Women's Struggles

By Jillian C. York

This Ramadan, several campaigns encouraging women to wear, or correct their method of wearing hijab, have been launched. Two such campaigns–in Iran and Palestine–have sparked conversation amongst a subset of bloggers.

Campaigns encouraging women to wear hijab are nothing new; two years ago, Global Voices author Tarek Amr reported on one particular campaign that seemed to upset Egyptian bloggers.

"Woman without hijab is like a chair with three legs," reads this poster

The Iranian campaign, which has its own website, complete with online store, sparked ire from Nicole at Muslimah Media Watch. The blogger writes:

If you still haven’t figured out that wearing black chadors will save your worldly soul and that wearing lipstick and heels will get you sent to the hellfire, Iran’s “Cyber Group for Promoting Chastity and the Veil [Ifaf]” is here to clear that up for you. They are sponsored by the Iranian government and have a sleek website where you can view their posters, buy t-shirts, and brush up on hijab laws in Iran!

Digging into the meat of the campaign, she continues, referring to the poster at left:

“A woman without hijab is like a chair with three legs” is the most incomprehensible of the posters for me, both visually and textually. Why three legs? Because we as women are somehow incomplete without hijab? Lacking in a solid foundation? Because we can’t be used to sit on? Clothes can do all that? Really?

The blogger concludes:

Muslim women have always had their Islam judged by their clothing and appearance. True, we live in scary times. However, the lot of Muslim women has hit a new low when people find it necessary to launch an expensive ad campaign to make sure we know exactly what we are supposed to wear.  To drive the point home and blur the lines even more: ”Having little or no haya (shyness/modesty), is a sign of dark-mindedness, not intellectualism, is a sign of ignorance not civilization” So don’t forget, sisters, being a blushing Muslimah is critical to being smart and civilized.  And you can’t have haya in heels and lipstick!

Reader Rochelle comments on the piece, saying:

I think this campaign demonstrates what I’ve been trying to articulate for a long time: that compulsory hijab IS a big deal in Iran. I think a lot of us get so fed up with the obsession over hijab in the west that we assume that Iranian women don’t care about it or it’s not as big of a deal on the ground in Iran as in western perceptions of Iran. But to that argument I respond by saying this: if the hijab isn’t a ‘big deal’, then why does the Iranian government spend a ridiculous amount of of money, energy, and human resources on enforcing mandatory hijab? Clearly there is something big at stake here.

In Palestine, the campaign is aimed at women who already wear hijab, but who are wearing it “incorrectly.”  Lebanese blogger Rita Chemaly shares a photograph of one of the campaign posters, which she received from a friend in Palestine (at right)

"So that your hjiab is proper," reads the poster

The blogger comments:

it seems that this campaign is going in Palestinian streets.

in lebanon, we are used to see people wearing the veil in a more modern look.

even a more fashionable look.

according to this campaign, wearing sexy outfits with a headcover is not enough, and it is changing the meaning of the veil.

the veil is not intended for the hair, but it is a social identity, were fluid and large clothes are needed.

what is your opinion about this matter?

En España están hablando de nuevo de prohibir los anuncios de contacto con trabajadores sexuales - o prostitutas/os (y a veces conocidos como avisos de putas). Un artículo desde Tenerife expone los diversos argumentos pro y contra. El 20 Minutos acusa a los demás periódicos del proxenetismo. Malaprensa deconstuye cuidadosamente las cifras enormes siempre citadas sobre el número de prostitutas en España.

La voz de la libertad de expresión dice Partiendo de la base de que ejercer voluntariamente la prostitución no es delito en España, no veo ningún inconveniente en que una persona, haciendo uso de su libertad, se anuncie en un periódico para prestar ese servicio (Leopoldo Fernández Cabeza de Vaca).

Pero claro que la trata sí es ilegal y los que hacen campaña en contra de los anuncios argumentan que no son las trabajadoras sexuales las que se anuncian sino las mafias. El mismo presidente Zapatero se ha pronunciado en contra: no le conviene nada el hecho de que España es el único país de la Unión Europea que todavía permite que los periódicos dominantes-principales publiquen estos anuncios. Atrás está una feminista estatal, Bibiana Aído, ministra de la Igualdad. Es una historia emblemática de la Europa contemporánea.

