Women seeking rights were ‘stripped, beaten’ in Beijing

Seven women say they were beaten up by a group of men all dressed in black after they went to Beijing from Gansu Province’s Hui County to allege corruption over earthquake relief funds.

The women published an online post yesterday in a microblog on weibo.com to tell of their humiliating experience on April 27 by the men who beat them, stripped them down to their underwear in public, and sent them back to Hui County in a van overnight without even allowing them to use the toilet during a journey which was many hours long.

One witness, who described himself as a retired soldier in his 80s, wrote on the microblog: “When I saw them beating the women, I scolded them for acting like bandits. It was the most horrible, shameful, and barbarous scene I have ever seen in my life.”

In a telephone interview, 43-year-old Liu Xiuhua, one of the seven women, told Shanghai Daily they had arrived at the Dunhuang Plaza in Beijing at 3pm on April 27 planning to report a number of county officials for corruption involving relief funds released after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which also affected Gansu.

After 30 minutes waiting at the entrance of the Gansu provincial government’s Beijing office in the plaza, more than 20 men arrived in two vans and demanded that they get into the vehicles.

“The office said they were policemen, but we saw some of them with tattoos all over their bodies,” said Liu.

The men dragged an 80-year-old women into the van and stripped the clothing off four others in the plaza, in front of several male security guards and office workers, said Liu.

“They kicked and punched us for over 30 seconds before we were all thrown into the van,” Liu said. “Then the engine started, I was sitting beside a woman who was beaten into a coma and the leader of the men kept punching and scolding us.”

She didn’t know how long it took them to arrive at their hometown in Hui County, but when they arrived, it was already nightfall on April 28.

During the long journey, the van made no stops to allow the women to use the toilet, Liu said.

According to the women’s online post, the van dropped the women off at Hui County’s police bureau.

The policemen there took no action against the men but just watched them leave.

Of the local police and county officials, Liu said: “They told us that ‘you deserve this’ and said the case was closed.”

Another woman, Wang Caihong, supported Liu’s account on the microblog.

One of the victims had a broken leg and others suffered bruising to their bodies.

Officials with the Hui County government could not be reached yesterday.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7394788.html

Bangladesh woman cuts off ‘attacker’s’ penis

DHAKA (AFP) – A 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman cut off a man’s penis during an alleged attempted rape and took it to a police station as evidence, police in a remote part of Bangladesh said Monday.

The woman, a married mother of three, was attacked while she was sleeping in her shanty in Jhalakathi district, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Dhaka, on Saturday night, officers said.

“As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife. She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime,” police chief Abul Khaer told AFP.

The woman has filed a case accusing the man — who is also 40 and a married father of five — of attempted rape, saying that he had been harassing her for six months.

The severed penis has been kept at the police station and the rape suspect was undergoing treatment in hospital.

“We shall arrest him once his condition gets better,” Khaer added.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110530/wl_sthasia_afp/bangladeshcrimerape_20110530074012;_ylt=AlJ6wuh.J.eL9bk_ORdHoZY61sIF;_ylu=X3oDMTNndGQ0ZDRuBGFzc2V0A2FmcC8yMDExMDUzMC9iYW5nbGFkZXNoY3JpbWVyYXBlBGNjb2RlA29mZnB6ZjMwdG9wNTAwcG9vbARjcG9zAzMEcG9zAzMEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNiYW5nbGFkZXNod28-

Hundreds of Women Report Rapes by Qaddafi Forces

Dr. Seham Sergewa distributed a questionnaire to 70,000 Libyan families living in refugee camps after being driven from their homes, originally to measure how traumatized children were from the fighting, the AP reports. The 59,000 responses she received begin to quantify the full extent of the horror suffered.

10,000 people suffering post-traumatic stress, 4,000 children with psychological problems. Then came the unexpected: 259 women said they had been raped by militiamen loyal to Muammar Qaddafi.

Sergewa’s survey originally did not ask about rape, but when women began approaching her, she added a question about rape on the survey. Some of the women described the attacks to her in terrifying detail, such as a woman in Misrata who said she was raped in front of her four children after Qaddafi fighters burned down her home. And although 259 women came forward, Sergewa believes the numbers is many times higher as women are afraid to report the attacks.

It’s not unusual for rape to be used as a weapon of war, but this is one of the first indications of the extent it has been used in Libya, since Iman al-Obeidi burst into the hotel housing foreign journalists in Tripoli in March and accused pro-Qaddafi militiamen of gang-raping her. Despite her story and reports of condoms and Viagra found in the pockets of dead Qaddafi solders, some have found the evidence of a concerted rape campaign thin. Doctors in Benghazi said they had heard of women being raped but had not treated any. A consultant for Human Rights Watch reportedly said that the organization has learned of “a few credible cases of gender based violence and rape, but the evidence is not there at this point to suggest it is of a systematic nature, or an official policy. On Viagra and condom distribution we have nothing so far.”

But these new testimonies indicate widespread trauma behind a heavy code of silence. Another doctor reported testing victims for AIDs “who were terrified their families would find out.” Some victims have already been abandoned by their husbands, while others fear seeking treatment will result in retribution from spouses or banishment. Dr. Sergewa said of the 140 rape survivors she personally interviewed, not one could she persuade to prosecute.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20110529/wl_atlantic/surveylibyantraumarevealshundredsrapesqaddafiforces38273_1

Egyptian General Defends ‘Virginity Checks’ on Protesters

After previous denials by military officials, a senior Egyptian general has admitted to CNN that “virginity tests” were conducted on female demonstrators arrested in Tahrir Square.

During a March 9, nearly a month after Hosni Mubarak resigned, the Egyptian military targeted the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, arresting nearly 149 people. An Amnesty International report published weeks later claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges, and forced to submit to virginity checks.

Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or “virginity tests.” Now, a senior Egyptian general who asked not to be identified admits that “virginity checks” were performed, and his defense of the practice reveals a disturbingly bleak attitude towards women. “The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” the general said. “These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs).”

He then offered the bizarre rationale that the virginity checks were done so that the women would not later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities. “We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place,” the general said. “None of them were (virgins).” He did not further explain this confounding logic.

Salwa Hosseini, a 20-year-old hairdresser and one of the women named in the Amnesty report, described how she and 16 other female prisoners were taken to a military detention center in Heikstep.  They were threatened that “those not found to be virgins” would be charged with prostitution. “The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public,” Amnesty reported.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/05/egyptian-general-defends-virginity-checks-tahrir-square-protesters/38282/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAtlanticWire+%28The+Atlantic+Wire%29

Mother sets fire to her daughter’s gloating rapist

A Spanish mother has taken revenge on the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter at knifepoint by dousing him in petrol and setting him alight. He died of his injuries in hospital on Friday.

