“Propaganda” by Pawel Kuczynski. Image used with permission of the artist.

This opinion article was written by Valentina Pavel, a Mozilla Fellow at Privacy International and member of the Association for Technology and Internet, based in Romania. Opinion articles do not reflect the views of Global Voices.

When the news broke that Cambridge Analytica had harvested millions of Facebook users’ personal data — and then used that information to influence elections — the fallout was swift. The UK-based data mining firm closed its doors, Facebook faced global scrutiny, and people around the world learned how easily democratic elections could be hacked by abusing voters’ personal data.

In the time since the scandal broke, you would think that democracies in Europe would have used all the tools at their disposal — including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — to prevent similar wrongdoings in the future.

But the Regulation offers some “flexibilities” for how it is integrated into national law, allowing Member States to introduce some of their own rules. In some cases, rather than protecting individuals’ rights, these exceptions limit freedom of expression, erode privacy, and abet the spread of disinformation. This lack of uniformity in applying GDPR rules could lead to differences in the level of protection of personal data within Member States, including in the context of elections.

For example, in Romania, lawmakers have introduced an exemption that allows political parties and organisations to process personal data without consent and without protective measures against potential abuses, creating a sort of “wild west” of personal data. For example, the national post office, a public body, has begun offering political parties information about elderly people, enabling political parties to target them with personalised information during the electoral campaign.

Romanian lawmakers have also introduced excessive limits on the use of personal data for journalistic purposes, in a move that could interfere with investigative journalism and prevent public interest stories from being revealed. We have yet to see the effects of this problematic exemption.

However, attempts to use the GDPR as a tool to silence free press were signaled in the RISE Project case. The Romanian Data Protection Authority approached the journalists who were reporting on a politician’s possible ties to a fraudulent company, asking for information about their sources and threatening with large fines.

These problematic exemptions lead to a complaint filed with the European Commission, but no action has been taken.

Similar rules in other countries

Romania is not the only EU country where political parties have less restrictions for processing personal data. In Spain, the law allows political parties to collect personal information from public sources such as websites and social media. This problematic exemption has been raised with the European Commission since November last year, but six months on no concrete action has been taken by the EU body.

Spanish local elections took place at the end of April and voters will again go to the polls in late May for European elections. Privacy International’s research has shown that there are questions as to whether political parties’ use of personal data comply with the requirements set out by the Spanish Data Protection Authority.

In the UK, the law still permits political parties to process personal data revealing political opinions without obtaining users’ consent. We already know how sensitive this can be — even before Cambridge Analytica, there was Emma’s Diary, a baby care blog that sold personal data belonging to more than one million people to political parties. This is why, despite the provision in the UK law, political parties have been urged to publicly commit not to use the exemption provided in the law to target voters.

What do these exceptions mean for citizens?

Previous abuses of personal data indicate that these exemptions could lead to the following outcomes:

More voter manipulation: Romania’s exemption essentially legalizes Cambridge Analytica’s practices. As a result, political parties can release misleading advertisements that prey on users’ personal anxieties, and influence them to vote for (or against) certain candidates. Around the world, we have seen how online disinformation has played an outsized role in elections for the past few years. These mistakes from the past should provide justification for regulators to step in and prevent more abuses from happening, but this has not yet taken place.

Threats to individual privacy and security: If a political party or advertiser has your personal data, when they get hacked, so do you. By allowing these groups to collect and store vast amounts of personal data without safeguards, millions of Europeans will become more vulnerable to data breaches and security incidents.

Less access to information: In a world of pervasive tracking where tailor-made messages can be targeted at voters, developing a truly informed opinion can be difficult. How can you think critically when you learn only bits and pieces of the story and only receive messages that are designed specifically for your ears to hear? How can there still be free and informed dialogue?

There’s never been a more important time to implement data safeguards: Disinformation has reached new heights, and the EU parliamentary elections are in a few weeks time. It is critical to fix these harmful exceptions before the elections and before damage is done.

On 26 May, EU voters should pressure their parliamentary candidates to put privacy high on their agendas and preserve democratic processes. After the vote, when the new European Commissioners will be appointed, voters should ask them to firmly enforce GDPR and privacy protections.

Loose data processing provisions for political parties can weaken our democracies. The European Commission must do its job by ensuring that GDPR rules are consistent throughout Europe and that everyone’s data is protected.

