Mediaboss Marketing

On April 16th, Turkey will vote on a referendum that, if passed, would dramatically increase the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdoan.CreditPHOTOGRAPH BY KAYHAN OZER / ANADOLU AGENCY / GETTY

The first time I met Selahattin Demirta, the leader of Turkeys largest Kurdish political party, known as the H.D.P., he arrived at a restaurant in Istanbul with a single assistant accompanying him. Demirta is warm and funny. Among other things, he is anaccomplished playerof the saz, a string instrument that resembles the oud. At the timeit was 2011Demirta was trying to lead his party and people away from a history of confrontation with the countrys central government. It wasnt easy. Like other Kurdish leaders in Turkey, Demirta had spent time in prison and seen many of his comrades killed. I remember him telling me how, in the nineteen-nineties, when civil unrest in the countrys Kurdish areas was hitting its bloody peak, a particular make of cara white Renaulthad been notorious in Kurdish towns. The cars were used by Turkish intelligence officers, who had developed a terrifying reputation for torturing and executing Kurds. Ive been inside the Renaults, Demirta told me. A lot of people I know never made it out of them.

The last time I met Demirta, in September, it was at a tea shop in the trendy neighborhood of Taksim. He was surrounded by bodyguards. Things were going badly for himnot because he had given up on democratic politics but because he had succeeded so well; in 2015, the H.D.P. captured an astounding eighty seats in the Turkish parliament. The Party had even begun to attract non-Kurdish voters. Soon, however, Turkeys President, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, began cracking down on the Kurds. Thousands of members of the H.D.P. were detained. In November, two months after our last meeting, Demirta, who is forty-three years old, was arrested and jailed. Now, facing what appear to be preposterous chargessupporting an armed terrorist organizationhe is facing a prison sentence of as long as a hundred and forty-two years.

If you follow Turkish politics, you know that Demirtas case is not uniquein fact, in the Erdoan era, it is unremarkable. Erdoan, who came to power following nationwide elections in 2002, has spent the past decade doing his best to strangle Turkeys democratic order. It now seems clear that Erdoan, who is sixty-three, intends to arrogate dictatorial powers to himself, have them ratified by a subservient political order, and stay in power for years to come.

This hardly seemed possible as recently as three years ago. In late 2013, Erdoan seemed to be on the ropes, entangled in a corruption scandal that appeared to implicate both him and his son Bilal. (In a series of taped conversations that weremade public, Erdoan could be heard telling Bilal, Eighteen peoples homes are being searched right now with this big corruption operation . . . So Im saying, whatever you have at home, take it out. O.K.? Later, Bilal responded, So theres something like thirty million euros left that we havent been able to liquidate.)

But Erdoan is a master at self-preservation. He beat back his accusers and then, last July, in what must be regarded as a political gift from the heavens, elements inside the Turkish military tried to overthrow his government. Erdoannot without some justificationblamed the attempted coup on the movement of Fethullah Glen, a Muslim preacher who lives in exile in the United States. After successfully putting down the attempted putsch, Erdoan launched a sweeping, and still ongoing, campaign to destroy the countrys democratic opposition. Since July, more than forty thousand people have been arrested, and a hundred thousand government employeesincluding judges, prosecutors, and academicshave been fired. Tens of thousands remain in prison, including more than a hundred and fifty journalists and media workers. The government has closed a hundred and seventy-nine newspapers, television stations, and Web sites. Turkey is now the most prolific jailer of journalists in the world.

That bring us to a constitutional referendum scheduled for next month, and to Demirta. On April 16th, Turkish voters will be asked to approve a series of changes to the constitution that wouldyou guessed itgrant extraordinary powers to the job that Erdoan now holds. On paper, Turkey still has a parliamentary system, with significant powers reserved for the Prime Minister, parliament, and the judiciary. The referendum proposes to radically alter that system, eliminating the position of Prime Minister, drastically curtailing the powers of parliament, scaling back the independence of the judiciary, and vesting sweeping powers in the Presidency. Whats more, the new constitution would give Erdoan the right to run for two more five-year terms, potentially giving him another decade in power.

What the referendum amounts to, essentially, is an attempt to overturn Turkish democracy, and to rubber-stamp the authoritarian powers that Erdoan has been pursuing for the past decade. (You wont hear any criticism of Erdoan from Europe, by the way. Erdoan, having agreed last year to hold back the tide of refugees from the Middle East,hasthe continents political leaders over a barrel.)

