Deaths in custody

On Jan. 14, after an anti-government protest in my city of Sofia was banned postfactum (see my Jan. 15 post), Police Department No. 4 was crowded with arrested people. Among them was Metodi Marinov (60) from the village of Banitsa.
It is still unclear why Marinov was arrested. The official version of the police (presented by Trud here and here) is that he had previous convictions and was detained as a suspected participant in a car theft ring. Some protesters detained at the same time claim that Marinov had on his jacket a sticker "Sergo go home" (referring to the Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev), which indicated that he had also been arrested as a protester. I wouldn't try a judgement here, because our police are habitual liers but my experience shows that witnesses in such cases also can say things very far from the truth. I find it more likely, however, that the official version here is accurate - I suppose that they at least don't (yet) fabricate criminal records.
Anyway, even according to the official version, the old man was kept for many hours in uncomfortable conditions - on a chair and then on a bench in the corridor, because the cells were packed with detained protesters. He declared that he had heart problems but declined (?!) medical examination and help. According to the official version, Marinov never complained, but some of the protesters later testified (here and here) that he several times said he didn't feel well and asked for medical help, but was neglected and even mocked.
Shortly after 1 AM at Jan. 15, the heavy breathing of Marinov finally alerted the policemen and they called the paramedics - to no avail. His death was said to be caused by myocardial infarction (details here and here). To me, it is noteworthy that nobody cites Marinov's attorney, which clearly shows that he had none.
A week later, on Jan. 22, another man died at the hands of police in Sofia. Plamen Kutsarov (29) was arrested as a suspected member of a kidnapping gang. Police claimed that he failed the lie detector test. Then, only hours after his arrest, he died of suffocation while being transported in a car, handcuffed and with a hood on his head. Kutsarov's relations and lawyer deny that he had any connections with the criminal world.
The official reaction was slightly different this time. In Marinov's case, the authorities fiercely denied any wrongdoing because he was (correctly or not) linked to the Jan. 14 rally, so government was eager to defend its right to use any degree of force against protesting citizens. However, Kutsarov's death resulted from ordinary police work, so the General Secretary of the police had to admit that his institution was partially (?) at fault. One or two police officers were removed from their positions but there are no reports that any have been charged. On Jan. 23, the Interior Minister Mikov said in the Parliament that "it is (just a) suggestion (vnushenie) that many people have died at the hands of police in recent time".
Meanwhile, 168 chasa weekly reported that a third pre-trial detainee, a suspected thief, hanged himself in his cell because of physical and sexual abuse but police managed to hide his case from the public. I cannot find in the Web any source confirming this information.

In the 1990s, arrested people were regularly beaten by police and some of them died. Fortunately, as Bulgaria was (at least de jure) moving to the civilized world, this trend slowly but steadily declining. Now, we seem to observe a chilling turn of the tide.
What particularly worries me is the unadequate reaction of the society. First, too much attention is directed to the personalities of the victims. Indeed, if Mr. Marinov has really been a protester, his death would mark a very sad precedent, because in the nearly 20 years of emerging democracy no one protester had been killed by Bulgarian police (or vice versa). However, ordinary Bulgarians seem to overlook the postulate that every person, not only the good and law-abiding but everyone, has a right to due treatment by police and fair trial; and that if these rights are today denied to suspected thieves and murderers, tomorrow every citizen can find himself in the same situation.
Second, the increasing brutality of police, when perceived by ignorant and murky heads, serves to obscure even further their understanding of the function and obligations of state and, hence, the ability of citizens to shape the state as it should be. I mean, when somebody blames the state for the current crime wave because of the impunity of criminals and the absence of police from hot zones, many people reply, "Don't talk nonsense, X wasn't killed by government (forces) so don't blame his murder on government." In other words, seeing the state kill people, ordinary Bulgarians forget its basic function to provide law and order and want it just to leave them alone. With this mindset, it is difficult for me to hope that things may improve in the near future.

Petition demanding justice for Martin Borilski

Martin Borilski was a Bulgarian student in France who in 2000, at age 24, was cruelly murdered in his home. French police gathered and provided to Bulgarian authorities compelling forensic evidence incriminating two young Bulgarian men. However, the Bulgarian judiciary first tried not to prosecute the suspects at all and then staged a parody of a trial only to acquit them. The reason: they are sons of high-ranking people, the sort of people who in Bulgaria are allowed to do whatever they wish, up to murder, while the victim was coming from an ordinary family.
You can read more about the case in English here, here and here.
A Web petition has been started demanding just sentences for the culprits and punishments for prosecutors and judges responsible for the outrageous acquittal. The photos on the petition page show, from top, the victim Martin Borilski, the alleged murderers and the judge who acquitted them.

Bulgarian authorities deprive disabled children of education

Two students in front of the "good" building of 2nd Auxiliary School in Sofia. Photo by Nadezhda Chipeva, copied from the site of Capital weekly.

