2012-06-23 06:51-WB EN OBSERVERS

We’re going to start out by showing you images that come straight from a jail cell.. they were taken by university students who were locked up for taking part in a protest. As you’ll see, they managed to smuggle a mobile phone into their cell.. with it, they took photos and videos that they were able to leak onto the Internet - BEFORE the authorities even let them out!

Our Observer in LEE-bre-vill, Edvine Ballack Obama, tells us what happened…

Story 1 : Saudi Arabia

There are wild animals locked up in zoos all over the world -… but some cages are worse than others… One of our Observers in Sow-di Arabia, Laylah, filmed and photographed the “Abu Jarra zoo” in Ree-AWED … In her blog, she nicknamed it « the zoo of horrors.

Story 2 : United States

Outrage is growing in New York City over the police’s use of a method called: “stop and frisk”… this allows police officers to search anyone they find suspicious…
According to our Observer – AND to the police department’s statistics – those who are stopped are overwhelmingly BLACK and LATINO… Our Observer says HE gets stopped ALL the time.

Next up, a look at some of the images sent in this week by our Observers.

Story 3 : Togo

We head to Low-MAY, the capital of Togo, with our Observer Frederic Attipou. Frederic sent us a video he filmed during a protest by the opposition. He told us that this young man wasn’t even among the protesters. He was just walking down the street, minding his own business – and, unfortunately for him, ran into these police officers. Our Observer tells us this brutal behaviour is typical of the police in his country.

Story 4 : China

We head to a school near Beijing, with our Observer, Sui. He spotted these photos on a Chinese social network.. These little ones are begging the local authorities to let them go to school. In China, a child has to be a native of the region they live in to enrol in the school system. This policy is meant to curb internal migration - but it ends up hurting the children of migrant workers, many of whom end up not getting ANY education at all.

Story 5 : Gabon

We head to LEE-bre-vill, in GaBAWN, with Edvine Ballack Obama. Edvine is a university student who was locked up in a tiny, dark and filthy jail cell for two whole days. He and 20 other students were detained by the military police for trying to hold a rally… they were angry over university reforms. The young protesters managed to sneak a mobile phone into their cell – and took a few photos and videos. These images created outrage in GaBAWN. Many were shocked to see the harsh conditions these men were held under…

That’s all for this week – as always you can find more reports from our Observers on our website, on our Facebook and Twitter pages, and on our Iphone app.
See you next time!