SACW - 23 Jan 2013 | Bangladesh: ICT First Verdict / Sri Lanka: dictatorial path / Pakistan: Maulana Qadri and Cricketer Khan / Pakistan - India: Warmongering / India: Hindutva Terror; Dhule Riots; Muslim and Hindu Right Set to Disrupt Jaipur Lit Fest / World more dangerous with fewer girls

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Tue Jan 22 17:05:16 EST 2013


South Asia Citizens Wire - 22 January 2013 - No. 2767
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Contents:

1. Bangladesh ICT Verdict in Abul Kalam Azad Case - Full Text of the Judgment
 - Verdict answers some questions (Julfikar Ali Manik and Tuhin Shubhra Adhikary)
 - Bangladesh war crimes trial: Key defendants (BBC)
 - Why should we celebrate this verdict? (Mahfuz Anam)
 - Turkey's and India's Islamists have been campaigning for defense of the fundamentalists on trial in the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal
2. And then they came for the judges - Sri Lanka shuffles further down the path to dictatorship (Banyan)
3. Pakistan: Why Maulana Qadri and Cricketer Khan can’t save Pakistan (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
4. Civil society statement condemns attempts to subvert democracy and Constitution in Pakistan
5. Pakistan: Negotiate with the TTP? (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
6. Lies about the nukes: Interview with Pervez Hoodbhoy
7. Pakistan - India: Warmongering Tit for Tat
(i) Caving In (Editorial Indian Express)
(ii) Beware The Dogs Of War (Nirupama Subramanian)
(iii) The Lines of Control (Karan Thapar)
(iv) Pakistan - India: End The Hostilities On The Line Of Control
(v) Quelling border clashes with Pakistan (Praful Bidwai)
(vi) Frothing at the Mouth (Editorial, EPW)
8. India: retrograde views about women - select editorials
9. Selected Posts on Communalism Watch
- India: Pawns In, Patrons Still Out!!: The Strange Trajectory of Investigations in Cases of Hindutva Terror by Subhash Gatade
- The Forgotten Carnage of Bhagalpur by Warisha Farasat
- Independent Fact Finding report on on Dhule Riots in Maharashtra (2013) 
- SC Issues Notice to Gujarat Government (Zakia Jafri v/s Narendra Modi) - Press Release Citizens for Justice and Peace 
- Karnataka: Political Arithmetic of Yeddyurappa's 'Secularism' (Shivasundar) 
- Muslim Right and Hindu Right Set to Disrupt Jaipur Literature Festival 
- The Killing Fields of Assam: Myth and Reality of Its Muslim Immigration by Vani Kant Borooah
- Hindutva extremists planned to target Justice Sachar 
- Brainwashed to defend patriarchy: Wisdom on women from a Rashtriya Sevika Sangh camp 
- When Hinduism meets the internet (Vinay Lal)
- Akbaruddin Owaisi and other hate-mongers - Editorial, EPW 
10. A Letter From The Finnish Humanist Union - Support Sanal Edamaruku

International: 
11. 11. Why the world is more dangerous with fewer girls (V. Rukmini Rao and Lynette Dumble) 
12. Iraqi Women Seek a New Liberation (Karlos Zurutuza)
13. Colluders in sexual violence: don't let them off the hook (Rebecca Johnson)
14. Mali: Islamists Should Free Child Soldiers (Human Rights Watch)
15. 'Muslim Patrol' vigilantes force London women to cover up (PTI)
16. Egypt: Keeping FGM on the run? Between Resolution and Constitution (Margot Badran)
  
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1. BANGLADESH ICT VERDICT IN ABUL KALAM AZAD CASE 
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Full Text of the Judgment 
http://tinyurl.com/at4t4y6

VERDICT ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS
Julfikar Ali Manik and Tuhin Shubhra Adhikary
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=266154

BANGLADESH WAR CRIMES TRIAL: KEY DEFENDANTS
The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan in Dhaka profiles some of the key defendants in the first trial in Bangladesh of crimes allegedly committed in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
http://tinyurl.com/a8g8jqs

WHY SHOULD WE CELEBRATE THIS VERDICT?
Because it helps us to understand what Bangladesh is supposed to be
by Mahfuz Anam
http://tinyurl.com/bfmmxmf

[See also: 

TURKEY'S AND INDIA'S ISLAMISTS HAVE BEEN CAMPAIGNING FOR DEFENSE OF THE FUNDAMENTALISTS ON TRIAL IN THE BANGLADESH INTERNATIONAL CRIMES TRIBUNAL

http://www.radianceweekly.com/340/9918/investigating-acts-of-terror-towards-adopting-unbiased-approach/2013-01-06/ultimate-success/story-detail/lets-hail-turkish-presidents-move-and-follow-suit.html

