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THE BELOW
When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi
figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da
qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so
called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali
The Guardian
17 Jan 2022
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Shah Meer Baloch in Karachi
<<‘She chopped her hair off’: Pakistani women’s struggle to play
cricket. In such a conservative country, young women often have
to fight their own families first just to play the sport they
love.
Bisma Amjad plays cricket. She aspires to play internationally
and was picked for Pakistan’s under-19 World Cup squad. But when
the pandemic came, because she was a woman, there was nowhere
for her to practise, so she dressed as a man to play alongside
male cricketers at <gully cricket> – the street game. <Boys used
to play gully-cricket even during the pandemic,> she says. <But
the movement of girls was restricted, so we couldn’t play at
all. I had no option than to dress like a man and practise with
them,> says Amjad, 19, who has bowled at first-class and
regional matches. In traditional circles in Karachi, Amjad hears
constant comments such as <your skin will turn darker> or 'it is
a boys’ game and you are wasting your time. Do a course that
will help you after marriage.> She says that many girls from
conservative families or rural areas dress like boys so they can
play cricket without being noticed. <A friend of mine has
chopped her hair off so she could go and play without being
known as she is a girl,> says Amjad. <Women who play sport have
to struggle a lot in our society.> Amjad’s father supported her
and drove her to matches but when he became ill she had to stop
playing for a few months. <After my father recovered and I got
his permission, I learned to ride a bike so I could commute on
my own,> she says. Cycling brought its own problems. <Men would
say ‘look, look, she is riding a bike. She used to wear a
headscarf, what happened to her?’> she says.
Fiddling with a cricket ball, she says: <I give my savings to my
parents to show that I earn some money. I keep telling them,
give me a few months more, I will prove it.>
They have now given her one year to break into the national team
or else drop cricket.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/17/pakistan-women-cricket
The Guardian
Lisa O'Carroll in Dublin
17 Jan 2022
<<Calls for action on gender-based violence after Ashling Murphy
killing. Ireland’s minister for justice promises new strategy by
March and a zero-tolerance approach.
Campaigners have called for the end of the <scattered> approach
to gender-based violence in Ireland after the murder of
23-year-old Ashling Murphy. Irish police are still hunting for
the killer of the primary school teacher, who was strangled on a
canal path near the town of Tullamore while out jogging on
Wednesday afternoon. The murder has convulsed the nation with an
outpouring of anger and shock in Ireland and beyond, with tens
of thousands of people attending vigils in Dublin, Cork, Belfast,
London and New York over the weekend. Her funeral will take
place on Tuesday. Schools around the country have been asked to
observe a minute’s silence by the main teaching unions. There
has been a chorus of calls for more action by the government and
an end to “turf wars” between justice, children’s, health and
other departments over who is responsible for which part of
services for victims of domestic, sexual and gender-based
violence.
Over the weekend there were heartbreaking scenes as Ashling’s
devastated parents, Kathleen and Raymond, her sister, Amy,
brother, Cathal, and boyfriend, Ryan, joined a vigil near the
location of the killing. The Garda Síochána are still waiting to
speak to an individual who presented to a Dublin hospital with
unexplained injuries, some of which were believed to be
self-inflicted and serious. The minister for justice, Helen
McEntee, said a new strategy to tackle domestic, sexual and
gender-based violence will be published by March, promising a <zero-tolerance>
approach to violence against women. Mary McDermott, chief
executive officer at Safe Ireland, which campaigns for women and
children’s safety, said a joined-up approach was long overdue,
with <goodwill> needed at the children’s and other departments
as they needed to yield control of parts of their portfolio to
deliver a centralised ministry. <Refuge and support services are
under [the department of] children and the rest of the
responsibility, which we know requires a whole-of-government
response, is scattered across the rest of government departments.>
While there have been repeated calls for centralisation since a
government taskforce on the issues in 1997, McDermott said it
was time for law makers to stop treating “domestic, sexual and
gender based violence” as an <amorphous mass>.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/17/calls-for-action-on-gender-based-violence-after-ashling-murphy-killing-ireland
Al Jazeera
16 Jan 2022
<<Sudan withdraws licence of Al Jazeera Mubasher
Sudanese authorities say the decision was taken following the
channel’s ‘violation of the terms’ of licensing.
