Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Explosion Kills at Least 22 at Manchester Ariana Grande Concert

Last night, an explosion killed at least 22 people and injured 59 others during an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. Officials are treating it as a suicide attack, but many details are still unclear. The attacker appears to have been one man acting alone, who detonated a homemade explosive device. He died in the explosion.

Young concertgoers left the site screaming and video footage shows chaos and panic. Grande is popular among young listeners and police confirmed several children were among the dead. This is the worst terror attack in Britain since the London subway bombings in 2005 and brought to mind the concert hall terrorist attack in Paris in 2015.

19 dead, 50 injured in #ManchesterArena explosion. Being treated as a terror incident. https://t.co/RaoedzKYpV pic.twitter.com/LJmydjJTnr

— BBC North West (@BBCNWT) May 23, 2017

According to the CEO of the Pennsylvania-based company that manages the Manchester Arena, you have to pass a strict security check to enter the concert area. But it seemed like the explosion went off in the foyer of the arena, at the very end of the concert when people had already started leaving. Witnesses said the whole building shook with the blast.

broken.
from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don’t have words.

— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) May 23, 2017

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It’s an interesting case that refuses to die. Described by NPR as “the legal saga of the monkey selfie,” U.S. District Judge William Orrick just issued a provisional opinion that a macaque named Naruto can’t legally copyright some selfies he snapped in a nature reserve in 2011.

The pictures in question do have all the attributes of a selfie.

Judge rules on whether monkey owns rights to famous “monkey selfie” photographs https://t.co/b6vY3jDLiupic.twitter.com/bSNKXtdivi

— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 7, 2016

They were taken with wildlife photographer David Slater’s camera, in a wildlife reservation on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. However, Slater wasn’t the one who “took” the pictures, Naruto did. PETA, who filed the lawsuit on Naruto’s behalf, claimed that the monkey knew what he was doing. The lawsuit argues that Naruto had seen guests to the reserve taking photos, and that his actions included “purposely pushing the shutter release multiple times (and) understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between pressing the shutter release, the noise of the shutter, and the change to his reflection in the camera lens.”

But Slater claims that he has the rights to the pictures, and that he was holding onto the tripod while Naruto took the photos. He used it in a 2014 book of wildlife photography, and has a British copyright license for it. But some media sites, including Wikipedia, have argued that the photos are public domain because no one owns the copyright.

But despite all that confusion, one thing is clear: Orrick wasn’t going to let PETA get away with filing a copyright on behalf of a monkey. Although a formal opinion will be issued by the judge later, he did issue a provisional opinion Wednesday. Orrick stated: “while Congress and the President can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act.” On that note, the U.S. Copyright Office has actually officially started listing “a photograph taken by a monkey” as something that specifically cannot be copyrighted. 

So, it doesn’t seem like we’ll be seeing an influx of monkey (or for that matter, other animal) copyrights anytime soon. But since monkeys can apparently take selfies, maybe this is a law that Congress will need to consider changing.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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“If during a study-abroad trip to Indonesia you stumble across an image of the Führer, don’t be surprised,” reported Vice News earlier this summer. “The swastika is also everywhere — on walls, cups, ashtrays, and t-shirts — and it’s not the Buddhist kind.” Stickers, posters, and stenciled graffiti images of Adolf Hitler litter the cities of Indonesia aside images of weapons and bullets. But the Nazi graffiti is not limited to illegal marks; street vendors sell posters and framed prints of a fiery Adolph Hitler delivering an impassioned speech. A prepubescent boy wears a burgundy T-shirt that reads “PUNK NAZI” emblazoned with a swastika. “I don’t idealize Hitler, I simply adore the soldiers’ paraphernalia,” said Henry Mulyana, owner of Soldaten Kaffee (German for ‘The Soldiers’ Café’) in Bandung City, which opened in 2011. Customers can order “Nazi goring” (a version of traditional fried rice) served on swastika-motif china by a waiter wearing a black SS uniform.

The recent bizarre phenomenon of Nazi imagery in Indonesia would be absurdly laughable if it wasn’t so disturbing. Indonesia’s poor education system and historical ignorance may be at the root of the irreverent prevalence of Nazi imagery. Indonesia is a diverse country consisting of more than 300 ethnic groups and over 700 languages, yet few of the nation’s 240 million people receive formal education about race relations. Schools omit world history curriculum, which, according to the Jakarta Globe, contributes to the ignorance of sensitive social topics. “It is not uncommon,” says the Conversation, “for Indonesians to say ‘I like Hitler’ when meeting someone from Germany.”

“Contrary to their European peers, Indonesian students hardly receive any history lessons on World War II. They know nothing about the persecution of Jews, for example,” according to a history professor at the Gadjah Mada University of Yogyakarta in Java. “They see Hitler as a revolutionary, similar to Che Guevara, not as someone who is responsible for the death of millions of Jews…[T]hey’re attracted to emblems of Nazi Germany because they’ve become acquainted with these symbols through punk and hard-rock videos. In their view, these symbols are a representation of rebellion.”