A Sham Trial and Mockery of Justice in Bangladesh
http://www.radianceweekly.com/338/9835/a-sham-trial-and-mockery--of-justice-in-bangladesh/2012-12-23/cover-story/story-detail/a-sham-trial-and-mockery-of-justice-in-bangladesh.html ]

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2. AND THEN THEY CAME FOR THE JUDGES - SRI LANKA SHUFFLES FURTHER DOWN THE PATH TO DICTATORSHIP
by Banyan
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Jan 19th 2013 | From the Economist print edition

HIS foes accuse Mahinda Rajapaksa of many sins during his seven years as Sri Lanka’s president. They blame him for the savagery that cost so many civilian lives as his army defeated the rebel Tamil Tigers in 2009. They bridle at how he has carved up the government among his brothers, like a thriving family-run conglomerate. They resent the amendment of the constitution pushed through in 2010 to remove the limit on his tenure of two six-year terms, and to give himself legal immunity and the final say in appointments to the civil service, the judiciary and the police. And they suspect his regime of connivance in the beatings, disappearances and murders that have been used to intimidate critics in the press and elsewhere.

Nothing, however, seems to have caused such outrage among liberals in Colombo, the main city, as the decision by his government to impeach and sack the chief justice, Shirani Bandaranayake. Writing in the Sunday Times, a Sri Lankan newspaper, after government supporters had raucously celebrated the impeachment outside the chief justice’s house on January 11th, Kishali Pinto Jayawardena, a legal activist, turned to the words of Mark Antony in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” to express her fury, lamenting “judgment fled to brutish beasts”. Sri Lanka, she claimed, had “entered its darkest phase since independence”.

This is surely over the top. Sri Lanka’s history has had some very black spots. Besides the vicious 26-year civil war waged by the brutal Tigers, Sri Lanka endured years of terror from a Sinhalese-Marxist insurgency in its south and was among the worst-hit victims of the devastating tsunami of December 2004.

The impeachment of Mrs Bandaranayake, in contrast, was a bloodless tussle of constitutional interpretation. Even the hysterical warnings of a constitutional crisis seemed a little overblown. Just a few days later it began to look more like a minor squall briefly interrupting the Rajapaksas’ ascent to the sunlit uplands of untrammelled power. Although Sri Lanka’s lawyers have almost unanimously rejected Mrs Bandaranayake’s impeachment and regard her replacement, Mohan Peiris, as an illegitimate government stooge, she did not force a confrontation by turning up to work on January 15th. Her entry to the Supreme Court would have been blocked by the police. She also moved her belongings out of the chief justice’s official residence, saying her life was in danger. Deprived of a figurehead, her disgruntled colleagues and supporters did not know where to turn.

The alarmists are quite right, however, that the affair has done perhaps irreparable damage to the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. The ostensible cause of Mrs Bandaranayake’s impeachment was alleged corruption. She was found guilty of interfering in a case involving a company that had sold a flat to her sister, of not declaring bank accounts and of failing to resign when her husband, as chairman of a state-owned savings bank, faced bribery charges.

She and her supporters, however, see her troubles—and the farcically unfair hearing she was given—as political, stemming from court rulings the government did not like. In particular, the Supreme Court insisted on amendments to an anti-poverty bill that was set to confer great powers on the minister of economic development, the president’s brother Basil.

Constitutionally, the legislature has the power to impeach the chief justice. That it did so is partly the fault of the Supreme Court itself. After the 2010 election, it ruled that an opposition party could not sack members who had crossed the floor of Parliament to join the government coalition. Since Sri Lanka has a system of proportional representation, this seemed perverse. But it gave the government the two-thirds parliamentary majority it needed to ram through its objectionable constitutional amendments—and to impeach the chief justice.

This month, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the impeachment process was unconstitutional. Since it has the sole power to interpret the constitution, that should have been the end of the matter. Instead, Parliament and the president have flouted its authority. They have put the executive branch above the law. It is not just the Colombo intelligentsia that is appalled. Foreign watchdogs, the Commonwealth, and America, Britain and Canada have all voiced alarm.

In the short term, the government can probably get away with it. The president still basks in the popularity of a man who won the war and ended the fighting. Concerns about the way he did so are seen as squeamish foreign bleats. And the economy is forecast to grow by nearly 7% in each of the next five years. The lawyers who this week flew black flags and blew out symbolic candles will lack supporters in Sri Lanka’s villages.