Al mismo tiempo algo similar está pasando en Estados Unidos pero que tiene impacto para cualquier sitio con Internet - o sea, para todo el mundo. Craigslist, un enorme sitio web de anuncios clasificados, queda acusado del ‘tráfico’ por personas y fiscales estatales que creen que se está utilizando el servicio para explotar a los niños. Escribí sobre esto ayer.

In a nation with Africa’s only female president, Liberian girls are outpaced by boys in educational enrollment, retention and completion rates from the earliest grades through university. Only 18% of girls who make it to high school graduate, compared with 25% of boys. This article is about an effort to redress this situation. HSEN/CJW ed.

Albinos in Kenya have petitioned government to conduct a national survey to determine their current population. This, they say, will help in proper planning for their needs. The petition has been acknowledged by various arms of the government and work is in progress. HSEN/CJW ed.

By Hisham

The decision last month by Saudi Arabia to ban Moroccan women [Ar] of a “young age” from traveling to Mecca, the holiest meeting site in Islam, to perform the Umrah, or minor pilgrimage, has stirred outrage in Morocco. Saudi authorities justified the ban on the suspicion that young female visa applicants (whether accompanied by their parents or not) “may have something else in mind” than strictly pious intentions, in clear reference to underground prostitution. Moroccan conservative members of the parliament have been vocal in condemning what they consider “a trial of intentions” and an “insult to all Moroccan women and to their families.” Bloggers are also reacting to the Saudi ban.

Tawaf of the Kaaba - a ritual of Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, by Omar Chatriwala on Flickr

Sudanese-born commentator Nesrine Malik who writes on the Guardian's Comment is Free considers that Saudi Arabia, by implementing this ban, is failing in its religious duties toward fellow Muslims. She has a suggestion:

Saudi Arabia has a duty to facilitate pilgrimages to Mecca for all Muslims worldwide. I would therefore suggest, in order to mitigate the problem and in the spirit of slanderous generalisation, that Saudi men be banned from Morocco, lest they use their tourist visas for “other purposes”.

Moroccan blogger Sarah (Words for Change) responds to the ban in a post she titles “I am a Prostitute, a Witch, a Drug Addict, a Zionist.” She explains her dislike of mounting stereotypes against Moroccans. She writes:

I tried to stay very diplomatic all this years while explaining how much Morocco is an amazing country and that what they talk about are cultural aspects of the Moroccan identity blablablabla. Today I decide not to be diplomatic anymore and to respond to what they accuse us of […]
Moroccan women are more honorable than many oriental manipulative little girls who practice superficial sex, anal sex to preserve their virginity and buy a Chinese spare virginity in case they lose it, and still they will act like virgin Mary “Achraf mini Echaraf Mafiich” [as if they were more honorable than honor itself].

Lebanese blogger Mustapha from BeirutSprings.com is shocked by the ban and says Moroccan authorities should have responded more vigorously. He writes:

But the blame sits not only with the Saudis. The Moroccans should have made a bigger stink out of this. They should have threatened to go all the way and if need-be ban their citizens from going to Saudi Arabia. Maybe this would generate the kind of publicity that forces the entire Arab world to debate this all-too-common stereotype.

Moroccan blogger Anas from Big Brother Maroc agrees [Fr]. He writes:

[Q]ue faire ? Notre pays n'a ni le pétrole des Saoudiens, ni suffisamment de puissance économique pour refuser “l'aide” en millions de dollars que donne la Monarchie Saoudienne au Maroc.

Si cela ne dépendait que de moi, j'aurai décidé de ne plus partir à la Mecque, mon pays économisera les millions de dollars au lieu de les transférer vers l'Arabie saoudite à travers les pèlerinages de Marocains, j'imposerai le Visa aux Saoudiens et je commencerai à corriger ce qui est à corriger dans mon pays.

What can we do? Unlike Saudi Arabia, our country doesn't have oil, nor sufficient economic power to afford losing out on the millions of dollars of “aid” that Saudi royals offer Morocco.

