Hi Rubén,
I find the decision of WLM international team completely reasonable to not
exclude Russian photographs from the competition.
Geopolitical differences and conflicts among governments should never be a
factor to sanction and obstruct volunteer activities from those nations. We
need to remind ourselves that the government and the Wikimedia volunteers
or affiliates of a country are different entities and the Wikimedia
communities cannot be held responsible for the action of their governments.
Russian heritage photographers have nothing to do with the Ukraine war and
they have equal rights to have their photographs compete and judged like
the other participating countries.
Also, WLM is not only a photography competiton, it's a way to digitally
preserve heritage. Digital conversation has inverse relationship with
destruction of war.
Apart from Ukraine, there are conflicts, invasions and wars happening in
the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and other regions. There had been
many in the past and surely there will be more in the future. WLM need not
have to be involved in all these geopolitical complexities and take sides,
rather if it can bridge gaps among people who are in conflicting countries
by including them all, it can rather play that significant role instead of
excluding and dividing them further.
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
On Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 18:33 Rodelar <rodelarwiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
The Wiki Loves Monuments international team has been asked if photographs
from Russia should be allowed or excluded from participating in this year's
international contest. We have been in contact with the organising teams of
Wiki Loves Monuments from Ukraine and from Russia to discuss this and to
find a solution.
We greatly appreciate that the team from Ukraine has organized the local
edition of the competition while there is war in their country! We
understand that there are reservations against seeing images from Ukraine
and Russia presented side by side in the galleries of nominated or winning
pictures.
The volunteer team organising Wiki Loves Monuments Russia emphasizes to
have no ties to the Russian government or the Russian Wikimedia affiliate.
They are submitting the 10 finalist images to the international final round
of Wiki Loves Monuments 2022, but the occupied areas, including Crimea and
Sevastopol, have been excluded from the Wiki Loves monuments campaign.
Also, in Russia there is no freedom of panorama for works of art. This
excludes, in fact, any images of monuments and statues erected since World
War II, and which for example glorify the war, from being legally uploaded
to Wikimedia Commons.
If images from Russia are excluded because of the war in Ukraine, this
could, without being based on a rule for the competition, set a precedent
for other territories where there is war around the world. Rules would have
to found, before deciding case by case, if a country should not be allowed
to send its nominations to Wiki Loves Monuments international.
With these considerations in mind, the WLM organising team does not see a
reason to exclude the submission of Russian finalists images to the
international final round.
On behalf of the WLM 2022 organising team,
Rubén Ojeda
International jury coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments 2022
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