Niwemang

Aren’t Indians the most racist of people on this planet?

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:14:00 +0000

A Bollywood actress caught saying

so-and-so is amazing as a director. He can make even a black African look pretty”.

A Bollywood actor saying:

(I knew) it was time to leave Shanghai and Hong Kong after six weeks of stunt training and go home when his eyes started “turning into little slits like the Chinese”.

Source: http://www.asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/television/1404

As the BBC critic of Indian origin remarks, these are not unsurprising remarks. As most Indians know, we make these remarks all the time and either don’t realize these are offensive, or just don’t care. Why, we have names for such obscenities. We call our north-eastern country-men(and women), or just any person with mongoloid features “chinky”. We call any white-skinned person “firangi”. Any person of African origin is still called a “negro”, decades after this term has been replaced by “africans” or “african americans” in politer societies.

The fact is that we Indians have more ways to divide and discriminate humans than any society in the world, but few Indians would admit to this. We discriminate by race,skin color,caste, religion, regionality(”madrasis”) … if there are any other ways to divide people that I can’t remember now, we probably do that too.

However, nobody in India has the guts to address this problem. We let people openly advertise for “fair”, “brahmin” etc. brides and grooms in matrimonial listings in newspapers and online sites. There is still no government push for banning all temples from restricting who can enter by caste. There is no push to accommodate our north-eastern brothers and sisters into mainstream society. In fact, most of India would rather revel in “Gandhigiri” but blissfully ignore that Iron Sharmila , who has redefined Gandhian methods of struggle, even exists.

Source: http://blog.sandipb.net/2006/12/28/arent-indians-the-most-racist-of-people-on-this-planet

The forgotten internees: Japanese Latinos

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:05:00 +0000

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This allowed the military and INS to imprison any person of Japanese descent in camps often referred to as, "Department of Justice Internment Camps". Those Japanese who had recently immigrated were stripped of their legal status. Those who were naturalized were stripped of their citizenship, as were those born in the United States.

It was a dark reminder that sometimes the Constitution isn't enough.

Reparations

The reason we know about this undignified part of American history is the successful lobby for reparations, which put the story in front of the press, the Congress and the President. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 allowed for each imprisoned Japanese American or their heirs to receive $20,000.

Reparations are sometimes looked down on, but it goes beyond asking for cash. Apologies come easy and cheap. They provide a thin blanket for a cold storm and don't require any sincerity or penalty. Reparations acknowledge, in action, that a wrong was done and sometimes that the nation benefited at the expense of the livelihood of others. It also creates a future penalty for violations of human rights.

This country disowned its Japanese American citizens as it created propaganda to demonize their entire ethnicity. In addition, they were bartered with like poker chips, exchanged with Japan for the freedom of American POWs. How much is that dignity and disruption in life and family really worth?

Japanese Latin Americans Left Out

One chapter that is often left out of the history of Japanese Internment Camps is the fact that the United States pressured Latin American nations to deport their Japanese, German and Italian citizens to the United States. German and Italian prisoners had additional access to court hearings, but still suffered greatly. There's some speculation that some German Jews from Latin America may have been traded with Germany.

Japanese Latin Americans leaving a temporary internment camp in the
Panama Canal Zone to join their relatives in U.S. internment camps.
April 7, 1942. Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library.

At least 12 nations responded with Japanese and European prisoners, with two-thirds being Japanese and 80% originating from Peru. There were over 2,000 Japanese Latinos imprisoned in the United States; 800 were traded to Japan in exchange for prisoners.

These Spanish-speaking Japanese suffered double humiliations. They were disowned by their own countries, deported to a foreign country and then further alienated in a nation whose language they did not speak. Many of their native countries were simply reacting to racism and jealousy of a successful demographic. Peru had many successful Japanese businesses and schools, which were easily grabbed once their owners and participants were deported. After the war, many Japanese Latinos were not permitted by their former countries to return. Because of their limbo status, many were imprisoned for much longer than other Japanese. Today, many of them still have tainted immigration records.

Kidnapped Illegals

Japanese Latinos were not included in the reparations. Janet Reno, who was US Attorney General and head of the Department of Justice at the time, interpreted the law to only apply to people who were citizens at the time of imprisonment. Because we forced these Japanese Latin Americans into our borders, Reno interpreted them as illegal aliens. Illegal aliens that our nation kidnapped and imprisoned in our borders.

One of the indignities of seeking redress is the fact that you have to sue to get your government to acknowledge what is plainly wrong. To hear your government only apologize after being sued is disheartening. To have to go through it twice is even more painful.