Sudanese authorities have withdrawn the broadcast licence of Al
Jazeera Mubasher, the channel has said. In a statement on Sunday,
the Qatar-based media network said authorities also revoked the
accreditation of two of its journalists in the country. <Al
Jazeera condemns the interference with its duty to convey fair
and objective coverage of events in the country and to allow its
journalists to operate unhindered and to practise their
profession,> it said.
<The Network views this as an attack on press freedom as a whole
and calls on international human rights and media organisations
to condemn this infringement of journalists’ safety.>
Sudan’s ministry of culture and information said in a statement
on Saturday that the decision was taken in response to the
channel’s <unprofessional conduct>. It said the channel’s
coverage took aim at the <social fabric of the country by airing
content contrary to the ethics of the profession and the mores
and customs of Sudanese people>. <[This] has harmed the
country’s highest interests and its national security … It
indicates a violation of the terms under which a license was
granted.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/16/sudan-withdraws-al-jazeera-mubasher-license
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: Do not forget that the military took
over through a coup and that like always the freedom of the
press is, apart from women who are the first victims and in this
case of rape, threatened too.
Al Jazeera
15 Jan 2022
<<US man who faked death to evade rape charges found alive in UK
Nicholas Alahverdian, 34, who fled the US to evade prosecution,
has been arrested in Glasgow after being hospitalised with COVID.
A Rhode Island man who is believed to have faked his death and
fled the US to evade prosecution in Utah and other states has
been apprehended in Scotland after being hospitalised with
COVID-19, authorities have said. Nicholas Alahverdian was
discovered after developing a serious case of the coronavirus
and being placed on a ventilator at a hospital in Glasgow, Rhode
Island State Police Major Robert Creamer told The Providence
Journal on Wednesday. Alahverdian 34, who was wanted by
Interpol, now faces extradition to the US to face a charge of
first-degree rape in Utah in 2008.
Court documents unsealed on Thursday show Alahverdian met a
21-year-old woman on MySpace in 2008, when he was living in Orem,
Utah, and going by the name Nicholas Rossi, WPRI-TV reported.
The woman said that she ended the relationship, but that
Alahverdian owed her money, promised to pay her back and instead
sexually assaulted her in his apartment. Utah County Attorney
David Leavitt’s office said on Wednesday that DNA evidence
collected at the time was not tested until 2017 as part of a
state effort to test backlogged rape kits. The Utah evidence
ultimately came back as a match to a sexual assault case in Ohio.
<Investigators also learned that Nicholas Rossi had fled the
country to avoid prosecution in Ohio and attempted to lead
investigators and state legislators in other states to believe
that he was deceased,> Leavitt’s office said in a statement. <Mr.
Rossi was discovered to be living under an assumed name in
Scotland.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/15/us-man-who-faked-death-to-evade-rape-charges-found-alive-in-uk
The Guardian
Maya Yang and agencies
13 Jan 2022
<<Illinois judge sparks outrage by reversing 18-year-old’s rape
conviction. Judge Robert Adrian said the 148 days Drew Clinton
had spent in jail for raping a 16-year-old girl was ‘plenty of
punishment’.
A judge in western Illinois who found an 18-year-old man guilty
of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl has come under fire
after he later threw out the conviction, saying the 148 days the
man spent in jail was punishment enough. Judge Robert Adrian of
Adam county, Illinois, said Drew Clinton, who was convicted last
October for raping a 16-year-old girl at a graduation party last
May, had received <plenty of punishment>. <Mr Clinton has served
almost five months in the county jail,> Adrian said on 3 January,
according to court transcripts. <For what happened in this case,
that is plenty of punishment. That would be a just sentence.>
In Illinois, a person convicted of rape is handed the mandatory
minimum sentence of four years in prison.
