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'Narcos' Creator Chris Brancato On Making Amoral Characters Likable, Criticism, And Hollywood Turning Woke

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Narcos, the Netflix show that chronicled the rise and eventual fall of narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar, is arguably one of the most compelling shows to be produced by the streaming studio.

Unfurling with the gritty realism associated largely with true-crime documentary films, Narcos earned several nominations at the Golden Globes, the Emmy, and the BAFTA awards with its charismatic lead, Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, winning acclaim for depicting a terrifyingly accurate portrait of the dreaded drug-lord.

While the show, now in its 3rd season, has outlived Escobar and has moved on to chronicle stories of different cartels, its claim to internet fame remains rooted in the seemingly unimaginable crimes of the Colombian kingpin.

One of Narcos' creators (Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro are the others), Chris Brancato, flew down to Mumbai to give a crash course in penning television screenplay to a bunch of writers who are working on original programming for Jio's (a network operator owned by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani) streaming platform.

Former Disney India CEO, Siddharth Roy Kapoor's production house, Roy Kapoor films, which has partnered with Jio to produce original content, enabled Brancato's visit where he mentored in-house writers as they foray into digital TV, a concept still in the nascent stage in India.

Brancato, a TV veteran, has previously written shows such as the wildly popular Beverly Hills 90210, The X-Files, Hannibal and now Narcos.

He sat down with HuffPost India to talk about the current state of television and Hollywood.

Excerpts from the interview:

In your career, you've covered the entire spectrum of TV - from network television to helming shows for streaming giants. What are some of the core differences between legacy TV and, well, millennial TV that's consumed largely online?

None. The fundamental idea remains the same -- to tell a great story in the best way possible, a story that builds to a climax and makes you want to watch. However, there are quite a few differences if you go into the nitty-gritty. For example, you can't use cuss words on network TV. While you can show a character shooting somebody's head off, you can't show the side of a woman's breast. And then the biggest challenge of all -- commercial breaks. So in a way, it was extremely freeing to do a show like Narcos, where we could go the whole hog and where our storytelling wasn't interrupted by ads.

You had the liberty to generously use Spanish dialogue in Narcos, something that'd be unimaginable on network/cable TV.

Oh yeah. But to give you context, I would write all the dialogue in English and then give it to a translator, who'd then translate the lines in Spanish. I was very cautious in ensuring that the translation didn't lose cultural nuance as that'd defeat the purpose. So when a character says 'F**k you,' in Spanish, it translated to 'Go s**k a rooster,' which is the relevant abuse there.

Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar in Netflix's 'Narcos'

What I feel the streaming giants/millennial TV has also enabled is the mainstreaming of morally-ambiguous characters. For the longest time, American TV was just obsessed with telling stories of morally-upright characters such as lawyers, doctors, cops, who'd ultimately go and do the 'right' thing despite being in a tough spot...

...And you know why that was? Because that gave them the stories which could span, say, 22 episodes per season. If you wanted to show flawed characters on TV, you had to give them jobs that helped them redeem themselves, which is where, like you said, the doctors, lawyers, cops came in -- people who were literally saving lives.

What happened then was that the character remained the same, but it allowed writers to come up with several subplots to play with. It helped build a franchise. And people love that -- who wants to come home and watch a show that is all dark? Ultimately, there has to be some aspirational value to your show, something that helps the viewer escape their reality. The darker the show, the smaller its viewership.

A still from 'Mindhunter'

But does that still hold anymore? If that were a paradigm, it's definitely shifting. I am currently binging on Mindhunter, a show that makes me very uncomfortable... one of the best shows of 2017 - Big Little Lies - wasn't an easy show to watch. So I think people do respond to themes that are darker, edgier as it allows them to viscerally experience a complex situation.

Well, Mindhunter is also a show by someone like David Fincher, who commands a huge following...

...and Narcos itself. As a writer, how do you go about approaching a character like Pablo Escobar? A few episodes down, I found myself drawn towards him, almost rooting for him. And that thought made me deeply uncomfortable. That has to be a function of writing as you're creating a primarily corrupt character and humanizing him.

You know what, when I met Wagner Moura (the actor who plays Escobar), I found him so immensely likable. He didn't have the moustache so he didn't look like Escobar but there was this charm about him. And I immediately began thinking -- people are going to like him. And we did add scenes that humanised him, like the part where he's ordering killings on the phone, but also playing with his child at the same time. But a lot has to do with what Wagner is able to create -- it's all him. And maybe a little bit of the writing (Smiles).

How do you prevent yourself from romanticizing a character that is essentially deplorable?

See, we need to have the freedom of expression to tell a story the way we deem right. Having said that, you can see that we don't necessarily glamorize the cartel or its operations. As you have seen, none of this ends well for any of those guys.

In fact, we met with the Colombian President before filming the show. His Minister of Culture hated the idea that we were coming to their country and making a show about drugs. She was like, "Oh, no, not again," as they feared that the show would perpetuate an existing stereotype about that part of the world.

The President only said one thing to us, that the show recognize the fact that Colombia has gone clean and all the cartels have either gone bust, are dead, or in jail. And I think the show reflected that.

The show was criticized for excessive use of voice-over, something that's considered a convenient narrative device. Was it the criticism that made the makers use it less and less in the third season?

When I was doing those (the VO), I did feel the same way. I even looked up online for different ways of doing it. And then I stumbled upon a Goodfellas blog, which justified the use of voice-over. So, I felt, if the source material is strong enough, people won't mind it. It'll instead help the narrative and engage the audience. Our source-material is almost journalistic, so it becomes an effective tool of story-telling. In fact, there were things we ended up discovering while researching for the show which we couldn't even use in voice-overs.

The location-scout of Narcos, Carlos Muñoz Portal, was shot dead near San Bartolo Actopan area in Central Mexico. Escobar's brother, in the past, has threatened to sue Netflix for $1 billion if Escobar Inc. isn't paid for the rights of his brother's life. He also said that the crew should use hitmen as security. How serious are all these threats?

Firstly, I believe Portal's murder was unconnected. He had gone off to an area notorious for crime. In that specific place, there are a lot of criminals who steal gas from the pipeline. Portal was taking pictures and they mistook him for a journalist or something. It was deeply unfortunate. But I don't think it's got anything to do with him scouting locations for Narcos. We continue to shoot in Mexico City. Secondly, I do not think Escobar's brother has really got a case to come after us.

Pedro Pascal in a still from the Season 3 of 'Narcos'

There's a reckoning in Hollywood as more and more women come forward to share stories of sexual abuse and men are finally facing the consequences they should have a long time back. Personally, as show-runner, how do you ensure the safety of women on your set?

You know, when the Weinstein broke, I was quite shocked. And subsequently, it made me think about the severity of it as I hadn't seen it happen around me. I hadn't seen it at all. I had heard stories about the existence of casting couch, done by random people on the fringe, but not this. It didn't sound like the Hollywood I knew. It's disturbing and it is cutting across all cultures and businesses. It'll hit Bollywood. Not now, but eventually it will. The stories that we are hearing in the US are about men who are seriously f***d up. It is beyond casting couch. It's a power trip. It's anger. It's a whole lot of other issues rooted in misogyny. It's almost asexual. Personally, on my set, I haven't had any complaints. I am not policing it myself but at all points, somebody surely is.

Do you recall any stories where you did feel something was amiss?

Early in my career, I was an assistant to Warren Beatty on a movie called Ishtar, a notorious failure of a movie. Around the time, I would see James Toback (another filmmaker who as many as 38 women have accused of sexually harassing them) who would go on the streets, talk to pretty girls, and show off his pay-stub from Fox, that said he was the director of The Pick-Up Artist, a film featuring Robert Downey Jr.

We would think, what a loser, who even does that? But what he was doing was actually asking them to come over to his hotel room by using his position as director. We didn't know that then. We just thought Jimmy is just being Jimmy. But it's only now the true extent of that has come out. And that's great. I

It's an interesting time for Hollywood as it'll lead to a closer examination of all our heroes.

Also see on HuffPost:


Actresses At Golden Globes To Wear Black To Protest Sexual Harassment

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All actresses attending the 2018 Golden Globes will be wearing black, according to People.

The publication says that “multiple sources” confirmed that presenters and nominees like Jessica Chastain, Mary J. Blige and Meryl Streep will be wearing “all-black looks as a symbol of protest against harassment in Hollywood.”

There are also murmurings that the black ensembles will continue throughout awards season.

Actress Meryl Streep in black at a Golden Globes party in January 2012.

This quiet protest comes amid a national reckoning for men in power, including disgraced film executive Harvey Weinstein. Since dozens of women publicly accused Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault, other survivors have come forward to describe misconduct by stars like Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey,Matt Lauer and more. The movement has garnered such momentum that Time even named “The Silence Breakers” its Person of the Year for 2017.

Hollywood stars also recently took a stand at the Emmys, where many wore blue ribbons to show support for the American Civil Liberties Union and the “Stand With the ACLU” initiative. Some also wore safety pins as a show of solidarity for marginalized groups after Donald Trump was elected president.

The 2018 Golden Globes air on Sunday, Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Also on HuffPost
Women Who Have Accused Roger Ailes Of Sexual Harassment

Rupert Murdoch Bashes As 'Nonsense' Concerns About Sexual Harassment At Fox

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In an interview with his Sky News TV on Thursday, media mogul Rupert Murdoch dismissed reports about sexual harassment at Fox News as “largely political because we’re conservative.”