If it were up to me, I would refuse to visit Mecca anymore, and help my country save millions of dollars instead of transferring them to Saudi Arabia through the pilgrimage. I would impose a visa on Saudis and start fixing the problems within my own country.

The issue also sparked a discussion on Twitter.

Miss Nabokov (Morocco) writes:

If this is how it's going to be, then Saudi men should be banned from Morocco as they're the ones that go over there looking for sex.

What makes me angry is SA [Saudi Arabia] & the Gulf accuse Morocco of lax morals when THEIR men are the ones coming over and exploiting impoverished girls.

Jillian C. York (USA) agrees:

Morocco is a pretty poor country. The blame is on Saudi Arabia for continuously exploiting that fact.

@Medmouad (Morocco) responds:

@jilliancyork I prefer to say both Morocco & KSA (Gulf in general) are to blame. If Moroccan subjects are well defended, it would be better

Afrinomad (Morocco) joins the discussion. He writes:

@jilliancyork it's revolting that from the perspective of Gulf Arabs, “Moroccan” is not seen a nationality but an occupation

Tarek Amr @gr33ndata (Egypt) tweets:

عشان الناس إل زعلت لما قلت الحج و العمرة لازم تكون تحت إدارة دولية بعيدا عن خبل السعودية و عنصريتها http://bit.ly/bfA9Nn

For those who were angered when I suggested that the Hajj and the Umrah should be put under an international administration and taken away from the madness and racism of Saudi Arabia, I suggest you follow think link [leading to Aljazeera's article about the ban] http://bit.ly/bfA9Nn

Jasmine Aladdin (Egypt) agrees. She tweets:

@gr33ndata da habbal weste3bat gamed awi we ta55aloofff begad we maloush ay 3elaqa bel deen!!!

This is madness. It's a wicked affront. What a backwardness really. It has nothing to do with religion!!!

Ahmed Fouad (Egypt) disagrees. He tweets:

@gr33ndata لا اعتقد ان سبب المنع هو العنصرية ولكن اكيد هوا المحافظة علي قدسية هذا البلد وطهارتة

I don't think this has anything to do with racism. It's definitely an attempt to maintain the sanctity of this country and its purity.

This isn't the only time controversy was raised around this issue. More recently, the Kuwaiti daily al-Watan had to issue an apology after a popular cartoon it produces created a stir when it depicted Moroccan women as greedy witches scheming to lure wealthy Kuwaiti males into marriage.

The Egyptian Ministry of Information's website was reportedly attacked by a Moroccan hacker who broke into its server causing it to collapse. According to Hespress.com [Ar], a Moroccan online news website, the attack was meant to express anger at the way Moroccan women were depicted in an Egyptian TV series aired this summer called al-Aar (The Shame).

Photo by omar_chatriwala available on Flickr and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Tania Ghosh for Women News Network – WNN Zimbabwean women are denied access to land under African the government’s land reform programme, a new report has found. According to the report, women make up 51 per cent of the population and yet there has been little mention of women, if at all, during the two [...]

#1 R&B Song 1968:  “You’re All I Need To Get By,” Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

Born:  Wilton Felder (the Crusaders), 1940

*******************************************************************************************

1955   Chuck Berry’s ”Maybellene” reached #5 pop while spending eleven weeks at #1 on the R&B hit list. Chuck began his musical career as a member of the Johnny Johnson trio in St. Louis in 1952.

1959   The Coasters’ “Poison Ivy” charted, eventually becoming the group’s fourth and final R&B #1.

1962   The Shirelles, ben E. King, Little Eva, Chuck Jackson, Dee Dee Sharp, the Marvelettes, the Ronettes, the Del-Satins, the Majors and Tony Orlando (years before Dawn) performed at Murray the K’s annual New York Labor Day Rock ‘n’ Roll show at the Brooklyn Fox Theater.

1963   The Miracles’ “Mickey’s Monkey” charted en route to #3 R&B and #8 pop.

1969   Richie Havens performed at England’s Isle of Wright Festival with the Moody Blues, the Who, Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan, and others.