I watched this story unfolding on TV news last year but unfortunately hadn't the opportunity to blog about it in real time. The Mogilino blog reports it properly and Bulgarian readers can go directly there. I'll translate now the most important moments.
In October 2008, Bulgaria lost in court after the Mental Disability Advocacy Center filed a complaint in early 2007. "Bulgaria is de facto depriving disabled children of their right to education. This was announced by the European Committee of Social Rights... The Committee found evidence that the Bulgarian government failed to provide education for up to 3,000 children with intellectual disabilities living in so-called ‘homes for mentally disabled children’. Only a small percentage of these children attend school, and the educational programmes carried out inside the institutions do not actually constitute education. Schools and their personnel are not ready to satisfy the needs of disabled children, and government does nothing to solve the problem." The story is reported in more detail in English at the Mental Disability Advocacy Center site under the title Bulgaria: right to education.
So much about the fate of those disabled children who are wards of state. What about the others who haven't been abandoned by their parents? In Bulgaria, most children with milder forms of mental retardations are educated in special, so-called auxiliary schools. I don't want to discuss here the controversy of educating disabled children in segregated vs. inclusive settings; I believe, however, that even the most passionate opponents of special education will agree that it is better than nothing and shouldn't be dismantled if this means simply throwing the kids out into the street. However, this is exactly what happened in my city of Sofia.
Let me translate the Sept. 26 Mogilino post Suspicious maneuvre of the Ministry of Education: "Capital weekly reports that the Ministry of Education wants to merge 5th and 2nd Auxiliary Schools in Sofia in the building of 2nd Auxiliary school because this building was allegedly better. At the site of Capital, you can see the damaged surface and the unkept yard of the "better building". You cannot see how it looks inside, because the Capital reporters haven't been let in, similarly to those of NTV channel before. It is noteworthy that the (building and land of) 2nd Auxiliary School is in the process of being returned to its rightful owners while the land of 5th Auxiliary School has been donated specifically to build a school. It seems that somebody wants very much the land of 5th Auxiliary School."
The story is continued in the Oct. 5 post Children in wheelchairs need not come: "Fifth Auxiliary School was closed last week by the Ministry of Education, against the law. The children were moved to the building of 2nd Auxiliary School, which for most of them means travelling additional 15 km in either direction. The Ministry promised transport for all (72) students but in reality provided a bus with only 8 seats. Children in wheelchairs were told that they didn't need to come to the new school because there was no way for them to be transported to it and the building itself wasn't accessible, wheelchairs couldn't even pass through its front door. A desperate mother wrote this letter which was published at the Capital site." (In it, the mother describes the illegal action of authorities, refuses to let her son be educated in awful conditions and vows to leave work in order to homeschool him.)
I watched the continuation of the story on TV news: Indeed, many parents of children formerly educated at 5th Auxiliary School refused to send them to 2nd Auxiliary School - either because it was not wheelchair-accessible or, in some cases, because parents feared it could collapse any moment. In a Catch 22-like turn, authorities accused these parents in depriving their children of education (!) and threatened them with punishments.

Police brutally disperse peaceful protest in Sofia, nobody cares

Photo: Moment from the Jan. 14 anti-government rally in Sofia. Copied from Simion Pateev's Observer blog, original source: Dnevnik paper.

On Jan. 14, between 2000 and 3000 people attended an anti-government protest in front of the National Assembly (the Bulgarian Parliament) in Sofia. Protesters were students demanding order and safety in the campus, conservationists protesting against a proposed change in the Forest Act allowing easy destruction of forests, farmers demanding the subsidies they are entitled to under EU legislation, and many other people united by their strong disapproval of current Bulgarian government. Among the thousands of peaceful protesters, a group of fewer than 50 young men attacked police and broke some windows, including one of the Parliament building. Police didn't make a serious try to control them.

However, anyone who thought that police wouldn't be active was soon to be proven wrong. Let me quote the BBC report Protesters fight police in Sofia: "When an anonymous bomb threat was received, the Deputy Mayor of Sofia, Yulya Nenkova, issued an order to break up the rally, local media reported. The police then used force to disperse the protesters, who were demanding the resignation of the Socialist-led government."

So much about the brutal and indiscriminate use of police force against a peaceful, allowed protest in a EU member state. The two other foreign media reports about the rally that I managed to find, by AFP and Reuters, don't mention that turn of the events at all. Among non-government activists, only the French conservationist David Morrand expressed support for the protesters.

Bulgaria media, despite giving undue weight to the mild and isolated acts of vandalism that accompanied the rally, did their job better. E.g. Dnevnik paper published a report titled Provocations and police force destroyed the protest. I am translating its initial part:

"Only an hour after its beginning, the united protest of students, conservationists and farmers was banned by the Municipality of Sofia after a demand by the police. Another hour later police dispersed by force the 2000 or more demonstrators gathered in front of the Parliament and started chasing them over the streets of Sofia."

Participants and eye-witnesses say that protesters were given absolutely no order or warning, that they were beaten indiscriminately, including children, women (see photo), elderly people and people already lying on the ground, that police chased people to closed streets and alleys, presumably to prevent them from escaping unhurt. (This description fits the well-known pattern of behaviour that has been shown by Bulgarian police on many earlier occasions.) Questions are asked how can a rally be first allowed and then banned while taking place and why, if there had been indeed a call so conviniently delivering a bomb threat, police dispersed only the protesters and didn't evacuate the Parliament building. Bulgarian readers can see e.g. the above quoted Observer post and the blog post by opposition leader Martin Dimitrov (and the comments to it). In his post, Dimitrov claimed that his colleague Borislav Borislavov was injured while trying to protect old ladies.

It isn't quite clear how the arrested protesters were dealt with. The next day (Jan. 15), opposition MP Ivan Kostov announced in the Parliament that police had arrested minors and forced them to sign forms that they didn't want attorneys. The same day, BTV channel reported that detained people were tried using the short procedure and quoted a mother claiming that her son had been arrested in the street without having attended the protest at all.

After this rather impersonal description where I am trying to pose as an amateur reporter, because professional reporters don't seem to be doing their job, let me share my own thoughts.

The Jan. 14 events don't surprise me at all and so don't trouble me too much, because this is the Bulgarian reality as I know it. What is worrying me is the silence in foreign media and the indifference of international (esp. European) public opinion. In small, weak countries like Bulgaria, foreign criticism is a very important regulator of domestic policy. While I am staying aside of the current protests, I have taken part in many similar ones in the past. Generally, these rallies were better reported and the presence of cameras not only helped the achievement of good things in some cases but also served to guarantee, to some extent, the rights and safety of citizens in a country where police is regarded by the authorities mainly as a tool to quash dissent.

The situation has worsened much since Bulgaria joined EU in early 2007. Indeed, some media have done an excellent job to report the outrageous plight of our institutionalized disabled children. However, what Westerners don't seem to realize is that non-disabled, non-institutionalized adults in a formally democratic EU member state also can have very little control over their fate and be stripped of most basic rights. The only aspect of the situation in Bulgaria that is properly reported in European media is the rampant corruption. This makes sense, because this aspect of the Bulgarian situation directly empties the pockets of European taxpayers. However, people who love democracy should also think of the nascent civil society in Bulgaria which is struggling to survive. It needs help and after this help costs so little (just to spread the word), I don't see why it isn't being given.