Yet for all of Erdoans bullying, its not at all clear that Turkish voters will approve the referendum. Erdoan, sensing how high the stakes are, has been trying to flatten his opposition in the run-up to the vote. This is where Demirta and his colleagues fit into the picture. After the failed coup last summer, Erdoan began moving to crush the H.D.P.s leadershiphe knew, given the history of the relationship between Kurds and the central government, that they would never endorse an expansion of the Presidents powers. Along with Demirta, twelve other H.D.P. members of parliament have recently been jailed. According to Human Rights Watch, which released anew reporton Turkeys deteriorating situation this week, more than five thousand members of the H.D.P. and another locally based Kurdish party, the B.D.P., are currently behind bars, and the mayors of eighty-two Kurdish towns have been summarily sacked and replaced by Erdoans agents. Erdoan knew that he couldnt count on the H.D.P., so he just took them out of the picture, Emma Sinclair-Webb, Human Rights Watchs Turkey director, told me.

Polls show that the referendum has the support of only around fifty per cent of likely Turkish voters. A no vote would be a crushing rebuke to the Turkish President, and, in the short-term, could provoke a violent reaction from him. But, if the Turkish people are serious about stemming Erdoans drive to dictatorship, this may be their last chance.

View original post here:
A Last Chance for Turkish Democracy - The New Yorker - The New Yorker

Gov Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State on Saturday hailed the victory of former Deputy Governor of the state, Alhaji Ali Olanusi, at the Court of Appeal in Akure, saying it was great for democracy.

The commendation is in a statement in Akure by the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Governor, Mr Segun Ajiboye.

Ajiboye quoted the governor as saying the 79-page judgment delivered by Justice Muhammed Danjuma was well deserved, a triumph for democracy and light over darkness.

The governor also said that the judgment would discourage political leaders from arbitrary actions and decisions and ensure that the tenets of democracy were promoted.

He added that this judgment confirmed that Alhaji Ali Olanusi was maltreated, abused and humiliated by the crop of lawmakers who planned and executed the illegal impeachment.

In the judgment on Friday, Justice Muhammed Danjuma said Olanusis impeachment did not follow due process because he was not personally served the originating summons.

He was also denied presentation before an panel set up to investigate the alleged gross misconduct against him.

Akeredolu said that the judge maintained that Olanusi remained the Deputy Governor of Ondo State from April 27, 2015, the date he was wrongly impeached by the state House of Assembly.

Olanusi, will therefore remain the states deputy governor till Feb. 24, 2017 when the tenure of the former administration will expire.

UNIJOS students reject N45,000 fee, urge management to be considerate

Farmers in Sokoto appeal for carrot processing plant

More here:
Akeredolu hails Olanusi's victory, says great for democracy - NIGERIAN TRIBUNE (press release) (blog)

Saturday March 25 2017

Former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga shakes hands with one of his supporters in a Nairobi court on March 9, 2017 before the hearing of a case in which he has sued Jubilee Party for refusing to accept his nomination papers for the Laikipia senate seat. Some ex-gangsters are campaigning for office. PHOTO | PAUL WAWERU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

India holds the title of the worlds largest democracy. When it gets into rhythm during its elections cycle, its sheer magnitude is a wonder to behold.

In the last count there were 814 million eligible voters and 8,251 aspiring parliamentary candidates in an election that had to be staggered for weeks.

However, it is a deeply flawed democracy. In the last national election of 2014, a shocking 34 per cent of the 543 MPs elected to the powerful Lower House (Lok Sabha) faced criminal charges, up from 30 per cent in the previous 2009 election and 24 per cent in 2004.

The actual charges facing 20 per cent of the MPs were serious ones such as murder, attempted murder, assault and theft.

All political parties were tainted, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Eight members of Prime Minister Narendra Modis cabinet face serious criminal cases themselves.

Indian political scientist Milan Vaishnav, in his book titled When Crime Pays, has detailed this astounding link between criminality and Indian politics.

A key factor in motivating parties to select candidates with criminal records, he says, comes down to cold, hard cash.

The crooks are self-financing, so they are not a drain to their parties coffers. Many parties are also essentially personal fiefdoms, which welcome links with well-heeled thugs.

ELECTING CRIMINALS Indian politics could be unique in this aspect. Whereas the Mafia in Italy and their cousins in North America are content to buy protection by financing politicians, their Indian counterparts go outright for elective office.

In one startling revelation by Dr Vaishnav, Indian government Whips once sprung six MPs out of prison to help in a crucial parliamentary vote.

It didnt seem to matter that between them, the felons faced 100-odd cases of kidnapping, murder, arson and the like.

There are a number of reasons Indian democracy sustains these sleazy types.

They have no qualms in intimidating voters and rivals in critical constituency races.

Voters also prefer them because when it comes to delivering government goodies, they can circumvent the normal bureaucratic process by simply knocking heads.

If we dont watch out, our young Kenyan democracy could be heading in this alarming direction.

A growing number of ex-gangsters, conmen, hoodlums, goons, hooligans, outlaws, charlatans and thieves are either in elective office or campaigning to be elected.

