a major victory after a 74-hour strike of 1,800 workers at Nexperia Philippines, a Dutch semiconductors factory. The strike ended in victory on March 8 after the management agreed to increase daily wages and reinstate dismissed union officials.

Nexperia manufactures and exports transistor chips and microchips that are used in e-vehicles, phones, and other electronic devices. According to the union, their factory produces seven million products daily worth PHP 420 million (USD 7.3 million).

Negotiations on a Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2024 resulted in a deadlock after the management offered only a PHP 17 per day (USD 0.30) wage increase against a PHP 50 per day (USD 0.87) hike that workers were pushing for. In addition, four union officials were dismissed in December during the negotiations.

The union voted to hold a strike, but the government's department assumed jurisdiction of the labor dispute on February 5, further complicating the negotiations. Under the law, the labor secretary can invoke this power in industries “indispensable to the national interest.” Semiconductors compose the bulk of the country's largest exports.

Despite this legal obstacle, the union proceeded to continue with the strike by barricading the factory entrance. Workers remained defiant even after the labor department issued a “return to work” order. Workers who remained inside the factory said that they were restricted from getting food, water, and basic necessities from fellow workers and concerned citizens outside the industrial complex. They also accused the management of cutting off the electricity and water supply inside the factory.

Informal negotiations were held as the strike received support from various sectors. Finally, the management agreed to increase wages and reinstate two union officials who had been let go during the dispute. This led the union to declare the victory of the strike as work resumed on March 8.

The union saluted the unity and determination of its members.

Pinakikitunguhan, at pinangingibabawan natin sa loob ng tatlong araw ang iniindang puyat, gutom, mga karamdaman, alinlangan, at mga pangungulila. Sa tinatanaw nating layunin, kinakaya at pinagsusumikapan nating malagpasan ang bawat hamon, sa pabrika man o sa piket. Lumaban tayo hanggang tagumpay!

For three days, we faced and overcame fatigue, hunger, sickness, doubt, and homesickness. Inspired by our common goals, we hurdled and struggled to defeat every challenge, inside the factory or in the picket lines. Let us fight until victory!

Philippine labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement) noted that the strike was the biggest in several decades and that it defied the “no strike” policy inside the export-processing industrial zone. Commentators noted that while union activists won this hard-earned victory, there are still several challenges that must be dealt with:

Kasabay nito ang nagpapatuloy na hamon — ang patuloy na paglaban upang ibalik ang 2 pang opisyales at biguin ang amba ng tanggalan, ang patuloy na paggigiit ng nakabubuhay na sahod sa mga larangang lagpas pa sa empresa — sa antas pambansa, para sa lahat ng manggagawa, at ang patuloy na pagtindig at pagtatanggol sa karapatang mag-unyon at magwelga!

There remains the following challenges — the need to continue the demand to reinstate the two other union officials and defeat the threat of retrenchment, the struggle for a living wage beyond the factory — at the national level, for all workers, and the fight to defend our right to unionize and the right to strike!

Nexperia workers and their supportors express joy after successfully ending the strike. Photo from the Facebook page of ALL Nexperia FIGHT. Used with permission

The strike was held two days before International Women’s Day. The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights praised the women workers of Nexperia and the role of women rights defenders in society.

We mark this year’s Women’s Day while we express solidarity with the striking workers of Nexperia Philippines Inc. Nexperia’s Cabuyao factory has a significant population of women workers, who are now fighting for higher wages, an end to mass retrenchment, and the reinstatement of union officials

Women suffer from trade-union repression. Wives of unionists and labor activists shoulder the burden of earning money and taking care of the family when their husbands are retrenched from work, imprisoned, or disappeared.

The Council for People’s Development and Governance, a network of people’s organizations, emphasized the importance of uplifting the conditions of workers.

There is no development and economic growth without full and productive employment, and decent work for all. Respect the rights to unionize, collectively bargain and the right to strike!

In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, union president Mary Ann Castillo acknowledged the significance of their strike.

Many became aware. That’s when we started again to strengthen our union. That’s also when other workers and other unions were inspired… that what we did with our fight, despite the AJ [assumption of jurisdiction], was possible.

In an interview with independent media Bulatlat, labor leader Rowena Matienzo credited the strength of the union for the success of the strike.

Our strike was successful because we showed the unity of the workers. This is the strength that will help us succeed; we can halt production if we work together to defend our wages, jobs, and rights. The workers of Nexperia demonstrated that workers with 40 years of union experience are not to be taken lightly.

The steps outlined reflect the growing frustration in the global majority over what is perceived as Western double standards regarding international law.

Originally published on Global Voices

Screenshot from the inauguration video of the Hague Group. Published on YouTube by Progressive International.

This article was originally published in the New Arab on January 31, 2025. This edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content partnership agreement. 

Delegations from nine countries gathered in The Hague on Friday to unveil “co-ordinated legal, economic, and diplomatic measures” aimed at holding Israel accountable for its violations of international law, amid mounting threats against the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In response to pressure from the US Congress, which has sought to sanction the ICC, nine countries — Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, and Malaysia — are forming a coalition known as The Hague Group to defend the legitimacy of international legal institutions and their rulings.

This initiative comes as both the ICC and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) face significant challenges to their authority in cases relating to conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.

“The Hague Group is born of necessity,” said Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, a coordinator with the political organisation Progressive International. “In a world where powerful nations act with impunity, we must stand together to defend the principles of justice, equality, and human rights.”

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said: “Israel’s violations go beyond the mass murder and persecution of Palestinians. They strike at the very foundations of international law, which the global community had a duty to defend.”

The Hague Group nations are convening in the Netherlands, home of the ICC, to discuss collective action at both national and international levels, supporting international law and Palestinian rights during the ongoing crisis.

These discussions build upon previous actions by these countries, including Belize and Bolivia’s decision to sever diplomatic ties with Israel. In January 2024, Chile referred the situation in Palestine to the ICC and recalled its ambassador from Israel. Colombia has suspended weapons purchases from and coal exports to Israel, in addition to cutting diplomatic ties. Honduras has consistently condemned Israel's genocide against Palestinians, while Malaysia has imposed a maritime ban preventing Israel-affiliated vessels from docking at its ports. It has never had diplomatic relations with Israel.

‘The world cannot stand by and watch’

Namibia has further reinforced these efforts by blocking a vessel carrying military shipments bound for Israel and condemning Germany’s decision to support Israel in South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ, drawing parallels to Berlin's own Herero genocide in Namibia, committed by Germany between 1904 and 1908.

Senegal, under Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, has pledged to take “more concrete actions” in support of Palestinian rights.

South Africa set a major legal precedent by bringing a case against Israel at the ICJ for violations of the Genocide Convention.

“Our actions are not punitive. They are preventative, designed to ensure compliance with international law and to protect the vulnerable,” said South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola, in a joint statement.

Progressive International shared the inaugural first statement of the group In a post on Blue Sky:

BREAKING The Inaugural Joint Statement of The Hague Group.

https://buff.ly/40E8yRF

[image or embed]

— Progressive International (@progintl.bsky.social) January 31, 2025 at 9:38 AM

Sinn Fein support

From Ireland, Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney also announced his plans to travel to The Hague to support the nine-nation bloc.

“‘The Hague Group’ is a watershed moment in developing coordinated international state action against the use of genocide, occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people,” Kearney said in a statement.

The formation of ‘The Hague Group’ is a hugely significant development. It is a decisive initiative aimed at maximising international pressure for sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel until the genocide ends, Palestinian national sovereignty and self-determination are secured, and an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital is established.

‘Limited’ international action

Switzerland has been tasked with convening a conference in March for the 196 signatories of the Geneva Convention, focusing on the obligation to uphold international humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Another conference is scheduled for June in New York to discuss a two-state solution.

Additionally, the ICJ has been asked by the UN General Assembly to provide an urgent advisory opinion on Israel's obligations as the occupying power, particularly regarding humanitarian relief efforts.

Critics argue that such countermeasures remain limited, saying that Israel routinely disregards ICJ and ICC rulings.

Under former president Joe Biden, the United States gave near-unlimited military and diplomatic support to Israel as it killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, suggesting that it had little regard for international law.

The new Trump administration has signalled that it will be even more pro-Israel than the previous government, lifting sanctions on Israeli settlers and approving the delivery of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has endorsed a bill currently before Congress that would impose sanctions on any individual or entity engaging with an ICC investigation involving a US ally. The proposed measures would extend to family members of those targeted.

Insights from the Basque, Frisian and Irish language communities

Originally published on Global Voices

Join us on YouTube Live on August 27, 2024, at 11 am UTC for a discussion about media and information literacy for European regional language communities.

The internet has enabled speakers of many of Europe’s regional languages to create, share, and consume media in their native or heritage languages.

However, some believe these languages remain overlooked and that media and information literacy resources in these languages are not as widely available. Such resources are important for enabling speakers to critically engage with this information flow.

With that, there are also narratives that are shaping public discourse about events happening on local, national, or global levels that require additional attention. This GV Insights session aims to explore the current state of the media ecosystem in the Basque, Frisian, and Irish languages, through the perspective of language activists and media professionals who will help interpret how these ecosystems parallel, diverge from, or complement the media landscapes in the dominant languages, as well as the narratives that are taking place in both the ecosystems.