In conclusion, while I had doubts about the wisdom of the Jan. 14 protest (for reasons that I don't wish to discuss here), it achieved something very important: it proved beyond any reasonable doubt that in Bulgaria the right to public protest, similarly to freedom of speech, exists only until somebody tries to use it.

AIDS is caused by HIV

When in the late 1990s an intrahospital epidemic in Benghazi, Libya resulted in infection of about 400 children with AIDS, I thought that I'd wish to popularize what we know about this disease and to devote these texts to the Benghazi victims. Since I started this blog, I have written many times to defend the Bulgarian medics accused in spreading the virus (see my posts with label "HIV trial in Libya", the latest of them here), but never to educate. I even thought that I need not write educational texts about AIDS because there are already many of them written by other, more competent authors. Now, however, I am going to write at least one such post.
These days, Indian journalist Rupa Chinai wrote on the WIP site a series of three articles about the AIDS situation in India. Intelectual honesty requires that I link directly to my opponent's writings, but I am unwilling, because I find their contradiction to the best available AIDS knowledge too dangerous if used by somebody as medical advice. Rupa has talent and compassion and presents real problems, such as the massive supply of bogus AIDS diagnostic tests giving false results and the inability of Indian health care system to control (and even monitor) properly the spread and progression of AIDS. However, she is also highly critical to science (which she calls "Western" science) and particularly to current scientific consensus about AIDS and the so-called by her "AIDS lobby" - a loose association of researchers, pharmaceutical companies and Western government agencies as well as international ones such as UNAIDS. Taken together, these convictions lead her to AIDS (HIV) denialism. Actually Rupa claims only to be unbiased observer of the debate between mainstream scientists and "the dissidents" (as denialists prefer to call themselves), but her preferences to the latter seem clear to me; and even if she was truly standing in the middle, this would be enough to me to regard her as belonging to the other camp, exactly as I regard Sarah Palin's wish to teach both creationism and Darwinism as indicative of her being a creationist, though she doesn't insist Darwinism to be thrown away from school.
Thinking what arguments to put forward in favour of the HIV causation of AIDS, I first wanted to point out that anti-retroviral drugs significantly increase the life span of infected patients. However, after reading Rupa's third (last) article, I was happy that I hadn't talked about the drugs, because it featured a group of HIV positive women who had lost their husbands to AIDS but remained in a reasonably good condition for many years by adhering to a healthy lifestyle, adequate (to their opinion) nutrition and "traditional" medicine. While I am glad that these women do so well, I think that they would do even better (and longer) on anti-retroviral drugs, and hope that nobody follows their example. Contrary to what these women, their so-called doctors and Rupa think, it is easy for the "AIDS lobby" to explain their cases: the "bright" period between encountering HIV and developing an AIDS-defining illness varies much between individuals and is 10 years on average. For the women in the report, this period has been so far 12-14 years, which doesn't differ dramatically from 10 years. So they seem just to have longer than average "bright" periods. I bet that other HIV-infected Indians have followed the same strategy but have had shorter than average bright periods, as the elementary calculus of mean values requires. These people, similarly to many Africans, have paid with their lives for the decision to be natural, traditional and non-Western and now aren't around to tell Rupa their stories.
I also wanted to refer Rupa to the Layperson's Guide to the Scientific Literature, published by Prometheus in three parts (1, 2, 3). However, it would hardly be of any use to her in this particular case, because AIDS denialists (similarly to other knights of anti-science and pseudo-science) are characterized by persistent absence of any works published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature; instead, they talk directly to the science-doubting lay public. I am sure that members of the public regard the poor scientific record of "dissidents" as proving not their incompetence but suppression of these good guys by the conspiring big bad "AIDS lobby". Turning one's own incompetence and professional impotence into virtue - what a feat! Why don't these people make careers as PR experts?
So let me return back to basics in my search for arguments. 19th century German microbiologist Robert Koch established four postulates for proving causal relationship between a particular microbe and a disease. Namely, the microbe must (1) be found in all organisms suffering from the disease, (2) be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in a pure culture, (3) cause disease when introduced from this culture to a healthy organism (typically an experimental animal) and (4) be isolated from the inoculated, diseased new host.
In the early years of AIDS research, scientists had problems with the 3rd and 4th postulate because HIV is highly host-specific and common experimental animals are resistant to it. In the late 1980s, three lab workers were infected with a pure, defined HIV strain by accident. They became HIV+ and developed AIDS. As Jon Cohen writes in top scientific journal Science in 1994, this incident alone means fulfilling Koch's postulates for HIV causation of AIDS. However, as noted in the same article, it failed to convince HIV denialists. Is anybody surprised? And can we expect any anti-scientist to change his theories when confronted by contradicting empirical data? After all, if anti-science people would allow their opinions to be influenced by facts, they wouldn't be anti-science, they would be pro-science.
Also in the 1990s, Koch's postulates were also proven using as experimental animal the chimpanzee, which is the natural host of HIV-1 (see Tim Teeter's article HIV Causes AIDS: Proof Derived from Koch's Postulates). Another animal model are immunodeficient mice "humanized" by grafting human immune cells. These mice are susceptible to HIV infection and special measures are needed to prevent them from dying within 1.5 months (Watanabe et al., 2007).
In his post Age of Unreason Prometheus wrote, "Much of “alternative” medicine encourages people to abandon scientific principles that have brought us in the West to a level of health and longevity that are unrivalled in human history. If we want to see what happens (when science is abandoned), we only have to look to those parts of the world where – for economic or philosophical reasons – scientific medicine is unavailable." Like Prometheus (and unlike Rupa), I think that "Western" science cannot be blamed for the poor life quality and short life span of people who are either prevented from accessing its fruits or, alas, reject them by deliberate choice.