After a class action lawsuit was settled in 1998, it was decided that Japanese Latinos would only get $5,000. That's one fourth of what Japanese American citizens from the US received. In addition, there was no guarantee that it would be paid. Japanese Latinos were paid from a general fund only after Japanese Americans were paid their share.

The money ran out and only allowed for 145 Japanese Latinos to be paid from the fund.

Source

We need slaves to build monuments'

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:13:00 +0000

"We need slaves," my friend says. "We need slaves to build monuments. Look who built the pyramids - they were slaves."

It is already home to the world's glitziest buildings, man-made islands and mega-malls - now Dubai plans to build the tallest tower. But behind the dizzying construction boom is an army of migrant labourers lured into a life of squalor and exploitation.

Click here for the full article.

Man tried to hire prostitute for his teenage son in UK

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:38:00 +0000

A man who tried to hire a prostitute to take his 14-year-old son's virginity as a present was spared jail by a court on Friday.

The Polish national took the boy out in his car and allowed him to pick out the prostitute, who was standing at the side of the road in the red-light district of Nottingham.

But the 42-year-old father was arrested because the teenager had chosen an undercover police officer, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons,was handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, after he admitted a charge of trying to solicit a woman to have sex with a child, the Press Association reported.

The court heard that the father, who came to Britain eight years ago, was arrested last July during an undercover operation by the city's vice squad.

Prosecutor Adrian Harris said the man and his son had approached the undercover officer whose code name was Sarah and beckoned her over .

He asked "Sarah" how much it would cost for her to have sex with his son and they agreed on a 20 pound fee. However, when the car pulled over, the man was arrested by plainclothes police officers.

"The boy said that they had driven past the girl and his dad pointed to her and said 'will she do?'" Harris said.

"He said 'yes' and they had turned round. He said his dad did this because he was still a virgin and he was taking care of that for him."

Judge Jonathan Teare said he would spare the father jail because of his excellent character and that he believed he did not mean any harm to his son.

"You have a duty of care to your son and that is to look after his moral welfare, not as you might think to break him in to the ways of sex through a prostitute," he said.

The court was told the boy would continue to live with his father.

Hungarian Roma protest against racially motivated murders

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:11:00 +0000

A blood stain marks place where a member of Hungary's Roma community was shot and killed.

His was the seventh Roma death in Hungary in a year and the third fatal shooting targeting the Roma community in the past five months.

In March a father and his five year old son were killed as they ran from their home which had been set alight.

The incident mirrored a similar attack on a man and woman in November.

Police are so concerned over the spate of attacks they have offered a 222,000 dollar reward for information.

Meanwhile the Roma community staged a protest in the Hungarian capital Budapest. Speakers criticised the the criminal justice system and people's complacency over the attacks.

Roma people say the marches of the far right radical extremist organization, Magyar Gárda (Hungarian Guard) have legitimized the anti-Roma feelings in society by openly talking about what they call Gypsy crime.

Hungary has one of the largest Roma communities in eastern Europe, which makes up between 5 and 7 percent of the population. They have remained on the margins, lacking jobs, wealth and proper education for decades.

Slovak Police Brutality against Roma kids (Video Included)

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:22:00 +0000

The policemen in the eastern city of Kosice, Slovakia forced the six Roma boys aged 11 to 16 to punch each other in the face, kiss each other and strip naked.

The officers also let loose unmuzzled dogs at the boys, and some of the children were bitten.

The policemen recorded “humiliating scenes” with their mobile phones and cameras, laughing and encouraging the children to punch each other.

Referring to the recording, the daily wrote that the police had shouted and called names at the boys and ordered them to undress. The video was released on 8 April, 2009, a day before International Roma Day, a day to raise awareness of anti-Roma discrimination.

The worst case of Slovakian police brutality against the Roma so far occurred in July 2001, when 50-year-old Karol Sendrei was taken to a police station, handcuffed to a radiator and beaten throughout the night. He was discovered dead in the morning with the post-mortem detailing damage to his vital organs from kicks and punches.

The Roma, who make up approximately 6 percent of Slovakia’s population, are targets for abuse in many Eastern and Central European countries where they are a substantial minority.They have long suffered from discrimination in areas such as jobs, education and housing, which has in some places become worse in the current economic crisis.