Antonio Cosme Velasco Soriano, 69, had been sent to jail for nine years in 1998, but was let out on a three-day pass and returned to his home town of Benejúzar, 30 miles south of Alicante, on the Costa Blanca.

While there, he passed his victim’s mother in the street and allegedly taunted her about the attack. He is said to have called out “How’s your daughter?”, before heading into a crowded bar.

Shortly after, the woman walked into the bar, poured a bottle of petrol over Soriano and lit a match. She watched as the flames engulfed him, before walking out.

The woman fled to Alicante, where she was arrested the same evening. When she appeared in court the next day in the town of Orihuela, she was cheered and clapped by a crowd, who shouted “Bravo!” and “Well done!”

A judge ordered her to be held in prison and undergo psychiatric tests, provoking anger from friends and neighbours, who have set up a petition calling for her release.

Soriano suffered 60 per cent burns in the attack on June 13 and was airlifted to a specialist unit. He survived for 11 days before succumbing to his injuries.

It is understood that the woman, who cannot be named because of laws safeguarding the identity of rape victims, claims to have no recollection of the attack which took place in the Bar Mary, just 300 yards from the family home.

As decorators painted over the blackened walls of his bar last week, Antonio Ferrendez Lopez told how Soriano had walked in at lunchtime.

“The place was packed with people eating. I was sitting at a table and Soriano was standing at the bar very close to me when the woman walked in,” he said. “She didn’t acknowledge anyone but walked up to Soriano, who was drinking a coffee, put her hand on his shoulder and turned him round to face her.

“Then she pulled the bottle she was carrying from under her arm and began to tip it over him. At first I didn’t realise what was happening, but then I smelt the petrol. I jumped up and tried to grab her, but when she struck a match I got clear.

“The petrol was in a pool around Soriano, and she threw the match into it. It ignited with a whoosh, and he screamed and staggered about covered in flames. As people rushed outside to escape the flames, she just looked at him, then turned and walked away.”

Customers helped Mr Lopez put out the fire with extinguishers and doused Soriano with water until paramedics arrived.

Soriano’s attack on the woman’s teenage daughter took place in 1998. The girl was going to buy a loaf of bread when Soriano snatched her from the street, threatened her with a knife and raped her. Her mother is said to have suffered mental illness ever since.

Soriano was convicted of the rape and ordered to serve 13 years in jail. The sentence was later reduced to nine years on appeal.

The woman’s lawyer, Joaquín Galant, told The Sunday Telegraph last night: “The family has suffered a double tragedy. First the attack on their daughter and now this. Both the father and his daughter would like to express their sadness at the death of Soriano.”

Earlier, Mr Galant said that the woman did not deserve to be kept in prison. “For seven years she has been deeply affected by what was done to her daughter,” he said. “This man, fresh from prison and asking how her daughter was, might be considered to have provoked her.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/1492839/Mother-sets-fire-to-her-daughters-gloating-rapist.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4ddfee2ee380ce41%2C0

Women claim to have been drugged at bar where Kenia Monge disappeared

DENVER – The family of missing 19-year-old Kenia Monge has been contacted by six women in the past six weeks, all claiming they were drugged at different lower downtown Denver nightclubs.

Two of those women are convinced they were slipped a drug at the 24K Lounge, the Lodo nightclub where Kenia Monge’s friends last her saw her alive in the early morning hours of April 1, 2011.

“My heart just fell to my feet,” one woman told FOX31 Denver after seeing Kenia’s story on the news.
The women, who are afraid to be identified, say they are speaking publicly for one reason, saying “if our story can help somebody else, it will be worth it.”

The women say the incident happened July 3, when they arrived at 24K Lounge.

They say they hadn’t had anything to drink and were sober, and they claim as soon as they got to the bar a man they didn’t know bought them each one shot of alcohol. A few minutes later, they were both incapacitated.

“My body just started giving out,” one woman said.

The other woman claims she wandered away from the bar and was found by a relative who just happened to be driving by.

“My legs gave out,” she said. “I was laying in the street.”

The women say the man who bought them the shot tried to take one of them home, but their friend intervened.

“I feel like we were lucky,” she said.

The women reached out to Kenia’s father and mother, Tony and Maria Lee.

The Lee’s now believe Kenia had to have been drugged, too.

“This is what we think happened to Kenia,” Tony said, “she staggered out of the bar and was wandering the streets in no particular direction, doing things she would never do. So there’s no question in my mind.”

A spokesperson for 24K Lounge sent FOX31 Denver a statement, which reads in part:

“We pride ourselves on a safe environment at 24K. We provide both a drug free and safe drinking environment…in eight years of operation we have never received any liquor violations, including those with regard to a minor…Our hearts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Kenia Monge.”

The Lee’s are living every parent’s nightmare, not knowing where their daughter is and praying for her safe return.

“I wake up every night at 1am and I start praying and I say, Jesus, please, take care of my baby,” Maria said.

That’s why they want to warn all women to be careful, and don’t end up like Kenia.

The two women who spoke to FOX 31 Denver say they wanted to go the police, but because it took them nearly 24 hours to recover, they thought too much time has elapsed.

Police say this type of crime often goes unreported.

They say that if it happens to you, you need to report it right away.

The person who did it could face drug charges, assault or even sexual assault.

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-women-say-they-were-drugged-at-bar-where-teen-went-missing-20110525,0,4675535.story?track=rss

2 NYPD officers acquitted of rape in ’08 encounter

NEW YORK – Two police officers were acquitted Thursday of raping a drunken woman they’d been called to help, with a jury convicting them only of misdemeanor official misconduct charges in a case that pitted a stunning claim of police abuse against the officers’ insistence that it simply didn’t happen.

Looking exhausted but relieved as they left court, Officers Franklin Mata and Kenneth Moreno said they felt vindicated by the verdict, though it could send them to jail and immediately got them fired. Moreno called it both “a lesson and a win.”

“My intentions were, from the beginning, just to help her,” Moreno said. He was accused of raping the woman, with Mata serving as a lookout; the two had returned to her apartment three times after an initial call to help her get home. Moreno, 43, said he did so to check on her, at her request, and to counsel her about drinking.

“I made a judgment call … and I paid for it,” he said.

Mata, 29, said he had “been innocent from day one. I’m glad everybody sees that now.”

Jurors, who left court without speaking to reporters, deliberated for about six days before returning the verdict. They found each officer guilty of three official misconduct charges for returning to the woman’s apartment without telling dispatchers or superiors where they were. They face possible sentences from no jail time to a total of two years behind bars at their sentencing, set for June 28.

The police department dismissed them within hours after the verdict; they had been suspended when indicted in 2009. At the time, Commissioner Raymond Kelly had called the allegations “disgraceful” and “a shocking aberration” in the department’s work. Moreno’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, had said Thursday before their firing that the two didn’t expect to resume police work.

Besides the rape acquittal, they were acquitted of other charges including burglary and falsifying business records.