When Sky News’ Ian King asked Murdoch if he thought the accusations have hurt Fox, Murdoch, who is executive co-chairman of 21st Century Fox, responded: “It’s all nonsense.” 

Murdoch did say there was “sort of” a problem with former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes — whom 10 women accused of harassment, costing Murdoch’s company $45 million to settle lawsuits related to the complaints.

“There was a problem with our chief executive, sort of, over the year — isolated incidents,” said Murdoch. “As soon as we investigated it, he was out of the place in hours, well, three or four days. And there has been nothing else since then.”

In fact, according to reports, it was one of Murdoch’s sons, James Murdoch, who wanted to boot Ailes immediately, against the wishes of his father and brother Lachlan. Ailes stepped down in July 2016 with a $40 million exit package.

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s firing in April over sexual harassment accusations provoking a $32 million settlement apparently slipped Murdoch’s mind in the Sky News interview. Host Eric Bolling was also ousted in late September for sending unsolicited, explicit photos to more than a dozen of his current and former colleagues.

CNN has reported that insurers will pay 21st Century Fox almost $90 million to cover the cost of settlements related to sexual harassment and racial discrimination.

In his interview, however, Murdoch was focused on the competition. “All the liberals are going down the drain. NBC is in deep trouble. CBS, their stars,” he said. NBC fired “Today” show host Matt Lauer last month after his history of sexual misconduct was made public, and CBS fired Charlie Rose over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Murdoch is running into problems with sexual harassment in the U.K. as well. In September, Britain put off 21st Century Fox’s $15 billion planned full takeover of Sky TV because of concerns over Fox’s “genuine commitment to broadcasting standards.” That decision followed British legislators’ calls to examine accusations of sexual harassment at Fox.

Murdoch’s interview focused on Disney’s deal to buy Fox News’ parent, 21st Century Fox, for $52.4 billion. But the Fox Broadcasting Company, including Fox News, won’t be part of the deal.

Asked if he was worried about running into trouble with antitrust laws in the U.S., Murdoch said he “shouldn’t have any problem at all ... in Washington.”

U.S. President Donald Trump called Murdoch on Thursday to congratulate him after the Disney deal was announced. The Justice Department, meanwhile, is suing to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner, which owns CNN, one of Trump’s favorite media targets. Bloomberg reported last month that Murdoch called AT&T’s CEO twice over the last few months to inquire if CNN would be up for sale.

Also on HuffPost

Worker Says Colleague Faked Out Her iPhone X's Facial Recognition ID

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A worker in the Chinese city of Nanjing claims a colleague has bested the facial recognition technology on her new iPhone X — twice.

The woman, identified only by her surname Yan, told the Jiangsu Broadcasting Corp. that her co-worker was able to get into both phones — her original as well as the new one Apple gave her as a replacement, reports the South China Morning Post

An Apple spokesman told HuffPost that he couldn’t confirm the details of the story, nor did he have enough information to determine what might have gone wrong with the phones. He suspected that both women may have used the phone during its “passcode training” and that the phones may have been essentially “taught” to recognize both faces.

The facial recognition software has run into some glitches. It can sometimes mistake twins or siblings, according to Apple. The phone, too, may not accurately identify children under the age of 13 because their faces are not as definitely formed as adults’, according to an Apple security “white paper” on the technology.

Apple hasn’t yet confirmed a case of an unrelated adult cracking the phone’s facial recognition software, according to the Apple spokesman. The company insists that the probability of a random person accessing someone else’s iPhone X using the Face ID passcode is 1 in 1 million, versus 1 in 50,000 for Touch ID. Phil Schiller, Apple’s vice president of product marketing, conceded in September: “Of course, the statistics are lowered if that person shares a close genetic relationship with you.

Unless Apple technicians examine the Chinese phones, it’s unclear what happened. An added complication is that a Chinese company has reportedly begun manufacturing a clone of the iPhone X — with unknown facial recognition capabilities.

How To Know When Your Relationship Is Over

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Who you choose to spend your life with is an incredibly important decision ― and sometimes, you realize the person you thought was “the one” isn’t the right choice anymore.

But that doesn’t stop people from staying put in dead-end relationships, said Sheryl Ziegler, a counselor and author of the forthcoming book Mommy Burnout: How to Reclaim Your Life and Raise Healthier Children in the Process.

“Sometimes, fear is the only reason a person stays in a relationship even when they know it’s over: They fear being alone or not finding someone else,” she told HuffPost. “If that’s the case for you, and your partner is more of a source of stress rather than comfort, it may be time to end the relationship.”

What are some of the signs that a relationship has run its course? Below, Ziegler and other marriage experts share eight red flags. 

1. You try to work out problems with your partner, but they never make an effort.

“I see couples in my office all the time complaining that they have problems communicating. One partner will say something like ‘I’ve told him hundreds of times not to come home late and he doesn’t listen. I just need help communicating it to him so he’ll understand.’ My response usually goes something like this: ‘Well, you’ve said it loud and clear just now. What do you think isn’t being understood?’ If you’ve said it over and over and if you’ve yelled and cried trying to get them to understand, then it’s time to move on. If they don’t understand it after all of that, they probably never will.” ―  Aaron Anderson, a couples therapist in Denver, Colorado

2. One of you had an affair ― or multiple affairs ― and isn’t remorseful about it. 

“Many couples enter relationships feeling confident that there are a few things they would absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, end a relationship over: affairs, addiction and physical or sexual abuse (the three A’s). I can tell you that infidelity is not and should not be a deal-breaker in relationships. Many couples can absolutely overcome sexual and emotional infidelity and rebuild a relationship that was better than it started at the altar. What is a sign that a relationship is ready to dissolve is when there is no sign of remorse or willingness to change after several attempts.” ― Laura Heck, a marriage and family therapist in Salt Lake City, Utah

3. You realize you don’t really like or respect your partner at their core.

“This is such a common reason to end a relationship. How could you possibly spend the next five years, much less the rest of your life, with someone you don’t admire? This may be a hard reality you need to confront. There could be a number of reasons why you’ve lost respect: Maybe you’ve been with this person for quite some time, but no one in your family or friend group really likes them ― and you’re starting to feel the same way. If you’re with a person who you don’t respect, it’s just not possible for your relationship to last long, much less grow and expand.” ―Gary Brown, a psychotherapist in Los Angeles 

4. You rarely have sex.

“This shift is often gradual: less hand-holding, less kisses goodbye, fewer nights cuddling on the couch or in bed, and before you know it, there is no more foreplay. Sex then becomes something you do in the dark, with little to no romance and you’re counting the minutes until it is over. You initially make excuses for the changes: You’re still on your period or have a migraine. You slowly start breaking your evening rituals like watching your shows together or talking about your day. You go to bed either early or late. Before you know it, you not only don’t have sex, you no longer engage in all the pre-sex buildup: being affectionate, communicating and sharing a sense of playfulness. All of it is gone.” ― Sheryl Ziegler

5. You’ve asked your partner to go to couples therapy but they refuse to go. 

“If you’ve been feeling stuck in a rut for a long time and have been crystal clear about needing a change ― perhaps you’ve suggested counseling ― and your partner does nothing, then your relationship is probably over. You may hope that things might change on their own, but your partner’s lack of interest is a clear sign that they don’t care. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result; if your partner clearly doesn’t want anything different, expecting something to change is often fruitless.” ― Aaron Anderson 

6. You’re fantasizing about another person.

“At some point, you may have become numb to the relationship. You no longer care to talk, you don’t even bother to fight and usually, sarcasm replaces the nasty words that used to come out of your mouth. Now, you’re condescending and find opportunities to point out when your partner is wrong or clueless. Then, you replace the anger with fantasies about another person in your life. One that is likely more attractive, smarter, more successful and probably better in bed. You find comfort in creating situations where you imagine this real or imagined other person in your life. It allows you to hold on to hope that you won’t be lonely if this relationship ends.” ― Sheryl Ziegler 

7. You’re in a high-conflict relationship. 

“If you can’t stop arguing and you have exhausted all other options to learn conflict management skills, it’s likely that your health, happiness and overall life satisfaction has taken a nose dive. It may be time to dissolve your relationship, especially if you have children. The good news? Research indicates that those in high-conflict marriages tend to increase their well-being post-divorce, especially women.” ― Laura Heck

8. Your big life goals no longer align.

“If you find yourself in a relationship where your basic wants, wishes, needs and life desires don’t really align, it’s time to move on. Let’s say you’ve always wanted children but now your partner is not so sure. If starting a family is a ‘must’ for you, this is not really something to compromise on ― it’s an obvious deal-breaker. Or it may be that he just wants to live together and you really want to get married. You could wait for years on end, and maybe it will work out, but if your partner is crystal clear that they are absolutely not into marriage, then you have your answer. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that they are going to change.” ― Gary Brown

Also on HuffPost

Mother Accused Of Subjecting Healthy Son To 323 Hospital Visits, 13 Surgeries

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Eight-year-old Christopher Bowen of Dallas has reportedly been hospitalized more than 300 times and undergone 13 major surgeries ― and he may not have needed any of it.

The arrest of Christopher’s mother last week has caused some of the strange details of his story to come to light. In 2014, when Christopher was 5, his mother, Kaylene Bowen-Wright, told CW33 TV that he had a rare life-threatening condition that affected his oxygen supply. She said he’d been diagnosed at age 2.