1976   George Harrison was found guilty of “subconscious plagiarism” of the Chiffons’ hit “He So Fine” for similarities to his million-seller “My Sweet Lord.” In a case of sweet retribution, the Chiffons then recorded their own version of “My Sweet Lord.”

1987   Michael Jackson: The Magic Returns aired on CBS-TV, featuring his seventeen-minute video “Bad.”

1994   R. Kelly married new chart sensation Aaliyah in Rosemont, IL. The marriage was later annulled as Aaliyah was only fifteen years old at the time and the state law required that people to be sixteen to marry.

James Kessler is a justice architect. That means he works in criminal justice architecture. He is a senior principal at Hellmuth, Obata + Kassebaum, Inc, better known as HOK, one of the largest architectural firms in the world. Here’s how they describe justice architecture: “As an integral part of society and a component of contemporary life in our cities and states, Justice Architecture is a powerful symbol that serves to define the image of justice in every community.”

In a profile this week, Kessler talked about women prisoners in the United States: “Incarcerated women, for example, are more likely to change, or want to change, Kessler said, noting “an incredibly high percentage – more than 50 percent – have been abused as children.” Statistically they also have more health issues than men, and 75 percent are mothers with the added burden of being away from their children, exacerbated by having been abandoned by their own parents in similar situations….In the past, and sometimes at present, Kessler said parity issues arise vis-à-vis men’s prisons, with fewer opportunities and programs available to women who comprise a much smaller percentage of the prison population.…One of the goals during incarceration, Kessler explained, is to ameliorate the anger that defines inmates. According to Kessler, because research has determined women have a much greater need for privacy than men, requiring them to live in open dormitories would very possibly build on that anger rather than helping to relieve it.”

Women prisoners’ anger, women’s anger, creates a different space and inhabits a different architecture than the anger of men.

The profile concludes with Kessler’s reflection: “As architects, we have social responsibilities and certain sensitivities, perceptions and skills to deal with unusual situations for the people that work in them, the people that visit them and for the people that are in them, because they are still human.”

Because they are still human. What determines the humanity of a prisoner? The architecture? The design elements? Such as shackles around the ankles and waists of women in labor and delivery?

In Rhode Island, pregnant prisoners are handcuffed and shackled. Earlier this month, the Rhode Island chapters of the National Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union find this “troubling” and “unnecessary”. Rhode Island Department of Corrections officials see shackling as striking “a balance between the need for security and the interests of a pregnant inmate.” How is being shackled in the interests of a pregnant woman? She is still human, isn’t she?

In California, the ACLU is challenging the same “balanced” shackling of pregnant women: “In California, we currently shackle pregnant women. In jails and prisons, women are forced to walk with shackles around their swollen ankles, chains around their middles, and handcuffs behind their backs. They walk through downtown city blocks chained to one to another, trying their best not to lose balance”. The ACLU thinks this is cruel and unusual punishment, not a balance struck in the interests of pregnant women. But then, perhaps the interests of pregnant women and those of pregnant prisoners are not the same. Does “security” define reconstitute pregnant women prisoners as other than human? Is that the “balance”? What is the name of the different space created by shackled pregnant women walking, stumbling, falling?

In a couple weeks, the Governor of California will have the opportunity to strike a new balance, limiting the use of restraints on pregnant women who are prisoners.

In Texas this month, the ACLU and the Texas Jail Project have charged the Dallas County jail and others in the state with shackling prisoners during labor and delivery.

This week, the U.S. government submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council. This is the first time the US has ever reported on its own human rights situation. Prison is included in the report. It appears in Chapter III, “A Commitment to Freedom, Equality, Dignity.” Prison is in the third section, Dignity. There are safeguards for dignity in law enforcement and criminal justice, dignity and incarceration, dignity and criminal sanctions, dignity and juvenile offenders. Dignity abounds. There is no mention of dignity and women. There is no mention of the shackling of pregnant women prisoners.

It is August in America. Pregnant women prisoners across the country are being shackled. Even though they do not appear in the report on human rights, they are still human, they are still women … aren’t they?