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement that prosecutors “respect the jury’s verdict, which acknowledges that the defendants’ actions that night not only violated the law, they violated the victim’s rights, and the public’s trust.”

The verdict puzzled and outraged some observers, including women’s advocates. Several activists organize a protest outside the courthouse for Friday evening, while members of the City Council Women’s Caucus and the National Organization for Women planned a news conference Friday afternoon on the City Hall steps.

“Never mind professional behavior, and they’re held to higher standard because they’re police officers — to hear some of the facts in this case that they (the officers) put forward” was disturbing, Councilwoman Rosie Mendez said.

During the trial, prosecutors told a stark story of police misconduct and a perverse abuse of power. The officers acknowledged a number of missteps — including Moreno making a bogus 911 call about a sleeping vagrant as an excuse to return to her building — but said that they weren’t crimes and that the rape allegation was a product of the woman’s muddled memory.

“I thought she made the whole thing up,” Moreno said Thursday, adding later that “she was mistaken or confused.”

The officers were called to help the woman get out of a taxi on Dec. 7, 2008. A fashion product developer who’s now 29, the woman had gotten very drunk while out with friends celebrating her impending promotion and move to California.

The woman testified that she passed out and awoke to being raped in her apartment. Moreno told jurors that he lay alongside her in her bed for a while but that they didn’t have sex. Mata said he was napping in the living room while the others were in the bedroom.

While she acknowledged during days of testimony that her memory of the night was spotty, she said that she acutely remembered the rape, and that other vivid snippets — police radio chatter, flashlights, the same man’s voice urging her to drink water in her bathroom and later asking her if she wanted him to stay in her bedroom — made her certain that her attacker was an officer.

“I couldn’t believe that two officers who had been called to help me had, instead, raped me,” said the woman, who has sued the city seeking $57 million over the incident. Her lawyer didn’t immediately return a call Thursday.

After consulting prosecutors, she secretly recorded a conversation with Moreno a few days later. He alternately denied they had sex and seemed to admit it, particularly by saying twice that he’d used a condom when she asked him.

Moreno told jurors he was just “telling her what she wanted to hear” because she had suggested she’d go into the stationhouse where he worked and make a scene. He has been a police officer for about 20 years.

No DNA evidence was collected in the case, and experts debated whether an internal mark found during an examination of the woman could be interpreted as a sign of rape.

Moreno said he was only trying to console and counsel the woman about drinking during his series of visits, as he shared his own struggle with alcoholism some years before, killed a cockroach in her bathroom, made plans to have breakfast with her and sang to her a verse of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

On the last visit, Moreno said, he suddenly found himself fending off drunken advances from the woman.

“I told her, `There’s another time for this. Not tonight.’ … I kind of had her by the shoulders, and I said, `We’re not doing this,’” he told jurors.

But, he said, he wound up in her bed after she fell and got stuck between her bed and a wall and needed to be freed. He said he stayed there “snuggling” with her for a time, out of sympathy, but kept his uniform on and didn’t have sex with her.

Mata, a police officer for about five years, acknowledged during his testimony that he couldn’t be sure what had happened between the two while he was snoozing on the woman’s sofa. But he said he didn’t believe Moreno had raped the woman because “Ken wouldn’t do something like that.”

He was charged with rape under state legal principles that hold an alleged accessory as responsible for a crime as the main defendant.

Asked whether the official misconduct conviction was a disappointment, Mata lawyer Edward Mandery said, “We’ll deal with it.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110526/ap_on_re_us/us_nypd_rape_complaint

DNA evidence said to link ex-IMF leader to NY maid

NEW YORK – DNA taken from former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn matches material on the uniform of a hotel maid who says he sexually assaulted her, two people familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press.

The two people would not describe the material found on the shirt but said DNA matched a sample from Strauss-Kahn, who submitted to testing after his arrest more than a week ago. He denies the maid’s allegations.

Testing was being performed on other items, said the two people, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke to the AP on Monday on condition of anonymity.

During their investigation, authorities cut out a piece of carpet and swabbed sinks and other surfaces in his hotel room. Investigators told the AP they believed the carpet in the hotel room may contain Strauss-Kahn’s semen, spat out after an episode of forced oral sex by the maid.

The forensic evidence is the first to link Strauss-Kahn to the woman — and it’s also on track with what his lawyers have suggested would be his defense.

Strauss-Kahn’s attorney Benjamin Brafman declined to comment on Monday. At a court hearing last week, he told a judge that forensic evidence developed in the investigation “will not be consistent with a forcible encounter” — leading to speculation that Strauss-Kahn’s defense would argue that it was consensual.

New York Police Department spokesman Paul J. Browne and the Manhattan district attorney’s office wouldn’t comment.

The one-time French presidential contender has been charged with a criminal sex act, attempted rape and sexual abuse and is free on $1 million bail, under house arrest at a lower Manhattan apartment. He’s been accused of attacking the 32-year-old West African immigrant on May 14 in his luxury suite at the Sofitel hotel near Manhattan’s Times Square. His lawyers say he’s innocent.

Staff at the Sofitel told authorities that the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn had made passes at them the day before the attack was reported, including flirting with a clerk and calling another employee to ask her up to his room, according to a third person with direct knowledge of investigators’ interviews with staff.

Strauss-Kahn had flirted with one female staff member who accompanied him to his suite to make sure his accommodations were satisfactory after he checked in on May 13, the person said. Later, he phoned the desk clerk who had checked him in, asking her if she would like to get together with him when she got off duty, the person said. The desk clerk refused, saying she was not allowed to socialize with the VIP guest, the person said.

That person also wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

On Monday, lawyers for Strauss-Kahn continued to search for new housing for their client as he awaits trial. His bail agreement hit a snag late last week after tenants at the Upper East Side apartment building chosen for his house arrest refused to allow him, citing unwanted media attention.

Strauss-Kahn has been staying at a temporary location under watch by armed guards with Stroz Friedberg, the same company that guarded disgraced financier Bernard Madoff. It wasn’t clear when he would be moved. French and U.S. media have been staking out the building where Strauss-Kahn spent the weekend after he was released from his Rikers Island jail cell.

He resigned last Wednesday from the IMF.

His attorneys have described Strauss-Kahn as a loving father and family man. They say his actions after the attack was reported are not those of a guilty man eager for a quick escape. He left the hotel, had lunch and then phoned later to ask if he’d left anything behind. When hotel staff said he had left his cellphone, he told them exactly where he was: at John F. Kennedy International Airport on a flight bound for Paris. Authorities pulled him from the jetliner.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/imf_leader_assault;_ylt=AsDmrc725y4jK.RlnN.klZ.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTM5cjExNDRiBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwNTI0L2ltZl9sZWFkZXJfYXNzYXVsdARjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzMEcG9zAzcEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA2Rzaw–

Headmaster held for rape bid on maid

KISHANGANJ: Police on Thursday arrested a school headmaster after a mob severely assaulted him for making a bid to outrage the modesty of a school maid engaged for cooking midday meal for the school children.

