20 Dec 2011 | Index Index, minipost
A playwright has been arrested whilst performing a play which was deemed critical of the government in Malawi. Thlupego Chisiza was arrested on Sunday after armed police stormed the Lions Theater in Blantyre, where he was performing the play SEMO. The play, which was co-written by student activist Robert Chasowa, who died in mysterious circumstances, criticises the governments handling of laws which are believed to have regressed the country back to dictatorship. The authorities claimed Chisiza failed to send the play to the board of classification for vetting, which the playwright denies.
20 Dec 2011 | Index Index, minipost
An advertising company in Jerusalem has refused to carry ads campaigning for women’s equality on their buses. Cnaan Advertising, the company responsible for adverts on buses rejected the advert campaign as they believe the buses will be vandalised by orthodox extremists . Cnaan Advertising demanded a financial guarantee of almost £8,500 from Yerushalmim, the movement responsible for the campaign, to run the adverts. In 2008, adverts featuring Yerushalmim head Rachel Azaria appeared on buses as part of her run for a seat on the city council, but since then, women have rarely appeared on bus advertisements.
19 Dec 2011 | Index Index, minipost
News reports of an uprising that began several days ago in Wukan have been blocked by the Chinese government. Coverage of the protests, which began following the death of a local villager Xue Jinbo, and political interference in local elections, has not been covered by any Chinese language media. Wukan residents dispute the claim that Jinbo died from a heart attack, believing he was tortured to death. In China, the story has only been covered by the English-language edition of an official Chinese Communist Party newspaper, “Global Times”.
15 Dec 2011 | Uncategorized
Punk rock is under serious attack in Indonesia’s most conservative province, after a group of young punks were arrested by baton-wielding police and taken for “moral rehabilitation.”
Police raided a concert for a local orphanage at Budaya Park in the Sharia-ruled province Aceh on Saturday, arresting 64 people in total — 59 men and five women, who had travelled from across the country to attend the event.
Objecting to nothing other than the outlandish style of the punk rockers, with their Mohawk hairstyles, pierced faces and ripped clothing, police claimed the youths were tarnishing the image of the province, and posed a threat to Islamic values.
After the arrest, police began “cleansing” the youths. They took away their “disgusting” clothes, replacing them with clothes worn in prayer, removed their piercings and shaved off their spiky Mohawks. Even the few female rockers in the group were subject to a compulsory haircut, as female police officers cut their hair in the regulation police haircut – short, blunt bobs.
The youths, who were thrown into pools of water and given toothbrushes as part of their “spiritual cleansing,” face 10 days of “re-education,” with military-style discipline training and religious classes, including Koran recitation.
Banda Aceh deputy mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal who ordered the arrests told AFP: “We feared that the Islamic sharia law implemented in this province will be tainted by their activities.” He added: “We hope that by sending them to rehabilitation they will eventually repent.”
20-year-old punker Fauzan said “Why? Why my hair?! We didn’t hurt anyone. This is how we’ve chosen to express ourselves. Why are they treating us like criminals?”
Local police chief Iskandar Hasan reportedly agreed with the mayor: “We need to fix them so that they will behave properly and morally. They need harsh treatment to change their mental behaviour.”
Complaints from young punks about harassment from the authorities has increased recently, but this raid on the concert, which had 100 attendees, was the biggest bust yet.
Several human rights activists in the area have claimed that the camps violate the youths’ human rights, but police have denied this, claiming the programme is an “orientation into normal Indonesian society”.
The popularity of punk rock music in Islamic Indonesia has rocketed over the past few years, with more and more Indonesians embracing both the music and the fashion.
The Islamic punk music scene began in 2003, inspired by novel from American convert, Michael Muhammad Knight. Knight wrote The Taqwacores, which imagined a community of Muslim punk radicals: Sufis with mohawks, riot grrrls in burqas with band patches and skinhead Shi’as.
Aceh, on the northernmost tip of Sumatra island, adopted partial sharia law in 2001. Nearly 90 per cent of Indonesia’s 240 million people are Muslims, but the vast majority practise a moderate form of Islam.