WATCH VIDEO

Moral Police - India's Shame

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:44:00 +0000

Incidents of Hatred on Valentines Day: Shameful actions of Police and 'Moral brigade' in India

Girls assaulted in Mangalore pub by Sri Ram Sena

Sikh families leave Orakzai after Taliban demand jizia

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:58:00 +0000

As the rule of Islam spread beyond the borders of Arabias, Muslim rulers found it impossible either to convert the entire population or to exterminate the whole. The solution was found by admitting the non-Muslims to the status of Zimmis. Zimmis are those non-Muslims whose life is held under a contract. Jizia tax(a capitation tax/head tax imposed on free non-Muslims living under Muslim rule) used to be imposed on non-Muslims as a punishment for their unbelief and in order to humiliate themJizia tax is back.Now this Jizia tax is back into action.

HANGU: Sikh families living in Orakzai Agency (Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan) have left the agency after the Taliban demanded Rs 50 million as jizia (tax) from them, official sources and locals said on Tuesday.

Residents of Ferozekhel area in Lower Orakzai Agency told Daily Times on Tuesday that around 10 Sikh families left the agency after the demand by the Taliban, who said they were a minority and liable to pay the tax for living in the area in accordance with sharia.

Locals said the Taliban had notified the Sikh families about the ‘tax’ around a week ago. They said of the 15 Sikh families in Ferozekhel, 10 had shifted while the remaining were preparing to do so.

The locals said the families were impoverished and had left the area to avoid any Taliban action.
Daily Times

Taliban executed couples for adultery

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:48:00 +0000

The Taliban has publicly executed a young unmarried couple in southern Afghanistan. The woman, 19, and the man, 21, were accused by the militants of immoral acts, and a council of conservative clerics decided that the two should be killed, said Ghulam Dastagir Azad, the governor of the southwestern province of Nimroz. Terming the brutal incident an ‘insult to Islam’ he said local religious leaders had ordered a death sentence for the couple.

The two had fled their homes and hoped to travel to Iran, but their parents sent villagers to bring them home, said Sadiq Chakhansori, the chief of Nimroz' provincial council. Once back home, the pair was either turned over to the Taliban by their parents or the militants came and took them by force, the officials said, providing slightly varying accounts.

A similar incident happened in Hangu district of North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, which is outside the purview of Pakistan government.

A man and a woman, who were accused of committing adultery, were gunned down by the Taliban in northwest Pakistan a few days ago.

The chilling video footage of the execution was sent to the Dawn newspaper yesterday. It shows a Taliban firing squad killing the man and woman, both apparently in their forties, after accusing them of adultery.

They were shot dead in the presence of their relatives. The newspaper quoted its sources as saying that the incident took place in Hangu district of North West Frontier Province.

In this video, the woman is heard appealing to the Taliban militants for mercy. Have mercy on me, please have mercy. The charges against me are false and no man has ever touched me, she is heard saying.

The couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen.But the militant first shoot the woman by firing two bullets in her chest and later open a burst of Kalashnikov fire at both the woman and the man, leaving them bleeding in the dirt. But the woman is still seen breathing, and the Talibans start yelling that she is alive and issuing orders to "kill her, kill her".

Sources told the channel that the Taliban had asked the relatives of the woman and the man to present the two before them for questioning at a specified place. The relatives brought both of them to the Taliban, who killed them in cold blood.

Witchcraft Murders: Five people suspected of witchcraft burnt alive in Kenya

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:32:00 +0000

Incidents of witches being killed or burned alive is no more a strange fact. A large number of men, women and children are branded as witches and then killed through out the world.But this time this horrific incident was caught on a video of people beating and burning alive alleged witches in Nyamataro, near Kisii town in Kenya. The victims were older people (80 years and above), and four of the five were women.Last year, on May 2008, eleven elderly people accused of being witches have been burned to death.

This graphic, inhumane murder and burning of victims captured on the video left me stunned and horrified. Some of the victim tried to crawl out of the ditch where they were being burned,but they beaten mercilessly, kicked and dragged back. The human cruelty captured in this video clip is beyond belief.

Taliban publicly whipped a girl in Swat

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Video Link

A 17-year-old screaming, burqa-clad girl was whipped by Taliban fighters in Pakistan's Swat Valley for coming "out of her house with another guy who was not her husband", a two-minute video shot through a mobile phone showed. The video showed the girl face down on the ground. Two men held her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whipped her repeatedly.

“Please! Enough! Enough” the girl is heard crying. "Please stop it," the girl begged repeatedly. "Either kill me or stop it now." After 34 lashes the punishment stopped and the wailing girl was led into a stone building.

What is her crime??According to local reporters the girl was whipped because she came out of her house with a man who was not her husband. But some residents have revealed a local Taliban commander ordered the beating to get revenge after the girl refused to accept his proposal of marriage.