“Christopher has trouble breathing so basically, his lungs ― and body ― doesn’t get the oxygen it needs, so he gets tired,” she told CW33 TV. “He can’t play as long as the normal kids.”

The interview was conducted during a bike rally intended to raise $30,000 for Christopher’s care.

“We don’t know how long Christopher will live,” Bowen-Wright said.

Kaylene Bowen-Wright is accused of subjecting her son to years of unnecessary medical treatments.

The following year, a friend of Bowen-Wright’s used GoFundMe to raise $610 so Christopher could go to the beach. According to the fundraiser page, Christopher had been diagnosed with cancer and had just six months to live.

“I want him to build sand castles, walk on the beach and let the waves hit him as he plays with his family,” the organizer wrote.

Later, when Christopher was a kindergartner at White Rock Elementary School in Lake Highlands, a YouCaring campaign was organized by a group of friends and supporters. By the time it ended, the campaign had raised roughly $8,000 “to help young Christopher and his family as they struggle against a disease that is slowly ending his life.”

Bowen-Wright was quoted on the campaign page as saying, “Sometimes in the midst of a dark time, you receive unexpected blessings when your community and church rally around you and lift you up.”

Christopher Bowen's mother allegedly said he suffered from a number of health issues, including cancer.

While Bowen-Wright was allegedly carting her son, his oxygen tank and his wheelchair from doctor to doctor, Ryan Crawford, the boy’s father, was busy trying to convince Dallas County family court judges that Christopher was not actually sick, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Crawford claims that until recently, he had not been permitted to see his son since 2012.

“It was always the same story: ‘Christopher is dying. The father doesn’t need to be around because he doesn’t know to take care of him,’” Bowen-Wright would tell the judges, according to Crawford. “Every time I went to court, they made me feel like I was the worst human ever.”

Crawford claims Child Protective Services also ignored his suspicions. The agency reportedly claims to have no record of him contacting them.

Little did anyone know how fooled they all had been, according to CPS records obtained by the Star-Telegram.

CPS launched an investigation into Christopher's case after receiving a troubling report from a care provider.

The court documents indicate that CPS received a report from a doctor in November 2015, saying that testing had failed to find anything wrong with Christopher. The doctor, according to the report, suspected possible medical child abuse.

When CPS interviewed Bowen-Wright, she denied any wrongdoing. The case was closed.

In November of this year, CPS received another report from a different care provider. The report said Bowen-Wright told them she’d brought her son in for treatment because he’d had a seizure. However, an ECG machine did not indicate any unusual activity. The care provider further alleged that Bowen-Wright refused advice to wean her son off medications he was taking.

“I am very concerned that mother has moved from exaggerating symptoms to inducing symptoms,” the report read, according to the Star-Telegram. “If mother has given Chris something to induce a seizure, this is potentially fatal. At this point, I am very concerned for his welfare.”

Kaylene Bowen-Wright is accused of causing injury to a child with serious bodily injury.

An investigation was launched, and on Dec. 6 Dallas police arrested Bowen-Wright on charges of injury to a child with serious bodily injury, alleging that she caused Christopher’s mysterious maladies.

According to Bowen-Wright’s arrest warrant affidavit, investigators suspect she began abusing her son when he was just 11 days old. The documents allege that Christopher ― who was hooked up to an IV and oxygen at the time of his mother’s arrest ― does not have cancer and was put through repeated unnecessary medical visits, hospitalizations and procedures.

“Christopher’s history provided verbally by Ms. Kaylene Bowen-Wright paints a picture of a very sick child,” the affidavit reads. “The doctors do not find Christopher to be sick. Ms. Bowen-Wright has Christopher on oxygen, yet Christopher is fine without oxygen. Christopher is able to eat normally and does not need a feeding tube.”

Authorities reportedly said Christopher has been thriving since they removed him from his mother.

Christopher has since been placed in foster care. His father is still fighting to gain custody of him.

“Out of everything that has happened, the worst thing you can do is put my children in foster care with strangers,” Crawford told the Star-Telegram. “I need my son in my life and my son needs me in [his] life.”

Friends and co-workers have set up a GoFundMe to help Crawford hire a new attorney.

Bowen-Wright, 34, is being held at the Dallas County Jail in lieu of a $150,000 bond. A court date has not yet been set.

Send David Lohr an email or follow him on Facebook and Twitter

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Questionable Parenting

El Salvador Upholds Three-Decade Prison Term For Woman Who Suffered Stillbirth

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Teodora Vasquez waits in a courtroom in San Salvador on Dec. 8.

A Salvadoran court upheld a 30-year jail sentence this week for a woman who was convicted of aggravated homicide after suffering what she said was a stillbirth.

Teodora Vasquez, 34, has already spent 10 years in prison over the death of her child. Her case is a painful reminder of the injustices women face under El Salvador’s draconian abortion laws, Amnesty International said Thursday, one day after Vasquez’s appeal was rejected. 

“Teodora’s tragic story is a sad illustration of everything that is wrong with the justice system in El Salvador, where human rights seem to be a foreign concept,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty’s Americas director. “Instead of punishing Teodora for being a woman, authorities in El Salvador must urgently take a hard look at their outrageous anti-abortion law and take immediate steps to repeal it.”

Vasquez reportedly experienced intense pain while at work in 2007, and called for an ambulance before fainting. She awoke in a pool of blood, surrounded by police officers, who were arresting her for aborting her baby. She was convicted the following year.

“The room was in tears when we heard the verdict,” said Amnesty’s El Salvador representative, Ina Strøm, who was in the courtroom. “The family is devastated. This is such a tragedy and the injustice is beyond words.”

Enacted in 1998, El Salvador’s total ban on abortion is among the strictest in the world. It does not exclude victims of rape or incest, or women whose lives are endangered by their pregnancies. Girls as young as 10 have been forced to become mothers. Those like Vasquez, who have miscarriages or stillbirths, are regularly prosecuted and sentenced to spend decades behind bars.

El Salvador is one of six countries worldwide where abortion is outlawed without exception.

Abortion carries a sentence of up to eight years in prison, but authorities can change the charge to aggravated homicide in cases where a fetus or newborn dies, according to the BBC. That charge carries a minimum of sentence of 30 years.

Vazquez is among 27 women who are currently imprisoned for abortion-related crimes after suffering miscarriages, stillbirths or pregnancy complications, Reuters reported, citing the Citizen Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion, a Salvadoran rights group.

In July, Salvadoran prosecutors sentenced Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz to 30 years in jail for committing aggravated homicide. The teenage rape survivor didn’t even know she was pregnant at the time of her miscarriage in April 2016.

The country’s criminalization of abortion has led many desperate women to seek out dangerous alternatives, a 2014 Amnesty investigation noted, including clandestine operations. Others have committed suicide.

The ban has also caused Salvadoran women to decline proper medical care when issues arise with their pregnancies, out of fear that their doctors will report them to authorities, as they are legally required to do.

“I was [bleeding] for just over two weeks. And I started to feel a little panicky because it was increasing. I was really afraid, because of all that going to see a doctor implied. The doctors have the power. The power to say: ‘I support you or I report you,’” one woman told Amnesty in 2013. “I was really, really afraid.”

As the Guardian reported, U.S.-based anti-abortion group Human Life International has been quietly providing funds to Sí a la Vida, a major Salvadoran advocate of the abortion ban, since 2000. Referring to the country’s anti-abortion stance in 2006, HLI’s then-president Rev. Thomas Euteneuer told the New York Times Magazine: “El Salvador is an inspiration.”

Also on HuffPost
Myths About Abortion That Need To Be Busted

This Might Be The Moment Khloe Kardashian Finally Confirms She's Pregnant

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For reality TV fans, the Kardashians just released the equivalent to the “Avengers: Infinity War” trailer.

Months have gone by with nary a peep about Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner’s reported pregnancies from a family famous for over-sharing. But it looks like all that is about to change when “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” returns in January with a new batch of episodes. 

In a goosebumps-worthy promo clip released on Thursday, friends and family are gathering at what appears to be a party to announce that Khloe is expecting. In September, multiple outlets confirmed that she was pregnant with her first child with NBA star boyfriend, Tristan Thompson

″Did you not know,” Kim Kardashian asks a tearful Kris Jenner in the clip, before Khloe pulls in friend Malika Haaq and sister Kourtney for a hug. 

Someone else at the party exclaims, “What?! Oh my God!”

The trailer also touches on Rob Kardashian’s ongoing custody drama with ex-fiancée Blac Chyna, a tense meeting with Khloe and Kris’ boyfriend, Corey Gamble, and last, but not least, Kim pledging to “sue the shit” out of TMZ. 

Watch it all go down in the video above. 

Also on HuffPost
Kardashian Kids

Poisonous Flowers Turn Bride's Wedding Day Into A Blooming Nightmare

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Christine Jo Miller’s eyes were watering on her wedding day, but the tears weren’t because of joy.

No, the 23-year-old had a reaction to flowers she picked a day earlier for floral arrangements.

As a result, Miller’s white wedding dress contrasted with a red and bumpy rash on her face. Not that she saw it: Her eyes were swelled shut and she feared she might go blind.

“I was in so much pain,” Miller told Inside Edition. “Nobody knew what to do.”

When Miller married her college sweetheart, Jonathan, in September, she thought creating floral arrangements using flowers from her 29-acre plot of land near Lincoln, Nebraska, would be a nice touch.

One type of flower that caught Miller’s eye was snow-on-the-mountain, which is known for its lovely white blooms.