In the long run, however, trashing the rule of law has costs. International criticism, centred since 2009 on the failure to give any serious accounting of possible war crimes, now has another angle: the integrity of Sri Lanka’s democracy. Already, in Canada, for example, politicians are calling for a boycott of the Commonwealth summit to be held in Colombo in November. Foreign investors, too, may worry that the legal system has become, in effect, an arm of government.

Judge not, that ye be not judged

The administration’s supporters have likened Mrs Bandaranayake’s impeachment to that of the Philippines’ chief justice last year. That was seen as both proving the anti-corruption credentials of the president, Benigno Aquino, and removing an obstacle to his reforms. But they may also have had in mind activist judiciaries closer to home. India’s has intervened on issues ranging from forest conservation to bus fuel. More tellingly, Pakistan’s has seen off one dictator, Pervez Musharraf, and just this week ordered the arrest of a prime minister of an elected government. Their Sri Lankan colleagues must envy them.

Economist.com/blogs/banyan

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3. WHY MAULANA QADRI AND CRICKETER KHAN CAN’T SAVE PAKISTAN
by Pervez Hoodbhoy
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Pakistan has two angry messiahs, the Maulana and the Cricketer. Both are men of fine oratory — the former being more gifted. They promise to kick wicked leaders out of government, reward the righteous, and deliver a new Pakistan. Before a coup-plagued nation that has spent many decades under military rule, they preach to adulating under-30 crowds about the corruption of the present rulers. But neither dares to touch Pakistan’s real issues. Both are careful to castigate only the corruption of civilians; there is nary a word about the others.
http://www.sacw.net/article3550.html

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4. CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT CONDEMNS ATTEMPTS TO SUBVERT DEMOCRACY AND CONSTITUTION IN PAKISTAN
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Civil Society representatives addressed a press conference against threats to democracy at Karachi Press Club on Thursday. Dr. Kaiser Bengali, a senior economist; Noor Mohammad, President Pakistan Workers Confederation Sindh; Dr. Tipu Sultan of Pakistan Medical Association (PMA); Ms. Mahnaz Rahman of Aurat Foundation and Ms. Saleha Ather of Network of Women Rights. On the occasion they released the statement of civil society, which is endorsed by people from various walks of life.

http://www.sacw.net/article3548.html

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5. PAKISTAN: NEGOTIATE WITH THE TTP?
by Pervez Hoodbhoy
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If Pakistan is to be at peace with itself, the army must stop seeing everything through the prism of competition and war with India. To prosper, Pakistan must overcome its hatred for India and leave Kashmir as a problem to be solved by Kashmiris. Muddled thinking has left Pakistan exhausted and indifferent to its own suffering. The notion in army circles that Pakistan’s civil war is transient, and will disappear if unnamed string-pullers stop their mischief, is delusional — this war will be long and bitter. The military must limit itself to defending the people of Pakistan from violence and to ensuring that their constitutional and civil rights are protected. It must cease posturing as the defender of ideological frontiers. Our army must become Pakistan’s army, not an army of God.
http://www.sacw.net/article3549.html

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6. LIES ABOUT THE NUKES: INTERVIEW WITH PERVEZ HOODBHOY
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Edited by physicist and noted intellectual Pervez Hoodbhoy, ‘Confronting the Bomb: Pakistani & Indian Scientists Speak Out’ (Oxford University Press) hit the stalls recently. A collection of essays on the issue of nuclear race in South Asia by eminent Pakistani and Indian scientists, ‘Confronting the Bomb’ brings forth nuclear debate in a manner that bucks the mainstream discourse in both India and Pakistan. In this issue, Viewpoint discusses nuclear issues with book’s editor Pervez Hoodbhoy and two of its contributors, Zia Mian and M.V. Ramana.

http://www.sacw.net/article3551.html

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7. Pakistan - India: Warmongering Tit for Tat - commentary
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(i) EDITORIAL: CAVING IN
The Indian Express - Jan 17 2013

The ugly incidents on the Line of Control, by no means the first, are unsettling and coarsening the discourse on Pakistan, while the UPA government stands by, and succumbs. Over the past few days, as an increasingly jingoistic clamour has been worked up in television studios and outside, the government has passed up every opportunity to underline the imperative of keeping the bilateral dialogue process separate. Its passivity may now be allowing the belligerent chorus to undercut one of its few undeniable achievements — a substantive running conversation with Pakistan. Instead of defending the process, acknowledging the complexities of Pakistan’s current situation and the necessity of greater economic integration in the long run, the UPA is itself seen to be caving in daily, resorting to a more blustery vocabulary. And so it happens that Pakistani hockey players in Hockey India League (HIL) have been asked to return home, and the Pakistani women’s cricket team will not be invited to the world cup beginning in India next month. While the Shiv Sena, unsurprisingly, has congratulated itself on “banishing” the Pakistani players, it is the government that allowed intimidatory tactics to hold sway. It would do well to pause and consider the long-term costs — to the dialogue process between the two countries, and indeed, to its own image — of a weak-kneed response to Sena-style brandishing of muscle and venom in a delicate India-Pakistan moment.