The session is free and open to the public. Register below if you would like to receive a reminder about the event:

Register for free on Eventbrite

The event, co-organized between Global Voices’ Civic Media Observatory and Rising Voices will be moderated by Global Voices’ Civic Media Observatory Lead, Giovana Fleck, and will feature the following panelists:

• • Mirjam Vellinga, Afûk
  • Amy O'Riordan, Wikimedia Community of Ireland
  • Urtzi Urrutikoetxea, Garabide

We look forward to having you join us on Tuesday, August 27, at 11 am UTC (click here to convert to your local time zone).

Updated, livestream recorded on August 27, 2024:

People did not receive psychological support in time

Originally published on Global Voices

Photo by Anastasiia Chepinska on Unsplash. Used under an Unsplash license.

This article originally appeared in Holod magazine. An edited version has been republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.

This is not the first death of an LGBTQ+ refugee in the Netherlands

Originally published on Global Voices

Photo by ev on Unsplash. Used under an Unsplash License.

On November 29, 2023, LGBT World Beside, a European organization supporting LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and refugees from post-Soviet countries, published devastating news on their Instagram:

With deep regret, we announce the loss of another member of our community, Mikhail, a seeker of asylum from Russia. This is the third loss this year, and we express sincere condolences to Mikhail’s family and friends. Deaths in refugee camps, especially among the LGBTQIA+ community, are becoming a troubling trend. This is no longer just an incident but a cry for help. The government and COA [Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers] need to reconsider the policy of placing refugees from vulnerable groups.

Mikhail was 24 years old. He arrived in the Netherlands and requested asylum about 12–14 months ago. According to LGBT World Beside, he was sent to an asylum seekers center in the city Echt. In the post, LGBT World Beside asks those in need to “not hesitate to seek help from family, friends, and acquaintances.” “You are not alone!” reassure activists.

An X (formerly Twitter) user wrote:

1. Пол года назад в лагере для беженцев в покончила с собой Хина Захарова из РФ, и вот сейчас пишут ещё русский парень.
Люди сидят там годами, я сам провёл 14 мес даже БЕЗ интервью(С МОИМ КЕЙСОМ!) забрали загранник, внутр паспорт, военник, которые до сих пор вернуть не могу pic.twitter.com/GSd0VdfOvt

— Роман Трегубов (@r_tregubov) November 28, 2023

Half a year ago, in a refugee camp in [The Netherlands] Hina Zakharova from Russia committed suicide, and now there is news about another Russian guy. People sit there for years, I myself spent 14 months WITHOUT an interview (WITH MY CASE!), [they] took [my] international passport, national passport, military identity cart, which they still cannot manage to return.

Read more: Transgender girl from Russia commits suicide in a refugee camp

Citing Mikhail’s assistant attorney, a spokesperson for LGBT World Beside told Global Voices that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had suspended Mikhail's process because of a “suicide outside the camp.”

A non-profit organization in the Netherlands, LGBT World Beside focuses on providing legal and psychological support to LGBTQ+ refugees and their families as well as LGBTQ+ people who still live in their countries of origin.  It was founded in 2018. The NGO holds social events and works to disseminate information in the Netherlands and countries of refugees’ origin. It tries to create a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community, make their integration into new society easier, and support them in their work on their traumatic experience and their fight against discrimination. Global Voices interviewed the NGO's representative via Telegram.

Global Voices (GV): Do you know how many LGBTQ+ refugees from Russia are now in Dutch camps?

LGBT World Beside (LWB): We do not know the exact number of LGBT asylum seekers from Russia at the moment, but we do know that, as of 2022, it could be more than 500. In most cases applicants are granted an interview at the end of 12 months. But we are also aware of cases where LGBT asylum seekers are not given a second interview, even after the official 15 months end. We hold regular meetings to make the socialization of arriving asylum seekers as comfortable as possible. Our meetings are attended by more than 80–100 people. But we understand that we are not omnipotent, and just meetings will not help to solve the issue with long waiting time.

GV: If a refugee has any kind of issue, like conflicts in the camp, or they are just heavily stressed, to whom they can go to seek help?

LWB: If an LGBT asylum seeker has a situation in which they need help, they can definitely contact the case manager at the the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) right away, or a COA employee on duty, if something happens outside of working hours. Then, the asylum seeker can also file an official complaint with the temporary accommodation camp and camp authorities are obliged to process it. Of course,  there still might be problems with emergency assistance, but if someone is really in danger, they will get help. COA staff is helpful, caring and deals with conflicts, especially within the camp. COA staff has many meetings inside the camps to make the asylum seeker’s stay as comfortable as possible. If an asylum seeker could not solve an issue, they could call us, we would contact COA and the staff would help. For example, when an asylum seeker in one of the camps far away from major medical centers felt unwell at night, a medical helicopter arrived. As far as we understand, COA and GZA (a healthcare provider for asylum seekers) staff do not refuse medical care and do help with problems. But asylum seekers may indeed wait several months for a doctor's appointment.

GV: How can refugees get psychological assistance? 

LWB: If an asylum seeker needs psychological support, they officially submit a request to the GZA inside the camp. We know that officially waiting for an appointment with a psychologist can take more than a month, sometimes two. And this is the first thing we would like to influence now. On our social media, we regularly post information on services of emergency and targeted psychological help, these are psychologists who are volunteers. But LGBT people need the support of specialists, they need safety on a regular basis. The fact that asylum seekers are on the territory of the Netherlands does not mean that they immediately feel safe, especially in light of the nonstop openly homophobic news from Russia. If waiting time for interviews has increased, we believe the support system in camps must change too as these are temporary refugee accommodation camps. Temporary, not permanent. Imagine how a person feels without certainty of being able to stay, when they have been waiting for an interview for 15 months.

GV: After the Russian Supreme Court ruled that “international LGBTQ+ movement” is an “extremist organization,” do you expect a wave of mass emigration from Russia?

We are already preparing to help on the spot. Every day it's getting harder to cross the borders. It will be hard to leave Russia, and visas are not so easy to get now.

Read more: Police immediately raids LGBTQ+ clubs in Moscow after Russia bans ‘International LGBTQ+ movement’

Algorithms in the Netherlands show pervasive structural inequalities

Originally published on Global Voices

Illustration by Global Voices.

This story is part of Undertones, Global Voices’ Civic Media Observatory‘s newsletter. Subscribe to Undertones here.

Welcome to Undertones, the newsletter where we decode narratives. In this edition, we cover how people speak about the (mis)use of AI in the Netherlands, thanks to researcher Leon Ingelse. 

Data scientist Ingelse analyzed the discussions about algorithms in the Netherlands. After all, it is a big deal in the Low Lands: in 2021, an entire government fell after years of mishandling a case of AI fraud detection among childcare beneficiaries. Thousands of families, primarily of migrant backgrounds, had been wrongly accused of cheating the system. The Netherlands, a country that takes pride in efficiency and the use of technology in government services, is a case study of how the misuse of AI can hurt the lives of individuals and undermine trust in authorities.

Nevertheless, algorithms continue to be used in municipalities throughout the Netherlands to determine who is more or less likely to commit welfare fraud — an endless hot topic in Europe. However, nearly all of this AI tech is opaque to journalists and researchers as authorities claim privacy and intellectual property concerns. Only Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, recently agreed to share the skeleton of their algorithm with journalists from investigative media Lighthouse Reports and Follow The Money. They accidentally also shared the training data sets, which provided invaluable insight into how the algorithm works from the inside out.

The journalists have found that the algorithm is a scoring card fed with personal criteria such as age, sex, and marital status, as well as elements of behavior and language skills. Rotterdam initially developed its algorithm with the help of consulting firm Accenture.

“The data fed into the algorithm ranges from invasive (the length of someone’s last romantic relationship) and subjective (someone’s ability to convince and influence others) to banal (how many times someone has emailed the city) and seemingly irrelevant (whether someone plays sports),” Lighthouse writes. 

In other words, if you are a) a woman, b) plurilingual, c) twenty or thirty-something, and d) a parent, the algorithm would file you as someone at risk of committing fraud, independently of any actual fraudulent behavior in the past. If you appear shy to the social worker, you will be even worse off. You will not know whether you’re on the blacklist, or why. Still, uncomfortable investigations by local authorities would ensue, as well as potentially losing welfare benefits.

Screenshot of the risk scores calculated by Rotterdam's welfare fraud algorithm, ask reconstructed by Lighthouse Reports.

“The Dutch tend to believe they don't have structural racism, whereas this algorithm clearly shows otherwise, as people with limited Dutch proficiency are discriminated against,” Ingelse says. Other discriminatory algorithm uses in the Netherlands have also come to light, with the profiling of nationality and ethnicity in visa applications.

AI algorithms exhibit bias due to training on skewed or insufficient real-world data and the influence of human developers’ inherent prejudice. Biases enter the system in other ways too.

How are people perceiving these revelations?

In the Dutch AI scandals, the public debate does not tend to happen via original tweets or posts, but rather only on comment sections, which, surprisingly, show an interesting array of opinions. Most of those launching the debate are journalists.