Pakistan government ceded authority of Swat valley to the Taliban under a peace deal(?), giving them almost a free hand to impose their puritan Islamic rule on the around 600,000 people of Swat and its seven neighbouring districts.

Sierra Leone: Women journalists stripped and paraded naked

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:22:00 +0000

Four women journalists were stripped naked in public in Kenema, Eastern Sierra Leone where they were covering events to mark the International Day against female circumcision (genital mutilation).They were snatched by members of a secret society, forcibly stripped and made to parade naked through the streets on February 9, 2009. They were only freed after the intervention of the police and human rights organizations. They were accused by their aggressors of reporting against female circumcision which is considered an insult to their culture.

South African women fall victim to 'corrective rape'

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:43:00 +0000

The partially clothed body of Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's acclaimed Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found in a creek in a park in Kwa Thema, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Simelane had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs. As well as being one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a voracious equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.

Eudy Simelane (Right)

Her brutal murder took place last April, and since then a tide of violence against lesbians in South Africa has continued to rise. Human rights campaigners say it is characterised by what they call "corrective rape" committed by men behind the guise of trying to "cure" lesbians of their sexual orientation.

Watch Video - Interviews with South African victims of 'corrective rape

A forgotten story : Slavery in Romania

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:32:00 +0000

An 1852 poster advertising an auction of Roma slaves in Bucharest, Romania.

Slavery of Roma people (Gypsies) existed on the territory of present-day Romania from before the founding of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 13th–14th century, until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s.

The slaves were considered personal property of the master. They were objects of exchange, sometimes sold by weight; a Rom could be sold for a smaller price than two copper pots, a Roma child could be bought for a smaller price than a cow, because she was not yet good capable of working full-time. Masters offered Roma girls as pleasure toys to their guests; they had the right of life and death over the slave.

The master was allowed to punish his slaves physically, through beatings or imprisonment. 1821, at a time when Boyars in Moldavia fled their country to escape the Eterist expedition, Austrian authorities in Bukovina were alarmed to note that the newly-settled refugees made a habit of beating their slaves in public, and consequently issued an order specifically banning such practices. A dispute followed, after which the Boyars received permission to carry on with the beatings, as long as they exercised them on private property.

A Shatra or Roma(Gypsy) slave village, Romania, 1850s.

Slavery was officially slavery was abolished in 1856. However, Roma people continued to suffer well after the abolition of slavery. They were evicted from their masters’ lands and their huts, with no means of survival, and no resources to carry on with their lives. Many of them went back to their former masters, begging for food and shelter in exchange for hard work. That way, they continued to be half-slaves, servants in the masters’ houses or working on the land, with no access to development resources or to school education.

In a gradual, step-by-step process, Roma began to lose their cultural identity and internalise their inferior status in society. Ashamed of themselves, perceiving their ethnic identity as damnation, they were stigmatised and excluded from the society of their former masters. Roma thus became a scapegoat for all the frustrations and failures of Romanian society.

Sterile Dreams: Forced Sterilization of Romani women in Slovakia and Czech Republic

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:48:00 +0000

Romani women are being coerced or forced to undergo sterilization procedures in Slovakia’s government-run health facilities, according to a new report released today by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Poradna pre obcianske a ludské práva, in collaboration with Ina Zoon. Two hundred and thirty in-depth interviews were held with Romani women in 40 settlements in eastern Slovakia. The investigative report documents grave human rights violations against Romani women in Slovakia, including about 110 cases where women were forcibly or coercively sterilized, or had strong indications that they had been sterilized. The report also documents extensive racism and verbal and physical abuse towards Romani women in public hospitals, including the denial of patient access to their own medical records and segregation in patients’ rooms, maternity wards, restrooms and dining facilities.

Agata, 28, from Svinia,Slovakia talks about being Coercively Sterilized:

"Doctors came and brought me to the operating room [for a C-section] and there they gave me anesthesia. When I was falling asleep, a nurse came and took my hand in hers and with it she signed something. I do not know what it was. I could not check because I cannot read, I only know how to sign my name. When I left the hospital, I was only told that I would not have any more children…I was so healthy before, but now I have pain all the time. Lots of infections…"

Alexandra from Richnava,Slovakia talks about Racial Segregation in Slovakia’s Public Hospitals:

"In Krompachy hospital, there are separate rooms for Roma—there are three Gypsy rooms, one shower and one toilet for us while white women have their own toilets. White women can go to the dining room but Roma cannot eat there. In Gypsy room, there is not even a dust bin. It is like in a concentration camp there."