The incident took place at Jave village under the Bhawanipore police station area in Purnia district on Thursday afternoon. The maid was allegedly summoned by headmaster Raj Kumar Harijan to a room in the school where he allegedly tried to outrage her modesty. As she raised an alarm, villagers gathered and caught the headmaster red-handed, a police officer said and added the mob was so furious that the headmaster would have been lynched had police not reached in time.

Incidentally, the school was closed for summer vacation. The headmaster allegedly summoned the maid by making a call on her cellphone.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-05-20/patna/29563919_1_headmaster-maid-modesty

CBI probe sought into attack on women in village

The demand for an independent probe into alleged atrocities against farmers of Uttar Pradesh’s Bhatta-Parsaul village intensified yesterday as the National Commission for Women (NCW) slammed the state government for molestation and rape of village women.
The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), effectively supporting the claims of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, demanded a judicial probe.
Yasmeen Abrar, acting chairperson of the women’s commission demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the incidents after a visit by its team to the affected areas.
“We have prepared a preliminary report which states that the women in the village have been molested and sexually assaulted. There are allegations that they have been raped but it could be confirmed only after all the investigations are over,” Abrar said.
The village in Greater Noida, near the Indian capital, has become the epicentre of the movement against land acquisition for an expressway project.
A protest on May 7 turned violent claiming the lives of four people, including two policemen.
An NCW team which visited the village on May 12 saw ransacked homes, horrified women, hungry and helpless children and bones of human beings lying in the ashes on the ground.
“There are bones of human beings lying with the ashes of burnt bodies. The family members of the villagers have been burnt alive. The burnt houses bear the marks of flames on the walls. Villagers, especially women, are not just broken, but terrified,” said Abrar.
BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said the original problem of the farmers was being overlooked in the controversy created by Gandhi’s allegations about rape of women and discovery of bones in ashes, which have been denied by the government of Chief Minister Mayawati.
“The NCW is a statutory body, they have found some facts and given a report, but what we are asking for is an independent inquiry. We are demanding a judicial inquiry in the action done by the state government,” Sitharaman said.
Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi also favoured a judicial probe. “A judicial inquiry will find precisely that (facts),” Singhvi said.
The NCW team visited Bhatta-Parsaul after a delegation of villagers met its officials and alleged rape, molestation and sexual assault of women by policemen. The report will be given to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Abrar said she did not believe in the forensic report of the state government which denied the presence of any human bones in the heaps of ashes in the village. “We have got certain proofs and pictures, which we cannot disclose now, to prove it.”
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=436049&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22

Women angered by IMF coverage

PARIS: French women’s groups outraged by the political and media reaction to the sexual assault allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn were due to protest in central Paris yesterday evening.

A week after New York police arrested the French political heavyweight, feminist groups are circulating a petition against the impunity that they say sexism enjoys in France.

Their campaign has already won the support of several prominent female politicians and journalists.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, has been formally charged in New York with the sexual assault and attempted rape of a maid in the luxury Times Square Sofitel hotel where he was staying.

He denies the charges and has quit his job at the head of the International Monetary Fund to concentrate on fighting his case.

A furore has broken out over the $US250,000 ($234,000) severance pay he will receive after his resignation. However, the IMF said that his life pension benefits will be considerably less than if he had completed his full term.

The petition, circulated by an alliance of feminist groups, does not enter the debate over Mr Strauss-Kahn’s guilt or innocence. But it hits out at the political reaction to – and media coverage of – the affair in France.

”For a week, we have been stunned by the daily surge of misogynistic remarks by public figures, widely broadcast on our televisions, radios, in the workplace and on social networks,” it says. ”We are angry, disgusted and outraged.

”We don’t know what happened in New York last Saturday but we know what has been happening in France for the last week.

”We call on all those fighting the sexist onslaught we have witnessed this last week to rally”, in the square in front of the Centre Pompidou in central Paris at 5pm.

Mr Strauss-Kahn had been the Socialist front-runner to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential election, but the scandal has in effect destroyed his political career.

In a French poll on Wednesday, 57 per cent of respondents said they thought he was ”the victim of a plot”. here have been at least as many people defending him in the French media as those standing up for the alleged victim.

Campaigners have objected to what they say have been remarks playing down the seriousness of rape, and the ”intolerable confusion between sexual freedom and violence against women” in the French media’s coverage of the affair.

Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/women-angered-by-imf-coverage-20110522-1eyzh.html#ixzz1NCEHdoZZ

Iman al-Obaidi, alleged rape victim, flees to Tunisia

Iman al-Obaidi, the Libyan woman who grabbed the world’s attention after she told a room of international journalists she was raped by military forces, was finally able to leave Libya last week, fleeing to Tunisia.

Obaidi was detained and later released by Moammar Gaddafi’s regime after she told journalists assembled in a Tripoli hotel that she was gang-raped by government troops. “I was tied up. They defecated on me. They urinated on me. They violated my honor,” she said to the reporters in March.

She described her recent escape from Libya to CNN, saying she was driven by two defecting military officers to the Tunisian border cloaked in a traditional head covering, leaving just one eye visible. Although the journey went off without disruption, she said it was “very tiring.” She was taken from a safehouse on the border to the French embassy in Tunis by European diplomats. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has reportedly taken an interest in her safety.

For obvious reasons, Obaidi seemed more relaxed than she had previously appeared, but she’s still concerned about being followed by government forces. She also wonders whether she can return to Libya to see her family again.

In an April interview with CNN, Obeidi said she had received death threats and was afraid for her life.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/iman-al-obaidi-alleged-rape-victim-flees-to-tunisia/2011/05/09/AFBtywXG_blog.html

Recy Taylor Gets Alabama Apology for Gang-Rape, Waits on City of Abbeville

Sunday, 91-year-old Recy Taylor went to church in Abbeville, Alabama. Now a Florida resident, she made the trip to her old hometown for a special purpose: Taylor was finally receiving an apology from the State of Alabama for its “morally abhorrent and repugnant” conduct in response to her 1944 gang-rape.

The group of white men who admitted to the assault were never brought to trial, while Taylor and her family suffered threats and slander from law enforcement engaged in covering up the crime. Not even the concerted efforts of Rosa Parks and the NAACP could overturn the racist structure of the time to bring justice to this young Black woman. The long-overdue apology came after nearly 20,000 Change.org members signed a petition from Taylor’s youngest brother, Robert Corbitt, demanding an apology from the City of Abbeville and State of Alabama. Having won this amazing state level victory, Corbitt’s campaign now turns its focus to the city.