“It could be that the Dutch are tired after the Toeslagenaffaire [childcare benefits scandal], and are more focused on ChatGPT,” Ingelse says. “Also, public figures that have been part of the scandals tactically avoid answering questions about their involvement.” He adds that the only people burdened with these specific algorithms are minorities, who are often invisibilized. “Notice how these fraud algorithms are never used in profit taxes, for example, which would target the rich,” Ingelse says.

We have reached out to local Rotterdam authorities as well as the newly created group of families impacted by the algorithm to understand their perspectives, but have not received answers.

Narrative 1: “Algorithms that help fight crime should be implemented even if biased”

This narrative in a nutshell: “The algorithm is doing its job”

This narrative implies that the algorithm works, even if flawed, in fighting fraud. This discourse has been around for years. For example, at the height of the childcare benefits scandal in 2019, far-right blogger Pim Beaart, alias “Hannibal,” argued in an editorial piece that politicians only “want to use algorithms when they validate their political opinions.”

More recently, one of the largest conservative Dutch opinion magazines, EW, claimed that automated decisions in visa applications should be the norm, despite always targeting people from certain nationalities such as former Dutch colony Suriname. On Facebook, they ask: “Shouldn't the government just use digital programs that dare to filter [visa applicants] in cold blood?” Others, such as the famous media blog GeenStijl also argue in favor of efficiency, one of the most popular overarching narratives in the Netherlands.

“The Dutch consider themselves to favor efficiency above anything else,” Ingelse says. The Netherlands is leading the way in implementing digital IDs, incorporating technology in education and healthcare, and advancing governmental digitalization. Whatever they do — and how they deal with algorithmic biases — might influence how other countries develop their own AI. However, not many understand the basics of algorithms.

“Besides the expected presence of xenophobic comments and racism, this narrative will probably always be present as long as people don't understand how algorithms work and the difference between objective data and the interpretation of that data,” Ingelse says. Correlation does not mean causation.

Narrative 2: “Dutch authorities are harming their citizens by using discriminatory algorithms”

This narrative in a nutshell: “Stop using discriminatory AI”

In tweets and in comments, people claim that the Netherlands has a history of discriminatory algorithms that re-victimize vulnerable populations. Focusing on someone’s poor Dutch skills, is, for many, a subtext for targeting immigrants.

Some go further by stating that “Algorithms should be open and transparent to ensure they are not biased.” This is not the case for the vast majority of algorithms out there. So, while people criticized Rotterdam’s algorithmic use, many also lauded the city for at least sharing their algorithm with the journalists.

Most of these posts and comments come from people defending human rights, not the people directly impacted by the algorithms themselves. That is perhaps precisely because vulnerable populations are less visible online, or less vocal (in Dutch) online. However, when directly interviewed, people are very opinionated against the use of discriminatory AI. Dutch outlet Vers Breton went to Rotterdam’s market, where people with less economic means go, and interviewed shoppers — and they all criticized the use of algorithms.

Dutch legislators are also pushing for more AI regulation. “The central problem with AI development is that it's entirely market-driven: it's a multi-billion dollar industry with no rules,” Kim van Sparrentak, a member of the European Parliament with the Greens/EFA group writes in an extensive Twitter thread.

On June 5, The Netherlands marks 150 years of ‘Hindostani’ migration

Originally published on Global Voices

Feature image created by Fausia S. Abdul using Canva Pro.

With over 160,000 in the Netherlands, “Hindostanis” — the way Indian Caribbeans of all religions are commonly referred to by themselves and increasingly by others — are an indispensable part of the Dutch population. This Indian-descended group from Suriname have made a long journey, and on June 5, The Netherlands remembers the 150th anniversary of Hindostani migration, known as Prawas Din, or Immigration Day.

It all began in India under the period of British rule, known as the British Raj, which then included territory that is now part of Pakistan and on the border with Afghanistan. Much as it does today, India consisted of many religions, ethnicities and languages.

After the abolition of slavery in Suriname in 1863, there was a pressing need for labour, and more than 35,000 Hindostanis traveled from British India to Suriname from 1873–1916 to become contract workers on the plantations, some voluntary, some involuntary, and some under false pretences.

Bridge builder 34-year-old Ashwin Ramjiawan elaborates on this:

My ancestors were lured from India to Suriname as young adults with promises of a bright future for them and their families in India. Eventually, they were shipped to Suriname under degrading conditions (in cages, chained and malnourished). People try to gloss over indentured labour, but I think it’s a disguised form of slavery that caused a lot of suffering.

From India …

These contract workers came mostly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and signed five-year employment contracts: six days a week, Monday to Saturday. After this period, they were entitled to return to British India free of charge. The Surinamese government/Dutch colonial administration, first under British, then under Dutch rule, consented under the immigration agreement of 1870 to see after the well-being of the labourers, but there was widespread abuse and many of the labourers died.  The reality was much harsher than many expected.

The economic exchange also saw people from other regions such as Haryana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, resistance fighters, children who did not come home after playing outside, and adults fleeing conflict, shoved onto the boats. Among them was a minority from Afghanistan and Nepal.

Fauzia Mahomed Radja, a 39-year-old consultant at a prominent education institute in the Netherlands, believes this diversity and struggle resulted in strong descendants:

Hindostani genes in all its diversity are in me. The resilience and focus that my ancestors had made me the strong woman I am today. Even during difficult times, the strong shoulders that have been before me make me withstand whatever comes on my path.

… to South Africa …

They crossed the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope, before making the last leg across the Atlantic Ocean, to the northern part of South America. The journey initially took about three months; after the introduction of steamships, it was shortened by a month.

The ships often stopped at ports in South Africa, where Hindostanis already lived, to stock up on coal, fresh drinking water and food. The first Indians were enslaved by the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) or Dutch East India Company from the end of the 17th century, and put to work on the sugar cane and tea plantations in Natal. After the end of slavery in 1838, by which time South Africa was a British Cape Colony, Indians were employed as indentured servants. Many also migrated to South Africa between 1860 and 1911 to work as contractors on the plantations, some of whom made the further passage to Suriname.

Twenty-six-year-old Dayant Ramkalup, who is studying International Relations at Leiden University, relates that one of his maternal ancestors got off the boat in South Africa:

She traveled at 28 with children — without a husband — and I am not sure why that was, nor why she decided to continue after a while to the Caribbean on the Indus III, but she did. The majority of my ancestors went straight from Calcutta, from the ‘coolie depot’ to Suriname.

… to the Caribbean

The boats that landed in the Caribbean were mostly filled with Hindostanis. Post-arrival, however, no distinctions were made, and even if they mattered at one time, after 150 years these differences are gone. Everyone from that region and time was henceforth a Hindostani. Many of them scattered, settling everywhere from the north of Brazil, Suriname and Guyana, to Trinidad and other Caribbean islands.

The Suriname experience

The conditions on the plantations of Suriname were tough, but there were strict rules to make allowances for religious observances. In addition to Christian and Dutch national holidays, Hindus were given 32 days of leave per year and Muslims 16, in accordance with their religious traditions. In general, Hindus and Muslims coexisted peacefully throughout the contract period, and Suriname still enjoys this level of religious tolerance, with a synagogue, a mosque and a church all lining one street.

The Hindostanis who did not return to India lived frugally, subscribing to the concept of pet khat-khat, or sparing your belly. Any money obtained back then was typically converted into gold coins, which later served as a medium of exchange or dowry. After the contract period, informal organisational forms emerged on the plantations to represent the interests of the immigrant population in the colony.

Ayman Kariman, a 23-year-old law student at Leiden University, shared:

When people ask me about my background I say that I am an Islamic Hindostani whose parents are from Suriname but my roots are in India. People often fail to see that Suriname is a mixture of different origins and that being Hindu is a religion, not our ethnicity. That's why we use the term Hindostani now, and not Hindustani, to signify all Indian Caribbeans. Our Hindostani family history spans three continents and this is a very special story.

Finally, to the Netherlands

More than 100 years after the arrival of the first immigrant ship, Lalla Rookh, and about three generations later, Suriname gained its independence from The Netherlands on November 25, 1975. Its legacy of colonial rule created the conditions that caused it to be a multicultural society.

However, the various forms of ethnic oppression and divide-and-rule policies practised by colonial rulers resulted in division among Surinamese, causing both political and social unrest among different ethnic groups before, during, and after independence. Concerned that oppression would follow from the nationalism that was already emerging, Hindostanis migrated en masse to the Netherlands in 1975.

By this time, about 30,000 had already migrated to Guyana and Curaçao, and vice versa, coming to Suriname to travel on to the Netherlands. However, despite a progressive Dutch cabinet at the time, which spoke out against colonisation, migration was a thorn in the side of Dutch politics in the pre-Independence years. The state expected that speeding up the Independence process would counteract the migration flow.

In reality, the opposite happened, and migration to the Netherlands increased. Jan Pronk, the labour party minister responsible for development cooperation, argued for a transitional period (1975–1980), during which Surinamese could easily exchange their passport for a Dutch passport, but both Dutch and Surinamese politicians were afraid that the racial tensions between Hindostanis and Blacks (called “Creoles” locally) would get out of hand, as had happened in Guyana.