It’s also known for being poisonous, but Miller didn’t realize that until she went to wash her face the morning of her wedding, not realizing the sap residue was still on her hands from doing the floral arrangements from the night before.

She started breaking out, so much so that by 11:30 a.m., her eyes were so swollen that her mom took her to a nearby emergency clinic, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Sadly, it was closed.

Ever the trooper, Miller put on her gown and went to the ceremony. She walked down the aisle to get hitched feeling absolutely terrible.

“I literally couldn’t see my husband when I was saying my vows because my vision went blurry,” she told HuffPost by email. “So blurry I passed out twice at my reception.”

The eye problems set off a chain reaction of other snafus.

“Due to all of this going on, and since I put my wedding dress on 20 minutes before walking down the aisle, I forgot to wear shoes at the forest wedding,” Miller said. “My veil fell out twice walking down the aisle, we forgot our rings, and our wedding song didn’t get played.”

The couple also skipped the unity portion of the ceremony because they forgot those items.

“Our pastor cut it short and married us in a hurry because of the pain I was in,” Miller said. “Literally my entire day was a mess hahaha.”

After the vows were exchanged, the Millers didn’t go to the reception. Instead, they went to the hospital to get medication for the bride.

Of course, there were troubles with that as well, thanks to insurance foul-ups because she was newly married with a new name, according to the Omaha World-Herald. 

Eventually, Miller received eye drops, pain medication and a steroid shot, and arrived at the reception three-and-a-half hours late.

“Everyone had already been done eating a while and were still awkwardly sitting at the tables,” she told HuffPost. “Nobody knew if it would be good or bad to update them. We thought they deserved to know why they were sitting in the same spot for so long and I wanted my wedding to keep going even though I wasn’t there.”

When the couple did arrive, Miller was no longer in her white wedding dress, instead wearing pajama pants and a shirt Jonathan found at Target that read “Bride.”

“I didn’t wear my dress into the reception mainly because I went fully blind and had been tripping over it since I couldn’t see where I was walking,” Miller explained.

The Millers did dance at the reception, but the bride said she wasn’t able to eat, drink or be merry.

“I laid underneath my grandparents table for a large portion of the night icing my eyeballs and crying,” Miller said.

“I was the scariest-looking person at my wedding,” she told Inside Edition.

Although there is video of the actual wedding, the photographer graciously allowed the couple to retake their pictures a week later when the bride was back to normal.

This time, the bouquet was hypoallergenic, according to Inside Edition. 

Also on HuffPost
Wacky Weddings and Proposals

Teen Used Dying Breaths To Identify Man Who Allegedly Shot Her After She Rebuffed His Advances

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A Brooklyn teenager who had declined a man’s advances used her dying moments to identify him as her shooter, according to police.

Shemel Mercurius, 16, was watching over her 3-year-old cousin in a Brooklyn apartment on May 31, 2016, when Taariq Stephens, now 25, allegedly barged in and shot her with a submachine gun after a brief argument, according to authorities.

Former New York Police Officer Kyle Thomas Daly, who was among those responding to the shooting, gave an account of what Mercurius told police in testimony at Stephens’ murder trial on Monday.

“I put on gloves, laid her down and began rendering aid,” Daly said, according to The New York Daily News. “She regained consciousness and gave me her name and date of birth.”

Daly, who now works for a Long Island police department, said that the teen told a detective that Stephens wanted to date her but she wasn’t interested. She said she had met and exchanged numbers with Stephens at a child care center a week earlier, according to Daly.

He told the court that Mercurius, bloodied next to her crying cousin, drifted in and out of consciousness while an ambulance took 20 minutes to arrive. She later died at a local hospital.

Video footage presented at the trial shows Stephens forcing his way inside of the apartment, according to People

Lona Junien, Mercurius’ friend who was at the scene, testified about what she observed between the two.

“The person pushed her. The person said ‘Don’t ever lie to me.’ She was screaming, he took out the gun and shot her,” Junien testified, according to the Daily News.

Stephens has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces spend 25 years to life in prison for second-degree murder and weapons charges.

'Harlem Shake' Creators Threaten Legal Action Against FCC Chairman Ajit Pai

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The brains behind the viral hit “Harlem Shake” are threatening legal action against Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai for his use of the song in an advertisement for the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules.

After famed DJ Diplo tweeted at the song’s producer Harry Rodrigues ― a DJ better known as Baauer ― about Pai’s use of the song, Rodrigues tweeted on Thursday afternoon that he’d be “taking action.” 

In collaboration with conservative news outlet The Daily Caller, Pai released a video entitled “7 Things You Can Still Do On The Internet After Net Neutrality” that, at one point, features him dancing to the 2013 song. The video went out just one day before the FCC voted to repeal the Obama-era regulations currently in effect. 

Baauer gave a statement to Billboard Dance about the use of his song without his permission, saying that it “obviously comes as a surprise to me as it was just brought to my attention.”

“I want to be clear that it was used completely without my consent or council [sic]. My team and I are currently exploring every single avenue available to get it taken down. I support Net Neutrality like the vast majority of this country and am appalled to be associated with its repeal in anyway.” 

A screenshot of Pai dancing to

In addition to Baauer, the record label responsible for “Harlem Shake,” Mad Decent, also tweeted that they do not “approve of the message contained therein” and would be pursuing “further legal action if it is not removed.”

As of publication, the video has been removed from Youtube. It is still live on The Daily Caller’s Facebook page.

Also on HuffPost
18 Times Black People Broke The Internet In 2016

Blame FCC Chairman For Killing Net Neutrality, But Leave His Race Out Of It

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Chairman Ajit Pai speaks ahead of the vote on the repeal of so-called net neutrality rules at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 14, 2017.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) struck a massive blow against the essential nature of the internet — and handed a major victory to American internet service providers (ISPs) — with their vote to repeal net neutrality on Thursday.

The man who proposed the changes: Ajit Pai, the FCC's Trump-appointed chairman. In helping undo "Title II" regulations that classified the 'net as a public utility, Pai and his Republican buddies have forged a future in which American ISPs could feel free to block, throttle or prioritize traffic to internet services — you know, even if they say they won't.

(Also among these ISPs is Verizon, which owns Oath, HuffPost Canada's parent company.)

In the lead up to the vote, protests erupted online and across the States, calling on the commission to safeguard protections that many see as essential to the way the internet works. And they were right to do so — access to high-speed internet is a fundamental human right, as our country declared almost a year ago in the spirit of bridging inequalities.

But among the backlash to Pai's proposal to "increase competition" and "drive down prices" were a number of unacceptable comments related to his race, typically from individuals at the periphery of, or entirely outside, the largely progressive-led moment.

A net neutrality supporter protests the FCC's recent decision in Los Angeles, Ca. on Nov. 28, 2017.

This is particularly problematic, as Pai isn't just your garden-variety Republican hellbent on overturning Obama-era regulations on principle — he's one of American politics' most visible people of colour. What more, he is merely the face of a decision made on a systemic level.

Now, some of these comments may well be part of an FCC-orchestrated anti-PR push to make net neutrality advocates seem racist and unhinged, as TechDirt's Karl Bode suggests. But my gut tells me there are real people behind these scattered personal attacks. Whether Pai's right or wrong, there's no excuse for that. Humanity and decency shouldn't end at party lines.

More from HuffPost Canada:


There's no room for mocking his Indian name — I'm looking at you, random HuffPost Canada commenter who inspired this missive.

There's no room for posting xenophobic obscenities to the FCC's website, either — just search "Ajit Pai" and the racist epithet of your choice if you want to lose your faith in humanity.

And, just as there's no room for questioning the Kansas native's American bona fides, there's no room in questioning the other half of his heritage, either.

As an immigrant who grew up laughing off xenophobic nicknames in the States, I applaud Pai for responding in good humour to tweets like, "Ajit Pai: Go back to Africa — were [sic] you came from" and "Do you even English, bro?" It's no easy feat. But Pai shouldn't have to laugh off comments like that in the first place.

So go ahead, despise Pai for helping sell humanity's crowning technological achievement out to corporate interests.

Despise Pai for the way he and his commission shrugged off hundreds of thousands of inconveniently legitimate comments opposing the repeal on the FCC website — and refused to help investigate the fakes and the frauds among them.

We'll need to save our energy for mitigating the potential damage of this move.

Despise Pai for not batting an eye at the millions of dollars ISPs throw at lawmakers in Congress — US$101 million and counting.

And definitely despise Pai for celebrating this potentially historical setback to democracy by donning a Santa costume and playing with a fidget spinner on YouTube.

Just leave his race out of it.

Besides, we'll need to save our energy for mitigating the potential damage of this move, both in America and in Canada, where our laws can still be strengthened to protect us from the same fate. And that won't be easy.

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Also on HuffPost:

Trump Jr. Doesn't Seem To Know His Dad Designated The FCC Chairman

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Donald Trump Jr. managed to spread some fake news Thursday on Twitter. 

The president’s son used the platform to criticize supporters of net neutrality after the Federal Communications Commission repealed the Title II protections that kept the internet a public utility. Unfortunately, Trump Jr. doesn’t seem to have all the facts in order. 

“I would pay good money to see all those people complaining about Obama’s FCC chairman voting to repeal #NetNeutality actually explain it in detail,” Trump Jr. wrote. “I’d also bet most hadn’t heard of it before this week. #outrage.” 