Disappointed enemies

As the end of the year is approaching, time comes for various analyses and generalizations. An unescapable subject, esp. in a US election year, is the development of current global war (usually referred to by the misnomer "war on terror" while I prefer to call it "war against the West"). Does either side seem to win so far?
The US election results seem to indicate a loss, or at least a perception of loss. Of course Barack Obama may turn out to be a good President after all. This is unlikely but by no means impossible - history knows much stranger things. However, nothing can ever erase the fact that he was elected with the promise of "change", which, to my opinion, inevitably implied that USA had been going in the wrong direction. This, in turn, matched 100% the claims of America's enemies. To sum up, on Nov. 4 US voters agreed with US enemies that America was bad as it was and needed a change. Of course I may be wrong and I'll be thankful to each opponent who points to me some more benign logic behind the "change" slogan; however, my overall impression is that logic had only a marginal (if any) role on Nov. 4.
On the other side, our enemies are also facing problems. There haven't been major successful terror acts on Western soil since 2005. And the increasing recruitment of people with mental retardation and other mental disabilities as suicide bombers, apart from demonstrating the unlimited evil of the recruiters to anyone who had doubted it, also shows that they may be running short of neurologically typical volunteers to blow themselves up.
More than two months ago, Highlander wrote a post titled US 2008 elections: a cloning apparatus. It was followed by an interesting discussion not only about the (then upcoming) event but also about Israel, Palestine, Arabs, nationalism, citizenship etc. One of the participants was LouLou, a young lady living in the UAE but officially a Moroccan because of her father's Moroccan origin. She said many interesting things and here I want to cite one of them:
"It reminds me of a speech by Al Zawahri soon after Sept. 11 in which he was saying something to the effect that Al Qaeda carried out Sept. 11 to energize and mobilize 'the ummah' to join their jihad and how disappointed he was that 'the ummah' failed to respond and support the Mujahideen. He was clearly expecting some kind of mass universal Islamic suicide-bombing spree. It didn't happen because reality is 'the ummah' is not and has never been an ideological/cultural/political monolith capable of a single, unified response in the manner he dreams about... When this tide of Islamism has receded in the same manner that Arabism receded in the 70's, we will be left with a few Islamist intellectuals and writers here and there lamenting the failure of their grand scheme and attributing it to external conspiracies and 'perceived betrayal' by millions of people whose loyalty was never actually pledged to said scheme."
(For those who are as blissfully ignorant about the term "ummah" as I was in 2001 - it designates the global Muslim community.)
After Sept. 11, I hoped and almost expected that ordinary Muslims would start a powerful movement to reform Islam and many would leave it altogether. (I mentioned this once, again on Highlander's blog, but don't remember on which post.) When this didn't happen, I was disappointed. I realize now that my expectations and demands on Muslims have been, and maybe still are, too high. Human beings cannot en masse acquire superhuman qualities. If we discuss people like Ali Sina, Ayan Hirsi Ali and Nonie Darwish, we can say about them whatever we like (depending on the viewpoint) except that they are typical individuals and everybody can do what they have done. Most people just cannot and therefore the process of defanging Islam, if happens at all, will take generations.
LouLou and I have many differences in our views (and little affinity to each other's personalities), but despite this I find what she says noteworthy. I hope she is right in her rather optimistic prediction. And I owe her thanks for picking and translating those words of Al-Zawahiri. It is good that whenever Islamists say something in a non-English language for limited circulation, there is always a kind soul to translate and post. Now I know that after Sept. 11 al-Zawahiri was disappointed like me, possibly even more. I can only wish him more disappointments with each coming year.

Souvenir from the summer

These photos are taken in the village of Rasnik. The stork nest is located not far from our summer house. The images aren't very good, so I have to explain what is happening. Initially, one of the parents is in the nest with the two young. Then the second parent flies in (both adults can be seen in photo No. 6) and the first one flies out.

I have blogged before about this nest and its inhabitants. One of the storks that used to live there was killed by a stone three years ago; its partner disappeared the following spring. Then in 2007 another pair came to the nest but left it without hatching young. And now, the same or another pair has returned and reproduced.

The photos are dated July. Three or four weeks after they were taken, the young could fly well and the entire family left the nest. I hope they are now well under another blue sky, while here cold winds are tearing down the last leaves.

Two words about the US elections

A week ago, Sen. Barack Obama was elected US President. I wanted to write about him before the elections, particularly why I thought it wasn't advisable to vote for him, but I was too busy and missed the opportunity. Now, I'll abstain from bashing him until he has been President for 100 days, as tradition requires. I don't want to be like those Arab dictators who began lecturing the poor man what to do 2 months before he was even sworn in.
So let me just share my thoughts about the phenomena accompanying Obama's victory. I mean all those crowds of people totally out of control, shouting, crying, fainting etc. I have never seen or heard of adults behaving this way without being under the influence of a psychotropic substance. In backward countries like Bulgaria people are quite susceptible to messiah politicians promising the Earth but, frankly, I never thought the same to be possible in an advanced post-industrial country with established democracy such as the USA. I briefly visited a couple of my favourite US-based blogs and other sites. In a number of them, I found accounts of the authors crying when they heard about Obama's victory. How sad. (No, don't expect any links from me here. If an online friend decides it's a great idea to post nude photos of herself, I won't link to them, either.)
To be sure, Obama's opponents were far from perfect; and those always seeking the bright side should be glad that USA, the leading nation in science, was spared the disgrace to have an antivaxer President and a creationist Vice-President. But the pros seem to end here.
As far as I can grasp something rational in the "hope" and "change" abracadabra (most of which, however, clearly works well below the brain cortex), Americans want to renounce their role in the world. They are tired of being good, intrepid, strong and devoted. They are tired of bringing light to the world and receiving mostly hate in return. They want brilliant isolation, keeping all their money at home to pay their own mortgages and letting dictators and terrorist do whatever they wish. I don't know whether this would be good for the USA. It surely wouldn't be good for the world. But if this is what the Americans want, who am I to judge them?