Because Hindostanis who remained in Suriname after their contracts were terminated were granted land, they began to climb up the economic ladder, forming a large part of the middle class. As early as the 1960s, young people went to the Netherlands to pursue their education with the idea of ​​returning with their knowledge to help improve Suriname, but many stayed in the Netherlands once they had the chance. Labour migration soon followed on the heels of educational migration.

Collections specialist at the Library of Rotterdam, Aarti Bajnath, considers how her own migration history contributed to her identity:

I feel like a Surinamese-Hindostani and Dutch woman. I came to the Netherlands when I was 10 and had no trouble adjusting. I think the mix of all the stops enroute over decades has made me who I am now!

The modern-day Netherlands

Between 1979 and 1992, a second wave of migration to the Netherlands took place, mostly for social security reasons. Now, almost 1.5 percent of the Dutch population is of Hindostani descent. The Hague itself has about 50,000 Hindostani — about 10 percent of the total population.

People, including Hindostani themselves, know little or nothing about this history, and if they do, it is a coloured and narrow one, but more and more, the background of this group is becoming visible, with a new generation of youth in The Netherlands actively telling their stories. However, for a more international audience, the hectic journey and rich heritage of Indian Caribbeans, Hindostani, of Suriname is still invisible.

Meera Nankoe, the 33-year-old founder of Stage and Stories, sums it up this way:

 As a Hindostani in the Netherlands, I feel a strong connection to my cultural background, but my identity has become fragmented over time due to a growing awareness of my ancestors’ journey. I struggle to find my home, because I have no clear place in India, Suriname or the Netherlands. Despite the challenges, I realize that my true home is in my heart, where I can be with the people I love.

Who is fleeing Russia after February 24, 2022?

Originally published on Global Voices

Asylum seekers are waiting day and night in front of refugee center in Ter Apel, which has no available space. August 2022. Author: Konstantin, used by Global Voices with permission

After February 24, 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens left Russia and settled in countries ranging from Armenia to Argentina. Some of them sought asylum, officially becoming refugees.

Russian refugees have always constituted a small percentage of the total number of asylum seekers in the world. Even after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and beginning of the military draft, this proportion remains insignificant. Nevertheless, in the U.S., the number of asylum requests from Russians increased almost 50-fold last year, and it has more than doubled in the  EU. The composition of applicants has changed, too. Whereas previously it was mostly persecuted residents of Chechnya, political activists from Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, now Russians persecuted for their anti-war stance, or deserters and potential soldiers are also among asylum seekers.

Oksana and her son left Russia in 2014 and, due to a complicated case, until recently lived in a camp in Dronten, the Netherlands. For a long time, they were the only Russians. “The first Russians in my memory showed up at our camp around 2017-2018. They were LGBTQ+ refugees. The first to arrive was just one family with children. Later, singles and couples started showing up, but no more than ten people. In 2021, political refugees from the prosecuted Anti-Corruption Foundation began to arrive. Young men. I remember only one woman who came because of possible arrest as Jehovah's Witnesses were declared extremists. Again, no more than 10 people. After February 24, 2022, not a single Russian who had fled from mobilization appeared in our camp. Today,  there are about 16 people from the LGBT+ community, three families from the Caucasus, and one girl political refugee of the 1,300 people in our camp. This is the largest number of Russians I have met in this camp in eight years.”

Despite the lack of a land border, the difficulty of boarding planes with connecting flights in Amsterdam, and the ban on issue of short-term visas inside Russia, three times as many Russians sought asylum in the Netherlands last year. And a new category emerged: opponents of the war.

Opponents of war as refugees: Konstantin's story

Konstantin can’t be called a typical political activist but has always been against the current Russian regime and openly expressed his position. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine prompted him to be active. He started looking for an opportunity to help Ukrainians. Konstantin got a message from a man who planned to volunteer at the Poland–Ukraine border. So, Konstantin got a 30-day Spanish visa and, on July 12, also went to Przemysl in Poland. Konstantin told Global Voices:

При всём неуважении к телевизору, видя столько людей за войну, думалось, может, это я ошибаюсь, не могут же ошибаться все. И хотелось лично увидеть беженцев, поговорить с ними. Что и делал потом. К сожалению, прав оказался я, война скотская, Россия оказалась в роли убийцы и насильника. В Пшемышле на вокзале меня встречал волонтёр, который отрабатывал последний день и возвращался в Америку. Он сразу сказал, что скорее всего в РФ меня ждёт тюрьма. Раз за перепосты в соцсетях дают сроки, то за реальную помощь украинцам посадят однозначно. Через некоторое время я узнал, что организация, в которой я работаю (Russian for Ukraine — прим. Global Voices) добавлена в список нежелательных организаций РФ. И хотя документально я никак не устраивался, но для суда это не имеет значения. Для него реальные дела в кои то веки перевешивают бумажку. Поэтому я начал подумывать в какой стране податься на беженство. Польша для меня не была вариантом. У меня сложилось мнение что россиян здесь не особо любят. Нам несколько раз отказывали в регистрации на вокзале, мол волонтёров достаточно, но регистрировали японцев, которые пришли сразу после нас. Случайная украинка, которой помогал с чемоданами на вокзале узнав мои проблемы активно агитировала в пользу Нидерландов. Поговорив с другими волонтёрами, также услышал массу доводов за этот вариант. В общем решил остановиться на нём».

With all due disrespect to [Russian] television, seeing so many people being pro-war, I thought, maybe I'm the one who's wrong, can't everyone be wrong. And I wanted to see the refugees myself, talk to them. Which I did later on. Unfortunately, I was right: The war’s brutal, Russia’s a murderer and rapist. At the train station in Przemysl, I was met by a volunteer who worked his last day and was returning to America. He told me right away that I’d most likely end up in jail in Russia. If you get jail time for reposting on social media, then you'll definitely go to jail for really helping Ukrainians. After a while, I found out that the organization where I worked [Russians for Ukraine] had been added to the list of undesirable organizations in Russia. I began to think about what country to apply for asylum. Poland was not an option for me. I had an impression that Russians are not particularly liked here. Several times they refused to register us at the station, saying there were enough volunteers, but they registered Japanese, who came right after us. A random Ukrainian woman, whom I helped with the bags at the station, hearing about my troubles, actively agitated for the Netherlands. I also heard a lot of arguments for this option from other volunteers.

When Konstantin’s visa expiration date was a few days away, he took a bus to Amsterdam. He spent the last of his money buying a local SIM card, then found a chat group of the local Russian-speaking community and asked for help. He was assisted with a one-night stay, and the next day went to the refugee center in Ter Apel. Konstantin's wife and two children came to the Netherlands later on, and the family reunited at the refugee center in Echt. There are about 10 Russians there besides Konstantin’s family. Someday, Konstantin might go to Russia to sell his apartment and pick up expensive bicycles, but he has no plans to return permanently, even when Putin is gone.

I used to work as head of production at a small furniture factory. And whenever anyone came in for work, the topic of Ukraine was always brought up. Engineer colleagues said I was naive and listened to the wrong propagandists. The workers reacted more sharply. One of them said he wouldn't be surprised if someone hit me on the head with a pipe on my way back from work.

Я работал начальником производства на небольшой мебельной фабрике. И когда кто-либо заходил по работе, всегда заводил разговор на тему Украины. Коллеги-инженеры говорили, что я наивный и слушаю не тех пропагандистов. Рабочие более резко реагировали. Один сказал, что не удивится, если по дороге с работы мне кто-нибудь даст по голове трубой.

Hiding from the military draft: Ulyana's and Egor's story

In the fall of 2022, another new category of Russian refugees appeared— those hiding from the military draft. According to various estimates, between 500,000 and one million men fled Russia because of the draft. Two men even sailed to Alaska.

In June 2022 the Netherlands imposed a moratorium on asylum requests from Russian men aged 18–27, conscripts, and deserters. Ulyana and Egor came to the Netherlands and applied for asylum in May 2022. “The IND (The Immigration and Naturalization Service) placed us under the moratorium because my husband was within two months of 27 when we applied for asylum,” Ulyana said. “We’re trying to challenge this decision because our case has nothing to do with the army, but only with political persecution. The lawyer thinks there is no point in arguing with the IND, they won't change their decision.”

Ulyana and her husband are being helped by Free Russia NL, a community of Russian-speaking residents of the Netherlands. “Over the past year we had several meetings with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote open letters and got answers. Recently the ministry published a document describing the situation in Russia, with realistic understanding of how dissent is persecuted there,” said board member Ira Heuvelman. She adds that political activists and LGBTQ+ people are still getting positive decisions — residence permits — but it takes a long time. “Some people think of a refugee status as a quick and easy way to legalize themselves in Europe. It is not. Procedures might take years, and asylum seekers have to be in very difficult conditions.”

The new conscription law that has come into force — “electronic serfdom,” as it has been nicknamed in Runet (the Russian segment of the internet) — deprives Russians of the opportunity not to accept a draft invitation letter. Conscripts are simply added to a special register, and, after 20 days, if a man fails to show up, he is automatically deprived of the ability to leave the country legally, his driver's license is revoked, and his right to dispose of property is restricted. For this reason, it is very likely that Europe and America will face a new wave of Russian refugees.