Article licenced under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Source: globalvoices.org

Screenshot of the French news channel TV5 Monde with Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr, two professors who are leading the conversation on repatriation of African heritage to countries of origin. Image via YouTube.

in November 2017, in a speech at the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that “African patrimony” should no longer be featured in European museums and that measures should be taken for its temporary or definitive restitution back to Africa.

Following this request, lecturers Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy from the University of Gaston-Berger in Saint-Louis, Senegal, and the Technische Universität of Berlin, Germany, wrote a report to explain a suggested legal process for returning Africa’s artifacts and treasures, rejecting the notion that these collections belong to French heritage.

The restitution of African art has been an ongoing debate for decades. European colonial powers used monumental archaeology to appear as the guardian of the colonized history, reinforcing an unconscious sense of ownership. Repatriation proponents say former colonial powers appropriated ancient art of colonized cultures and their museums, located in the West, prevent nationals from learning and embracing their own history.

Today, French public museums store about 90,000 sub-Saharan African art pieces, mostly obtained through theft and colonial privilege.

Journalists Konsimbo Ophelie and Poda Gabriel explain in Nsi mababu, a pan-African newspaper: 

Plus de 90 percent des œuvres d’art d’Afrique noire se trouvent hors du continent, selon les experts. Pillées pendant la colonisation, elles sont pour la plupart aux mains du British Museum, du musée du Quai Branly, ou du musée de Berlin. Le Bénin, le Nigéria et la République Démocratique du Congo entre autres, réclament aujourd’hui le retour de ses trésors pillés durant l’époque coloniale. La question des restitutions d’oeuvres d’art africaines est à la fois épineuse, politique et constitue aujourd’hui une polémique dont il faut comprendre les tenants et aboutissants.

According to experts, more than 90 percent of black African artwork are found outside of the continent. Stolen during the colonization times, most of them are found in the property of the British Museum, the Quai Branly Museum, or the Berlin Museum. Today, countries like Benin, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (among others) claim the return of their stolen treasures. The issue of the restitution contains tricky political elements. We need to understand the ins and outs of this.

Many African countries were affected by this looting, which represents 85 to 90 percent of African artistic heritage. Eva Rassoul, a journalist, explains on France Culture, a French radio program:

Dans les musées français, les œuvres africaines proviennent en grande partie du Tchad (9 200 œuvres), du Cameroun (7 800) et de Madagascar (7 500).

The artwork found in the French museums predominantly originate from Chad (9,200 artwork), Cameroon (7,800) and Madagascar (7,500).

Savoy and Sarr explained the legal process for repatriation of Africa’s stolen artificats on TV5 Monde:

Journalist Philippe Rey says the report looks at the role France played in the pillage of Africa’s heritage:

Il raconte les spoliations à travers l’histoire mondiale, évalue la part de la France, dresse un premier inventaire des oeuvres spoliées, fait le récit des tentatives des pays africains pour se réapproprier leur patrimoine, analyse les questions juridiques qui se posent, et énonce un certain nombre de recommandations pratiques pour la mise en oeuvre des restitutions, un des chantiers les plus audacieux de ce XXIe siècle.

It recounts the dispossession through the history of the world, evaluates the role of France, examines a preliminary inventory of the stolen artwork, narrates the African tentative for the heritage re-appropriation, analyses the legal questions, and lists a number of useful recommendations for the restitution process. This work is one of the most ambitious project of the 21st century.

Journalist Laurent Adjovi in Benin celebrates France’s move to return 26 artifacts taken from Benin:

Grâce aux discussions ouvertes avec la France, Patrice Talon offre ainsi une possibilité aux béninois de revoir  par exemple les  œuvres royales, évoquant les règnes des rois d’Abomey Ghézo (1818-1858), Glélé (1858-1889) et Béhanzin (1890-1894), des trônes, de récades, et les sceptres royaux.

Thanks to open discussions with France, Patrice Talon can offer Beninese people the chance to see some of their artwork again. An example of this is the royal artwork, showing the reigns of the kings Abomey Ghézo (1818-1858), Glélé (1858-1889) and Béhanzin (1890-1894), thrones, recades, and royal scepters.

In the spirit of showcasing African heritage and artifacts, Senegal unveiled the Museum of Black Civilizations on December 6, 2018, supported by Senegalese President Macky Sall. The museum adds to other cultural sites such as the House of Slaves and the Henriette-Bathily Women’s Museum.