In fact, President Donald Trump designated Ajit Pai the FCC chairman in January. Former President Barack Obama appointed Pai to a five-year term on the commission in 2012, but Democrats fought against his term’s renewal last year. The commission voted to repeal the net neutrality protections in a 3-2 vote, with Pai voting in the majority. 

Net neutrality rules were initially put in place to ensure that internet service providers, ISPs, treated all information and content across the web equally. Repealing the Title II protections would allow internet service providers, such as Verizon or Comcast, to decide what content would be blocked or offered at slower speeds in favor of the company’s own content. 

Critics of Pai’s repeal effort fear that ISPs will discriminate against internet traffic and charge companies such as Netflix or Amazon exorbitant fees to give consumers efficient access to those services.

(HuffPost’s parent company, Oath, is owned by Verizon. HuffPost is also represented by the Writers Guild of America, East, which supports net neutrality and opposed its repeal). 

Millions of Americans had protested Pai’s plan to repeal net neutrality regulations. Citizens have protested to keep the rules in place, in addition to calling offices of public officials to protect the internet. Congress could nullify the FCC decision with a Congressional Review Act resolution, and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Thursday that he would introduced one, but it’s considered a long shot.

More than 20 U.S. senators attempted to delay Thursday’s vote after suspecting that the FCC was flooded with fraudulent comments, especially those in favor of the repeal. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened an investigation, which showed that up to 2 million comments were submitted under false names.

Schneiderman announced that he would sue to prevent the rollbacks on Thursday. In a YouTube video, Schneiderman criticized the FCC’s lack of assistance in his office’s investigation and called the vote a travesty.

“Today’s vote also follows a public comment process that was deeply corrupted, including 2 million comments that stole the identities of real people,” Schneiderman said in his video. “This is a crime under New York law ― and the FCC’s decision to go ahead with the vote makes a mockery of government integrity and rewards the very perpetrators who scammed the system to advance their own agenda.” 

Language in this story and its headline has been amended to clarify that while former President Barack Obama appointed Ajit Pai to the FCC, it was President Donald Trump who designated Pai the agency chairman.

Condoms Ad Ban: The Need Is To Educate, Not Abdicate

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A sex worker holds packets of female condoms during an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign at a red-light area in the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri July 6, 2007. The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in India is 2.47 million, less than half of previous official estimates, according to new U.N.-backed government estimates released on Friday during the launch of the country's new $2.8-billion National AIDS Control Program. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri (INDIA)

In a country such as ours where tabloids and news platforms scream out gut-wrenching headlines on a daily basis pertaining to sexual assault, rapes, violations and sex scandals, the glaring lack of a holistic, mandatory and panoptic sex-education in India is becoming increasingly palpable.

The other day my nine-year old niece asked me where babies come from. As we all tend to do in the face of this all-too-familiar predicament, I proceeded to change the topic. But we all know these seemingly innocent questions by children will soon require full-blown discussions about the birds and the bees and it falls on parents to impart this knowledge as in most schools in the country and most societies, both urban and educated as well as rural and uneducated, the conversation is still treated as the elephant in the room, best left unaddressed.

It's an untouched topic by most parents too which leaves the child to unearth these answers on their own as they transition from children to adolescents to adults.

Recently, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in India barred TV channels from airing advertisements through most of the day related to the selling and buying of condoms in the name of indecency and being "harmful to children that may make them indulge in unhealthy practices."

Instead of spreading awareness and laying emphasis on sex education campaigns designed for this adolescent demographic, shunning any mention of or reference to anything even remotely pertaining to this important topic is the norm and nothing is harming them more than this.

A 2015 study said India has the largest number of adolescents – a whopping 243 million with more than 50% of them living in urban areas. This is a significant section of our population that is vulnerable to risky and unhealthy behavior and experimentation leading to deteriorating quality of life and health in later years as a result of a lack of a comprehensive education on the various nuances of sex education.

Increasingly as a result, the onus of imparting this education has fallen on private educators and sex experts who have started to take private classes in many parts of India to empower children and their parents to have a healthy dialogue around this most tabooed of topics in our societies that most schools are outsourcing and parents are avoiding altogether.

As Anju Kishinchandani, a sex educator who runs workshops out of her Mumbai home points out, "In India we don't hesitate to have sex but when we have to talk about it, it's against our culture." The same applies to menstruation, for example although the dialogue around this has started to open up, at least in some households. Ms Kishinchandani's workshop is one many growing number of privately run programs that have resulted because of the unwillingness of parents to talk about reproduction at home.

In comparison, countries like the United States are more pro-active and this topic is addressed as early as middle school in most private and public schools with programs tailored around sexual health as well as how to avoid unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. While abstinence–promoting programs seem to be the more prominent norm, a comprehensive education on the holistic nuances surrounding the topic have been the most effective. The debate, however is still prevalent on the efficacy and availability of sufficient such education and the conversation tends to skew.

Returning to our own neck of the woods, the need for educating parents on how to talk to their kids about the bird and the bees has become just as crucial. Delhi-based sex educator, Sushant Kalra focusses on this effort and he found that during follow ups, not a single parent would have taken the plunge despite his efforts. He then tailored his program in a way that parents were made to bring their children to his class as a second step and forced to start the dialogue in front of other families. This did the trick as there is encouragement in numbers.

The story in poorer households is a sadder one, the silence around this topic even more deafening. Girls are brought up with the notion that sex is their duty and abuse, a side effect of their gender, to be accepted quietly.

TV and other advertisement related to condoms, birth control, reproduction, avoidance of diseases, abortions and unwanted pregnancies need to be treated as mediums of spreading awareness among this burgeoning demographic instead of being thwarted. It is sad that when in 2007 the central government launched the Adolescence Education Programme in Schools, thirteen states called for its immediate ban invoking "against the Indian culture" as the reason.

The story is no different today, ten years later. Mediums of mass media like Internet, radio and TV today have become the torchbearers of spreading awareness and accessibility to information that is being held back in schools and homes. This presents a double-edged conundrum as the proclivity of such adolescents to stray towards pornography and negatively implicating situations is heightened, being unequipped to deal with them on their own.

We need to recognize the need to be able to talk and educate instead of shun and abdicate if we want any semblance of progress to this end in the next decade.

Banning that condom ad isn't helping our children. But educating them about its benefits will.

(The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of HuffPost India. Any omissions or errors are the author's and HuffPost India does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.)

Women Journalists In Rom-Coms Are Trainwrecks. Here's Why That Matters.

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By now, you might have seen Netflix’s made-for-streaming Christmas romantic comedy, “A Christmas Prince.” It’s a holiday rom-com in the tradition of countless Hallmark Christmas movies, crossed with “The Princess Diaries” and “The Prince and Me.” It’s short, it’s cheaply made, it’s deeply satisfying without being terribly deep.

The heroine, Amber, is a hardworking young editor who’s desperate to be taken seriously as a real journalist. She’s assigned to cover what looks to be a looming abdication by Prince Edward, the heir to the throne of the fictional European nation of Aldovia (which presumably shares a border with Genovia and enjoys warm diplomatic relations with Zamunda). She’s out of her depth on her first big story, but Amber is plucky and has not been taught the basic tenets of journalistic ethics, so she poses as a tutor to Prince Edward’s precocious younger sister, Emily, to get her big scoop. Along the way, a nefarious royal cousin tries to steal the throne from Edward, Amber teaches Emily how to be a down-to-earth cut-loose little princess and Edward, of course, falls for Amber. The movie ends with him ascending to the throne, proposing to her, and promising that even though she’ll be a princess she can still keep her journalism career. Sure.

There may be no job more common among romantic comedy heroines than journalist. In the last few decades, some of the best romantic comedies — “When Harry Met Sally…”, “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Morning Glory” among them — have had heroines who work in the fourth estate. Some of the worst ones — “The Ugly Truth,” “Rumor Has It,” “Sex and the City” and its sequel — have as well. Then there’s “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” (women’s magazine columnist), “Never Been Kissed” (metro reporter), “Knocked Up” (E! Entertainment reporter), “13 Going on 30” (women’s magazine editor). And “The Devil Wears Prada.” And “Going The Distance.” And “Trainwreck.” And “Top 5.” To say nothing of rightly beloved classics like “Sleepless in Seattle,” in which the heroine works for the Baltimore Sun, and “Broadcast News,” in which the heroine works in broadcast news.

Journalism has been a standard profession for romantic comedy heroines for decades, and one of the genre’s best heroines, Hildy Johnson in 1940′s “His Girl Friday,” is a wisecracking, hard-charging, natural-born reporter. This isn’t so surprising: Moviegoers understand the profession; they have regular contact with its product, and for all the long hours and layoffs and other assorted indignities, it still carries a whiff of cosmopolitan excitement. Besides, writers tend to write what they know, and one thing screenwriters know is lots of people who work in media.

Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson in

This year has been marked by good-faith scrutiny and bad-faith attacks on the credibility of the press. It has also been marked by the still-only-partial revelation of the extent to which women in the workplace are seen as ornamental, not essential ― a belief of which rampant sexual harassment is only one symptom. As we curl up on the couch and turn on a favorite rom-com after a long day of learning — often from female journalists! — about the predations of powerful men, we should ask ourselves a question: What are these movies teaching us about women, journalism, work and love?

With few exceptions, rom-com journalist heroines are good at their jobs. They love their jobs, even those who don’t spend a lot of screen time actually doing them. And with few exceptions, rom-com journalist heroines use their work for two purposes: to get a man, or to get a man back.