Lack of psychological and medical support might be leading cause of suicides

Originally published on Global Voices

Made by Global Voices with OpenAI

The Twitter account of the Feminist Resistance Movement (a grassroots anti-war organisation originated in Russia) published tragic news about the death of a transgender girl from Russia who committed suicide in a refugee camp in the city of Drachten in the Netherlands.

Трансгендерная девушка из России покончила с собой в лагере для беженцев в Нидерландах

Хина Захарова подала прошение о предоставлении ей убежища в декабре 2022 года. Ранее девушка сообщала, что в стране серьёзные проблемы с очередью на получение гормонозаместительной терапии.
pic.twitter.com/H5BAfjqeYB

— Fem Antiwar Resistance (@femagainstwar) March 1, 2023

A transgender girl from Russia committed suicide in a refugee camp in the Netherlands.  Khina Zakharova applied for asylum in the Netherlands in December 2022.  Earlier, the girl complained that there were serious problems with the queue for hormone replacement therapy in the country.

Khina Zakharova applied for asylum in the country in December 2022. At the time of the application, she needed hormone replacement therapy, the queue for which in the Netherlands, as Khina was informed, was long, with the approximate waiting period of over two years. The burden of accumulated problems turned out to be unbearable for Khina, resulting in tragedy.

This terrible case exposes the problem of access to psychological and medical care in refugee camps. Representatives of the LGBTQ+ community are at high risk when it comes to suicide. According to one study, 41 percent of transgender people have attempted suicide. Such risks increase many times over in the situations of extreme uncertainty and stress in which refugees often find themselves.

Maria (not her real name), an LGBTQ+ activist who left Russia for Europe, believes that the lack of timely psychological support and negative social pressure might be leading causes of suicides in the community:

Большинство людей в России относится к ЛГБТК-сообществу предвзято, не вникая в детали. В случае с трансгендерными людьми эта предвзятость напрямую влияет на скорость социальной адаптации человека. Несмотря на то, что в Европе ситуация в целом лучше, всегда можно столкнуться с людьми, отвергающими тебя.

Most people in Russia are biased towards the LGBTQ+ community, reluctant to understand the pains and struggles of the community. In the case of transgender people, this bias directly affects the speed of a person's social adaptation. Despite the fact that the situation in Europe is generally better, one can often face people who reject them.

The Netherlands is a country known for its tolerance and attention to the problems of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as for its respect for the idea of psychological support for everyone who feels the need for it. However, LGBTQ+ people living in this country evidently face certain problems. According to Wouter Kikens, doctoral researcher at the University of Groningen: “The number of reported cases of discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people has increased from 428 in year 2009 to 2471 in 2021. […] Seven out of ten LGBTQ+ people are subjected to discriminatory violence, both verbal and physical.” Kikens believes that although in general the Netherlands is a fairly tolerant country, it has a lot to learn from other cultures in respect to its attitude to the LGBTQ+ community. For example, berdashi or people with two souls have long lived in the Indigenous peoples of North America, identified as people of the “third sex” and they were fully accepted in the community.

What can possibly be done to prevent tragedies like Khina's suicide from happening?

First of all, it is necessary that a person going through a difficult period in life should be able to find timely help, at least remotely. In particular, for English/Dutch speakers in the Netherlands, there is a telephone hotline for psychological support for suicide prevention: 0800-0113 (English/Dutch). There is also a local Support Service telephone line (0800-0333), which employs multilingual specialists, including Russian-speaking ones. They also have an application.

Further, the help services need volunteers who can support those who do not speak the language of the given country, as well as help to find the right medical specialist. Some of the volunteers must be ready to accompany new arrivals to a doctor's appointment as an interpreter.

Finally, the direct participation of the state authorities of the hosting country is equally important. Medical hormone therapy is vital for transgender people, and psychological assistance can be attributed to basic needs in this case, along with food and other basic necessities.

The number one cause of suicide is untreated depression. Depression is treatable, and suicide is preventable. You can get help from confidential support lines for the suicidal and those in emotional crisis. Visit Befrienders.org to find a suicide prevention helpline in your country. 

The apology represents ‘a comma, not a full stop’

Originally published on Global Voices

Kunstwerk het Slavernijmonument, Monument of Dutch slavery past, designed by Alex da Silva, Delfshaven district of Rotterdam, Netherlands. Photo by Wikifrits on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

On December 19, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte formally apologised on behalf of the Netherlands’ State for its role in the trade in enslaved peoples in former Caribbean colonies. He spoke for 20 minutes in front of an invited audience at the National Archives in The Hague.

The Dutch leader also announced the establishment of a 200 million euro fund in the Netherlands and in the former colony of Suriname, for “social initiatives” that will give the history of slavery “the visibility, attention and action that is needed.” Additionally, he announced that “an independent and broadly composed commemoration committee will consider the best way to respectfully commemorate the past as collectively as possible in the future.” He asserted that the apology represented “a comma, not a full stop.”

The pragmatic, centre-right Prime Minister’s apology came in the wake of a 2021 report entitled “Chains of the Past” from the Advisory Board of the Slavery Past Dialogue, which recommended that the Dutch government acknowledge and apologise for its involvement in slavery. The report noted:

This is about recognising that the slave trade and slavery that took place directly or indirectly under Dutch authority between the 17th century and July 1st, 1863 were crimes against humanity. The suffering of all those who fell victim to those crimes and the suffering of their descendants must also be recognised.
Apologies help to heal historical suffering, but apologies are primarily aimed at building a common future.

The Dutch were pioneers of the slave trade in the Americas, through the Dutch West India Company, which began participating in the Atlantic slave trade as early as 1621.

Prior to the apology, on December 6, Dutch King Willem-Alexander announced the commissioning of an independent research project into the Royal Family’s role in Dutch colonialism and slavery. The study will be conducted over three years by a five-person committee, including historians and a human rights expert. The King stated:

In-depth knowledge of the past is essential to understanding historical events and developments and to viewing their impact on people and communities as clearly and honestly as possible …”

The Caribbean’s response to the Dutch apology was mixed — positive in some respects, guarded or even dismissive in others. Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, vice-chancellor of The University of the West Indies, and chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission noted that with the apology, “the reparatory justice movement has moved into a new phase.” However, he characterised it as “an internal conversation within the Dutch state,” observing that the Netherlands “continues to be an imperial nation holding Caribbean people impoverished in colonial bondage.”

The Commission's Ten-Point Action Plan states its position on Full Formal Apologies:

The healing process for victims and the descendants of the enslaved and enslavers requires as a precondition the offer of a sincere formal apology by the governments of Europe. Some governments in refusing to offer an apology have issued in place Statements of Regrets.

Such statements do not acknowledge that crimes have been committed and represent a refusal to take responsibility for such crimes. Statements of regrets represent, furthermore, a reprehensible response to the call for apology in that they suggest that victims and their descendants are not worthy of an apology. Only an explicit formal apology will suffice within the context of the CRJP [CARICOM Reparations Justice Program].

The Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of four countries, including three in the Caribbean: Sint Maarten, Aruba, and Curaçao. The islands of Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius are part of the Netherlands, as municipalities.

The South American country of Suriname (a member of CARICOM) was seized from the British by the Dutch in 1667 and transformed into a plantation society dependent on African slave labour. Slavery in Suriname was finally abolished on July 1, 1863 (the 150th anniversary will be celebrated there next year), although “freed” slaves were still obliged to work on plantations for another 10 years. Granted autonomy within the Kingdom in 1954, Suriname finally gained full independence in 1975.

Some Surinamese activists and some politicians expressed concerns, especially about the way in which the apology was conducted. Confusing reports had emerged on December 6 that the Dutch deputy prime minister would be visiting to discuss the issue. The country’s largest opposition party was unhappy with an apparent lack of consultation, and boycotted a viewing of the Dutch government's announcement. In a statement posted on Facebook, it noted:

The NDP is outraged that Suriname is suddenly exhibiting a changed attitude and a one-sided process is being deployed, but also drawn by the Netherlands. This reprehensible position that is now taken by Suriname, takes place without the participation of various stakeholders and descendants of enslaved, nationally and internationally. This is about atrocities that happened in the colonies by the slave masters against the slaves. Suriname is not alone in this, this topic is very topical internationally. That's why the burning questions are: Why isn't it being pulled together with Caricom? Why is the government of Suriname agreeing to a date that doesn't matter for Suriname 19th December 2022?

So, was the timing right? The Dutch Prime Minister suggested in his speech that there was not “one right time for everyone.”

Black activists in other territories have also been scathing in their criticism.

An activist from Curaçao tweeted that the Euro 200 million fund is a “pittance” and that the response from some countries is self-serving and dishonours their ancestors:

Whether the Dutch government apologizes for slavery or not today, the smug ignorance of the act itself is clear. By cheapening the meaning of an apology for a crime against humanity Rutte, and his accessories to the crime, hope to hollow out and stymie reparations calls.

— (@quinsyg) December 19, 2022

In neighboring Guyana, the Afro-Guyanese International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDAPADA-G) took a more positive stance: “We look forward to subsequent initiatives on your Government’s part in response to the just and global call for reparations as the ultimate act of recompense.” The Dutch had three colonies in Guyana, using enslaved Africans as labour, for close to 200 years until the early 19th century.