When Rep. Dexter Grimsley, himself an Abbeville native, introduced the state resolution, he vowed that he would personally deliver it to Recy Taylor upon passage, and Corbitt told Change.org that he made good on that promise this Sunday, giving Taylor the apology in front of family and friends at a local church. The resolution, which was signed by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley on April 28th, expresses “profound regret for the role played by the government of the State of Alabama in failing to prosecute the crimes” (pdf).

Recy Taylor is also being honored this Thursday at a National Press Club event, “Reintroducing Rosa,” which was inspired by the excellent book that brought Taylor’s story to light: Danielle McGuire’s At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance — A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. The event, where McGuire will be speaking, will “share a more accurate account of the role Rosa Parks played in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the civil rights movement.”

Corbitt, now in his 70s, has been working to get an apology for his sister — who he says was like a mother to him growing up — ever since his retirement. He was (pleasantly) shocked at how, after years of work, the launch of the Change.org petition motivated a state apology in less than three months. Corbitt often comments on how local politicians have been nervously watching the signature count climb as hundreds and then thousands of people stood up for his oldest sister.

Yesterday, Corbitt asked to have the Abbeville City Council consider an apology resolution for Recy Taylor at its upcoming meeting on Monday, May 16th at 6 p.m., in the hopes of wrapping up the final leg of this campaign. The agenda will be announced after Wednesday, and a representative of the Alabama NAACP, which has been supportive of the present day Taylor campaign as well as the historical one, is expected to speak in support of the apology.

Because it was the local Abbeville law enforcement of 1944 that Corbitt remembers threatening him family, slandering his sister, and lying in the protection of her rapists, he won’t be satisfied until the city follows in the state’s footsteps to provide a formal apology. Abbeville Mayor Ryan Blalock has already offered his personal regrets, but only the City Council can officially apologize on behalf of the city. Corbitt wants Mayor Blalock to call upon Council Members to pass such a resolution, and for the Abbeville Council to step up by doing so immediately. Please add your voice in support of a full apology for Recy by signing his petition here.
http://news.change.org/stories/recy-taylor-gets-alabama-apology-for-gang-rape-waits-on-city-of-abbeville

Sub-Inspector rapes airline employee, made sex video

Mumbai, May 10: A police sub-inspector, posted in naxal-affected Gadchiroli district, has been booked on charges of raping the 21-year-old wife of an Australian national working in an airline here and extorting money from her, police said today.

The accused, identified as Manoj Londe, was booked on charges of rape and extortion following a complaint filed by the victim on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday in Vinoba Bhave police station in central Mumbai, police said adding that Londe was yet to be arrested.

According to the FIR, Londe also threatened the woman of posting some of the video clips of her taken in compromising positions on Internet, police said.

“The victim is an Indian national but she married an Australian,” said Arunkumar Aaigal, senior inspector at the police station.

http://www.siasat.com/english/news/si-rapes-airline-employee-made-sex-video

Rape victim and women’s rights advocate Mukhtara Mai faces new threat in Pakistan

Meerwala, Pakistan – It was in this dusty village that Mukhtaran Mai, then an illiterate Pakistani villager, was gang-raped by up to 14 men on the orders of a village council in 2002. Her infraction? Her brother had allegedly committed adultery with the daughter of an opposing clan’s feudal lord.

It’s also where she set up a women’s welfare organization, a women’s shelter, and three of the best schools in the area a year after her ordeal.

But now, says Ms. Mai, as a police guard stands close by, everything her organization has achieved could be threatened by a Supreme Court decision in late April to acquit all but one of her attackers. Amid death threats from powerful feudal lords in her area, several parents have pulled their children from her schools, and Mai is concerned for her own safety as well as that of her staff. Despite it all, or perhaps because of it, she’s determined to continue her work.

“The [court's] decision empowers those who oppress women,” says the tall, thin Mai, wearing a simple blue traditional dress and flip-flops, as her eyes well with tears.

RELATED Pakistan rape case acquittal seen as setback to women’s rights

Her organization has offered some measure of solace to women in an area where feudal lords have ruled with impunity. “They beat people with the help of the police and make the lives of ordinary people miserable,” she says. “They hold all power; they are in government and control the courts.”

Her shelter has helped thousands of women flee violence and rape since 2003, she says, while the center’s outreach work has sensitized people’s attitudes in an area long governed by patriarchal feudal traditions. In fact, hundreds of men and women held southern Punjab’s first-ever women’s rights march in the nearby town of Jatoi last March, a sign of the gradual change in attitudes here.

Mai used the money she collected from her work as a seamstress to open her organization. Mukhtar Mai Women’s Organization (MMWO) received its first major donation from the Canadian Embassy in Pakistan in 2003. Last year, money from private donors – including the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, as well as Canada’s development agency (CIDA) and its State Depart­ment – totaled more than $200,000.

More than 800 students are currently enrolled in her girls’ school. Nasreen Kausar, the school’s principal, proudly reports that the first batch of 16-year-olds are to graduate this year and look set to attend university.

IN PICTURES: Behind the veil

In a country where public education is widely regarded as broken, the school offers an unrivaled opportunity in the area. Students are taught in Urdu, Arabic, and English. (Fourth-graders showed proficiency in English, in this reporter’s opinion.) The school has a science lab as well as a computer lab.

The school’s reputation is so good, in fact, that about a dozen children and nieces of Mai’s accused rapists are being educated here, though “they are never made to feel any different,” says Naeem Malik, a program officer with MMWO.

Mai says the school gives girls here a chance she never had. “I was only schooled till primary level, though now I have a doctorate degree,” she says, referring to an honorary doctorate awarded to her by Laurentian University in Ontario. “But it’s a fake degree, just like Jamshed Dasti’s,” she jokes, referring to her area’s parliamentarian, a powerful ally of Faiz Mastoi, who was accused of orchestrating the rape. He was freed by the Supreme Court’s recent decision. Mr. Dasti, who was thrown out of parliament for having a fake degree last year but then won reelection, has long been Mai’s detractor.

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Mai is revered by her staff, many of whom had to overcome resistance within their own families, wary of the international attention, to start working here.

“Before working here, I came to visit this place,” says Kaneez Kausar, a young English teacher who has been with the school for 18 months. “I was so inspired, despite people telling me to not to work there. That’s why I’m still here. People start rumors about other people who are internationally known.”

Mai’s women’s shelter is currently home to five women seeking refuge from their families or husbands. The women can stay as long as they need to and are provided with legal assistance. The organization also runs a help hot line and a mobile rescue unit. Last year, the shelter served 526 women, as well as many others who had been displaced by the catastrophic flooding in the region.

For Mai and her supporters, who include many of Pakistan’s progressive civil society and rights groups, the next step is a soon-to-be filed review of the Supreme Court decision. Legal opinion is split as to whether Mai’s rapists were acquitted because of poor police work, or because the judges failed to look at all the relevant evidence on file.