During the trial, the judge heard evidence that the girl had
told police she had attended a graduation party, where she drank
alcohol and swam in a pool in her underwear before she
eventually passed out. She said she woke up to a pillow pushed
on her face and Clinton sexually assaulting her.
<I asked him to stop multiple times and he wouldn’t. I finally
got off the couch and pushed him off of me and he jumped up and
just started playing video games as if nothing had happened,>
the teenager said.
According to the police report, the teenager was able to push
Clinton off her and then told a friend what happened. She later
told her father, who called the police.
In court, Judge Adrian said: <There is no way … for what
happened in this case that this teenager should go to the
department of corrections. I will not do that.> But the judge
said if he were to rule that the sentencing statute he was bound
to follow was unconstitutional, his decision would be overturned
and Clinton would be ordered to prison. In order to avoid an
appeal he believed would be successful, Adrian said what he
could do was determine that prosecutors had failed to <prove
their case> and dismiss the sexual assault charge.
Upon hearing the decision, <I immediately had to leave the
courtroom and go to the bathroom. I was crying,> the teenager
said.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/13/illinois-judge-reverses-rape-conviction-outrage
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: This is excactly one of those cases
when I write about 'co-predators'. judge a. is one of them
period!
The Guardian
Angela Giuffrida in Rome
13 Jan 2022
<<Two men detained in Italy over Milan new year sexual assaults
Suspects alleged to have been part of gang that carried out
attacks on at least nine women. Italian police have detained two
men accused of involvement in a series of sexual assaults during
New Year’s Eve celebrations in Milan. Abdallah Bouguedra, 21,
and Abdelrahman Ahmed Mahmoud Ibrahim, 18, are accused of <serious
sexual assault accompanied by the robbery of mobile phones and
handbags>, Milan’s acting prosecutor, Riccardo Targetti said.
The pair have been held in custody as there is a <concrete
danger> of them trying to escape, given the serious allegations
against them, Targetti added. They are alleged to have been
among a gang who sexually assaulted at least nine women during
during celebrations in front of Milan’s cathedral on Piazza del
Duomo. Ibrahim’s lawyer said his client had told police he was
at the square but denied any involvement. Police raided the
homes of 18 suspects, including three under the age of 18, on
Tuesday. Twelve people are currently being investigated. Police
said the suspects are foreign or Italian of north African origin.
The case prompted comparisons with the mass sexual attacks and
muggings that took place in the German city of Cologne on New
Year’s Eve in 2015-16. Several women, including two Germans who
had been visiting Milan, came forward with their reports in the
days after New Year’s Eve, with the number rising to nine by
Tuesday. Police believe more women were assaulted. The women
shared similar stories of being dragged into the crowd, shoved
and groped during the fireworks display. A 19-year-old woman
alleged that she was set upon by a gang of youths at about
1.30am and attacked for about a minute before help arrived. Her
friend managed to get away.
A Milan investigator told Corriere della Sera that the women
were <passed around like rag dolls> and in one incident <one
[suspect] held the victim while the other abused her>.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/13/two-men-detained-in-italy-over-milan-new-year-sexual-assaults
The Guardian
Agence France-Presse in Idi, East Aceh
13 Jan 2022
<<Indonesian woman flogged 100 times for adultery, man gets 15
lashes. Man denied any wrongdoing after pair caught together in
conservative Aceh province.
An Indonesian woman has been flogged 100 times in Aceh province
for adultery while the male involved, who denied the accusations,
received just 15 lashes. Ivan Najjar Alavi, the head of the
general investigation division at the East Aceh prosecutors’
office, said the court handed down a harsher sentence for the
woman after she confessed to investigators she had sex outside
of her marriage.