The Guyana Reparations Committee said it was “somewhat dismayed” that the apology did not extend to their country, but conceded: “With this in mind, we see the apology as the beginning of a path of constructive dialogue that will lead to repair, reparatory justice.” Committee Chairman Armand Zunder regretted the lack of prior discussion. “It was actually a one-way street approach,” he said, while accepting the apology in good faith.

There was some reaction in Jamaica. A Jamaica Gleaner editorial noted:

Mr Rutte’s government hasn’t embraced the idea of reparations in its full sense. But he has come part of the way. He admitted that a wrong was committed and that the Dutch state, operating in perpetuity, is obligated to accept responsibility. That obligation is not only moral, but legal. Reparatory justice, in this context, insists on atonement and restitution.

Indeed, Mr Rutte should recommend that his European colleagues follow suit and apologise and set the basis for serious negotiations with their former colonies of the formulas to determine quantum, and formats for the delivery, of reparations.

Co-chair, the National Council on Reparation and director, Centre for Reparation Research at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Professor Verene Shepherd, shared her thoughts in radio interviews, noting that most countries had not previously used the word “apology” and commenting:

I encourage all former colonial powers, to which the CARICOM Reparations [Commission] sent letters, to issue their own apologies instead of replies setting out their social and philanthropic actions in the Caribbean, remind[ing] us of their activism on modern-day slavery, remind[ing] us of their grants and loans since independence and statements of deep sorrow, regret, and remorse that stop short of taking full responsibility for a crime against humanity and acting on the CARICOM 10-point plan for reparatory justice.

One Twitter user pointed out that the apology coincided with the discovery of oil off the coast of Suriname. Could this be a motivation?

> Oil found in Suriname

The Netherlands:

“Hey guys, we know we are 159 years too late but better late than never

We want to apologize about the slavery” pic.twitter.com/zPFNc40bhi

— Romano (@RNR_0) December 20, 2022

One Jamaican broadcast journalist held a different view. Are reparations still needed, he asked; or is it time for Caribbean people to assert their own independence:

“Up you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will” is not just a popularly used phrase and should never be. Yes, I believe there should be an apology from ALL responsible for the enslavement of people for centuries. I also wonder how much we will be relieved and achieve after reparations are paid.
Do we need to be GIVEN something by those who have TAKEN so much? Or can we prove we are able to prove our greatness as a people without it? I believe we have and can.

As Caribbean people mull over the implications of the Dutch apology, many wonder: what next? One thing is for sure: the apology has reopened debate on reparations in the public sphere. Will there be further developments in 2023?

Mirjam Vellinga promotes digital access to the Frisian language

Originally published on Global Voices

Image taken by Willem van Valkenburg and used under a CC BY 2.0 license.

Editor's note: From April 20-26, 2022, Mirjam Vellinga will be hosting the @EuroDigitalLang rotating Twitter account, which explores how technology can be used to revitalize European minority or regional languages. Read more about the campaign here.

Since 1928, the Afûk has been a well-regarded organization with a mission to promote the Frisian language and culture in all types of spaces in the Dutch province of Fryslân. The language has managed to remain in daily life, and, according to the Afûk, nearly all of the province’s 642,000 residents understand the language. According to the Afûk website,  “this means that you will encounter Frisian and use it everywhere in the province: at the baker’s, at the supermarket, at the library, at the doctor’s office, at school, at the card club, on the sports fields, on signs for cities and villages, in the media, in the theatre and at work.”

The Afûk’s contributions include providing language courses for adults, publishing electronic books and magazines, creating apps, and providing consulting services for companies and organizations on creating policies to encourage the language’s use.

Photo provided by Mirjam Vellinga and used with permission

The organization was well-known to Mirjam Vellinga, who was raised by parents who were both Frisian language speakers. It was only when she moved away from Fryslân to study at the University of Groningen did she grow to appreciate how unique the language is and “the social, psychological and political factors that are connected to speaking a minority language.” She soon switched from studying English to studying Frisian, and shortly after graduating started to work for the Afûk, where she has remained for twenty years. Currently she holds the position of project leader of the international projects.

Rising Voices interviewed Miriam over email.

Rising Voices (RV): What is the current state of your language both online and offline?

Mirjam Vellinga (MV): At the moment a little more than half of the population in Fryslân speaks Frisian as their first language and around 75 percent of the population speaks Frisian on a daily basis. Almost all of the province’s approximately 650,000 inhabitants can understand the language: about 95 percent. This means that you’ll come across Frisian everywhere in everyday life.

Half of all Frisians are able to read Frisian easily. However, a small proportion of Frisians have a good written command of their language. This number has steadily increased in recent years. This is due to education and the increasing use of social media in Frisian. There are concerns about the language transfer from parents to their children. That is slowly decreasing and one of the most important factors to keep a language alive.

The online state is on an intermediate level so to speak. On the one hand, several applications have been developed. On the other hand, it are usually not the big tech companies that automatically develop their applications in Frisian.

The following applications are now available:

• Google Translate through community development
• Facebook in Frisian through community development
• Gboard and Swiftkey as automatic text predictors
• Frisian as a language in Microsoft Office with built-in spelling and grammatical corrector on Windows operating systems (however, this has to be downloaded separately, and is not automatically integrated in updates and when people buy Microsoft Office software).
• Navigation in Frisian through Waze
• Online Frisian-Dutch dictionaries and translation tools

RV: What are your motivations for seeing your language present in digital spaces?

MV: It is very important for a language to be present in the daily life of people. Maybe even more so for a minority/small/minoritized language. You should be able to use your language anytime, everywhere. For a majority/dominant language, that is a given; for a smaller language you always have to fight for your space and compete against the power of the bigger language. Your language has to be present at those places where your (potential) speakers are. And since we are all present in the digital world, your language should definitely be present there as well.

RV: Describe some of the challenges that prevent your language from being fully utilized online.

MV: For the big tech companies investing in smaller languages is economically not very interesting. That means you always have to ask and lobby for it and that it takes a lot of time for your language to be included. Most of the speakers by that time are used to using the dominant language for that specific application and it is very hard to win them back. It always takes extra effort and money to get your language included. We are particularly interested in technology that is applied in the home as the home domain is still very strong when it concerns the use of Frisian. Through technology other languages are however introduced in the home, think of smart home appliances, social care robots, etc., which threatens the natural space that our language has in the home. Children are especially sensitive to this and will therefore attach less value to their own language.

RV: What concrete steps do you think could be taken to encourage younger people to begin learning their language or keep using their language?

MV: At the moment we are focusing both on language learning and language awareness and assertiveness in schools (primary, secondary and vocational education). It is important that younger people learn the language and are able to speak, read and write it, but it is also important that they feel comfortable using it, understand more about their language behavior and language use and the mechanisms behind that. Peer to peer conversations about their language use and specific assignments at school that focus on working with the language in a practical way (thinking about how Frisian can become more visible in the company where they do their internship for instance) work very well in our experience.

In order to make it easier for young people to use the language digitally, we have developed several translation tools and there are other tools available as well, like Gboard and Swiftkey. Not everyone knows that they are there, so we are also focusing on promoting those tools in an attractive way (short clips, distributed on several social media platforms).

For the next generations to use the language it is essential to educate young parents about the value of the minority language and how to raise children multilingual in different situations. In Fryslân there is a magazine and an online platform to inform young parents about this and they receive a special language gift (Taalkado) when they register the birth of their child with the local government.

The free flow of information is a crucial tool to counter disinformation.

Originally published on Global Voices

Keyboard warfare. Photo by Global Voices, CC BY 3.0.

This article explores the link between disinformation and cybersecurity that could lead to different effects on society, in relation to the current events in Russia and Ukraine

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, nations across Europe rose to respond to the crisis, raising questions, not only about its consequences for the affected countries and beyond but also about various implications around disinformation and digital rights.

As technology has progressed rapidly over the years, resulting in a digital revolution, a number of security experts concluded that certain advancements could lead to “hybrid wars” in which cyberweapons and disinformation may become a type of weapon in psychological warfare around the globe. Similarly, the current pandemic has been accompanied by a so-called “infodemic” as well. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the practices of information that influence our everyday lives, as an essential part of maintaining the world’s security and stability.

What is disinformation?

Disinformation, also known as black propaganda, is the dissemination of misleading information that can undermine democratic trust, while posing a notable threat to many aspects, including security, without the target audience being aware of its influence. A strategic approach that critically understands the political context and the various ulterior motives is required to tackle disinformation. Some of the risks commonly associated with disinformation are massive false dilemmas, populist narratives, or public apathy.

It has been used throughout history, from Roman–Persian Wars (54 BCE — 628 CE), throughout WWII Nazi propaganda (when the term “big lie” was coined, describing a lie so colossal that no one would question it), to  recent years in which the phenomenon became widespread with the rise of social media platforms and the controversial 2018 Cambridge Analytica case.

According to the updated 2021 EU Policy Department for External Relations Study on Disinformation and Propaganda, the best weapon against it is “critical media literacy.” This makes it a cybersecurity issue since social media platforms often serve as its primary amplifiers.