Romani women in Slovakia continue to be subject to grave violations of their human rights, particularly their reproductive rights, even though a communist-era law offering monetary incentives for sterilization has been rescinded. A three-month fact-finding in late 2002 by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Poradna pre obcianske a ludské práva (Centre for Civil and Human Rights), a Slovak human rights organization, reveals that not only do coerced and forced sterilization practices continue in Slovakia, so too does the widespread abuse and discrimination against Romani women in the country’s maternal health services. We conducted extensive interviews with more than 230 women in almost 40 Romani settlements throughout eastern Slovakia, the region with the highest concentration of Roma.
The interviews revealed numerous instances of coerced, forced and suspected sterilization of Romani women, along with physical and verbal abuse, racially discriminatory standards of care, misinformation in health matters, and denial of access to medical records.

Watch Videos:
Trial of A Child Denied
Sterile Dreams

Iveta Cervenakova, was forcibly sterilized after the birth of her second daughter 12 years ago. She was among possibly as many as a quarter of a million Roma (Gypsy) women sterilized against their will in the Czech Republic.

Since the end of the cold war and the opening up of central and eastern European countries in 1990, the living conditions of the Roma and Sinti minority have drastically deteriorated as a result of nascent racism. However, racist-motivated violence and discrimination against Roma and Sinti have significantly increased in a large number of countries in western Europe. As The New York Times correctly observed in a commentary in March 1996, members of the minority are today subjected to marginalization and racism to an extent that corresponds to the situation of African-Americans in the United States up until the mid-1950s.

A notable cause for the continued marginalization and discrimination of Roma and Sinti is the structures of prejudice and racist clichés, which have been substantially influenced by the misanthropic racial ideology of the National Socialists and the associated fascist regime. In view of these ideological lines of continuity, it is hardly surprising that Roma and Sinti minorities are not only socially disadvantaged to a considerable extent but are also repeatedly the victims of open violence. The authorities in eastern and western Europe have recorded a drastic increase in racist violence against minorities by neo-Nazis; however, such attacks increasingly emanate from the security forces themselves. Only rarely can the perpetrators expect consistent prosecution and conviction by the police and legal authorities. As an example, the police officers responsible for the obviously racist-motivated murders of two Bulgarian Roma in 1996 were not punished by competent authorities; only after a judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in 2005 was the Bulgarian State obliged to investigate the racist background to this crime. The Court issued a similar adjudication in a comparable case, also in Romania; in all probability, however, the perpetrators will escape criminal prosecution appropriate to a State governed by the rule of law.

Racism still alive in the "Rainbow Nation": White students force black cleaners to drink urine soup

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:36:00 +0000

The alleged victims vomited after being made to eat fouled food
Watch Video

Several white students in South Africa face criminal charges after allegedly forcing black campus employees to eat food that had been urinated on. A video has surfaced last year (Feb 2008) which appears to show the students forcing elderly workers to eat dirty meat and drink soup into which they had urinated.

A violent backlash against the film caused all classes to be suspended yesterday as hundreds of staff and students marched in protest. Police fired stun grenades to disperse an angry crowd gathered outside the whites-only halls of residence where the film was shot. A narrative in Afrikaans indicates the video was recorded in protest at a new university integration policy to integrate black and white students in the same residences at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein.

In the video the white students, who make no attempt to hide their faces, order the black cleaners at the whites-only Reitz hostel to down full bottles of beer. They then lead them to a playing field where they are told to display their athletic skills. In the final extract a white man urinates on food and into a plastic soup container. Then, shouting: Take! Take! in Afrikaans he apparently forces the campus employees to eat the dirty food, causing them to vomit.

Iranian students unveil book mocking Holocaust victims

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:48:00 +0000

An Iranian woman looks at a new book mocking the Holocaust in Tehran on September 26, 2008. Photo: AFP

A group of Islamist students unveiled the book today in an annual parade marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Featuring dozens of cartoons and sarcastic commentary, the book "Holocaust" was published by student members of the Basij militia. The book comes two years after an Iranian newspaper commissioned a competition of Holocaust-themed cartoons.

The book's cover depicted a Jew with a hooked nose dressed in traditional clothes drawing the outlines of dead bodies on the ground.Inside pages have pictures of bearded Jews shown leaving and re-entering a gas chamber with a counter that reads 5,999,999.Another picture shows a hospital patient covered in an Israeli flag and on life support, breathing Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used in the death camps.

A patient covered in an Israeli flag and on life support breathing Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used in the extermination chambers.