Mai has been buoyed by support from some of Pakis­tan’s top women politicians, including liberal icon Sherry Rehman and Sham­­aila Far­oo­qui.

But it’s Mai’s desire to give women a chance that keeps her here: “Back in 2002, I got many offers to go abroad for asylum, including Canada and the United States,” Mai recalls. She was pressured by her extended family to accept a place to stay in the capital, Islamabad. “All my extended relatives began acting like they were my close family…. I told them, ‘Whoever wants to go to Islamabad, let them go. But I will live here in Meerwala,’ ” she says.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20110506/wl_csm/380536_1

‘Bahraini women sexually assaulted’

A Bahraini woman identified as Fatima, a close relative of prominent Bahraini rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, said she was sexually assaulted by Saudi-backed forces in her house, Press TV reported.

The regime forces assaulted Fatima after storming into her house to arrest her husband, she said in an interview accompanied by rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja.

Zainab, the daughter of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, ended a 10-day hunger strike after international activists said they needed her to speak up for those detained in the crackdown.

Her father was arrested earlier in April.

Bahraini forces have arrested hundreds of activist so far during the clampdown on peaceful protests.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has voiced “deep concern” about the continued detention of activists in the country.

Pillay also cited the prosecution of scores of medical professionals, and the death sentence handed down to four protesters after a closed-door military trial, said UN spokesperson Farhan Haq.

Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February, calling for an end to the over-40-year rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty.

On March 14, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed police and military forces in the kingdom at Manama’s request to help quell the nationwide protests.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested so far during the clampdown on peaceful protests.

The foreign deployments are reported to have contributed to a rise in the violence against the protesting public.

Recent reports say Riyadh is sending more troops to Bahrain ahead of planned anti-government rallies there.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/178494.html

Feds: 4-state Latino prostitution ring busted

INDIANAPOLIS — Nineteen people have been arrested in connection with a violent Latin American prostitution ring that smuggled women into the U.S. to work in brothels across the Midwest and as far away as Florida and New York, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Federal, state and local authorities arrested the 19 people in Indiana, Michigan and Illinois on Tuesday on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges, Deputy U.S. Attorney Brad Shepard said during a news conference. Investigators have found no evidence that any of the 19 were in the U.S. legally, he said.

The ring was known to have operated five brothels catering to Hispanic clients in apartments in Indianapolis and others in Cincinnati; Addison, Ill., and Grand Rapids, Mich. It also is believed to have operated brothels in Fort Wayne and Elkhart, FBI Special Agent Michael Langeman said in a probable cause affidavit.

“It is believed that at least a good portion of the prostitutes utilized by the organization are smuggled into the United States from Mexico and Central America,” Langeman wrote in the affidavit.

Shepard said he could not say which other countries the women came from. None were minors.

“The organization advertised their services by distributing business cards which had advertisements and telephone numbers for auto repair or western wear outfitters,” U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett said at the news conference. “These business cards were known within the community as contact numbers for arranging appointments. Each of the appointments was referred to as a ‘ticket,’ and it would cost anywhere from $40 to $50.”

Only Hispanic clients were allowed.

The ring was headed by Jose Louis Hernandez-Castilla of Indianapolis, who smuggled the women into the country and arranged their transfers each week among the brothels, Langeman said. Hernandez also provided prostitutes to brothels in Chicago, Louisville, Ky.; Kansas City, Mo.; Tulsa, Okla.; North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and New York.

Hernandez’s brothers, Gregorio of Indianapolis and Norberto of Addison, also helped run the ring. Authorities did not provide ages for any of those arrested.

The brothers were known to have guns and use violence to intimidate or discipline other in the rung, Langeman said. An informant told investigators that he was fearful of Jose Louis Hernandez, who was known “to have connections everywhere” and that he and his brothers are “capable of anything,” the affidavit said.

Gregorio Hernandez was brought back to Indianapolis from Grand Rapids because he caused too much trouble for his brother “due to his drug use and public displays of violence,” Langeman said.

Jose Louis Hernandez told the women they had to work as prostitutes to pay him back for the cost of smuggling them into the U.S., Langeman said.

However, Shepard said investigators have not determined if any women were held against their will. At least one of the 19 was a prostitute herself and had been smuggled back into the U.S. after having been deported.

The investigation began with a Crime Stoppers tip about suspected prostitution to Indianapolis police in December 2007. Hogsett said the ring may have operated as long as 10 years.

A message seeking comment was left with a federal public defender.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42906646/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Mesa police: Officer used crime database to harass women

Mesa Police DepartmentTodd Duthie

A Mesa police officer has been indicted on charges of misusing a law-enforcement database to date and harass women he met on duty.

One of the women was a theft victim, and others were suspects he had pulled over for traffic violations.

The indictment came just a week after another Mesa police officer and his wife were indicted on felony mortgage fraud charges in an unrelated case.

 Mesa Police Chief Frank Milstead said he was “outraged” by the two cases and has placed both men on paid leave pending internal investigations.

Officer Todd Randall Duthie, an five-year veteran, was indicted on four felony counts of having unauthorized access to a state criminal history database and one misdemeanor count of harassment.

The charges stem from Duthie allegedly using his position to follow and score dates with four women, according to a police report.

Duthie’s attorney Scott Halverson declined to comment on the case and Duthie did not return a message left at his Queen Creek home.

Mesa police initially opened an internal investigation last fall after one of the women complained, a police report states. But once an investigator found Duthie may have violated the law, a criminal investigation was opened, Wessing said.

Duthie contacted the first woman Sept. 15, 2009, after she reported a theft at the Las Palmas Carniceria at 7246 E. Main Street, the report states. The officer then began calling her and stopping by the store and the woman’s residence.

A GPS system inside Duthie’s squad car tracked his movements as he repeatedly parked outside another woman’s house and as he continued to pull over two other women, who claim he tried to date them.

During a traffic stop with another woman July 8, 2010, Duthie reportedly said “I’m supposed to give you a ticket, but I won’t. Since I’m not . . . let me have a date or something,” the report states.

Duthie has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which came just a week after Officer Mark Anthony Escarcega and his wife Blanca were indicted on charges of mortgage fraud.

The charges stem from the purchase of a home in Mesa four years ago, authorities have stated.

Blanca Escarcega allegedly claimed she separated from her husband and received a mortgage loan modification from Bank of America stating the separation created a financial hardship, according to the Associated Press.

However, the couple never separated, and they purchased a new home and rented out the old one, court documents state.

Word of the Escarcegas’ housing deal reached the department and, sensing a crime had been committed, the FBI was contacted, Mesa police spokesman Sgt. Ed Wessing said.

The Escarcegas have also pleaded not guilty.

Wessing said the department is trying to remain as transparent as possible with officer misconduct cases.