In “Trainwreck,” Amy Schumer’s character dates and falls for the man she’s assigned to profile for her men’s magazine. In “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” women’s magazine columnist Andie is assigned to date a man, drive him away and then write about how she did it. In “13 Going on 30,” Jennifer Garner’s Jenna usesa big redesign of her women’s magazine to get close to a photographer she has a crush on. In “The Ugly Truth,” Katherine Heigl’s character declares her love for her co-host on live television. And in “Sleepless in Seattle,” Meg Ryan’s Annie uses her newspaper’s database to look up the personal information of a man whose voice she heard on the radio late at night one time, and then flies across the country to visit him at his home.

Good journalism occasionally happens along the way: Bridget Jones lands an exclusive interview with a human rights activist (because the man she’s interested in sets it up for her). But that’s not the journalism we’re asked to cheer for. The professional accomplishments the audience is asked to applaud are the ones that fuse the personal with the professional in sometimes disturbing ways.

In “Never Been Kissed,” Drew Barrymore’s Josie, a copy editor, gets her big chance to be an investigative reporter when she goes undercover at a high school, posing as a student. In her time undercover, she falls for her teacher, and the teacher, who thinks she is 17, falls for her. Her editor presses her to expose him in print, but she refuses. The story she writes, in the end, is not about a public school teacher crossing boundaries with one of his students. Instead, she uses her big shot at a front-page story to engineer a reconciliation with that man.

“A certain teacher was hurt on my path to self-discovery,” Josie writes in her final copy, neglecting to mention that while she was discovering herself, she was also discovering that a grown man had been getting way too close to someone he believed to be a minor and a student in his charge. “Although this article may serve as a step, it in no way makes up for what I did to him.” As a reminder, what she did “to him” was her job, but she did it badly, because she fell in love with a source who might be a criminal, and then didn’t run the story she’d found. “To this man: you know who you are. I am so sorry. And I would like to add one more thing. I think I am in love with you.”

To get him back, she asks him in her article to meet her on the pitcher’s mound at the school baseball team’s big game, and kiss her. Her editor and the paper’s editor-in-chief show up, and the EIC is delighted to see so many readers in attendance, invested in the personal life of one of his reporters. The giant exposé the paper didn’t publish is never mentioned again, another explosive story about a predatory male quietly dropped by the men in charge.

It’s not only rom-com journalists who are depicted as easily distracted from their work: In this genre, it happens to heroines who are doctors and lawyers, too. And as rom-com heroines are often relegated to distinctly gendered jobs — teacher, baker, wedding planner, children’s book shop owner — there is something heartening about watching movies in which women work in an often male-dominated field like journalism. But not all representation is good representation — particularly not when the professional ambitions of women are depicted as an embarrassingly earnest youthful phase, to be discarded as soon as the right man comes along.

At the beginning of these movies, women journalists are hungry to report “real” news and to be taken seriously as journalists. By the end, they’re confessing their love on live TV or running their heartbroken apologies in print. In “A Christmas Prince,” Amber’s blog post about “the real story” of her time in Aldovia is so powerful that it brings the prince to her door on New Year’s Eve to propose. He then swears that he’d never ask her to give up her career, but in the magic moment of the proposal in the snow, it’s never explained to us how Amber will keep her career while also being a full-time princess. The lesson is plain: A big professional break isn’t enough of a happy ending. For that, you need a man. And once you get him, the career is kind of optional.

The blurring of boundaries for these heroines is telling. Their work becomes a route to romantic happiness, a means to an end rather than the end itself. Sometimes it happens by the heroine’s design, and sometimes it happens by accident; regardless of why or how, it happens. In a moment when a public debate is raging about what is and isn’t appropriate behavior in a professional environment — what’s romance and what’s harassment? — the only genre made for and about women hasn’t helped matters. Rom-coms assure us that no amount of inappropriate workplace behavior is truly inappropriate if you’re in love by the time the credits roll. Katherine Heigl’s employee watches as a stranger switches on Heigl’s vibrating panties with a remote control, triggering an orgasm during a business dinner? That’s fine; the audience knows they’re meant for each other, and the happy ending proves them right.

Much fun has been poked at Amber’s empty story notes in “A Christmas Prince.” A shot of her computer screen reveals that many of her notes ― “I have to find out!!”; “I still don’t know the real story”; “I have to dig deeper” ― essentially amount to “I should probably do my job, huh.” So she should. But she uses unethical means to do it, and once it’s done, she implicitly removes herself from journalism in the name of love.

If the last two months have taught us anything, it’s that real women’s careers are too often made collateral damage, belittled or eliminated by a culture that considers men’s work to be far more valuable. And, these last two months have shown us that women journalists, when they do their jobs well, can reshape the world for the better. It would be nice if romantic comedies showed us the same thing.

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Sunny Leone Not Allowed To Perform In Bengaluru After Pro-Kannada Group's Leader Threatens To Commit Suicide

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Sunny Leone interviews for the promotion of a film at Hotel Sun-N-Sand, Juhu in Mumbai.

A pro-Kannada group's leader threatened to commit suicide on 31 December if Sunny Leone performed in Bengaluru for a new year bash, and instead of coming down heavily on him for holding a citizen's personal freedom to ransom, the government banned the actress from participating in that show in the state.

Harish, the president of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike Yuva Sene, told India Today that the group was "against Sunny wearing short clothes."

"If she wears saree and takes part in the event, even we'll go watch her. Sunny doesn't have a good past. We shouldn't be encouraging such people. We will not hesitate to commit suicide on December 31," he said.

Leone worked in pornographic films in Canada before she moved to India to appear in a reality TV show and eventually work in Indian films. She's even acted in a Kannada movie. Why the length of her clothes is any of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike Yuva Sene's business is unclear. However, what is clear is that in a country under the central rule of a Hindu right wing party, such diktats have become increasingly easy to enforce with little retributive action from law-keeping agencies.

"If she wears saree and takes part in the event, even we'll go watch her. Sunny doesn't have a good past."

As was witnessed in the Padmavati film controversy, threats of violence are enough to bring a state to its heels and concede ground to anyone holding the state to ransom under the pretext of hurt religious sentiments. Often authorities enforce pre-emptive censorship rather than risking loss to life and property.

No one yet knows what the format of Leone's show will be, but home minister R Ramalinga Reddy told TOI the state has "denied permission fearing law and order problems in the wake of protests by pro-Kannada outfits".

"Don't bring her here. People are opposed to the event. Let them (organisers) organise events related to Kannada culture and literature, which is our heritage," Reddy told PTI.

Activists have claimed that Leone's show on 31 December would be an "assault on the Bengaluru's culture". Leone's effigies were also burnt in the state.

Obviously, the group sees it as a victory.

"It is a victory for us. Government has cancelled the programme. Had it happened here, we would have brought activists from 20 districts to Bengaluru and held a mega protest here," Harish told PTI.

The event, 'Sunny Night in Bengaluru NYE 2018', was to be held at White Orchid convention centre in the city, TOI reported.

Christian Priest Who Sang Carols In MP Village Arrested After Complaint From Bajrang Dal

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Members of Bajrang Dal doing drills during a self-defense training camp at Saraswati Shishu Mandir, an RSS-run school, on May 26, 2016 in Noida.

Police arrested a Christian priest and were questioning members of a seminary after a hardline Hindu group accused them of trying to convert villagers to Christianity by distributing Bibles and singing carols, police said on Saturday.

The priest was arrested on Friday after a member of the Bajrang Dal, a powerful Hindu group associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party, accused 50 members of a seminary of distributing the Bible, photos of Jesus Christ and singing carols in a village in Madhya Pradesh.

"Our members have registered a criminal case because we have proof to show how Christian priests were forcibly converting poor Hindus," said Abhay Kumar Dhar, a senior member of the Bajrang Dal in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh.

The Bajrang Dal has direct links with the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Madhya Pradesh, governed by the BJP, has strict religious conversion laws. People must give formal notice to local administrators in order to change religion.

"We have arrested the priest but have not booked him under the anti-conversion law because the probe into the allegations is still on," said Rajesh Hingankar, the investigating official in Satna district, where the incident occurred.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India said they were "shocked, and pained at the unprovoked violence against Catholic priests and seminarians".

"We were only singing carols, but the hardline Hindus attacked us and said we were on a mission to make India a Christian nation ... that's not true," said Anish Emmanuel, a member of the St. Ephrem's Theological College in Satna.

Two senior police officials in Bhopal said they had detained six members of the Bajrang Dal who had allegedly torched a car owned by a Christian priest in Satna, 480 km northeast of Bhopal.

Religious conversion is a sensitive issue in India, with Hindu groups often accusing Christian missionaries of using cash, kind and marriage to lure poor villagers to convert to their faith.

Modi's government has been criticised for failing to do enough to stop attacks on minority Christians and Muslims by hardline Hindu groups.

The government rejects the allegation and denies any bias against Christians or Muslims.

Fox News Women Furious Over Rupert Murdoch Comments On Sexual Misconduct

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Current and former female Fox News employees say they are “stunned,” “disgusted” and “hungry for justice” after media mogul Rupert Murdoch on Thursday dismissed allegations of sexual misconduct at the network as “nonsense” outside of a few “isolated incidents” with former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes.

In a televised interview, Sky News host Ian King focused on the Thursday announcement that the Disney Company is acquiring most of the assets belonging to 21st Century Fox, Fox News Channel’s parent, in a deal valued at $52 billion. Disney is not acquiring Fox News Channel or several other broadcast properties as part of the deal.