In its best and mature version, the larger bilateral project has stressed on richer cultural and sporting ties that can endure and survive the occasional diplomatic lows. After a 15-year lull, normal cricket ties between India and Pakistan were revived in 2004, the result of a deliberate effort. They have helped in shoring up and stabilising the conversation between the two countries since. Be it Musharraf’s 2005 visit for a match, which provided the tailwind for talks on Kashmir, or the world cup semifinal in Mohali that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Zardari watched together, cricket diplomacy has found resonance on both sides of the border.

Letting Pakistani sportspeople, performers and business delegations feel unwelcome in India, or compelling them to go back, is unwise and counterproductive. This is not a moment for India’s political leadership to pander to the irresponsible and the belligerent. It is a moment for statesmanship and unwavering focus on the larger goals.

o o o

(ii) BEWARE THE DOGS OF WAR
by Nirupama Subramanian 
The Hindu, January 17, 2013

If our politicians cannot defend the ceasefire, the biggest gain of the India-Pakistan dialogue, they should stop claiming they represent Kashmir’s best interests

The killing of two soldiers on the Line of Control, and the gruesome manner in which Lance Naik Hemraj met his end, have shocked and anguished all Indians. But in all that has been said by political leaders and by the men in uniform, there is a strange omission. Not one of them has yet thought it important to stress that despite the violations, how vital the ceasefire has been to changing lives on the ground for people living on both sides of the LoC — the Kashmiris that both India and Pakistan claim to speak for, and whose best interests both nations claim to represent — and what a crucial anchor it has been for peace efforts in the region over the last decade and therefore how important it is to secure it.

‘10 for one’

Instead, on the Indian side, there has been talk about the need to get “10 heads for one;” about India having “other options;” about how the Indian Army will not remain “passive” to provocations. But what is truly sad is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has been a determined votary of better ties with Pakistan, and once spoke about “breakfast in Lahore and lunch in Kabul” has now started competing with BJP leader Sushma Swaraj in playing to the gallery. His statement that it “cannot be business as usual with Pakistan” is — word for word — a throwback to the Mumbai attack.

But it is also useful to recall that after those famous last words in 2008, the two countries came back to the table as realisation dawned on India that talks it had to be. Back at the table, both sides set up a framework with much difficulty, and even managed some forward movement. It seems no lessons have been learnt from that experience. Reminiscent of the Mumbai aftermath, on the Indian side, sporting contacts, and the visa-on-arrival-scheme have been the immediate casualties.

On the Pakistani side, the politicians and the military have been too preoccupied with the bombings in Quetta, Karachi and Swabi, protests and Tahir-ul Qadri. But they threw the U.N. card at India and also suspended two main confidence building measures on the ceasefire — the cross-LoC bus service and cross-LoC trade, directly hurting the Kashmiris.

Ask the people of Kirini, a village on the LoC in Poonch, what they make of this sudden downturn in their fortunes. It was only two years ago that the Indian Army tentatively allowed residents of this village to return to homes and lands they were forced to leave eight years earlier. They were not just in the cross-fire; security forces also suspected that the village, divided in 1947, was being used as a haven by infiltrators from across the border.

‘Cluster colony’ of villagers

When a group from Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation, a think-tank that works on India-Pakistan issues, visited them in 2007 at the ‘cluster colony’ to which they had been relocated, Kirni villagers told them that they trekked everyday to their village to work on their lands. It took them about one-and-a-half to two hours. The barbed wire fence, which came up on the LoC in 2004-05 further divided the village, leaving most of the houses and the land ahead of the fencing. Villagers were let in through a gate in the fence that opened once at 9 am and, again at 4 pm, by which time, people had to wind up their day’s chores and leave. The women would cook in their homes at Kirni during the day, and carry the night meal back, over slippery pathways, to their one-room tenement in the cluster colony. Everyone had to be back in the colony before dark.

In April-May 2011, in view of the ceasefire holding well, the Indian Army allowed Kirni’s residents to return to their village. Kirni was the pilot of a model rehabilitation plan. If it went well, and there were no incidents, 20,000 people of other villages along the LoC would be rehabilitated too; most of them were.