Judges found it difficult to convict the man, who was then the
head of the East Aceh fishery agency and also married, because
he denied all wrongdoing, Alavi said. <During the trial, he
admitted nothing, denying all accusations. Thus, [judges] are
not able to prove whether he is guilty,> Alavi told reporters
after a public flogging for sharia law offenders in Aceh on
Thursday. Aceh is the only region in Muslim-majority Indonesia
to impose sharia law, which allows whipping for charges
including gambling, adultery, drinking alcohol and gay sex. A
young couple is doused in sewage by Aceh’s sharia vigilante '.
As an alternative ruling, the judges found the married man
guilty of <showing affection to a female partner who is not his
wife> after the couple were caught at a palm oil plantation in
2018.
He was initially sentenced to 30 lashes but his successful
appeal at the sharia supreme court in Aceh reduced the sentence
to 15.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/13/indonesian-woman-flogged-100-times-for-adultery-man-gets-15-lashes
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: This is what I call measuring with a
in this case a 5 time higher standard i.e. the woman is more
guilty then the man.
Al Jazeera
13 Jan 2022
<<How a viral dance video fuelled women’s rights debate in Egypt
A viral video of Egyptian teacher dancing prompted her husband
to divorce her and split opinion in the country.
A video of an Egyptian mother-of-three dancing that went viral
online prompting her husband to divorce her and her employers to
sack her has reignited fierce debates over women’s rights. The
short video of Aya Youssef, a 30-year-old primary school
teacher, shot on a mobile phone shows her wearing a headscarf,
trousers and a long-sleeved top as she dances alongside
colleagues, smiling as she enjoys a river cruise on the Nile.
But the video, which has been shared widely on social media
since it was posted earlier this month, has split opinion. Some
critics accuse her of breaching the conservative values of
society while others stand firmly with her in solidarity.
In recent years, Egypt has witnessed several cases in which
women have been subjected to defamation campaigns on social
media, stirring angry demands for those responsible to be held
to account.
It comes as rights groups warn of a broadening crackdown on
freedom in the North African nation ever since President Abdel
Fattah el-Sisi took office in 2014. Youssef, in a recent
interview with a private TV channel, said she had been <happy>
on the trip and that her moves were <spontaneous>. Other
colleagues were dancing alongside her on the boat in the
sunshine, some waving their hands in the air. Sacked, then
reinstated
But after the video was shared online, some who watched provided
scathing comments on what they saw as <unbecoming> behaviour.
One Twitter user said the teacher’s actions were <shameful>,
while another said he <couldn’t fathom how a married woman would
dance in this lewd way>.
But, in a country where 90 percent of women aged between 18 and
39 reported having been harassed in 2019, others were supportive.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s education ministry in Dakahlia region –
northeast of Cairo – referred the teacher to a disciplinary
committee, where she was sacked from her job in the city of
Mansoura. Amid a subsequent outcry, she was reinstated this
week. Nihad Abu al-Qumsan, head of the Egyptian Centre for
Women’s Rights, defended the teacher and offered her a job.
<We will ask the court about the correct dance rules – so that
all women would conform to the right rules if they dance in
their brother’s or their son’s weddings, or at birthdays,>
al-Qumsan said sarcastically. The fact that Youssef’s husband
also divorced her after watching the video prompted an angry
reaction from popular Egyptian actress Somaya el-Khashab, saying
it showed double standards.
<Why don’t men take their wives back?> Khashab asked.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/13/viral-egypt-dance-video-fuels-womens-rights-debate
The Guardian
By Abiodun Jamiu in Sokoto
12 Jan 2022
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
<<Women's rights and gender equality
Driving change: the all-female garage shifting attitudes in
northern Nigeria. The NGO Nana is upending gender norms in
conservative Sokoto state, where one in 20 girls finish
secondary school.
The green-and-red Nana Female Mechanic Garage sign is visible
from the main road into Sokoto city. Behind its sliding iron
gate, Zainab Dayyabu stomps around in heavy work boots and a
blue jumpsuit, her hands callused and oily. <I love the job I’m
doing,> says the 23-year-old, as she opens the bonnet of a
Peugeot van to test its battery.