Dan Moshenberg, dmoshenberg@gmail.com

Pakistani born Azbaa Dar is being held in Yarl’s Wood. On Monday of this week she reported, dutifully, to the Liverpool office of the UK Border Agency. She has been applying for asylum for nine years, and as part of the process, she has to `visit’ the UKBA offices regularly. At this visit, she was given a letter denying her asylum. She was then taken to Yarl’s Wood and told she was to be returned to Pakistan.

Azbaa’s family had been turned down for asylum on Easter 2006, after a five year asylum process. Her father, Arif, a local high school governor, her mother, her four younger sisters were sent to Yarl’s Wood, and then shipped back to Pakistan. Since their return, Arif has been detained and tortured on a number of occasions, her mother is ill, her sisters have been threatened if they pursue formal education. And then of course there are the floods.

Azbaa escaped capture and lived clandestinely around Liverpool for close to four years. Finally, a deal was struck that if she turned herself in and came regularly to the office, she’d be fast tracked. She was. To Yarl’s Wood.

She was supposed to fall under a `legacy’ agreement, that would take into account the roots of the applicant in her new community. Azbaa has won Good Citizenship awards, has logged in 800 hours of volunteer, unpaid service at a local hospital, and is generally viewed as a model. She was supposed to be treated with some modicum of decency, recognition, appreciation. She was supposed to receive due process of some sort.

Instead, she has been treated as a dangerous criminal, a threat to society.

Azbaa Dar’s story, and that of her family for that matter, is all too common in the so-called advanced democracies. Pregnant Tamil asylum seekers are kept as prisoners in Canada. An Australian candidate for Prime Minister of Australia bases his campaign on severely limiting the number of asylum seekers who reach the nation’s golden shores.

It’s a common story. Seventy one years ago, 1939, on the verge of World War II, W.H. Auden wrote “Refugee Blues”. Here are some stanzas:

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us….

The consul banged the table and said,
“If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead”:
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
“If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread”:
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me….

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren’t the human race, my dear, they weren’t the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.”

I dreamed I saw Azbaa Dar and W.H. Auden, walking down the road, smiling. But that didn’t happen. Instead, we live with the anguish of the asylum seekers, in the UK, in Canada, in Australia, in the US, in the great democracies of the world. Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

Dan Moshenberg, dmoshenberg@gmail.com

As so many people choose to do what is right for 67 minutes today all over the world, I hope that we all remember that you have lived your life as a revolutionary who thought that justice could triumph, even as many in our county and the world would rather pretend that you are a teddy bear, benign grandfather figure. Here’s to your most revolutionary self and much love on your birthday.

As a rule, I try not to blog about issues that relate to my friends being maligned in the press. This is the only reason I have not blogged about the entire mess with Nomboniso Gasa and the CGE, which continues to enrage me in the injustice of it all, or Xoliswa Sithole and the backlash to her brilliant _Shouting Silent_ saga, or similar things that I may change my mind (re blogging about). But this week, while I was dealing with personal drama, a writer that I think matters – my difference with what he writes notwithstanding – went public with an issue that I think off-page disagreement can no longer serve. This week, Eric Miyeni, author of three books, popular personality, touted eye candy and recognised misogynist in many circles, went public with his hateful nonsense this week by writing an article in Sowetan that really needs more responses than the one Lebo Mashile felt pained to write, even though I am sure she has better things to do with her time. It is totally ridiculous that Mashile had to respond to this rubbish at all, and if Miyeni had the courage of his convictions, there is no shortage of stuff to take on in SA. I have a column on which I may take this up more coherently and calmly but since it is not with the newspaper in question – and papers can be sticky about responses – blogs offer a great opportunity for unedited copy for us writers.

Miyeni’s piece feigned some concern with Mashile’s health in various ways as a thin veil to attack her for deigning to be anything but a self-hating woman. He does not have any reason to think that Mashile has any health issues – or that the presumed existence of these merits waving her privacy. He declares that “under all those layers of fat that she now carries, Lebo Mashile is one of the most beautiful women I have ever met.” Miyeni’s is very thin veiled misogyny.

