Durante los últimos días, Perú ha observado la profundización de las tensiones sociales debido a la obstinada postura del gobierno de Dina Boluarte frente a las demandas de la ciudadanía.
Si bien parecía que la nación había logrado superar la oleada de tensiones sociales que enfrentaron diferentes países latinoamericanos en los últimos años, los eventos actuales en Perú después del fallido autogolpe de Estado por parte de Pedro Castillo reflejan que el país no es inmune a tales tumultos.
Las principales demandas de los manifestantes no son diferentes a las de Chile, Ecuador o Colombia en años recientes. Demandas por una representación mucho más amplia y participativa.… Seguir leyendo »
“Dad, my sentence is death”, Mohammad Mehdi Karami informed his father in a phone call from prison last month. Then, last Saturday, the 21-year-old karate champion was executed by the Iranian regime. Karami, an Iranian Kurd, was hanged on the same day as Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, a volunteer children’s coach who was just 20. Both were accused of killing a member of the Basij paramilitary force. In the phone call, the younger Karami reportedly told his father he was tortured into making a false confession. All 16 accused in that case have denied the charges.
Their deaths add to the growing number of young protesters killed since Iranians took to the streets almost four months ago in women-led demonstrations sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.… Seguir leyendo »
Massive anti-regime protests, Iran’s merciless crackdown and its supply of weapons to Russia have left the Islamic Republic more isolated than at any point in decades just as a crisis over its nuclear program is brewing.
The protests rocking the country have posed the most durable and determined threat to the Islamic Republic’s authority since the 2009 Green Movement. Tens of thousands of mostly young people, fronted by women and schoolgirls who reject the compulsory hijab as a symbol of misogyny and broader oppression, have taken to the streets in acts of raw defiance against the regime.
The Iranian government has killed hundreds of people in response, including dozens of children.… Seguir leyendo »
September 2022, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian, died in police custody after being detained for ostensibly wearing a hijab improperly. Amini was not the first woman to be arrested nor was she the first person killed by the police. Her death, however, ignited a protest movement that gave voice to public anger and frustration that had been building for months. Farmers had been complaining about the lack of water, students about the lack of freedom, teachers about the lack of pay, and retirees about the lack of benefits. Two years ago, we argued in these pages that Iran’s Islamic Republic was weaker than many Western analysts and policymakers thought.… Seguir leyendo »
Un indicio de la hipocresía del régimen iraní son los reportes verosímiles de que está haciendo cumplir su código moral supuestamente estricto deteniendo a mujeres y niñas acusadas de abogar por la falta de recato, para luego agredirlas sexualmente.
En un informe devastador sobre la violación de manifestantes por parte de las fuerzas de seguridad, la CNN relataba cómo una mujer de 20 años fue detenida supuestamente por encabezar protestas y más tarde fue llevada por la policía a un hospital de Karaj, temblando con violencia, la cabeza rapada y una hemorragia rectal. La mujer se encuentra ahora de nuevo en prisión.… Seguir leyendo »
The public discontent vented in bold demonstrations last month against China’s Covid containment policies represents the greatest domestic crisis President Xi Jinping has faced in his decade in power. His government quickly smothered the protests. It would be tempting to view things now as a slow-burn stalemate between a restless population and an unyielding authoritarian government. But the Communist Party’s relationship with the Chinese people is more complex than that.
As abruptly as it cracked down on the demonstrators, Mr. Xi’s government essentially yielded to their main demand, pivoting away from its unpopular “zero Covid” strategy in a striking display of responsiveness.… Seguir leyendo »
Las protestas en Irán, que ya van por su tercer mes, son una batalla histórica en la que se enfrentan dos poderosas fuerzas irreconciliables: una población mayoritariamente joven y moderna, orgullosa de su civilización de 2500 años y desesperada por el cambio frente a un régimen envejecido y aislado, decidido a mantener su poder y con 43 años de barbarie a sus espaldas.