Don't buy stolen things

Several days ago, as my friend was travelling in a tram, two or three Gypsy women raided through it and her cellular phone disappeared from her bag. Usually in such cases people rush to blame the victim ("Why didn't you look after your things?"), so let me mention that pickpockets know their job well and, besides, my friend was a bit out of touch with the surrounding because she was just returning from a funeral.
The phone had been bought via monthly payments, so my friend for a couple of months will continue to pay for a device she no longer owns. However, she is not a material person and easily got over this. She regrets only the digital photos she had made, about 40 files that were stored only in the phone. "They stole my moments," she complained to me.
The police apparently aren't in a hurry to do anything. They said, "Cellular phones are often found but it takes a long time." As far as I know, the mode of operation of a cellular phone allows it to be located within hours.
I don't want to muse now about these nasty Gypsy thieves who make a living by preying on hard-working people too poor to afford a car. They are miserable creatures, how good that we weren't born in one of their families to grow up like them. Neither am I going to rant about our police. We all know that it isn't there to help us. I am now thinking of the white, educated, law-abiding Bulgarians who buy a second-hand phone without much thought about its origin and then brag about the good deal. These people are the reason why cellular phones are stolen. If pickpockets couldn't sell so easily what they steal, they would pick only a few cellular phones to supply themselves and their family members.
So my appeal is: Don't buy a second-hand cellular phone unless you know and trust its former owner. In countries like Bulgaria, there is much chance for the phones offered for sale to be stolen. The same holds true for second-hand computers, car radios, CD players and many other devices.

On the stem cell controversy

Let me begin with a quote from Maria Rossbauer's report Unproven stem-cell therapy ban published in Nature journal on Aug. 20:
"The Bulgarian deputy minister for health has resigned over the country's decision to ban the use of a controversial stem-cell therapy to treat neurological disorders. The therapy, which since 2005 has been carried out on around 250 patients at St Ivan Rilski Hospital in Sofia, contravenes European Union regulations and is of unproven value, the Bulgarian health ministry ruled on 8 August."
Subscribers to Nature can read the whole text here.
I wasn't going to blog about the stem cell controversy, after it had a relatively happy ending, but on Oct. 3 our Faculty Board decided to "condemn the unethical and unscientific statements of members of our community (Prof. Bobev, Prof. Svinarov, Prof. Kremenski) in the campaign against the (Department of) Neurosurgery on the occasion of stem cells". Bulgarian readers can find the protocol of the Faculty Board session here. The three condemned professors apparently blew the whistle and this led to banning the therapy.
I am not a doctor, let alone a neurosurgeon, but let me share my thoughts on the subject.
First, bone marrow contains hematopoietic and mesenchymal stem cells. Both belong to the connective tissue, which isn't close to the nervous tissue, so I think it isn't very likely for these stem cells to "convert" and differentiate into neurons. Therefore, to my opinion, this low probability hardly justifies injecting bone marrow stem cells into the brain or the spinal cord, which is invasive and (I guess) not 100% safe procedure. At least not until the treatment has been shown to work in an animal model.
Second, after this experimental treatment has still been given a try, I think that after a reasonable number of treated patients (much fewer than 250) the results must have been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication, no matter whether they have been negative or positive. The team claims positive results - improvement in as many as 50% of patients. However, without a publication it is unclear whether this improvement has been detected in a "blind" manner (i.e. by people unaware of the treatment) or by the treating doctors or even by the patients themselves. In the latter cases of course we cannot distinguish real improvement from placebo effect.
Third, what I disapprove most in the story is that the patients have paid for the therapy. I think that people undergoing experimental medical procedures must never pay (in some cases they may ever receive payments).
Still, I wouldn't like to condemn anybody because I want to believe in the good intentions of all people involved. However, I don't understand why the Faculty members haven't given such a benefit of the doubt to their opponents. So I wish to express solidarity with the three condemned professors.
Thanks to the colleague who informed me about the above cited documents (you know who you are).

Back to business

After my long maternity leave, I have been back to work for almost two months.
It is refreshing to resume the job one likes and, to be honest, to have a break from the never-ending and brain-devouring work of a housewife. However, there are always "buts".
We are stuck in life like spoons in a cup of puree: if a spoon is taken out, its place stays for a little, then the puree fills it without a trace. You feel it every time when you "return" to a place where you have been absent for a long time: life has intruded into what has been your place.
The most difficult bit is the condition of my lab. It actually belongs to the Medical University, resp. to the Bulgarian government, but I call it mine because I have contributed to it, the criterion used by Exupery's Little Prince to call the little planet his own. Unfortunately, few of my colleagues value the lab as much. Or at least they don't understand what a working lab looks like. They think the important thing about a lab is being clean and tidy. So things making it untidy should be cleared away, even if they are e.g. balances needed to weigh substances and prepare solutions.
The analytical balance had been moved to a corner without proper care. Now it is out of order and I am desperately trying to find someone - anyone - to fix it. There used to be two skilled men at our Faculty able to do this job. Now, one of them has died, the other has retired and nobody can tell me his phone number. It sometimes seems to me that all people in this country who could do something have emigrated, retired or died.
The technical balance had just disappeared. After some - how to say? - balance-hunt I found it in a corner in the restroom, and nobody could tell me how it got there. Actually, I don't really want to investigate it. This means to look back into the past, and I prefer to look to the future.
Last week, a colleague needed to weigh some substance. She asked me, "After all these affairs, have you a working balance of any kind?" I pointed to the long-suffering technical balance recovered from the toilet and she used it successfully. I was so proud of my lab. I hope it will be again what it used to be, and even better.
I wish to write about many things, but there is so much work to be done that I have all but stopped blogging. Please have patience with me.

More artwork by my son

(Non-parents are advised to skip this post.)

On Sept. 3, 2007 I posted some drawing by my elder son on his doodle. Let me now show some more, though fairly old - from last November when he was 4. These works were prompted by my husband, because my son doesn't like drawing very much (except on walls and furniture).

A bird.

A helicopter.

A steamship.

A house flanked by two trees, with sun and grass.

Some light on Russian aggression against Georgia

Only the title of this post is mine. Below, I am copying Shlemazl's post Who won the Georgian War, with permission. (Shlemazl is a Canadean Jew of Russian origin. So, unlike most people writing on the conflict, he speaks Russian fluently and has the background information necessary to interpret the current events. Also, as a blogger he is free of the political correctness bondage that prevents Western commentators from calling a spade a spade.)