The disinformation front

At present, the disinformation war continues in real time. According to TIME, the Kremlin ran a multi-method disinformation campaign while invading Ukraine to manipulate the public narrative. Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba stated:

According to intelligence, Russia plans a massive false flag operation to ‘dehumanize’ Ukrainians and accuse Ukraine of alleged inhuman actions. Don’t trust fakes. Ukraine defends its land in a just and defensive war. Unlike Russia, we don’t target kindergartens and civilians.

— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) February 25, 2022

Cindy Otis, a disinformation researcher and former CIA analyst interviewed by TIME, identifies one of the main tactics as disinformation in the battlefield that intimidates and demoralizes the Ukrainian military and civilian population. Russian propaganda has been especially widespread through Telegram, a popular messaging app that uses end-to-end encryption.

On February 26, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, and YouTube faced pressure over the war, which highlighted big tech’s difficulties to moderate content at scale. Facebook, Google, and Twitter removed user profiles that violated the guidelines by spreading disinformation, in addition to imposing other limitations, such as demonetization and prohibiting them from running ads.

As of March 4, Russian regulators banned Facebook and Twitter in response to their limitations on Russian state-owned media outlets, such as RT, stating that such restrictions violated the key principles of freedom of information. The Russian parliament also passed a law punishing the intentional spreading of “false information” about the military with fines and a jail term up to 15 years of prison. Subsequently, several Western media outlets suspended reporting in Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia’s internet regulator Roskomnadzor's ban of Facebook and Instagram on March 14 resulted in a 2,000% rise in demand for VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) in Russia.

Meanwhile, Western countries continuously receive an immediate stream of information from a number of different sources, which may often create an information overload — inevitably, some of it is disinformation shared from one news outlet to another, either as deliberate media manipulation, or inadvertently.

ABC has one such example: First Draft’s Australian bureau editor Esther Chan pointed out a 2020 video supposedly showing warplanes over Ukraine that was shared an hour after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of war, but was not. Another viral post seemingly showing footage from battle turned out to be a clip from a video game. Croatian media outlet Index.hr had also recently issued an article debunking all false information they had mistakenly published about the war, so far.

The cyber front

Experts claim that cyberattacks are a central part of modern warfare and quickly spread across the global economy through supply chains. Just before the military invasion, a group of Russian hackers carried out a series of cyberattacks targeting Ukrainian government, banking, defense, and aviation websites, which affected the systems in Latvia and Lithuania that had particular connections with the Ukrainian government.

At the same time, hackers led by the Anonymous group declared cyberwar on Russia. Afterward, RT.com was declared to be under a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, in which the target is flooded with traffic, thus disabling the normal workflow. The Kremlin and the State Duma websites were periodically disabled allegedly due to DDoS attacks as well.

Amid the Russia–Ukraine crisis, the ECB requested European banks across the eurozone to increase their cyber defenses, declaring that the issue should be a top priority in the midst of intensified geopolitical tensions, according to Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine could spread to other countries, following warnings issued by Western security officials, as did EUObserver. 

Map of Ukraine with plastic soldiers. Photo by Global Voices, CC BY 3.0.

In an effort to assist countries under cyberattack, the EU activated a Cyber Rapid Response Team consisting of 8–12 national cybersecurity officials of 6 European countries  —  Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, and Romania — which was deployed across Europe.

On February 26, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for digital transformation, announced on Twitter the creation of an IT army for defense and counterattacks, calling “digital talents” to join the resistance effort.

While long-term consequences are still difficult to assess, experts say they are more concerned with institutional than personal attacks, DW reports.

Disinformation and freedom of expression

There is an ongoing dilemma around disinformation, censorship, and freedom of expression, particularly as governments introduce regulation of social media in the interest of addressing false information. Platform companies have their own moderation policies, which have sometimes drawn criticism of restricting legitimate speech. While governments can take a direct role in promoting transparent content moderation online, there’s also a risk that some governments may label critical content as disinformation, thus limiting free speech.

In the report “Disinformation and Freedom of Opinion and Expression,” Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, examined these threats in the context of disinformation:

“…the free flow of information is a critical element of freedom of expression and places a positive obligation on States to proactively put information of public interest in the public domain, and promote plural and diverse sources of information, including media freedom. It can be a valuable tool for countering disinformation.”

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (ECHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) enshrine the right to freedom of expression. Freedom of expression may be restricted in accordance with Article 10 of the ECHR and Article 19 of the ICCPR which require all restrictions to be provided for by law and to be necessary for the legitimate aim of respecting the rights and reputations of others and to protect national security, public order, or public health or morals.

At the EU level, given that disinformation and misinformation represent an evolving threat, there are many initiatives against them highlighting, among other things, the need for cooperation, fact-checking, and building societal resilience and credible sources of information, especially in cyberspace.

Evidently, the rise of new technologies is heavily impacting aspects of modern-day life — the extent of this crisis still remains an open question. In the midst of the rapid growth of online information and disinformation, it’s important to foster a quality societal dialogue that aims to connect individuals, rather than isolate them from each other.

For more information about this topic, see our special coverage Russia invades Ukraine.

From Australia to Jamaica, activists are championing the interests of the planet

Originally published on Global Voices

School climate rally Brisbane March 2019 – Photo courtesy Flickr user School Strike 4 Climate Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

June 5 marks World Environmental Day, the date chosen by the United Nations in 1972 to raise global awareness about the vital importance of the environment.

Global Voices has covered environmental issues extensively over the years, and one focus of our stories has been the climate crisis — and the activists who champion this cause. Here are a few that have most captured our attention so far this year:

Despite the urgency around climate change, the current Australian government refuses to commit to further efforts to meet a zero emission target in the foreseeable future. Yet, the country is regularly affected by devastating fires and droughts, which affect the lives of animals and humans alike.

A group of peaceful activists who had succeeded in preventing the construction of a dam in Cambodia, have been arrested and sentenced for up to 20 months in prison simply for planning a ‘one-woman walk’ to continue to raise awareness about environmental protection in their country.

Is the Jamaican government as committed to fighting climate change as it declares in international fora when, at the same time, it allows for mangrove destruction to accommodate tourism development? All this is taking place when, due to the global pandemic, international travel to the island has been cut by almost 70 percent.

In the Netherlands, climate change activists are demanding that their government stop sponsoring the fossil fuel industry — one of the main sources of carbon emissions — through tax breaks. They are also advocating for greater transparency in deals that have already been made with extraction companies such as Shell.

Quo Vadis Aida? is gut-wrenching because we know what's going to happen

Originally published on Global Voices

Screenshot from the film Quo Vadis, Aida? Photo from Wikipedia based on the clip posted at cineuropa.org by film director Jasmila Žbanić. Fair use.

Danish director Tomas Vinterberg's film Another Round won Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Academy Awards, but it was not the one most talked about online. Not in the Balkans, anyway. That honor goes to Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić's 2020 film Quo Vadis, Aida?, a surprisingly sharp and unsentimental film about the 1995 genocide carried out by the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska in Srebrenica.

Considered a favorite by many critics, the movie ultimately lost out on the Oscar but it has clearly made an impact in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as regionally and internationally, LA Times’ Kenneth Turan, for example:

Starting to make my way through the foreign language Oscar shortlist and Bosnia's emotionally and morally shattering “Quo Vadis, Aida” blew me away. There may be other contenders as good, but none will be better.

— Kenneth Turan (@KennethTuran) March 3, 2021

Not surprisingly, the Serbian actors, Jasna Đuričić, who plays the titular Aida, and Boris Isaković (as convicted war criminal general Ratko Mladić) have both come under attack from extremists online for agreeing to take part in a film about a crime the vast majority of people in Serbia deny took place.

Serb extremists spammed various film sites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes with bad reviews in a smear campaign that mirrored their reaction to Angelina Jolie's 2012 debut film, In the Land of Blood and Honey. Jolie's film also dealt with the horrors of the Bosnian war, in particular, the rape camps run by Bosnian Serb forces where Bosniak and other non-Serb women, young girls, and also men and boys, were sexually and physically abused. In an interview with The Guardian, Jolie recalled that she and her cast had car windows smashed and were subjected to online smears, threats, hacked phone lines, and more.

This is part of a bigger problem, as the culture of denial is deeply rooted in Serbia and Republika Srpska. As former chief prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Serge Brammetz pointed out in an op-ed last year:

Leaders in the region have publicly denied the genocide, even calling Srebrenica a hoax and a lie. War criminals convicted by the ICTY are often hailed as heroes by prominent figures, while victims’ suffering is ignored, denied and disparaged.

Brammetz also pointed to the fact that a large number of suspected perpetrators of genocide—including political leaders and military commanders—have found a haven in Serbia. 

That culture of denial also meant that Žbanić's film couldn't be shot in Srebrenica itself as the town's current mayor, Mladen Grujčić is a genocide denier. Most of the film was, therefore, shot in Mostar.

Žbanić had a similar experience filming For Those Who Can Tell No Tales in Višegrad in 2012. The film is based on the play Seven Kilometers North-East by Australian actress Kym Vercoe and her stay in Višegrad and the Vilina Vlas hotel and spa resort. Both Višegrad and Vilina Vlas have become notorious as sites of some of the worst atrocities during the Bosnian war, with Vilina Vlas being used as a detention and rape camp by the Bosnian Serb forces.