In recent weeks we have seen a glimpse of what is in store. A former leader of a savage tribal gang who has been moving from party to party seeking a ticket for senatorial office.

A clown with a popular following who has been engaging everybody in loud theatrics while seeking gubernatorial office.

Alleged drug dealers who hold high county offices. And suspected warlords who sit in Parliament and have been on the spotlight in the recent wave of banditry in pastoral counties.

ROLE OF COURTS Under Kenyan law, a person convicted of an offence who has served a prison term of at least six months is ineligible to run for office.

That is the legal theory. Many of the rogues like to split hairs by insinuating they have never been convicted, or were released by higher courts once imprisoned. The courts, for one, remain a problem.

When last did you hear them jail a crooked politician? Even in open-and-shut cases?

Political parties should also sidestepthe loose vetting procedures of the IEBC, the EACC and the Registrar of Political Parties so as to impose their own clear integrity rules.

If the courts insist dubious candidates must be allowed to run, let them do so as independents.

In particular, the narrowly legalistic way the Political Parties Disputes Tribunal sometimes handles individual complaints can be a hindrance.

Ultimately the buck stops with the voter. Still, political parties have a duty to play their rightful gate-keeping role.

Chapter Six of the constitution, which sets out a code for leadership and integrity, has remained dead in the water due to deliberate intent.

The statute law that was meant to give bite to Chapter Six was weakened during passage. I doubt many current elected leaders would be left standing if the Chapters guidelines were faithfully enforced.

The excessive focus on academic qualifications is rather misplaced.

It is actually a scandal that no financial disclosures are required of elected officials in a country where corruption has become a real menace.

Appointed state officers are subjected to some stricter vetting, which is not the case with their elected colleagues.

If the courts insist dubious candidates must be allowed to run, let them do so as independents.

Kalonzo restates commitment to alliance and draws pledge from principals to focus on ousting

They pretend to rush their victims child to hospital after a bad road accident

See original here:
Our democracy could be headed in the wrong direction, unless we act - Daily Nation

When Peter Getzels and I were asked to make a documentary in the Czech Republic about a 90 year-old harpsichordist, I envisioned a barbed-wire dive into history, with the music of J.S. Bach to soften the blows. As with every new production, I had a steep learning curve. But I never imagined the film would morph from an inspirational, self-contained history piece, to a chilling, cautionary tale about our world today.

The most alluring part of the production was getting to know the musical virtuoso Zuzana Ruzickova, who survived three concentration camps and slave-labor as a teenager, and forty years of communism in Czechoslovakia after the war. Her American cousin Frank Vogl, built a career around fighting corruption. When Peter and I first met with him in 2013 to discuss a film about his work, the conversation turned to life under the communists in Czechoslovakia. He described how his cousin had become one of the worlds greatest interpreters of Bach despite the regime.

Can we meet her? Peter said, because we should really try to film with her. Immediately. As a Jewish American whose family has been in the US for nearly a hundred years, I often wondered what I would do if power were seized by an elected dictator; someone who defied laws and civil rights with impunity, and persecuted minorities. Would I join the resistance or hope for better times? Would I wait around, or flee?

You pronounce my name like rouge, Zuzana Ruzickova told me when we first met in Prague. She spoke with formidable precision and a smile. You have to soften your z; Its rouge-ITCH-kova. I nodded and repeated her inflection, happy that she came with a simpler first name. Her life however, was anything but simple.

During our four-day interview in Zuzanas vintage kitchen her home since the end of World War II we encountered a woman who knew no shortage of hardship; but also joy. Zuzanas dignity enabled her to tell a larger metaphysical story than the sum of the blows she suffered as a teenager in Terezin, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Her caustic humor fueled outrage that modern Europe under the communists could be so bizarrely crazy and cruel. But with every new twist in her epoch story, Zuzana seemed to get inside the head of JS Bach.

What would the Baroque composer have made of her world, had he woken up beside her on the train to Auschwitz? How would he have responded if he were employed not by the church to compose his music, but by the town council of her Marxist Leninist state? With a warm, stony stare after every turn in her story, Zuzana speculated on Bach. Like her, he had little control over much of his life. For Zuzana his music captures a higher order, which has spoken to her since she was eight years old.

He starts with a fugue, she says, that transcends our worries and pains. Its above human suffering. As she describes the music of Bach, it feels as if his higher order embedded itself in her DNA as a child, to protect her from everything that conspired to annihilate her, while guiding her to the legendary acclaim she won in the music world.