Un évènement qui intervient au moment s’anime le débat sur la restitution des biens culturels africains pillés par la France pendant la colonisation. C’est un rêve vieux de cinquante ans qui se réalise.

This comes at a time where the debate is at its loudest concerning the stolen African cultural assets by France during the colonization. It is a fifty years old dream come true.

Ivory Coast’s minister of culture, Bandama Maurice, says repatriation of his country‘s historical artwork is definitely in the works:

Nous pensons qu’en 2019, tout ou en partie des 148 objets seront restitués à la Côte d’Ivoire. Nous avons demandé 148 parce que c’est ce que nous pouvons pour l’instant accueillir dans les caisses et les collections de nos musées.

We think that in 2019, most or all of the 148 artwork will be given back to Ivory Coast. The reason we have asked for this number is because we can only accommodate that many in the museum collections.

In the Republic of Congo, too, the Museum of the African Circle was recently inaugurated in Pointe-Noire, a port city, to invite youth to connect to their history and culture.

Ancien lieu culturel pour les congolais, avant d‘être transformé en Cour de justice et de finalement tomber à l’abandon, le bâtiment a été réhabilité et transformé en 2017 pour devenir ce musée. Depuis son ouverture au public le 4 décembre, le Musée du cercle africain a déjà accueilli plus de 600 visiteurs par mois.

Before being converted into a museum in 2017, this building used to be a former cultural place for Congolese people in the first place, then a law court and finally an abandoned place. Since its opening to the public on December 4, the Museum of the African Circle has already welcomed more than 600 visitors per month.

Nevertheless, the process to return African artifacts is difficult and many issues must be resolved before they can be returned. Journalist Yassin Ciyow raises the complexity of this process for Neomag magazine, stating how many of the acquired artifacts were technically given — or taken — as “gifts” during colonial periods. 

En revanche, pour les œuvres issues de l’époque coloniale, la complexité vient du fait qu’après avoir été pillées, elles ont généralement été données ou léguées (dans le cadre légal de l’époque) à des collections publiques françaises. Ainsi, ces œuvres sont de facto entrées dans le domaine public mobilier national, devenant ainsi propriété de l’Etat français. Par le passé, des lois d’exception ont néanmoins été votées afin de “déclasser” certaines œuvres. C’est grâce à cette pirouette juridique que la Vénus Hottentote a pu être rendue à l’Afrique du Sud et des têtes maories à la Nouvelle-Zélande. 

… [The] stolen artifacts from the colonial times were generally given or donated to French public collections. Thus, these artworks are de facto part of the national public domain, and have become a property of the French state. Nevertheless, exception laws have been voted in the past in order to decommission some works. It is because of this legal twist that the Venus Hottentote could be returned to South Africa, and the Maori heads to New Zealand.

Besides the legal difficulties, protection and maintenance of these rare African artifacts once returned has also raised concerns.

Article licenced under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Source: globalvoices.org

Screenshot from video ‘Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad al-Khalifa’, YouTube. Source.

In recent months, the United Kingdom’s relationship with its Gulf allies leapt into the spotlight with a unique espionage tale amidst a British media landscape otherwise dominated by Brexit.

In November 2018, 31-year-old British academic Matthew Hedges returned to the U.K. after spending seven months in a United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) jail, mostly in solitary confinement, on espionage charges. Hedges’ story, which initially received relatively little attention, made it to the front pages after the U.A.E., a U.K. ally, announced it was accusing Hedges of being a spy for MI6. Hedges and the U.K. government deny the accusation.

Hedges’ story calls attention to the U.K.’s long and complicated history of impunity when it comes to allegations of torture committed by its allies in the Gulf states, and reminds us of some of the reasons Bahrain’s “torture prince,” Prince Nasser bin Hamad, still has the privilege and pleasure of meandering through the U.K. despite clear evidence of abuse during Bahrain’s 2011 uprising.

Hedges suffered abuses during his imprisonment in the U.A.E. that seemed to have surprised the U.K. government, but less surprising was the U.K. government’s tepid response to his torture — in addition to solitary confinement for 23 hours every day, Hedges was drugged by his jailers — despite the fact that the U.A.E. is one of the U.K.’s main allies in the MENA region.

Hedges’ wife Daniela Tejada, who had spent the entirety of the seven months campaigning for her husband’s release, accused the U.K. government of ignoring her constant requests for aid.