Adolf Hitler bumper sticker, Lombok Barat, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Courtesy of Klaus Stiefel via Flickr

The evidence pointing to Indonesia’s poor education system, however, suggests a more fundamental issue at stake in the resurgence of Nazi imagery. From 1967 to 1998, Indonesia was ruled by an authoritarian, pseudo-Fascist government that strictly controlled school curriculum. “The Ministry of Education prohibited teachers from educating students on international genocide, political violence, or racial conflicts,” said Gene Netto, an English teacher from Jakarat. “Most students graduated without ever having heard of the Holocaust…Students were only taught about the glory and grandeur of Indonesia as a country.”

Indeed, Indonesia has a historic relationship with Nazis specifically and Fascism broadly. During the 1930s, while Indonesia was under the control the Netherlands, Nazi publications were translated and disseminated throughout the country; Hitler’s concept of a “Greater Germany” inspired similar ideals, “Indonesia Mulia” (esteemed Indonesia) and “Indonesia Raya” (great Indonesia), galvanizing the Indonesian National Party (PNI) that was instrumental in achieving independence from the Dutch in 1949. Soekarno, the leader of the independence movement, and subsequently the country’s first president, revered Hitler’s vision of the Third Reich, declaring in 1963, “It’s in the Dritte Reich that the Germans will see Germany at the apex above other nations in this world.” Suharto, the second Indonesian president, came to power in 1967 following a military coup that deposed Soekarno, immediately consolidating government power around the military, consequently instituting a military dictatorship. Building on Soekarno’s Nazi inspired ideals, Suharto’s regime ruthlessly killed criminal and political prisoners, and conducted genocides, most infamously in East Timor. A pro-democracy Indonesian revolution ended Suharto’s long reign in 1998, but the neo-Fascist rhetoric has resumed once again during the current presidential election.

Prabowo Subianto, one of the two front runners in the Indonesian election, is a “continuation” of Suharto’s “fascist rule,” according to Indonesian scholar Andre Vltchek writing in Counter Punch. Prabowo has historic roots in Indonesia’s autocratic government; not only did his father serve as Suharto’s cabinet minister, Prabowo is Suharto’s son in law, and commanded the Special Forces group that spearheaded a brutal occupation and genocide of East Timor in 1976. Prabowo’s resume gives a clear indication that he will be as authoritarian and as cruel as Suharto, if not more so. As Foreign Policy explains, “Suharto-style authoritarianism remains alive and well,” including politics of exclusion, fear, and intimidation; as a campaign spectacle, Prabowo rode a horse into a stadium full of supporters in formation, wearing white uniforms and red berets. Allusions to Mussolini could not be more complete.

A voting bulletin just after the official closing of elections at a voting station in Jakarta. Courtesy of Lord Mountbatten Via Wikipedia.

What is more striking, however, is that Indonesians seem to embrace the Fascist imagery and political rhetoric. “We need Adolf Hitler! In order to fully restore law and order” a businessman in Sumatra exclaimed. “I’m not personally familiar with the [Nazi] ideology, but even if I am, I don’t think I’d find it completely disagreeable,” said Mulyana, the owner of the Nazi-themed café. “For example, communism in Indonesia was prohibited, but it’s flourishing in China. Maybe it’s just a matter of politics.” In June, Indonesian pop star Ahmad Dhani released a music video in support of Prabowo, dressed in a black Nazi uniform, singing a modified version of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

“What is the connection between German soldiers and Indonesia?” Dhani asked rhetorically. “We Indonesians didn’t kill millions of Jews, right?”

The ballots are in but the election is still undecided. Both candidates — Prabowo and Djoko “Jokowi” Widodo — are claiming victory, citing unofficial results conducted by private polling agencies, and accusing each other of election fraud. By law, the Indonesian Election Commission must announce the official results today. Whoever wins, this election marks a clear resurgence of Indonesia’s latent Fascism. The Mussolini-style political campaigns, Nazi-themed cafés, and stenciled images of Hitler plastered through the streets, are not as horrifying, though, as the fact that the Indonesian people seem completely comfortable with the pervasiveness of Fascist symbolism. As we have seen with ‘neo-Fascists’ in Israel, graffiti is a bellwether for subterranean political currents in Indonesian society.

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Ryan D. Purcell (@RyanDPurcell) holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University where he explored the intersection between hip hop graffiti writers and art collectives on the Lower East Side. His research is based on experience working with the Newark Public Arts Project and from tagging independently throughout New Jersey and New York.

Feature image courtesy of [Ikhlasul Amal via Flickr]

Ryan Purcell

Ryan D. Purcell holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University where he explored the intersection between hip hop graffiti writers and art collectives on the Lower East Side. His research is based on experience working with the Newark Public Arts Project and from tagging independently throughout New Jersey and New York. Contact Ryan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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