Although she refused to join the communist party, the leaders promoted her talent for profit and status. After she won the top award at the Munich Festival in 1956, they dispatched her to hundreds of international concerts and competitions. While the communists confiscated much of her wages, they could never rob her of the power and dignity of her performances. In 1964 a Paris record producer from the Erato label flew to Prague, and offered her a contract to record all the keyboard works of Bach.

This was one of the happiest eras of my life, she says. Few people know that Bach composed his keyboard works only for the harpsichord, a 14th century instrument made of wood, string, feathers or quill; which explains why Zuzana committed herself to this instrument. Recently Warner Music digitized the entire opus, and released her recordings on a 20-CD box set.

Those sessions in Paris happened over a period of ten years, she says. But the minders were with me every minute. Her face darkens with disapproval as she refers to her communist chaperones. When I hear the recordings now, I want to make corrections. I was only allowed to stay in Paris for 3 or 4 days at a time; so I never had a chance to sit with the engineer, and tell him which recordings to keep.

As our production neared completion, I imagined the experience of watching the film: hearts would sink with the turmoil in young Zuzanas life; and leap with joy at the sheer majesty of her music. I envisioned all the horror and triumph in the face of Nazis and Communists, contained in a kind of cultured, Eastern European bell jar.

And then the bell jar shattered. First with the Brexit vote driven by xenophobes; then when Trump won the election, showing little respect for tolerance and democracy; as if Nazi and Communist genies had escaped from our bell jar. The genies took the form of Alt-Righters and Russian hackers, taunting what weve always taken for granted: that democracy is forever; that our constitution is infinitely wise; and that the office of the president exists to respect and sustain both.

What does Zuzana make of these never again events? Im turning 90 and Ive seen so much, she says. Things happen in cycles. She gives me her ironic, stony stare.

And what would Bach have made of all this, I ask. I dont think he would have changed what he was doing, she says. You know, he was a sort of mystic. He didnt adhere to any single church when he composed. He wrote his music in protest and passion. Those were the words I was looking for to describe the life of Zuzana Ruzickova: Protest and passion. But theyre no longer part of a story contained in a bell jar. Not history. Not anymore.

ZUZANA: MUSIC IS LIFE will have its world premier at the Full Frame Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, on Saturday, April 8, at 10.30am.

Read more from the original source:
Where Fascism, Communism and Bach Meet - Huffington Post

When it comes to trademark law, it's worth repeating that its primary function is to prevent customer confusion and to act as a benefit for consumer trust. This mission has become skewed in many ways in many countries, but one of the lessons learned via the Washington Redskins fiasco is that even well-meaning attempts to have government play obscenity cop will result in confusing inconsistency at best and language-policing at worst. When government begins attempting to apply morality to trademark law in that way, it skews the purpose of trademark entirely.

To see that on display elsewhere, we need only look to Hungary, where the government is considering stripping the trademark protection for some of the branding for Heineken beer because it resembles the ever-scary demon that is communism.

The rightist government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbn, which faces an election in April 2018, says it is a moral obligation to ban the commercial use of symbols such as the swastika, arrow cross, hammer and sickle, and the red star. Heineken has had a star logo on its beer for most of the years since it was first brewed in the second half of the 19th century, changing to a red one in the 1930s. The star is thought to represent a brewers symbol or the various stages of the brewing process. But the red star was also a major symbol of Soviet communism and used to appear on the crest of communist-era Hungary.

Which, frankly, is entirely besides the point. It should be immediately clear how silly this sort of thing is. Stripping trademark rights for symbols tangentially related to causes a government doesn't like is bad enough, but outright banning their use in commerce is obviously a statist act by government. It does nothing to benefit the consuming public, one which will already be quite familiar with Heineken and its branding, and instead is a move designed to play on the strain of nationalism currently weaving its way through much of the West. But it accomplishes nothing concrete. Heineken isn't communism, no matter how many red stars it puts on its labels.

But dumb ideas like this necessarily come with even more extreme consequences.

Under the new law, businesses using these symbols could be fined up to 2 billion forints (6.48 million) and jail sentence.

The danger in allowing the government to play language police in this way should be clear. Fortunately for us, this particular case in Hungary eschews the slippery slope entirely and instead simply jumps off of the corruption cliff.

Last week Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjn, who jointly submitted the bill with Orbns chief of staff Janos Lazar, was quoted as saying that the red star in Heinekens logo was obvious political content. At the same time, Semjn did not deny that the ban was linked to Heinekens legal battle with a small, partly locally-owned beer maker in Romanias Transylvania home to hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hungarians over the use of a popular brand name there.

That's where this always will eventually lead, with government taking this sort of power and abusing it to favor one company over another. Hungary simply did us the favor of putting that on immediate display. If you're going to go full corruption, after all, why bother hiding it?

Excerpt from:
Trademark Censoring: Hungary Considering Banning Heineken Red Star Trademark Because Communism - Techdirt