How dare Lebo Mashile be anything less than rake thin and deign to think we can take her seriously for being gob-smackingly beautiful physically, profound, talented and radical without starving and begging for favours in order to live on her work? How dare she not be a cokehead and rake-thin as a result so that we can feel better about “ourselves”? How dare she not secretly have bulimia or anorexia or be on endless diets so that she can look like the image propped up by skinny women who hate their bodies in order to stay on magazine covers? How dare she be radical, beautiful, “big”, popular, unapologetically feminist and an icon today when we all think we have the answers about South Africa being so conservative?

Yes, I also think that SA is more conservative than we’d all like to admit. And yet, Lebo Mashile’s ground breaking television show, L’atitude, and “formula” is copied over and over again in popular culture – tv and beyond – and pulled many more audiences across the board than many others. She won the coveted and prestigious NOMA prize for her brilliant poetry before she even realised how significant an award it is.

I am not saying Lebo Mashile is perfect. She is a human being – and therefore automatically imperfect. And because of her courage, she is a wonderful example and affirmation for smart girls and women in this country in a million ways. This is nothing to apologise for, no matter how much hatred – in the manner of Miyeni and similar – she receives.

Eric Miyeni’s vitriol against women who are not stick thin deserves attention and rebuttal. It deserves recognition for the hateful nonsense that it is. (Maybe those of us who think he is hateful should not spend anymore money on his books.)

First of all, Eric Miyeni seems to think that you need to be thin to be healthy. However, he is clearly disingenious in this claim. He may be an infuriatingly smart but lazy writer – talented but unwilling to polish his words before subjecting his writers to them, unlike Mashile who respects her audiences too much to torment them with sloppy copy – but he has worked in advertising/media/marketing long enough to know how unhealthy many skinny women and men are, and he is intelligent enough (even though he sometimes pretends not to be) to know that most ‘fat’ people in this country are much healthier than the skinniest people on our media pages.

The column that he anchored on Lebo Mashile is probably one of his shoddiest pieces of writing and a very cheap, hateful shot. Lebo Mashile is there simply to titilate. In other words, no matter how important and profound her work, on Miyeni’s column she is the exact opposite of what she is in her work (profound, provocatice, intelligent, attractive). When Miyeni had nothing interesting to write about, he chose to pen a column about a writer whose brilliance he has not met even though his writing career has been much longer, and a writer whose genius he may never live up to, hateful cheap shots notwithstanding.

That is what misogynist do all the time in this county, and maybe it is time we stopped taking them on off-page.

Women who were prostituted as juveniles attest that numerous girls and teens are stuck in "the life" they've left behind. An Atlanta advocacy group finds 129 girls and teens are prostituted in Georgia on a typical weekend night. First of two stories.

Young U.S. women are finishing high school, attending college and earning degrees at higher rates than men. A boys' educational crisis (of arguable extent), two-income families and rising divorce rates help explain the widening gaps, onlookers say.

Embattled Cambodian lawmaker Mu Sochua faces potentially dangerous fallout from her recent U.S. tour. But she takes home what she calls a promise by Hillary Clinton, an old ally, to investigate the country's human rights abuses.

The Brides' March in northern Manhattan is in its ninth year of commemorating the slaying of Gladys Ricart on her wedding day. Rita Henley Jensen says she joined the event to express sadness about two recent headline murders in her neighborhood.

October's movies offer an array of treats, including Drew Barrymore's directorial debut and an investigation into the industry of black hair care led by Chris Rock. For the biggest shot of controversy, watch out for "An Education," opening Oct. 9.

Crystal Lee Sutton, the real "Norma Rae," just died after struggling with her insurer to pay for medical coverage. Linda Meric says health care reform responds to Sutton's death and passing the Employee Free Choice Act will honor her life's work.

In memory of Julia Chapeyama and Thembelani Lunga The outbreak of cholera in epidemic proportions has brought Zimbabwe back to the attention of the region and the world.  Zimbabwe’s complex emergency, which is now causing so much suffering, taking lives and breaking the society apart at its seams, has been several years in the making. A [...]

OVER 1,000 members of WOZA marched through the streets of central Bulawayo today to the offices of the state-owned Chronicle newspaper. The peaceful group distributed flyers calling on the so-called government to stand aside to allow the United Nations to deal with the humanitarian crisis. Other flyers distributed by the group demanded the immediate release [...]