King asked Murdoch if sexual misconduct allegations had inflicted damage on Fox News Channel.

Rupert Murdoch said sexual misconduct allegations at Fox News amount to a few isolated incidents related to the company's former chairman, Roger Ailes.

Murdoch said, “All nonsense, there was a problem with our chief executive [Ailes], sort of, over the years, isolated incidents. As soon as we investigated it he was out of the place in hours, well, three or four days. And there’s been nothing else since then. That was largely political because we’re conservative. Now of course the liberals are going down the drain — NBC is in deep trouble. CBS, their stars. I mean there are really bad cases and people should be moved aside. There are other things which probably amount to a bit of flirting.”

“Rupert never characterized the sexual harassment matters at FOX News as ‘nonsense,’” a spokesman for 21st Century Fox told HuffPost in a statement Friday night, five hours after this story was initially published. “Rather, he responded negatively to the suggestion that sexual harassment issues were an obstacle to the Company’s bid for the rest of Sky.”

“Under Rupert’s leadership and with his total support, the Company exited Roger Ailes, compensated numerous women who were mistreated; trained virtually all of its employees; exited its biggest star; and hired a new head of HR. By his actions, Rupert has made it abundantly clear that he understands that there were real problems at FOX News,” the statement continued. “Rupert values all of the hard-working colleagues at FOX News, and will continue to address these matters to ensure FOX News maintains its commitment to having a work environment based on the values of trust and respect.”

For this story, HuffPost spoke with 10 current and former female Fox News staffers, all of whom are or were on-air talent and say they have faced harassment or assault by current and former Fox News executives and on-air talent. They said the comment by Murdoch, who controls the Fox News Channel along with his two sons Lachlan and James through 21st Century Fox, not only diminished the scandal that has plagued the network for over 17 months, it also virtually erased a flood of allegations, terminations, forced resignations and settlements.

There are other things which probably amount to a bit of flirting. Rupert Murdoch on allegations of sexual misconduct at Fox News

All the women communicated via text message and asked to remain anonymous, either because they still work at the network or are bound by non-disclosure agreements they signed when they left, or because their current employers don’t allow them to speak to the press without authorization.

“I have had to put up with a hostile work environment for years, and now I’m told that it doesn’t exist by a man who doesn’t have to walk these halls every day? I’m hungry for justice,” said one woman who is part of the network’s on-air talent.

“Hey Rupert - stop with the lies or we’ll go public with the truth. All of it. Including about the talent and executives you still employ who have harassed us and don’t give a damn about workplace respect - only money,” said a woman who was previously a member of Fox News’ on-air talent. “How much will it take before you actually start caring about your female employees? Is your 52 billion enough? Are we really going to clean house now?”

Murdoch’s comment directly contradicts the public relations strategy of Fox News and 21st Century Fox, which has been to diligently tell reporters the era of Ailes, who died this year, and host Bill O’Reilly is over. Instead, the press reps say, Fox News has ushered in a new era of corporate responsibility and a workplace free of hostility and retaliation.

The comment is also unusual because Fox News has been the subject of a federal investigation into Ailes’ settlements for over a year. The U.S. Attorney, the FBI and the United States Postal Inspection Service are all assisting with the probe, which is looking at whether Ailes’ payouts violated federal law because they were not disclosed to shareholders. The Postal Service is involved because the investigation includes potential mail and wire fraud violations

Bill O’Reilly has settled multiple sexual harassment lawsuits while at Fox News.

Fox News has been plagued by accusations of sexual misconduct, especially in the last year and a half. In July 2016, former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson stunned the media world when she filed a lawsuit saying Ailes had harassed and retaliated against her over a number of years. 21st Century Fox hired the white-shoe law firm Paul Weiss to conduct an investigation into the allegations, and current and former Fox News staffers and on-air talent told the firm Ailes had subjected them to harassment and retaliation. Ailes was forced to resign three weeks after Carlson filed her lawsuit, and left with a $40 million payout.

Since then, New York magazine, The New York Times and other publications have reported how Ailes used company funds to pay off women who alleged he had harassed and abused them. Laurie Luhn, a former Fox News booker, received a $3.15 million severance in 2011 that Ailes arranged. She told New York magazine Ailes subjected her to psychological torture and harassment for years.

The New York Times also reported in April that O’Reilly had settled multiple sexual harassment suits while at the network, with the company’s knowledge. After virtually all of his advertisers pulled out, O’Reilly was ousted with a reported $25 million payout.

In August, HuffPost reported that Fox News host Eric Bolling sent unsolicited lewd photos to colleagues. A month later, Fox News ousted him. And in October, the Times reported O’Reilly had settled a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for $32 million. 21st Century Fox had seen a draft of the lawsuit and knew O’Reilly had settled, but it still renewed the host’s contract in February 2017 for four more years, at $25 million a year.

As the scandals have unfolded, I’ve spoken to women at the network about their own experiences and responses to the allegations. I have never received more pointed feedback than I did after Murdoch’s comments.

In response to Murdoch's comments, Gretchen Carlson said he should

Lauren Sivan, a television reporter who worked at Fox News and now works at a Fox station in Los Angeles owned by 21st Century Fox, said Ailes used to have her sit on his lap so he could monitor her breathing and diaphragm. He did this, she said, under the false premise of helping her speak better on television. Several women at Fox News said Ailes required them to sit on his lap and engage in the same exercise.

“What kind of company pays close to 100 million dollars to keep ‘flirting’ quiet?” Sivan said in response to Murdoch’s quote.

“Did this man [Murdoch] just forget the 100 million dollars his company had to pay in settlements for terrible men behaving badly?” said a current Fox news host. “He now says it was a bit of ‘flirting’ and an issue related to the fact that Fox News has conservative hosts? Sexual harassment has nothing to do with politics. Many of us are conservative and want the truth to come out. Those of us who still work at Fox News have anxiety issues every time we see another woman coming forward with stories we have all lived through but have never shared.”

“The harassment was persistent and ongoing,” said a former Fox News reporter. “It was personally and professionally devastating for some of my colleagues and me. When the person who signs your paycheck and is responsible for promotions and demotions harasses women who rely on him, it’s more than ‘sort of’ a problem. Roger’s circle of advisors laughed off the problem and enabled his behavior to continue for years. Rupert’s dismissal is a crude insult to women. He should know better.”

The culture at Fox News won’t change until you publicly accept that it has been a breeding ground for sexual misconduct over the past two decades. Tamara Holder

Tamara Holder, a Fox News commentator who settled with the network earlier this year over a sexual assault claim, said, “You cannot rewrite history, Mr. Murdoch. The problem was not only with your chief executive. For example, one of your former executives trapped me in his office, pulled-out his penis and shoved my head on it. That’s not ‘nonsense.’ That’s criminal.”

“The culture at Fox News won’t change until you publicly accept that it has been a breeding ground for sexual misconduct over the past two decades,” Holder said.

Carlson also replied to the comments, saying, “Mr. Murdoch: sexual harassment isn’t ‘flirting,’ ‘nonsense,’ ‘largely political’ or simply ‘isolated incidents.’ I’m calling on you to release all women who complained about sexual harassment at Fox News from the secrecy agreements you forced them to sign and let the truth come out. Let the public decide if the behavior to which women were subjected was ‘flirting.’” She tweeted the same statement soon after.

Some Fox News women who have never come forward publicly with their complaints say they are considering sharing what they experienced, and were willing to walk out if necessary. Some say Ailes sexually harassed them, while others have complaints about on-air talent and executives at the network.

“I’m contacting a lawyer tomorrow,” said one Fox News host. “I’m sick of this shit.”

This story has been updated with comment from 21st Century Fox.

Follow Yashar — or send him a tip — on Twitter: @yashar

Ranking The Best New Shows You Can Stream Online Right Now

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You’ve got free time to kill, and you want to spend these rare moments with a TV show, but you’ve got a ton of options on a handful of streaming platforms. In an era when keeping up with contemporary TV is beginning to feel more and more like homework, it’s about time there was a cheat sheet.

HuffPost’s Streamline is a go-to source for what to watch online right now. It includes recommendations for scripted TV shows, both live-action and animated, chosen by writers who watch countless series and have an eye on what other critics are ecstatic about this minute. 

The weekly list values newness to promote shows that might not be on your radar yet. On the navigation bar above, you can choose specific recommendations for series streaming on NetflixHulu and Amazon. The main list below also includes shows that you can stream online with a cable package (such as programs on HBO, Showtime and FX Networks).

The idea: Come to Streamline before you accidentally waste your time with a bad show. Wait a minute to save a minute.  

For the weekend of Dec. 16, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” tops the list from Amazon for the third week in a row.

As the year comes to an end, there aren’t as many new shows popping up to take the top spot from this Amy Sherman-Palladino project. That said, the show is truly great and a crowd-pleaser that all sorts of television fans could enjoy. Head to the Amazon Streamline for more about it.

Netflix’s “Wormwood,” which debuts Friday, joins the list for the first time. This Errol Morris project about a man’s lengthy search to uncover the mystery of his father’s death is mostly a documentary series, so its inclusion slightly breaks with our typical recommendations of scripted shows. As he has done in the past, “The Thin Blue Line” director Morris blends fiction and nonfiction, using actors to recreate various real-life events. Peter Sarsgaard is in the starring role. The Netflix Streamline gets more into our justification for its inclusion, but regardless, the show is well worth checking out.