The commentary inside the book includes anti-Semitic stereotypes and revisionist arguments, casting doubt on the massacre of Jews and mocking Holocaust survivors who claimed reparations after World War II.

One comment in a question-and-answer format reads:

"How did the Germans emit gas into chambers while there were no holes on the ceiling?" Answer: "Shut up, you criminal anti-Semite. How dare you ask this question?"

Beaten into silence : Battered women in Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:31:00 +0000

Africa's highest-ranking female politician has spoken out about the beatings which she said were responsible for her separation from her husband. Specioza Kazibwe, Uganda's former Vice-President, serving from 1994 until 2003, being the first woman in Africa to hold that position said that she had been forced to throw her engineer husband out of their house - which she had built - when she decided enough was enough. Her comments have caused a stir in a society where the subject is largely taboo."Why should I continue staying with a man who beats me?" she was quoted by the New Vision newspaper as telling women legislators. However, the the reaction to Mrs Kazimbwe's action had been varied in Uganda. Mrs Kazibwe should have kept it in the family, said one woman, Diana. "I come from north of the country, where women are told to respect their husbands even if they are abused or beaten up," Diana added."I am happy with the tradition because men are more superior to us and I think, without men, we would not be what we are now."

Men feel free to assault women in public, with complete impunity. A Global Crescendo photographer caught this man beating his pregnant wife. The man in the background looking on appears to be laughing.

Wife beating has traditionally been swept under the social carpet. Few women, including those who are financially independent, have dared to come out and say that they're being battered. It has always happened, everywhere. Often it is accepted as a natural if regrettable part of woman's status as her husband's property. Throughout history women have been subjected to the whims and brutality of their husbands.

Women suffer from violence in every society. In few places, however, is the abuse more entrenched, and accepted, than in sub-Saharan Africa. One in three Nigerian women reported having been physically abused by a male partner, according to the latest study, conducted in 1993. The wife of the deputy governor of a northern Nigerian province told reporters last year that her husband beat her incessantly, in part because she watched television movies.

It is like it is a normal thing for women to be treated by their husbands as punching bags," told Obong Rita Akpan, former Nigerian minister for women's affairs, here. "The Nigerian man thinks that a woman is his inferior. Right from childhood, right from infancy, the boy is preferred to the girl. Even when they marry out of love, they still think the woman is below them and they do whatever they want."

In Zambia, nearly half of women surveyed said a male partner had beaten them, according to a 2004 study financed by the United States - the highest percentage of nine developing nations surveyed on three continents. About 80% of Zambian wives find it acceptable to be beaten by their husbands "as a form of chastisement", according to the Zambia Demographic Health Survey.

A World Health Organization study has found that while more than a third of Namibian women reported enduring physical or sexual abuse by a male partner, often resulting in injury, six in seven victims had either kept it to themselves or confided only in a friend or relative.

In South Africa, researchers for the Medical Research Council estimated last year that a male partner kills a girlfriend or spouse every six hours - the highest mortality rate from domestic violence ever reported, they say. In Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, domestic violence accounts for more than 6 in 10 murder cases in court, a United Nations report concluded last year.

Women's rights activists say that the prevalence of abuse is emblematic of the low status of women in sub-Saharan Africa. Typically less educated, they work longer hours and transport three times as much weight as men, hauling firewood, water and sacks of corn on their heads.

Some societies have the idea that women are foolish and childlike, and need to be beaten to be corrected. In one survey, 44.7 percent of Kenyan women said that men have the right to discipline their wives by beating. The women who are beaten often feel that it is their fault. Even many matrilineal and matrilocal societies accept men beating their wives as correction.

In some Sub-Saharan African countries where wife beating is widely accepted as a response to women's transgressing gender norms, women are More likely than men to justify wife beating. An analysis of Demographic and Health Survey data from in seven Sub-Saharan African countries found that 36-89% of women justified wife beating in at least one of five specified situations such as if she burns the food, neglects the children, argues with him, goes out without telling him or refuses to have sex with. The analysts contend that women's acceptance of wife beating "may be explained only by entrenched social and cultural learning processes that subjugate the position of women in the society, socially and collectively undermine their self-esteem and facilitate romanticisation of the 'ideal' gender role of women."