According to Žbanić and Vercoe, the film crew did not tell the people of the town what they were filming:

We were advised by some not to do that. One of our screenwriters, Zoran, had to pretend to be a Serbian director shooting a completely different film.

Quo Vadis Aida? is based in part on the book Under The UN Flag: The International Community and the Srebrenica Genocide by Hasan Nuhanović. As an employee of the UN and the Dutch Nuhanović survived the genocide while his brother, mother and father were not allowed by the Dutch to stay on the UN base. After the Bosnian Serb forces overran the base Hasan's family was taken away, never to be seen again.

Nuhanović and other survivors had criticized some of the decisions made by Žbanić, saying that the reality of Srebrenica was even worse than what was portrayed on the screen, including some scenes at the end of the film, They were also disappointed that the film didn't show a broader picture of the Bosnian genocide in the Drina Valley. Žbanić, on the other hand, defended her decisions by saying she had to leave out a great deal in order not to lose the audience's concentration.

I had deliberately avoided watching this movie for as long as I could despite the fact that I have spent the last two decades studying the Bosnian genocide, reading countless books, testimonies, trial verdicts, watching footage, and writing about the horrors of the genocide in three languages. I simply couldn't face up to it until last weekend when I sat down to watch it, which says something about the power of the medium.

Quo Vadis, Aida? is certainly Žbanić's best work, but it is incredibly difficult to watch. The film works so well because it focuses on the fear and hopes of those trapped at the UN Base in Potočari, fear because they know what the Republika Srpska army, police forces and paramilitaries had done before. Hopes because they saw the UN as the last refuge. For the viewer, it's gut-wrenching because we know what's going to happen.

The Dutch UN troops are correctly shown as mostly well intentioned but ultimately ineffective and unwilling to resist Mladić. As American journalist David Rohde pointed out, the Dutch soldiers could have done more, taken a firmer stand against Mladić's forces after Srebrenica fell, using other instances when the UN stepped in to protect civilians as an example. Instead, the Dutch stepped aside and allowed Mladić to overrun their base. Days after the fall of Srebrenica, footage appeared of the Dutch forces in Zagreb celebrating and relieved to have got out. This was taking place while people who sought shelter on their base in Potočari were being executed.

“Quo Vadis, Aida” is the most difficult film I've seen in many, many years. I had to stop various times. Above all, it is a film every Dutch ??person should see. Every. single. one. Because: it is not incidental what we did there. Or what we did not do. #Oscars2021 #Srebrenica pic.twitter.com/4dSC7xXqdi

— David de Bruijn (@dmdebruijn) April 26, 2021

One of the best documentaries I've seen on the genocide, the German Sky Above Srebrenica (Himmel über Srebrenica), details meticulously the lead up to the fall of the town, the airstrikes that were supposed to stop Mladić's forces but that never came and the ultimate surrender of the UN and the “international community” in Srebrenica and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The documentary ends with Mladić seeing off the Dutch with presents while the executions were underway.

For those who feel Jasmila Žbanić did not focus enough on the betrayal and the “international community,” I warmly recommend the above documentary. Still, what Žbanić does in her movie is extraordinary and it has rightly been recognized by critics and viewers around the world. Credit should be given where credit is due. By focusing on the fate of the victims, on family members being separated knowing they will never see one another again, and the plight of a mother desperately trying to save her family, her sons and husband from certain death, Žbanić shows what genocide looks like, what it means to lose everyone you love, to be uprooted from everything you know, to be left with only memories and sorrow.

Extinction Rebellion Netherlands demands more transparency from the Dutch government

Originally published on Global Voices

Photo from Extinction Rebellion Netherlands Instagram account, used with permission.

While the world was focused on the inauguration of United States President Joe Biden on January 20, it was also Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Bas van ’t Wout's  first day in office. Waiting for him were more than 70 climate activists protesting the government's “mismanagement” of the climate and ecological crisis.

Extinction Rebellion Netherlands (XRNL) blocked the main entrance of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate in The Hague, and traffic was  redirected to the side doors of the building. XRNL spokesman Lucas Winnips said in a press release:

We zitten in een klimaatnoodtoestand. Het wanbeleid van dit ministerie is een gevaar voor onze veiligheid en gezamenlijke toekomst. Hier wordt met publieke middelen enorme klimaatschade aangericht

We are in a climate emergency. The mismanagement of this ministry is a threat to our security and common future. Enormous climate damage is being done here with public funds.

The protestors want the Ministry to stop using public money to subsidize fossil fuels and the Dutch government to release the ‘Shell Papers,’ which are archives of the government's communications with the multinational company. This demonstration is the latest in a string of non-violent actions directed towards the Ministry.

Meer dan 70 rebellen uit het hele land blokkeerden vandaag het Ministerie van Economische Zaken en – o ja – Klimaat. Ze eisten dat het ministerie de klimaatcrisis bestrijdt. Het schrappen van de miljardensubsidies voor de fossiele brandstoffen zou een mooie, eerste stap zijn. pic.twitter.com/s2lorfpk5R

— Extinction Rebellion Nederland (@NLRebellion) January 20, 2021

More than 70 rebels from across the country blocked the Ministry of Economy and – oh yes – Climate Affairs. They demanded that the ministry fight the climate crisis. Cutting the billions in fossil fuel subsidies would be a nice first step.

Bearing colorful banners with Extinction Rebellion’s logo, over 70 protestors blocked the Ministry's front door from 8 A.M. Many formed human chains to make it more difficult for the police to remove them. By the early evening, there was a heavy police presence and authorities arrested 23 protestors after some refused to leave, according to local news reports.

Some signposts read: “For rent for green entrepreneurs”, referring to the Ministry's building behind the protestors, “Closed due to mismanagement,” and “I'm afraid of having children because of the climate crisis.” A demonstrator said on the group's Instagram Live that a Climate Ministry worker gave a “moving” speech despite the risk that protesting in front of her workplace entailed.

It is not the first time the climate group demonstrated against the Ministry's policies. On October 20, 2020, XRNL protestors peacefully occupied the Ministry's lobby. That same day, the Ministry released a statement on Twitter inviting the seven protestors for a “meeting in the near future.” It is unclear whether the meeting happened.

After the October 2020 demonstration, XRNL organized “actions on the street” in front of the Ministry's building on November 17, December 5, and December 12. On January 6, XRNL activists wrote the following “scientifically-substantiated findings” on the building's windows with chalk:

1) 3 degrees warmer by 2100

2) ½ to 1-meter sea level rise by 2100

3) 1.5 billion extra people with food insecurity by 2050

4) 1/5 of the world population living in the desert by 2070

5) 1.2 billion possible climate refugees by 2050

6 ) 10,000 Dutch people per year more likely to die from air pollution

7) 1 billion Euros of yearly damage due to drought in the Netherlands

8) 60% more acidic oceans by 2100

The demonstration on January 6 resulted in 15 arrests, reports the NLTimes.

The Shell Papers and the fossil fuel industry

The Dutch government grants billions of euros a year to the fossil fuel industry, mostly in the form of tax breaks. According to a letter by Eric Wiebes, the former Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, these subsidies amount to 4.5 billion Euros. However, Milleaudefensie, a Dutch environmental NGO, found that the volume of financial aid flowing from the Dutch government to fossil fuels is much higher. In a study published in July 2020, they claim that “the government sponsors large polluting companies with 8.3 billion euros per year.” Both Milleaudefensie and XRNL claim that this funding runs contrary to the Dutch government’s promise to stop subsidizing fossil fuels by 2020.

Shell energy company is also gaining particular attention. The “Shell Papers” is a joint project between journalists from the Platform for Authentic Journalism (PAJ) and Follow the Money (FTM) who are currently investigating ties between the Dutch government and the British-Dutch multinational oil and gas company. Shell is one of the most polluting companies in the world.

PAJ has filed 17 lawful requests to several government bodies demanding the release of “all documents—such as e-mails, memos, policy documents, and even WhatsApp messages—since 2005 that originate from, are directed to, or are about Shell.” According to a story by the PAJ, only the municipality of Assen has complied with the request so far, despite the municipality receiving legal pressure from the Economy and Climate Ministry.

Unlike Germany and Italy, the Dutch “government does not publish an inventory of its fossil fuel subsidies, nor of its environmentally harmful subsidies,” a 2017 report by Laurie van der Burg and Matthias Runkel reports.

Therefore, in addition to a plea for meaningful climate action, the protest was also a call for government transparency regarding the use of public funds and the state's connections to Shell and the wider fossil fuel industry.

Er is permanent een @shell medewerker gestationeerd op het ministerie van EKZ Zaken. Wees eerlijk over deze samenwerking!

Journalisten van @FTM_nl hebben overheidsdocumenten over Shell (vanaf 2005, WOB) opgevraagd, de “Shell Papers”, maar het ministerie weigert.

Kom in actie! pic.twitter.com/kR4OasJKST

— Extinction Rebellion Nederland (@NLRebellion) January 19, 2021

There is a @shell employee permanently stationed at the Ministry of EKZ Affairs [editor's note: Ministry of Economy and Climate]. Be honest about this collaboration!

Journalists from @FTM_en have requested government documents on Shell (from 2005, FOI request), the “Shell Papers”, but the ministry refuses.

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