Background
First, a few little known facts:
- South Ossetia and Abhazia became de-facto Russian dependencies following Georgian civil wars in 1990s. Atrocities were committed on all sides.
- In the 90s Shamil Basayev, a notorious Chechen warlord fought on the side of Russia, Abhazia and Ossetiya against Georgia. Later he carried out a large number of terrorist attacks against Russia, including the one in Beslan which resulted in the death of hundreds of children. (This information was published also in the Bulgarian weekly paper Pro & Anti - M.M.)
- It is believed that Putin's personal hatred of Saakashvili started when Saakashvili referred to the diminutive Russian leader as "Liliputin".
- South Ossetian "separatist" leader Eduard Kokoity is a former Soviet communist with major interests in smuggling and criminal underworld and very recent involvement in the Russian parliament.
- Other prominent "Ossetian" separatists include head of South Ossetian KGB Anatoly Baranov, South Ossetian Minister of Defense Vasilii Lunev, Secretary of Security Council of South Ossetia Anatoly Barankevich and Prime Minster Yuri Morosov. All happen to be ethnic Russian immigrants to the region of South Ossetia.
- Georgia is the only Former Soviet Union country outside the Baltic states where police does not take bribes.
- South Ossetian economy is 50% funded by Russia directly with the balance split between large scale counterfeit/smuggling operations and charging a semi-legal levy on cross-boder trade between Russia and Georgia.
- Until now Russia claimed to have accepted Georgian sovereignty over Abhazia and South Ossetia, but gave Russian citizenship to population of both regions. Others, even ethnic Russians from the former USSR are finding it very hard to get a Russian citizenship.
In the lead up to the conflict
- Putin and Medvedev openly threatened Georgia and its government on a number of occasions, including in early August.
- Russian planes carried out multiple overflight and occasional bombing operations in Georgia.
- "South Ossetian" forces carried out recent terrorist operations in Georgia, including a lethal attack on police station in Gori.
- Russia has carried recent military exercises in the region and brought large numbers of troops and equipment into the region in general and specifically into Abhazia.
What might have happened.
Saakashvili's decision to attack the bankrupt source of terrorism in South Ossetia can be explained in only two ways:
1. Georgia was aware of an imminent Russian attack to take over Georgia and change "regime" and decided to preempt it. If true, the objective was met at the price of losing some territory and thousands of ethnically cleansed + few hundred dead and wounded Georgians. The way the events unfolded, world opinion and leaders were mobilized by the time Russia was in a position to attack Tbilisi. Wouldn't have been the case had Russia initiated a two-pronged attack.
2. Georgia miscalculated and assumed that Russia would not engage in her first direct attack on a sovereign nation since Afghanistan.
The biggest lie.
Russian casus belli. Claims of 2000 dead Ossetian civilians and genocide committed by the Georgian troops suck three cocks. For one thing you wouldn't have been able to walk in Tshinvalli without a gas mask. The actual independently reported number of Ossetian civilians that were killed in the conflict is 44. Clearly the Russians have learned their PR campaign technique from Palestinians.
Incidentally, the figure of 180 dead and thousands ethnically cleansed Georgians appears to be accurate.
Did Russia win?
Not exactly. Honestly, I cannot see a pro-Russian leader coming to power in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldavia or any other currently independent Eastern European country in the next 20 years. Poland quickly agreed to bring in anti-missile defense shield.
Price for a few square kilometres here and there (like Russia needs the land so badly...), includes comprehensive international isolation. Too stark were the similarity with Sudetenland Czechoslovakia and 1938.
Russia lost almost the same number in dead and wounded military as Georgia + planes and other military equipment.
Oh, and by the way... Russian stock market (and pension funds) has lost a quarter of its value.
Last but not least... Strongly anti-Putin candidate for the White House has improved his chances of success.
Postscriptum
Don't you think it is such a nice touch that UK's Muslim Public Affairs Committee makes direct use of neo-Nazi website rense.com to answer the question "Who started it?" Can you guess?Oh, and I can't help but wonder where are the good old lefty anti-war "anti-Imperialists" on all this.
Source 1, source 2.

In Iran, female student sued for being sexually abused by teacher

Supporters of various totalitarian ideologies labelled as religions often admit that freedom is positioned low in their societies but this is compensated by putting high other values, such as virtue. In these discussions, "virtue" is usually used in a very narrow sense, related only to the sexual lifestiles of women.
We freedom-loving people of course will claim that freedom is higher than virtue. Moreover, we can argue that their societies cannot achieve (or assess) true virtue, only appearance of virtue, because any whore will emulate a virtuous woman if threatened by the appropriate punishments. After all, the whole concept of virtue implies that you acquire it by free choice.
However, the worst feature of these societies isn't their hypocrisy and even their oppression but the fact that oppression is unevenly distributed. The strong, the powerful, the rich can satisfy their urges even better than members of hedonistic Western societies, and the whole burden and blame for their sins is laid on the weak, the oppressed, the victims.
Last month I wrote a post titled This is too much even for the Mullahs, based on Azarmehr's April 13 post Temporary marriage online. In it, Azarmehr described how the institution of temporary bride (sigheh) invented by the Iranian theocracy serves as a cover for prostitution and even for rape, victimizing vulnerable women and allowing powerful men to get away with everything.
In his Aug. 9 post Only in the Islamic Republic! Azarmehr brings another example of how this institution is used:

"... Vice chancellor of Zanjan University, Hassan Madadi, was caught on camera, by students of Zanjan university, while abusing his position and trying to sexually assault a student girl who was due to appear before the university disciplinary committee.
A brave female student went against all the threats and intimidations of the so-called disciplinary committee and university authorities and refused to give in to their demands and instead helped gather evidence to prove the corruption and abusive action of the university vice-chancellor Hassan Madadi. The vice chancellor's demands for sex was caught on mobile cameras by the students who had been alerted by the female student and who burst into Madadi's office to save her. Tens of thousands of people saw the mobile phone video posted on YouTube showing students seizing him, turning him over to the authorities and demanding that he be charged. (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=01NPJ5McQW4)
The news outraged Zanjan university students and 3,000 took part in protests...
Any where else in the world, the vice chancellor would have faced the most dire punishments and would have probably lost his job and his university career would have ended for good, but not in the Islamic Republic, which presents itself as the flagship of morality to the unaware admirers of itself.
Any where else in the world, the female student and the other students who stood up to the abuses of the vice chancellor, would have been commended...
After the demonstrations ended and the university closed for the summer holidays, the Zanjan prosecutor announced that 'exposing a sin is worse than the sin itself!' and the woman student who dared expose this abusive official was herself arrested and accused of having an unlawful affair. The university Vice Chancellor has now been promoted and there is talk of whether the Sigheh, Shiite temporary marriage where a man can marry a woman for as short as an hour, prayer verses were read or not before the sexual demands were made by the chancellor.
Four of the students who took part in videoing the abuse and rescuing the girl, Payam Shakiba, Hassan Joneydi, Arash Rayeji and now Bahram Vahedi have also been arrested.
Similar events in other Islamic Republic universities of Sahand and Kermanshah have also resulted in the arrest of the students instead of the authorities who were abusing their position..."