The Netflix Streamline is where we get into the unfortunate decision by the FCC to repeal net neutrality protections. This news might mean streaming providers will have a harder time competing in the marketplace, and consumers might have to pay more to access these services.

Otherwise, streaming services had much to celebrate with this week’s announcement of the nominations for the 75th annual Golden Globe Awards. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon all earned nominations, with Netflix getting the most among the streaming giants with nine. These successes mean that streaming services actually received more nominations than traditional networks this year.

Also worth noting is that many of the network shows that received nominations are currently available on Hulu. More about which of these shows are available at the Hulu Streamline.

And as mentioned before, Streamline has been highlighting Netflix’s successful year of programming with roundups of the best and most underrated shows to debut in 2017.

You’ve certainly got a ton of shows to check out.

Good luck this week, and we hope this helps. 

A note on methodology:

Streamline recommendations do not include reality shows, game shows, awards shows, news shows and other shows that aren’t streaming online.

Along with HuffPost’s own “research” (watching countless hours of TV), Streamline opinions are informed by critical reviews from publications like The New York TimesVultureThe A.V. ClubThe Ringer and Collider, and aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. Twitter is also providing HuffPost with data on the most tweeted-about streaming shows on its platform.

Shows can appear on the main list for two months after their most recent season’s final episode. Shows that debut all episodes at once will also be eligible for only two months.

If broadcast shows want a chance at showing up on the main list, they should make their episodes easily available to stream.

It's Hard To Know Exactly What's Happening To Myanmar's Rohingya. So They Found Me.

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Rohingya refugee children wait in front of a food distribution center in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. 

Rohan Royal first contacted me around dinnertime on Oct. 26. The profile picture that came with his Facebook message request showed two armed men holding guns. “Hello,” was all he wrote.

According to his profile, we had no mutual friends, didn’t attend the same schools or live in the same city, but I responded with a “hello” in turn and asked how he found me.

Writing in poor English, Royal said he was a Rohingya student living in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group whose members have lived in Rakhine state for centuries. Most of Myanmar’s Buddhist majority population considers the Rohingya to be immigrants, and in 1982, the government stripped them of citizenship ― effectively rendering them stateless and limiting their access to jobs, medical care and education.

The Rohingya have faced decades of persecution at the hands of Myanmar’s military and Buddhist hardliners. Tensions escalated dramatically in August after a small group of Rohingya extremists, known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, attacked police and army posts in the state. Buddhist militants retaliated by burning down villages, arresting and torturing men, raping women and killing children.

Since then, more than 624,000 of the 1.1 million Rohingya in Rakhine have fled to neighboring Bangladesh. It’s unclear how many Rohingya exactly remain in Rakhine, but the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in Geneva estimates that more than 300,000 are in desperate need of aid.

Royal said he was one of the Rohingya who remained behind, and explained that he’d found me while searching Facebook for aid workers. “I resherch donation worker at them i got ur facebook,” he wrote.  

I’m a freelance journalist, which my Facebook page clearly states. But since I have been closely following recent news reports about worsening violence against the Rohingya, his messages piqued my interest.

I received another Facebook request a few hours later from a man named Kyawwinnaing. He, too, introduced himself as a Rohingya student living in Rakhine. “Our villagers [are] very very poor and I need your help,” he wrote.

The next morning, there was another one. Ro Kyaw Tun Naing said he was a schoolteacher in one of the remaining Rohingya villages, and had been one of Kyawwinnaing’s teachers. He also said he works for a local humanitarian agency. His English, albeit choppy, was sufficient to maintain a conversation. I asked what was happening in his village. “Facing .Arrsted.Raping .burning .on rohingya pepole in Rakhine state now.I am find .My family are safe,” he replied.

I wanted to know more ― whether these men were who they claimed to be, and if they were, why they were contacting a freelance journalist based in Seattle. Reporting from Rakhine is thin at best, since the military bars access to journalists and has only let a few relief agencies in.

These exchanges sent me on a reporting quest that has given me a digital window into life in Rakhine state, and it has become increasingly clear that the Rohingya are looking for social media users in other countries to share their stories with the rest of the world.

None of the men who contacted me are using their real names online, out of fear that public postings under their Rohingya names would make them government targets. Kyaw Tun Naing says he has already been arrested once for using Facebook to share news about the Rohingya, and he’s haunted by the idea that this could happen again. Other Rohingya activists have reported online harassment and have even received death threats over the phone. I now know their real identities, but am withholding that information to protect their safety.

Rohingya refugees wait to cross the border into Bangladesh on Nov. 12, 2017.

In our ongoing correspondence, the three men painted a grim picture of the situation in Rakhine. I’ve woken up to messages containing images and videos of Rohingya villages being torched at night by the military, operating under the cover of darkness. “Breaking news,” Royal would write, before sending over a media file and a description of an event.

They say Myanmar’s army has continued to raid Rohingya villages and set fire to abandoned homes, even after Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement on Nov. 23 to allow hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to return home.

They have sent images purporting to document crimes by Myanmar’s army since violence broke out at the end of August — photos of Rohingya men and women who had been beaten, shot or raped. The messages also suggest that Rohingya villages lack access to basic necessities like food and medicine.

Early on, Royal sent me photos that he said showed villagers selling their home goods to buy food and medicine in a nearby town. He claimed a video showed a Rohingya man with cancer who had sold all his possessions to pay for surgery, only to be dropped by the doctor when he could no longer pay.

These traumatic images are impossible to verify and extremely graphic, and are not included here for those reasons. But they have left me wondering whether the Rohingya who have fled will ever feel safe again in Rakhine. According to the men, Rohingya still abandon their villages out of fear each day. Kyaw Tun Naing told me that Rohingya are leaving his village on a daily basis, hoping to find food and jobs in Bangladesh.

Kyaw Tun Naing himself refuses to go. He fears living in Bangladesh as a refugee would be even more difficult than staying in Myanmar. Kyawwinnaing, too, doesn’t want to leave. “I am Rohingya. I am not Bengali,” he explained, adding that he hopes more relief agencies will eventually gain access to Rakhine.    

Myanmar's border police stand guard in Rakhine state.

Facebook has become a breeding ground for fake news in Myanmar ever since violence intensified over the summer. The social media platform is so prevalent in the country that some people believe it is the internet. Myanmar’s government and military deny the reports about atrocities in Rakhine ― even civilian leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been on the defensive, dismissing them as “misinformation.”

Some government accounts have taken advantage of Facebook’s reach to push that line in a seemingly coordinated effort, claiming that the Rohingya are burning down their own villages or distributing photos of soldiers’ bodies that were actually taken during other conflicts.

Kyaw Tun Naing said those government reports prompted him to reach out after he joined Facebook in September. “Myanmar media [do not] write true news,” he told me. “Rohingya people don’t have journalist. And Rakhine state [has] no free media.”

While Royal, Kyawwinnaing and Kyaw Tun Naing say they can not move freely from village to village, $3 can buy them 2 gigabytes of data to use on their mobile phones to keep abreast of news and be in touch with other Rohingya living in Rakhine or outside of the country. They share photos, videos and news among themselves before they pass the message on.

Without eyes on the ground in Rakhine, I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully verify their accounts, but I did everything I could to confirm their identities.

One of my trusted Rohingya sources spoke with Royal and confirmed his identity. I tried verifying Kyaw Tun Naing’s involvement with the humanitarian agency, but my email to the group’s main branch in Yangon bounced back as undeliverable.

While I asked the men to send photos from their villages and their day-to-day lives, they often just sent me any photos they had. I ran each one through a reverse image search, and some appeared to be originals. For example, there were no perfect matches for a photo of a bullet wound on a man’s back, confirming that this image wasn’t already published elsewhere, and Google’s reverse image search’s best guess for the location of the image was “Rakhine state.”

In other instances, multiple people sent me the same photo, suggesting that those images are circulating among Rohingya activists connected on Facebook. Ro Kyaw Tun Naing sent me a handful of those, including photos that appeared to show the arrest of two men. I recognized the men’s faces from a Rohingya activist’s Twitter post; they were reportedly attacked by extremists in a village in northern Rakhine state.

Even though I’ve grown to believe and trust these men and their stories, I can’t be completely sure they are who they say they are. One thing is clear, however: No matter how many probing questions I’ve asked, the men have not grown tired of them.

Corresponding with these Rohingya men in the past few weeks has brought a different sense of routine to my life. I’ve grown used to the ping of my WhatsApp and the chirp of my Messenger notifications in the morning and late afternoons. I feel relieved when read receipts on my Messenger conversations or blue check marks on the WhatsApp chats appear, indicating that they are still safe, and alive.

It has also raised new questions for me about working on stories about conflict-ridden countries. As journalists, we are encouraged to be objective in our reporting, to not meddle in the lives of people that we cover. But seeing these photos and videos and forming relationships with these men elicits in me the very human response of wanting to help.

To me, the greatest paradox of the use of social media in the Rohingya crisis is that complete strangers can tell me about their plight, but there’s no way for me to help directly. Yet, in a different context, anyone can start a crowdfunding campaign to help defray medical costs, and a stranger sympathetic to their situation could donate money directly toward that.

In the last few weeks, I’ve marveled at how democratizing the internet can be. For the Rohingya, it offers freedom from reality. They can read about the international community’s response to the crisis and can connect with family and friends displaced by violence. An Facebook friend request, if accepted, gives them the ability to live vicariously through a stranger — a stranger who coincidentally has the privilege to help shed light on their stories.

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