El líder supremo de Irán, el ayatolá Alí Jamenei, el único que han conocido muchos de los manifestantes, parece estar enfrentándose a una versión del dilema del dictador: si no le ofrece a su población perspectivas de cambio, las protestas continuarán; pero, si lo hace, se arriesga a parecer débil y envalentonar a los manifestantes.… Seguir leyendo »
The protests in Iran now in their third month are a historic battle pitting two powerful and irreconcilable forces: a predominantly young and modern population, proud of their 2,500-year-old civilization and desperate for change, versus an aging and isolated theocratic regime, committed to preserving its power and steeped in 43 years of brutality.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the only ruler many protesters have known, seems to be facing a version of the dictator’s dilemma: If he doesn’t offer his people the prospect for change the protests will continue, but if he does, he risks appearing weak and emboldening protesters.… Seguir leyendo »
Xi Jinping puede ser el autócrata más poderoso del mundo, pero esta semana tuvo que hacer maniobras para satisfacer las demandas de los chinos de a pie, hartos de su fallida estrategia de “cero covid”.
Una multitud de gente común —“los viejos cien apellidos”, como se dice en la jerga china—, salieron a las calles para expresar su frustración con los confinamientos represivos por la covid y, de manera implícita, con la represión general en el país. Muchos manifestantes alzaron hojas de papel en blanco, que significa que no podían decir lo que querían decir.
Las protestas masivas que sacuden a Irán desde septiembre —cuando Mahsa Amini, una joven de 22 años, murió mientras estaba en custodia de la policía moral— llegaron a la Copa del Mundo. Antes de perder 6 a 2 contra Inglaterra el mes pasado, el equipo iraní se negó a cantar el himno nacional de la República Islámica y algunos activistas presentes mostraron carteles de protesta y abuchearon al equipo por no abandonar completamente el torneo para demostrar su solidaridad con los cientos de jóvenes iraníes asesinados en las últimas 10 semanas.
El fútbol es, por lejos, el deporte favorito de los iraníes.… Seguir leyendo »
According to Dictionary.com, the verb “harass” means “to disturb or bother persistently; torment, as with troubles or cares; pester”.
Recent protests in Iran and China suggest another definition: “what tyrannical governments do to their people”.
More than anything else, what seems to have brought the people of both countries into the streets was being fed up with authorities’ incessant but unavoidable demands: In Iran, mandatory wearing of a hijab, or headscarf, for women (among other strictures); in China, endless lockdowns and coronavirus testing, on top of much other systematic surveillance and censorship.
Neither regime seems in danger of falling, though it’s anyone’s guess how the two dramas get resolved.… Seguir leyendo »
“Abolish” is a big word. If you’re using it, you had better be sure you’re using it right.
That’s why I’ve been reluctant to repeat, retweet or even comment on the news this week that Iran “abolished” — according to an embarrassing number of headlines — its infamous morality police.
The initial reports were based on the comments of Iranian Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, who alluded to the shuttering of the notorious police force in a response to a question at a news conference. On Monday, another government official closer to the specific committee that oversees hijab enforcement apparently confirmed the closure.… Seguir leyendo »
Los líderes de China están ante un dilema peligroso. Su obsesión por eliminar el coronavirus ha evitado que el país tenga las tasas pandémicas de mortalidad sufridas por otros países grandes, pero a un costo muy alto: el grave daño social y económico que condujo el pasado fin de semana a las protestas más grandes contra el gobierno en varias décadas.
La severa política de tolerancia cero contra la covid impulsada por el presidente Xi Jinping ya no es sostenible, y este se enfrenta a la difícil disyuntiva entre suavizar las restricciones, lo que podría provocar muertes en masa, y mantener un enfoque impopular que está llevando a la sociedad China al límite.… Seguir leyendo »
Las revueltas populares, espontáneas, sin líderes y sin ideología concreta que actualmente salpican China, no tienen nada específicamente chino: ilustran los límites y los excesos de cualquier régimen autoritario en todas las civilizaciones. Podemos clasificar estos límites según algunos principios universales que hoy se aplican a China, pero que ayer se aplicaban a los regímenes fascistas o a la Unión Soviética.
