Live from Timbuktu
Having been inspired by Guy at Sleeping Camel's live blogging from Bamako, I just helped a friend in Timbuktu set up a blog so he can keep people updated on what's happening in Timbuktu. Land of Peace and Culture is a group set up for promoting Timbuktu (i think) but for the moment, they're using the site now as an aggregate and a live source of on the ground info From Timbuktu - great for those of us missing the city and wishing we knew more of what's going on. In short, it ain't good.www.timbuktu-lopac.tumblr.com
If anyone has any updates or your own account of what's happening in TIM, or if you have a message for The people of Timbuktu, or what you're hearing from friends, there's a "pencil" icon at the top and you can send a message to them.
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The New York Times has a story about Timbuktu today, and it appears to be a theocratic dictatorship at the moment:In Timbuktu, Harsh Change Under Islamists
Women are now forced to wear full, face-covering veils. Music is banned from the radio. Cigarettes are snatched from the mouths of pedestrians. And the look of the ancient mud-brick town is changing. A centuries-old monument, the shrine of a 15th-century saint, has been defaced
That's very disturbing. Why don't the city's new rulers choose to respect freedom of religion (including people's natural freedom to be non-religious if they choose) and of conscience?
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