The U.K.’s response to the Hedges story revealed yet another example of the leniency afforded by the U.K. to Gulf Arab governments. And activists can’t help but remember how and why Bahrain’s notorious “torture prince” can still walk free.

Bahrain’s ‘torture prince’

Long before the U.K. government allegedly ignored the torture of one of its citizens at the hands of an ally, it faced a legal challenge at home for its role in protecting a notorious member of the kingdom of Bahrain: the king’s son, Prince Nasser bin Hamad.

Nicknamed the “torture prince” by dissidents for taking part in the torture of activists who participated in the 2011 Bahraini revolution, he once tweeted: “If it was up to me, I’d give them all life [in prison].” Indeed, bin Hamad, aged 24 at the beginning of Bahrain’s uprising in 2011, was among those in Bahrain’s ruling establishment calling for the brutal repression of protesters.

As the head of Bahrain’s Olympic Committee, bin Hamad created a special commission to “identify and punish more than 150 members of the sporting community” who took part in the 2011 protests, according to Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB). He publicly called for “a wall to fall on [protesters’] heads … even if they are an athlete … Bahrain is an island and there is nowhere to escape.”

Rather than face prosecution in Bahrain, his father promoted the young prince to the commander of Bahrain’s Royal Guard on June 19, 2011.

The Prince’s relationship with the U.K. goes back to 2006 when he graduated from the country’s elite Sandhurst Military Academy at the age of 19.

من #الأرشيف : دورات عسكرية لسمو الشيخ #ناصر_بن_حمد آل خليفة في بريطانيا وكندا – يوليو عام ٢٠٠٦#Canada || #UK pic.twitter.com/ttMJV9ocye

— H.H.Sh Nasser bin Hamad (@NBH_MO) April 2, 2018

From the Archives: Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa participating in military training in the UK and Canada – July 2006.

Given such a prestigious background, the “torture prince” may have never thought that visiting the U.K. could lead him to trouble. But soon after he allegedly tortured Bahraini protesters, another protester, known only as ‘FF’, made it to the U.K. and successfully applied for asylum.

This meant that the U.K. recognized FF’s legitimate claims, including FF’s fears of retaliation should he or she be forced to return to Bahrain. FF, ADHRB notes, also “alleges that Sheikh Nasser was involved in torture.”

A year later, however, the U.K. government opted to grant the “torture prince” immunity when FF called for his arrest during his July visit to the 2012 London Olympics as the head of Bahrain’s Olympic Committee. Instead, bin Hamad was spotted in the VIP section in one of London’s stadiums that day:

is it true alleged torturer nasser bin hamad is being allowed to go to olympics #london2012? #bahrain #uk

— Maryam Alkhawaja (@MARYAMALKHAWAJA) July 20, 2012

The story doesn’t end there, however. In October 2014, the High Court in London ruled that bin Hamad was not immune from prosecution over torture claims, reviving hopes that he could be arrested.

As the Guardian reported, the dossier was then passed on to the war crimes team of the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command. The latter subsequently announced that “on the basis of the dossier submitted to it, the police are not investigating.”

Part of the reason why the Metropolitan police decided not to investigate was simply that key witnesses are still in Bahraini prisons and therefore can’t be interviewed. Incidentally, bin Hamad’s representatives made a similar argument, arguing that FF’s allegations “have not been tested in a British court and that there have never been any proceedings against him.”

In other words, bin Hamad’s representatives argued that FF’s allegations could not be tested in British courts without acknowledging that the reason is that key witnesses could not be present in any court or answer any questions by British police.

And so, just a few months later, in March of 2015, bin Hamad uploaded a video of himself jogging across London’s Hyde Park, renewing calls for his arrest. In fact, he’s regularly traveled to the U.K. since the accusations, including to enjoy the yearly Royal Windsor Horse Show in the company of Queen Elizabeth II with his father, the King of Bahrain.

This blatant case of impunity has renewed questions as to whether the U.K. is living up to its international obligations, notably the U.N. Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment 1987, which says that states must criminalize torture and pursue public officials of other nations when they are present in the state’s territory.”

The U.K. signed it on March 15, 1985, and ratified it on December 8, 1988. Upon signing the convention against torture, however, the U.K. also added:

The United Kingdom reserves the right to formulate, upon ratifying the Convention, any reservations or interpretative declarations which it might consider necessary.