“The public doesn’t need to worry that we have a corruption or misconduct issue. As an agency, we take these types of violation very seriously,” he said.

Wessing added that Milstead was furious when he learned of the initial internal investigation into Duthie’s activities.

“He was outraged that a member of our agency would conduct himself in that manner,” Wessing said. “When an officer engages in misconduct like this, it impacts all of us. We are as outraged as the community is.”

Read more:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/04/28/20110428mesa-police-officer-indicted-charges-harrassing-women0428.html#ixzz1KxYtgSsQ

Ex-DCPS Teacher Under Fire for Allegedly Sexually Assaulting Students

WASHINGTON (WUSA) — Last fall, a young woman filed a lawsuit claiming a teacher at her D.C. high school had inappropriate sexual relations with her and is the father of her child. The lawsuit claims DC schools did nothing to stop the encounters.

Thursday, lawyers for the young woman amended their complaint, alleging this same teacher had sexual relationships with at least four other students in the 1970s and 1980s.

“He whispered in my ear. He said, ‘If I was 30 years younger, I would marry you,’” said Ayanna Blue.

A witness in the case also stated, “We were in class, and we were playing indoor hockey, and he actually took the hockey stick and was trying to run it up the middle of my legs towards my private area.”

Another witness claimed, “It was a sexual relationship. And an emotional relationship, because he told me he loved me, he wanted to marry me, he wanted me to have his children.”

All three women say they are talking about the same former teacher, but they went to different schools in different districts, and their ages are three decades apart. Ayanna Blue is the youngest of the women.

Blue told 9NEWS NOW, “I was 18, and it was the year 2008 when I started going to Shadd.”

Transition Academy at Shadd is a public school for at-risk students in Southeast Washington, D.C.  It’s there Blue says that beginning in 2008 she had a five-month sexual relationship with her now 59-year-old English teacher, Robert Weismiller.

According to Blue, “Yeah, you could say it was a common thing… in school, around when the kids went to lunch, very often… in the classroom, in his classroom actually.”

Blue says she has living proof of the sexual relationship: her 16-month-old daughter.  According to the lawsuit Blue filed, Weismiller took a paternity test, and the result was positive.

One of the other women shared how she found out about Blue’s case. “My husband and I were in bed for the evening, and we were watching the news and… I heard the name Robert Weismiller, and I immediately sat up in bed… and I was like ‘this is unbelievable,’” she recalled.

This Virginia woman, who doesn’t want to give her name but is mentioned in Thursday’s filing, says the same Robert Weismiller sexually assaulted her in 1984 when she was an 8th grade student in Prince William County Public Schools.

She told 9NEWS NOW, “To find out that here it is still years later he’s with this young lady, to me it was mind blowing.”

A Maryland woman, who didn’t want to show her face on camera, said the same thing happened to her in 1976 when she was a 16-year-old student in Prince George’s County Public Schools.

“When I saw what had happened to Ms. Blue… I felt responsibility, because I wasn’t courageous enough to ever speak out about it,” she said.

Both women then contacted Blue’s attorney, Scott Gilbert, and are now potential witnesses in the lawsuit.

Gilbert told 9NEWS NOW, “We know so far, including DC, that there are a minimum of three school districts involved. We know counting Ayanna there is a minimum of five girls that were involved…There’s no question that there are other women who, when they were girls, were abused by this individual.”

Blue added, “I don’t want this to happen to nobody else. I want to put a stop to it.”

Weismiller has not returned any of our phone calls but according to court documents he filed in response to the original complaint, you can see he denies any wrongdoing.

He was laid off in October 2009 as part of Michelle Rhee’s layoffs. As for DC Public Schools, a spokeswoman says the District doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation. So far, both Prince William and Prince George’s County Public Schools have also declined to comment.

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=148660

Pakistan Frees All But 1 Accused In Gang Rape

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of five of the six men accused in the gang rape of Mukhtar Mai. The Pakistani woman refused to remain silent about the crime committed in 2002 and won international acclaim for her courage.

It was the first time in conservative Pakistan that a woman had gone public about rape.

The Supreme Court’s acquittal stunned the victim, who also goes by Mukhtar Bibi. She had successfully challenged her attackers in court, and her ensuing legal struggle became a symbol of hope for oppressed and violated women.

The three-member bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court freed all but one of the six men. Abdul Khaliq will continue to serve a life term, which in Pakistani practice would likely be no more than 25 years.

The court’s ruling came five years after a lower court found that Mai had been raped by a half-dozen men. “I’m very sad,” she said from her home in the southern Punjab village of Meerwala. “Why was I made to wait five years if this was the decision to be given?”

Mai has always maintained that the elders of her village had ordered the rape. She says it was punishment for actions attributed to her younger brother. The 12-year-old was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival tribe. But the boy himself had been molested, and the allegations against him were found to be part of a cover-up.

In a lengthy ruling, the Supreme Court said Thursday that the prosecution’s evidence against the accused rapists “is not confidence inspiring, thus the benefit must go to the accused.” It noted there were no DNA or semen tests conducted.

Mai said the court ignored an abundance of evidence.

“The entire area knows that I was raped. The entire area provided witnesses … and told the media. Around 50 to 100 people were gathered there,” she said. “Even one of the elders confessed to hearing me cry and shout for them to stop. Why does the court not take all that into account?”

Anis Haroon, who chairs the National Commission on the Status of Women, said “through connivance evidence can be destroyed.”

Human-rights activist Farzana Bari, a gender studies professor, said that in cases such as this, which involve influential villagers, witnesses could be dissuaded from testifying.

“So as a result of that, the people from that area who witnessed this crime were not willing to come and give evidence in the court, except people from [the victim's] own family,” Bari says, “and obviously the court won’t take those evidences seriously.”

Haroon notes that in only 5 percent of cases involving crimes against Pakistani women are convictions ever obtained.

“It reflects on this whole system,” she said. “It is encouraging for the perpetrators who see how they can go scot-free. That is one reason why violence against women is increasing manifold. It’s multiplying.”

Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch said Pakistan’s judiciary had been ushering in a new era of human-rights advocacy. With this ruling, he said, it took a step backward and essentially endorsed vigilante justice.

“Village elders got together and thought it was a good idea that this dispute between these two subtribes would be settled by handing this woman over. And the message the court sent was: It doesn’t matter!”

Regarding evidence, Hasan added that the Supreme Court does not hesitate to summon police and other state functionaries in its ongoing power struggle with the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Hasan said a male chauvinistic legal system continues to discriminate against Pakistani women. He said the Federal Shariat Court seeks to roll back the 2006 Protection of Women Act on the grounds that it conflicts with ordinances that govern such things as adultery and rape. The Shariah judges want to restore provisions that require women who have been raped to produce four witnesses, and to allow police to arrest a woman on a charge of adultery based on the fact she filed a report of rape.