1946 Lynching Re-enacted in Georgia, USA

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:12:00 +0000

Rosie Crowley, center, portrayed the pregnant Dorothy Malcom Monday in a re-enactment of a group lynching in Monroe, Georgia., on July 25, 1946. No one was ever prosecuted for the four killings.The lynchings of Roger and Dorothy Malcom, and George and Mae Murray Dorsey on July 25, 1946, have long been a source of racial tension in Monroe, a town about 45 miles east of Atlanta.
See and hear scenes from the re-enactment

On July 25, 1946, two black couples were riding in a car with a white farmer when they were ambushed by a group of about 20 armed men, believed to be Ku Klux Klan members. The four (Roger and Dorothy Malcom and George and Mae Murray Dorsey) were dragged from the car, beaten savagely and shot over 60 times while they pleaded for their lives. All four died, as well as Dorothy Malcolm's unborn child. The lynching was gruesome and the fact that George Dorsey had been a distinguished soldier in WWII infuriated the public. No one was ever charged in the lynchings, even though the FBI’s report named 55 suspects.

On July 25, 2005, fifty-nine years to the day after the incident a group reenacted the murders, with the hope that the federal government would reopen the case and bring those that were involved to justice.

Cold-case Convictions in USA
1977: Ex-Klansman Robert Chambliss convicted of 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham, Alabama
1994: Byron de la Beckwith convicted in 1963 sniper murder of Mississippi civil rights activist Medgar Evers
1998: Former Klan leader Samuel Bowers convicted in the death of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer Sr., killed in 1966 firebombing of his Mississippi home
2001, 2002: Thomas Blanton Jr. then Bobby Frank Cherry convicted of involvement in 1963 Birmingham church bombing
2003: Earnest Avants convicted in 1966 slaying of handyman Ben Chester White, purportedly to lure the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Natchez, Mississippi
2005: Edgar Ray Killen sentenced to 60 years in prison for the 1964 "Mississippi Burning" manslaughter of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi
2007: Former sheriff's deputy and Klansman James Ford Seale convicted in the 1964 deaths of two Mississippi teenagers
-- Sources: CNN, The Associated Press

Cat woman of Nigeria !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:49:00 +0000

Aisha Ibrahim was involved in an auto-accident in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.,but case particularly attracted the media attention because an unusual occurrence was attributed to her. Eyewitnesses said she was hit by a car as a cat, but later transformed into a woman.As the story goes three cats were crossing the busy road when an okada (motorcycle taxi) ran over. One of them immediately turned into a woman. This strange occurrence quickly attracted people around who descended on the scene. A crowd soon gathered, accused her of being a witch and began to beat her up using whatever he came with or could lay his hands on right there. Finally, policemen arrived a the spot and fenced her away from the attackers wanted her dead.

However,another witness gave a completely different account of the incident. He said “I saw the accident as it happened, I saw the car hitting a woman. I didn’t see any cat and it was surprising when everybody said she was a cat and started beating her up instead of helping her.”

Pakistani lawmaker defends burying women alive

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:40:00 +0000

Five Pakistani women were beaten, shot and buried alive in the tribal region of Baluchistan on July 13 of this year.what was more shocking was the subsequent defence of these ‘honour’ killings from certain members of the Pakistan Senate.

Women's groups have expressed outrage over the killings

Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents province where the women died, told a stunned parliament that tribesmen had done nothing wrong in first shooting the women and then dumping them in a ditch."These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them,.Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid." he said.

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditchin what was a brutal episode of honour killing.They were still breathing as mud was shoveled over their bodies, according to media reports, which said their only "crime" was that they wished to marry men of their own choice, against the wishes of tribal elders.

According to details, the women were about to leave for the civil court so that the three girls could marry the men of their choice. Their decision to get married in court was the result of several days of discussions with the elders of the tribe who refused them permission to marry. As the news of their plans leaked out, a group of men abducted them at gun point. and taken in a vehicle to another remote area,. After reaching there, the men took the three younger women out of the jeep and beat them before allegedly opening fire on them. The girls were seriously injured but were miraculously still alive at that moment. They were hurled into a wide ditch and later covered with earth and stones. The two older women - an aunt of one of these girls and the other, the mother of one minor - when protested and tried to stop the burial of the girls who were still alive-further enraged the attackers. They were so angry at the interference that they pushed the elderly women in the ditch along with the injured girls and buried them alive too. After completing the burial, they fired several shots in the air so that no one would come close.

It is considered an insult in some conservative regions of Pakistan for women to have affairs or marry without consent, and rights groups say hundreds are killed by male relatives every year.Reaction of Dr Farzana Bari, a university professor and a human rights activist from Islamabad who is leading the outcry against these crimes:

Desire to control women’s lives and their sexuality is far greater in areas where feudal and tribal systems are prevalent. For example, you will not find the same oppression of women in Islamabad, Karachi or Lahore. But where there is a strong tribal or feudal hold you see that women’s sexuality is strictly controlled by the family – and particularly the male members of the family.