Advocating for institutionalized disabled Bulgarian children

Last year, when I posted about Bulgaria's abandoned children, a commenter wrote, "I am the mother of 2 Roma children that I adopted from Bulgarian orphanages 10 years ago. My daughter was 7 years old. When we were in Bulgaria visiting our daughter we found out that she had a twin. Further investigation let us to find out that the twin was still alive but was "severely affected." We asked for a medical evaluation and we were denied our request. We asked to visit her and we were told we would not be permitted to visit... Every time I look at my daughter I wonder, what happened to this girl named Sofka. She would be 17 now... Maybe someday we will find out what happened to her." I reposted the comment last November under the title Does anybody know what happened to Sofka.
Happily, a regional child protection agency finally did its job and informed the adoptive parents of Sofka's sister (named Penka) about Sofka's whereabouts. She was in the Care home for children and adolescents with mental retardation in the village of Krushari, North-East Bulgaria. My Apr. 21 post where I thought about the future of institutionalized disabled children as they reach adulthood was also inspired by Sofka's fate (though didn't mention her name).
In July, the US family that had adopted Penka visited Sofka in Krushari. Then the mother sent a new comment which I am reposting here, with her permission.

"Our journey to find Sofka and be united with her is over. We just returned from Bulgaria yesterday. It was a life changing experience and I want to share with all of you that Sophie is doing much better than we anticipated. In fact Sofka now WALKS!!! We got to spend a few hours with her and she appeared to be in pretty good health though very small. We observed that she seems to have the capability to learn and may not be as cognitively impaired as we had feared. So doesn't speak BUT she definately understands her surroundings and given that she has just recently learned to walk I feel that she may be capable of much more.
The director of this institution has only been in his position for 6 months and I will tell you that he appeared to be a very sincere man who wants to help these kids. We specifically asked him what his needs are since it is our intention to provide as much support as we can. He cited that his most urgent need was a physical therapist. He said that it is hard to attract that kind of skill set to this village. The pay is not too great. We promised to do what we could to help him find someone and if we need to we would suppliment what they could pay. (A therapist has just been appointed - M.M.) We are also going to provide Sofka with a walker to aid in her progress with walking. When she is done with it they will give it to another child. He indicated to me that a Dutch group has provided their caregivers with so training and the woman who works with Sofka works one-on-one with her. She was very attached to this woman. It was obvious that this method was working since she has just recently started to walk.
We were able to interact with many of the other kids there. They were very friendly and they all appeared to be healthy. My 13 yo son was with us and they LOVED hanging with him! He loved meeting them to and wants to come back next year and spend more time with them (I suggested he do Karaoki with them). The care givers I met were all very nice and they all wanted to see pictures of Penka, Sofka's sister.
In what I felt was a real show of trust the director asked us if we were interested in seeing the area where the really severe, bedridden kids were. We did, even my son went in to the newer building. It was not easy but there was no foul smell and the areas were clean. The kids were thin and he said that he had added another meal (4 meals) to see if that would help them gain weight. He also cited that he only has 3 caregivers in this area for 40 kids but he is looking to triple that in the very near future.
We are now setting up a means to send financial support to Krushari. My son is taking on fund raising as his Bar Mitzvah project.
Next summer we will return with Penka. She is very excited to meet her sister and when she saw the pictures of her she said "Mom we are so cute arent we?"
As I said, it was life changing for me to go there. I feel that they are doing what they can to help these kids. Anyone who can go there and offer the skill sets that they need should contact me at mbaeck@verizondotnet."

I have stated before that I am for deinstitutionalization of disabled children and adults (and also of non-disabled abandoned children). However, institutions are still the reality for Sofka and many others and I would wish to express my admiration of those employees who try their best to make this reality as good as it, and of devoted community members such as the author of the above message.
Bulgarian readers can also read here about two girls from the Krushari care home who are integrated in 6th grade of the local school.

Concept for unity of life, kindergarten-level

At the beach, I collected a handful of seaweed and showed them to my son.
"Do you know what this is?" I asked.
"Fish," was the answer.