Mai, who established a women’s aid group and several schools in her village, said with the accused rapists going free, she is worried for her safety and is not inclined to appeal.

She’s no longer putting her faith in the criminal justice system. “Women the world over should not lose courage. God is just and he will dispense justice,” Mai said.

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/21/135611051/pakistan-frees-all-but-1-accused-in-gang-rape?ft=1&f=1004

5 women sue convicted former Anchorage police officer, city

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Five women have sued a convicted former Anchorage Police Department officer and the city, claiming the officer sexually assaulted them on the job.

A jury two months ago convicted 43-year-old Anthony Rollins of multiple counts of sexual assault.

The Anchorage Daily News reports the five separate lawsuits seek more than $2.5 million.

Four women say Rollins sexually assaulted them or had inappropriate contact after the women were charged with driving drunk.

One woman says Rollins used his position as a police officer to maintain a sexual relationship with her while she was a patient at a residential substance abuse treatment facility.

Rollins is scheduled to be sentenced June 10.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – The voice of Interior Alaska since 1903

Minority women in Bangladesh gang raped in 2001-02: report

Dhaka, April 26 : A judicial commission in Bangladesh has concluded that “over 200 minority women were gang raped” in the violence following the October 2001 parliamentary poll that was intended to force families “to leave the country”.

The acts were allegedly committed by cadres of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami, who won the 2001 poll, the report says, citing the “involvement” of many top leaders and lawmakers of the alliance that is now in the opposition.

With Begum Khaleda Zia as the prime minister, the BNP-Jamaat alliance ruled Bangladesh during 2001-06.

Violence went on for 15 months and “the barbarous act was intended to force them to leave the country. They were, in the eyes of the culprits, enemies as they voted for Awami League”, The Daily Star said Tuesday, quoting commission sources.

An official of the commission submitted the report to Home Minister Sahara Khatun.

It lists over 3,625 incidents of major crimes, including killing, rape, arson and looting.

Media reports at that time had detailed the plight of hundreds of Hindu families crossing over to neighbouring India, forcing the Indian government to express concern.

Bangladeshi poet Daud Hyder, who visited the camps in India where these families were lodged and wrote about it, was later charged with sedition and imprisoned.

The wave of violence was the subject of “Lajja” by novelist Taslima Nasreen, who angered the Islamists at home and was forced to leave Bangladesh. She still remains exiled.

Many victims and their family members interviewed by the probe panel narrated “harrowing experiences”, but said they did not lodge police reports or undergo forensic tests for fear of inviting social stigma, the report says.

An official said the victims think putting their names on record as rape victims will worsen their life in society.

Many victims and their family members across the country contacted the commission when it was conducting the probe.

According to the panel, it would be “tough or, to some extent, impossible” to continue the probe into the rape allegations, “as the victims themselves are unwilling to do the legal battle”.

The probe panel found that most of the gang rapes occurred in the country’s southern part – Bhola, Barisal, Agoiljhara and Gaurnadi.

The accused were acquitted for lack of witnesses. In some cases, police gave final reports while the names of the accused were dropped in over 500 cases out of the 3,625 major crime incidents.

With the passing of a decade, some of the accused utilised “good connection with ruling Awami League men”, which forced the police to drop many cases, the media report said.

The panel has named several BNP and Jamaat leaders for their “involvement” in the post-poll violence.

http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-196754.html

14-Year-Old Girl Faces Adultery Charges

A 14-year-old girl caught in a rooftop encounter with a 25-year-old man faces adultery charges in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, officials said.

The girl’s distraught father told Gulf News she was locked up for more than two weeks at the Ajman central jail with older women before being transferred to a juvenile center in Sharjah.

Normally people under 15 are considered victims in sex crimes. She will be tried on adultery charges later this month.

“The trial will start in spite of the age ceiling set for trials on sexual related crimes by the U.A.E. law,” a court source told Gulf News. “The law states that the minimum age of suspects in crimes related to sex must be 15 years. Such cases should be conducted in special juvenile courts. Otherwise, suspects are considered victims rather than suspects.”

The girl’s father said his ninth-grade daughter is a brilliant student.

“I did not inform the school about the incident,” the girl’s sobbing father said. “I did not tell her brothers … they believe that she went to stay with her aunt in Abu Dhabi for some time.”

The father said court officials refused to release his daughter on bail.

http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=34210&catid=863

Man who raped 116 women appeals death sentence

A Chinese farmer convicted of raping more than 100 women in a 16-year period has appealed his death sentence, Xinhua news agency reported today.

A Chinese farmer convicted of raping more than 100 women in a 16-year period has appealed his death sentence, Xinhua news agency reported today.

Dai Qingcheng, a 46-year-old peasant from the eastern Anhui province, was found guilty of raping 116 women between 1993 to 2009, and robbing 91 of them.

Police began investigating in 2008 after a 49-year-old woman from Anhui’s Linquan county reported that a masked man with a knife forced his way into her home and attempted to rape her.

But as they investigated, police realized that the assault was far from an isolated case. Most of the victims were women living alone while their husbands worked in China’s booming cities. Soon the investigation zeroed in on Dai.

“But we were surprised when he told us he had raped about 100 women,” Yang Yongkui, a police officer from the county, was quoted as saying. “The victims he violated ranged from very young girls to women in their 50s and one of them was six-months pregnant.”

The report said many of the women stayed silent for so long because traditional culture in rural China dictates that sexual assaults bring shame upon the victim’s families.

Dai’s lawyer did not say on what basis he was appealing the sentence.

Read more:
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/man-who-raped-116-women-appeals-death-sentence/story-e6frfkui-1226041725225#ixzz1JzUPdgaF

More maid revenge!: Maid chops off employer’s penis

An Ethiopian maid struck back at her allegedly abusive employer in Dubai, slicing off the Emirati man’s penis in response to harassment, the 7DAYS daily on Wednesday quoted the emirate’s police as saying.

Police responded to a call from the man and “found him bleeding badly. His housemaid had chopped off his private parts using a knife”, 7DAYS quoted a Dubai police official as saying of the attack on Monday.

“She claimed the man used to abuse and harass her. On the day of the incident, she claims he asked her to give him a massage. She got angry, went to the kitchen to get a knife and attacked him,” the official said.

The maid has been charged with assault, the paper said, while the Emirati man is recovering in hospital. It was not clear if his severed member had been re-attached.

The UAE and other Gulf countries have come in for repeated criticism from human rights groups over their treatment of millions of foreign workers, mostly Asians.

Rights groups and activists have reported various cases of employers torturing maids in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

The watchdogs have also sharply criticised the sponsorship system, still in force in most Gulf states, by which workers must be sponsored by their employer and which has been likened to modern-day slavery. – AFP

http://www.thestar.co.za/maid-chops-off-employer-s-penis-1.1057198