Zainab is one of 25 young apprentices at the first all-female
garage to open in the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto. The
workshop aims to provide jobs for women in an industry dominated
by men and challenge traditional gender roles in this
conservative and highly insecure region of the country. “It is
not just an ordinary female mechanic shop,” says Fatima Adamu,
founder of the non-profit organisation Nana: Girls and Women
Empowerment Initiative, which opened the workshop in 2019.
<We want it to be of international standard, where women
specifically can get the best services. And for that to happen,
we must really train the girls. We want to be scientific.>
Apprentices were selected from a vast range of applicants, from
unemployed graduates to women from poorer families with few
opportunities in a state where less than 2% of girls finish
secondary school and the literacy rate for women is just 10%
compared with 40% for men. About 35% of 15- to 34-year-olds
across Nigeria are unemployed. Over a two-year apprenticeship,
the women are trained in all aspects of car maintenance and
given a weekly allowance of 2,100 naira (£3.75). They also have
access to a shared computer to browse learning resources online.
The first cohort is coming to the end of their apprenticeship
and most will stay on, says Adamu. “After being trained as
mechanics, we are hopeful some of them would stay in the garage
to work or set up a garage as a group, including selling vehicle
spare parts.” She hopes plans for an automobile centre in Sokoto
being considered by state authorities will provide further jobs
for Nana mechanics. <I want our women to get out of the societal
norms that bind them,> she says. <There are so many
technology-related activities that women are excluded from in
this part of the country. We cannot succeed in northern Nigeria
without technology, and women must be part of that journey.>
Adamu says the scheme has received support from the
predominantly Muslim state’s traditional and religious leaders,
who are beginning to recognise that women need to be
economically independent. And customers such as Abba Lawal are
convinced. He regularly brings his car to the garage and says
the apprentices do better work than other garages in the city:
<I come to the garage to encourage the girls and also I like the
way they work on cars without delays.> A man instructs a circle
of young women in the workshop. The programme has been so
successful that there is already a waiting list for the new
apprentice scheme starting this month. Hindatu Dayyabu (no
relation to Zainab), a supervisor at the garage, hopes Nana’s
can also build up a customer base of female drivers.
<We have many women who are car owners now compared with the 70s
and 80s,> she says. <We did an assessment and realised that
women find it difficult to take their vehicles to the garage for
repair because it is a male-dominated space. They don’t feel
comfortable.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/12/driving-change-the-all-female-garage-shifting-attitudes-in-northern-nigeria
The Guardian
Agence France-Press
12 Jan 2022
<<Rape trial of Greek sailing coach begins as #MeToo gains
ground
Trial of coach who allegedly raped 11-year-old in 2010 comes
after Olympic champion spoke out about abuse.
The landmark trial of a Greek sailing coach accused of raping a
child has opened in Athens, a year after an Olympic champion
effectively launched the #MeToo movement in the country by
speaking out about her experiences.
The case is one of many that came to light after Sofia Bekatorou,
a former Olympic sailing gold medal winner, broke the taboo on
speaking out on such matters in December 2020.
Bekatorou, who is a witness at the trial, did not speak to
reporters as she arrived at the courthouse on Wednesday.
Triantafyllos Apostolou, 38, who outed himself in a newspaper
interview last year, allegedly raped an 11-year-old athlete in
2010. Bekatorou has said that she herself was subjected to <sexual
harassment and abuse> by a senior federation member after trials
for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She was 21 at the time. Her
revelations prompted other women to speak out about being
assaulted, and more than three years after it started in the US,
the #MeToo movement was born in Greece. Over the past year,
allegations of sexual assaults suffered by female athletes,
students, journalists and actors have surfaced. Some of those
speaking out say they were still minors when the assaults took
place. Bekatorou brought the alleged victim in the current
trial, with her consent, to the attention of prosecutors in
January 2021.
The alleged victim says that when she was 11 years old she had
several non-consensual sexual encounters with her coach who is
now on trial.