Russian aggression, again

There is an old saying that Russia feels secure only when expanding. After 1990, what was going around came around and the states forcibly included in the Soviet Union gained or regained independence. However, Russian government never lost the desire to mess with their affairs and, when possible, to swallow parts of them.
Last week, "Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili had gambled on a surprise attack late Thursday to regain control over his country's pro-Russian breakaway province of South Ossetia. Instead, Georgia suffered a punishing beating from Russian tanks and aircraft that has left the country with even less control over territory than it had before... Thousands streamed into the capital. Those left behind in devastated regions of Georgia cowered in rat-infested cellars or wandered nearly deserted cities. Georgia, which is pushing for NATO membership, borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s. Both separatist provinces are backed by Russia, which appears open to absorbing them. Medvedev said Georgia must allow the provinces to decide whether they want to remain part of Georgia. He said Russian peacekeepers would stay in both provinces, even as Saakashvili said his government will officially designate them as occupying forces" (source: AP via Yahoo! News).
For the record, I believe in self-determination and think that if people (people, not the mafia) of the regions in question truly want to separate from Georgia and join Russia, this insane wish must be granted. I don't think sending Georgian troops there was a good idea. Pointing guns at people is unlikely to convince them that they are better off under your rule.
However, while agreeing with Pres. Medvedev that "Georgia must allow the provinces to decide whether they want to remain part of Georgia", I'd ask him, what about Chechnya? Why are other states oblived to give their breakaway regions self-determination but Russia may wage genocide until the last person wishing independence is dead?
And don't the above described developments remind anybody of Nazi Germany that went on a "peacekeeping" mission to defend the allegedly mistreated ethnic Germans in Sudetenland and quickly ended up occupying the entire Chechoslovakia?
Let me end this post with two more quotes, this time from Brusselsjournal:
"Russians launched offensive operations beyond the secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, marking a dramatic expansion in their war aims — well beyond the putative casus bellum of protecting Russian citizens. (It should be recalled that these “citizens” are Abkhaz and Ossetian locals who were issued Russian passports without, for the most part, ever setting foot in Russia)" (source).
"I wonder is there... chance to see millions of exalted young people passionately marching for peace in Georgia… It shouldn't be too much of an effort. All they have to do is brush the dust off from the "not in our name", "no blood for oil", "war is not the answer", etc placards, paste Vladimir Putin’s and Dmitri Medvedev’s faces over Bush’s or Blair’s on the "worst ever", "mass murderer" and "real terrorist" placards... I am also wondering, will we hear of passionate peace activists, who are determined to go and chain themselves to Georgian government buildings and other such sites to offer human shield against malicious and deliberate bombing by Russian planes on civilian targets. Anyone? Also, it would be refreshing to see similar sense of outrage and hysteria on the part of western media that we witness when American planes hit a "wedding party", armed to their teeth, when reporting bombings of apartment buildings and markets by Russian air forces in Georgia... Plus, has anyone warned already that the Russian military invasion of its tiny neighbor is bound to stir up anti-Russian sentiment and create a groundswell for Georgians to recruit young people to their cause?... Ah, who am I kidding? It is one thing to march against the country that liberated half of Europe and kept it that way for the following 50 years. It is quite another to march against a nation that enslaved half of Europe and kept it under a bloody slavery for 50 years" (source).

Blogs on hiatus

I am creating this post for the URLs of blogs that haven't been updated for a long time. I don't want to delete them entirely, but don't want inactive links in the blogroll, either. I'll check them periodically, hoping that somebody will eventually resume blogging.

International:
Big Pharaoh
Freedom for Egyptians
Leilouta
Nadz
Or does it explode?
Shlemazl (this one actually is still active, but open only to invited readers, so it's no use keeping the link on blogroll. Jew haters made Shlemazl hide his blog.
Stefania

Bulgarian:
Observer
Pointless Spring

Does Bulgaria persecute dissidents from Turkmenistan?

Today is apparently my day to blog about extant dictatorships. Of course there are too many of them to cover, but I've already written posts about Iran and China, let's now "honour" Turkmenistan a bit, and also return to Bulgaria.
We Bulgarians are too overwhelmed by our hardships and too selfish to care about those who are in even more miserable situation. We often forget that, at least, we have been given freedom while billions of human beings are still oppressed, and we do not show much solidarity with them. Some of my earliest posts from 2006 (dated May 10, 12 and 15, respectively) told the story of a Belarussian dissident to whom our authorities refused political asylum.
On May 9, the Guerilla wrote a post about watching the documentary Shadow of the Holy Book. It "exposes the immorality of international companies doing business with the dictatorship of oil-and-gas-rich Turkmenistan, thus helping to hide its human rights and free speech abuses - all in the name of profit and corporate greed" (quote from the latter site). After discussing how easily companies based in democratic countries break their moral codes and become accomplices of a dictator, the Guerrilla adds, "Unfortunately, we heard (though it wasn't included in the documentary) that the Bulgarian state rendered Turkmenbashi the service to persecute Turkmeni dissidents on Bulgarian land... Damn gas deals!"
I have no details, so I can only hope that this isn't true! But I feel obliged to post it - let the Turkmenis are cautious about seeking asylum in Bulgaria.

Letter from China

If you want to know what is happening in China, don't trust media reports too much. Their authors are blinded by the enormous proportions of China, by its superpower status and its fast economic progress (though the latter is perceived on the basis of official Chinese statistics, which reminds the alleged economic prosperity of USSR and is likely to be about as authentic).
The quote below is from a letter written in April by a guest worker in China. I prefer not to give more details about the author and where I found the text; let me just mention that I am not the blogger to whom the letter was addressed.

"Unfortunately, I have no access to your blog. I suppose that, similarly to many other Web pages, it is made unaccessible from China. I am very angry at the whole situation here. Frankly, I am quite afraid by the thought that China is the new superpower... I see you are aware of the events happening here, but let me add several interesting facts from the last few days:
1. The Party sent a mass text message to all Chinese, "advising" them not to buy anything from Carrefour (the largest hypermarket here, it is French btw). And guess what - after May 1 no one Chinese will shop there. Let me clarify the reason. I talked about this with a colleague from Singapore and he said, "My girlfriend is against this Party initiative, but she also isn't going to shop at Carrefour, because if she does and some of her colleagues hear about it, they will begin to hate her." There are some very malicious people here, hating those who don't march with the majority and ready to expose their hate. You get the situation, don't you? Chinese are so brainwashed that it is hard to believe!
2. The Party sent a mass e-mail message to the Chinese, explaning how malicious Western European people are. There were attached photos (ultra manipulated) of Chinese in Paris weeping because of what happened there with the Olympic fire. Quote: "See our HEROES"... To me, these things just suck! My boss commented the situation, ”We are the strongest and most powerful nation in the world, nobody has the right to stand against us”. Can you imagine this coming from the mouth of an educated Chinese citizen, with much international experience. Imagine then the "thoughts" of an ordinary Chinese who has had the great luck to graduate 3rd grade... And this is the nation coming forward - scary, isn't it?
...I am a complicated personality. And despite being "material", I am much tormented by the things I described and therefore I decided that China isn't for me, at least not at the moment... I am going to leave soon. I may return when this nation becomes a little more mature, but during the last 6 months I realized that if Chinese mentality is to grow up at all, it will require a loooooong time... I intend to seek a job in South Africa or in some pretty corner of Europe... I need a more normal place, these Chinese exhausted me too much..."