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:23:00 +0000

This strange event had occurred in Congo.

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

A penis panic is a mass hysteria event or panic in which male members of a population suddenly experience this belief. Penis panics have occurred around the world, most notably in Africa and south-east Asia Asia. Penis panic tends to reflect a certain xenophobia among some groups, whereby foreigners are often blamed as the ones behind the "attacks".The belief has triggered waves of panic in Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, , Nigeria, Sudan, Senegal and Zimbabwe at various times in the last decade.

Documented cases have not typically indicated actual instances of penis shrinkage or retraction. As one academic work states, in a culture where sexual anxiety is high and stories exist of death by genital retraction, a man in the right frame of mind could panic at the observation that his genitals are shrinking in response to cold or anxiety.

Trokosi: Ritual servitude

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:31:00 +0000

Juliana Dogbadzi, a former Trokosi slave and recipent of the 1999 Reebok Human Rights Award

Ritual servitude is a practice in Ghana, Togo, and Benin where traditional religious shrines take human beings, usually young virgin girls in payment for services, or in religious atonement for alleged misdeeds of a family member. Tro means deity and kosi means slave or wife so Trokosi translates as slave or wife of the deity.

These shrine slaves serve the priests, elders and owners of a traditional religious shrine without remuneration and without their consent, although the consent of the family or clan may be involved. Those who practice ritual servitude usually feel that the girl is serving the god or gods of the shrine and is married to the gods of the shrine.

These girls are sexually abused, serve at hard labor without compensation, suffer harsh punishment, and are denied education and human affection. If a girl runs away or dies, she must be replaced by another girl from the family. Some girls in ritual servitude are the third or fourth girl in their family suffering for the same crime, sometimes for something as trite as the loss of trivial property. It is still practiced in the Volta region in Ghana, in spite of being outlawed in 1998, and despite carrying a minimum three year prison sentence for conviction. Among the Ewes who practice the ritual in Ghana, the practice is also called trokosi or fiashidi. In Togo and Benin it is called voodoosi or vudusi.

The most disturbing detail is that although the Trokosi system, alongside all traditional and cultural practices that violate the constitution of Ghana was banned in 1998 the practice is still very much alive. In some cases the practice has moved ‘underground’. Some members of the communities involved do not see Trokosi as a Human Rights violation but as a traditional and reliable way of dispensing and maintaining social justice. The researchers estimated the number of victims to be roundabout 1400. To date no one has been arrested or persecuted in spite of the law banning the practice. Tro means deity and kosi means slave or wife so Trokosi translates as slave or wife of the deity.

Beer drinkers sentenced to caning

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:53:00 +0000

A Sharia High Court in Malaysia has sentenced a man and a woman to caning for drinking beer. Mohamad Nasir Mohamad, a 38-year-old father of four, and 22-year-old waitress Noorazah Baharuddin (in picture), were each discovered last year consuming beer in Pahang bars. 's Sharia High Court fined Mohamad and Baharuddin each $1,400 and ordered that they be publicly whipped for their crimes.

Offenders are whipped with a long strip of rattan that cuts into the skin and leaves permanent scars to remind them of their punishment. According to the New Straits Times, the cane will be 1.22m long and 1.25cm thick. Mohamad and Baharuddin will be allowed to face their punishment wearing clothing.
(PHOTO: NEW STRAITS TIMES PRESS)

Public Caning in Aceh and Sharia Tourism

noreply@blogger.com (Swapna Sarit Rout) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:25:00 +0000

An Acehnese woman kneels to be caned by Sharia law authorities Jan.12, 2007 in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

Tourism authorities in Indonesia's Aceh province hope that this practice of Sharia or Islamic law will attract visitors. "We invite international tourists to visit Aceh to observe how an Islamic community lives and how the Islamic code of Sharia is applied," said Cipta Hunai, an Aceh tourism official, in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).

He said that Sharia law in Aceh was a tourist attraction because it allowed foreigners to see a reality, that perhaps, they did not already know. "Here the tourists can visit many mosques and see how a community lives under laws based on the Koran," he said. "

Muslim-devout Aceh is the only province in Indonesia allowed to apply Sharia law. However observers say that the application of Sharia in the province has harmed the rights of the poor and women.The Indonesian government agreed to allow Shariah law in Aceh four years ago as part of negotiations to end the 29-year war between separatist rebels and the military.

Canning is carried out in Aceh for crimes including the sale or consumption of alcohol, gambling or meeting a person of the opposite sex, that is not your husband, wife or family member, in a private place.