El primero de estos principios exige no reconocer nunca los errores. En China, como en cualquier tiranía, la oposición no existe, por definición: el líder siempre tiene razón, o el Partido no puede equivocarse. Estas dictaduras son teológicas, del orden de lo sagrado.… Seguir leyendo »
China’s leaders are in a dangerous dilemma. Their obsession with eliminating the coronavirus has spared the country the pandemic death rates suffered by other major countries, but at a steep cost: severe social and economic pain that led last weekend to China’s biggest anti-government protests in decades.
The harsh zero-tolerance Covid policy championed by President Xi Jinping is no longer sustainable, and he faces a difficult choice between easing up on Covid restrictions, which could cause mass deaths, or clinging to an unpopular approach that is pushing Chinese society to a breaking point.
The government, apparently spooked by the rare demonstrations that took place in several cities, may be losing its resolve.… Seguir leyendo »
The centralisation of political power in China allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to tightly control society. In the past week demonstrations over President Xi Jinping’s “zero-covid” policy in cities across the country, involving people from a variety of backgrounds, came as a surprise. That is probably because citizens rarely protest against government measures in this way; simultaneous national resistance to them is less common even than in other autocratic states, such as Russia. The party learned tough lessons in Tiananmen Square in 1989. It has since meticulously designed a system that can pre-empt major protests before they occur.
The sudden eruption of anti-lockdown protests across China in the past week caught its leaders—and the world—by surprise. The first demonstrations took place in Xinjiang and Shanghai and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has crushed countless mass protests in the past with ruthless efficiency, scrambled to respond.
Chinese authorities have now adopted a mixed approach to curb the demonstrations. It combines an increased police presence and intimidation of protesters with promises of more refined implementation of the government’s “zero-covid” policy—which remains unchanged. Whatever the immediate outcomes of the protests, which now appear to be over, they will probably influence policy for the remainder of President Xi Jinping’s time in power.… Seguir leyendo »
It transforms the most powerful man in the country into a teddy bear.
It adds to the calendar the imaginary date of May 35 to invoke a people’s uprising that government censors seek to erase from memory.
It mobilizes the public to expose sexual predators with the unlikely affirmation, “Rice Bunny!”
We refer, of course, to a quality as widespread among China’s people as it is absent among its leaders – comic ingenuity.
May 35 stands in for “June 4”, Chinese shorthand for the 1989 massacre commonly known in English as “Tiananmen”, and a phrase the People’s Republic of China censors have tried to scrub from the internet.… Seguir leyendo »
The Chinese people’s frustration with their government’s zero-COVID policy has reached a boiling point. Starting on November 26, protests erupted across multiple cities, with people taking to the streets and demanding an end to harsh lockdowns. Many held up blank white pieces of paper, protesting wordlessly against censorship. A few others went beyond criticizing public-health restrictions, taking aim at the authoritarian political system. “We don't want COVID tests! We want freedom!” a group of demonstrators in Shanghai chanted, repeating words from an earlier lone protestor who unfurled a banner on a bridge in Beijing. It has been more than 30 years since China has seen simultaneous and spontaneous protests that cut across social groups, coupled with calls for freedom.… Seguir leyendo »
The protests in China against the government’s draconian Covid controls have been compared to those in 1989, when students demonstrated for political reforms and democracy. The 1989 pro-democracy movement occurred in the most liberal, tolerant and enlightening period in the history of the People’s Republic of China, and the regime opened fire in Tiananmen Square — after the ouster of the liberal leader, Zhao Ziyang — because it had run out of every other control tool in its possession. This is called the Tocqueville paradox: An autocracy is most vulnerable when it is least autocratic.