The accused <used sexual but also psychological violence against
the minor so that she would not reveal her rape to her parents>,
according to the prosecutor.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/12/trial-of-greek-sailing-coach-begins-as-metoo-gains-ground
The Guardian
10 Jan 2022
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
By Portia Crowe
<<Painting a bigger picture: Senegal’s pioneering ‘first lady’
of graffiti.
When Dieynaba Sidibé discovered graffiti, it was love at first
sight. She was 17 and had already begun experimenting with
painting and drawing. <It was on TV. I was sitting in my living
room and I saw people doing big walls and I thought, ‘This is
what I need’,> the Senegalese artist says, one hoop earring
shaking as she laughs. <I don’t like small things. I was doing
big canvases, and I said to myself: ‘A wall is a bigger surface
for expression’.> Her parents wanted her to focus on her
studies, but Sidibé, who adopted the name Zeinixx, sought out
Senegal’s budding graffiti community, finding her way to the
Africulturban cultural association – a nonprofit in Dakar’s
Pikine suburb that promotes urban culture through festivals and
skills training. There, she persuaded one of the country’s
pioneering artists, Oumar Diop, AKA Afia Grafixx, to mentor her.
<I already had my basic drawing skills because I used to draw
Mickey Mouse, McDonald’s logos, and things like that, and I drew
on the walls of my room,> Zeinixx, 31, says. <Grafixx showed me
what graffiti was – how to write, how to do lettering – and I
started to get interested in hip-hop culture. Now, here I am, 14
years later.>
Zeinixx is Senegal’s first female professional graffiti artist
and a core member of its male-dominated hip-hop scene. She is
also a slam poet, singer, and entrepreneur. In August, she
launched Zeinixx Entertainment, organising visual arts workshops
for young people.
<My refrain is to tell young people: ‘Don’t let others choose
for you what you would like to do tomorrow’,> she says from the
Africulturban centre, where she runs communications and is
preparing for her next project at a girls’ high school in Dakar.
<For me, it’s essential to be able to make your own decisions,>
she says.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/10/painting-a-bigger-picture-senegals-pioneering-first-lady-of-graffiti
Al Jazeera
10 Jan 2022
<<‘Auction’ of India’s Muslim women shows tech weaponised for
abuse. Technologies such as deepfake and tracking used to harass
women as victims struggle to be taken seriously or get justice.
Six months ago, pilot Hana Khan saw her picture on an app that
appeared to be <auctioning> dozens of Muslim women in India. The
app was quickly taken down, no one was charged, and the issue
shelved – until a similar app popped up on New Year’s Day.
Khan was not on the new app called Bulli Bai – a slur for Muslim
women – that was hawking activists, journalists, an actor,
politicians and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai as maids. Amid
growing outrage, the app was taken down, and four suspects were
arrested last week. The fake auctions that were shared widely on
social media are just the latest examples of how technology is
being used – often with ease, speed and little expense – to put
women at risk through online abuse, theft of privacy or sexual
exploitation.
For Muslim women in India who are often abused online, it is an
everyday risk, even as they use social media to call out hatred
and discrimination against their minority community. <When I saw
my picture on the app, my world shook. I was upset and angry
that someone could do this to me, and I became angrier as I
realised this nameless person was getting away with it,> said
Khan, who filed a police complaint against the first app, Sulli
Deals, another pejorative term for Muslim women. <This time, I
felt so much dread and despair that it was happening again to my
friends, to Muslim women like me. I don’t know how to make it
stop,> Khan, a commercial pilot in her 30s, told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation. Mumbai police said they were investigating
whether the Bulli Bai app was <part of a larger conspiracy>. A
spokesperson for GitHub, which hosted both apps, said it had
“longstanding policies against content and conduct involving
harassment, discrimination, and inciting violence.
<We suspended a user account following the investigation of
reports of such activity, all of which violate our policies.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/10/india-bulli-bai-app-auction-muslim-women-tech-weaponised-abuse
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