Article licenced under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Source: globalvoices.org

“Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch” is the name of a village in Wales and is also the place with the longest name in Europe, as seen as a Welsh language exhibit at 2009 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photo by Alan Kotok and used under a CC BY 2.0 license.

The DigiGlot Newsletter is a bi-weekly collaborative newsletter that reports on how indigenous, minority, and endangered language communities are adopting and adapting technology to increase the digital presence of their languages, and in the process changing the internet landscape by increasing linguistic diversity online.

Two million plays and counting

Screenshot from Spotify with the number of plays (as of January 29, 2019)

In late 2018, Welsh rock band Alffa became the first group to release a song in the Welsh language that hit one million plays on the Spotify streaming platform with the song “Gwenwyn”. This achievement is especially noteworthy because the band wasn’t particularly well known outside of Wales, but thanks to Spotify’s reach, listeners from as far away as Brazil and Mexico discovered a song in a language spoken by approximately 700,000 people. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, a columnist with the Guardian newspaper who herself is Welsh, dug deeper to inquire why a Welsh language song became so popular. She spoke with Alun Llwyd of the music distributor PYST, who credited the Spotify platform’s openness to music in all types of languages. “What’s beautiful is that Spotify judge the songs on musical merit, not the language or the band,” Llwyd said. “Nobody knew Alffa outside a small part of Wales. This is testament to the strength of the song.” Since that earlier story was published, the Welsh song has hit two million plays.

Cree language podcast shares the stories of Cree elders in Northern Quebec

A new Cree language podcast started by Nick Wapachee, a journalism student from Nemaska, Québec, aims to help young people develop their Cree language-speaking abilities. He noticed a trend of young Cree people increasingly speaking English and wanted to help provide more digital content in Cree, so he started a podcast sharing the stories of Cree elders. The In Eeyou Istchee podcast “promotes Cree diversity, respect, and freedom of expression” and helps bring the Cree language to speakers and learners, wherever they are. The podcast can be found on iTunes and Soundcloud.

Malian linguistic organization petitions Voice of America to use official Bambara orthography

In 2013, the international broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) started transmitting in the Bambara language, one of the official languages of Mali, spoken by approximately 15 million people. VOA also has a Bambara-language website which recently attracted attention for employing a “Frenchified” version of this Manding language and not the official orthography developed and promoted by the government and partner institutions such as the African Academy of Languages.

Dr. Coleman Donaldson, a linguist, researcher, and teacher of Manding languages noticed the VOA’s use of French orthography. Don Osborn, author of the book African Languages in a Digital Age, wondered whether the reason for this was a scarcity of keyboards to enable writing in the official Bambara orthography. Ultimately it might boil down to VOA’s determining that only a small portion of their audience can read Bambara orthography, but Osborn also points out that this is probably an untested assumption. The Cercle Linguistique Bamakois has initiated a petition calling on VOA to adopt the official orthography. The petition points out the effort and resources that went towards the development of the orthography, and that international broadcasters such as Radio France International have made an effort to use the official orthography on their websites.

A language app to teach kids the indigenous languages of Canada

KOBE Learn is an app designed to help young users learn common words and phrases in Ojibway, Cree and Oji-Cree, the traditional languages of First Nations communities in northwestern Ontario, Canada. The app is collaboration between the local Board of Education, language teachers, elders and community members. The Board was seeking a modern teaching tool that could help to carry indigenous languages into the future.

“Many of our elders are passing away, each day, and it’s really important to keep what we have now,” said Sarah Johnson, the Board’s native language lead. “A lot of our children entering school are not speaking their first language. So this is one small way of retaining, keeping the language.”

Is there an app for that (in Welsh)?

For many of us, the mobile phone has become an extension of the self – always present, and mediating much of our interaction with the rest of the world. Speakers of major world languages are used to having apps and games available in their language, but speakers of minority languages like Cymraeg (Welsh) seldom enjoy this luxury. In a new study, Daniel Cunliffe, a professor at the University of South Wales, examines the more than 400 Welsh apps in the Apple App Store. The research attempted to identify every Welsh language app, as well as to better understand the motivations and perspectives of their developers. Cunliffe found that Welsh app developers face multiple challenges in reaching users, especially with regard to the discoverability of their apps. The study, which concludes with recommendations for developers, language promotion NGOs, and others, will be of interest to any language community that seeking to engage users via their mobile devices.

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Article licenced under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Source: globalvoices.org