If India and Pakistan do not stop the tough talk and the shelling, it’s back to the future for these people, and by extension for everyone else in J&K. In Uri sector in Baramulla, people in villages close to the LoC are demanding that the government either construct bunkers for them or give them money to do it themselves. The bunkers that the villages used to have apparently collapsed during the 2005 earthquake, but as the ceasefire was going well, no one gave thought to reconstruct them.

From South Asia Terrorism Portal, a website with an exhaustive list of security-related incidents in the sub-continent, here is a snapshot of what it could look like if bunkers really became urgent and necessary: in two months, from September 26 to November 27, 2000, India counted 611 killed on the LoC. Of these, 119 were of military personnel, and 151 were civilians. The website classifies the remaining dead as “terrorists”. As many as 136 military personnel were injured; among civilians, the number of injured was higher — 153. This was just from localised hostilities at the LoC, not an all out war.

Compare this with post-ceasefire casualties: no incidents until 2006; in July 2009, Defence Ministry A.K. Antony told the Lok Sabha that 110 incidents had taken place along the ceasefire since it came into being in 2003; on the Indian side, four soldiers and two civilians had been killed.

Semblance of normality

The CDR group that visited the LoC in 2007 heard in village after village that people were finally sleeping well, not in a metaphorical sense, but quite literally. That the ceasefire also helped Kashmiris on either side connect after more than five decades of Partition, through travel and trade, was the icing on the cake. All this gave Kashmiris a semblance of normality after more than five decades of living in a war zone. If the ceasefire, the biggest achievement of the India-Pakistan dialogue of the last 15 years, is something that our politicians cannot summon up the backbone to defend, they might as well stop talking about Kashmir.

As the numbers show, both sides have violated the ceasefire on plenty of occasions, and there have been arguably bigger incidents. In July 2008, Shiv Shankar Menon, who was then the Foreign Secretary, told journalists right after meeting his Pakistani counterpart, that the ceasefire at the LoC was under strain. That year, there were 77 violations. Last year, there were 117.

Despite a solid system to ensure that such violations are resolved immediately, it seems as if this time, there was a deliberate absence of will to use this mechanism to its entire capacity. The meeting between the field commanders did not last even 15 minutes.

Track Two dialogue

At a recent edition of the Chaophraya Track Two dialogue — it brings together specialists from various fields, some of them former government officials, for a candid exchange on India-Pakistan issues — some Indian participants warned that if there was to be another terrorist attack on Indian soil with a Pakistani fingerprint, “all bets would be off,” and it was therefore in Pakistan’s interests to dismantle the terror infrastructure for the talks to go ahead — who could have seen a month ago that the danger would come from a ceasefire violation on the LoC. But most participants, Indians and Pakistanis, were emphatic that the two countries must insulate the gains of the dialogue process — such as trade and visas — from such incidents, or else there was no point in expending resources to make some progress, only to be dragged down, and then have to start all over again.

Securing the ceasefire and the rest of the peace process is more important than at any other time. 2014 is not just the year of the next general election in India. It is also the year by the end of which the United States would have withdrawn most of its troops from Afghanistan. What happens there, and the rest of the region after that will depend much on India and Pakistan, and the state of their bilateral relations. Despite its internal troubles, Pakistan has its eyes fixed on the Afghan ball, and is already involved in efforts for a political deal with the Taliban. Given the stability in India-Pakistan relations over the last year or so, until last week, this would have been a good time for a frank discussion between the two countries on Afghanistan, and for New Delhi to highlight its own concerns, how it sees its own role in bringing regional stability. Instead, we are back to staring down each other, which can only bring more bad tidings in a post-2014 situation. For the next government in New Delhi, there can be far more pleasant ways to begin an innings.

To borrow a term from the medical profession, we are in the middle of what doctors call the Golden Hour, the first hour after a road accident, in which there is a possibility of setting things right for the victim. Get it wrong now, and it can only get worse from here.

o o o

(iii) THE LINES OF CONTROL
by Karan Thapar
Hindustan Times, January 19, 2013
The beheading of an Indian soldier on the LoC and the mutilation of another were undoubtedly unacceptable and unpardonable. This was barbaric behaviour. The anger and revulsion it’s provoked is understandable. There’s no denying that. However, there’s one question we need to ask but
mainly failed to raise. Have we ever been guilty of similar behaviour ourselves?
From what I can tell the answer seems to be yes.
http://tinyurl.com/b9bebz9

(iv) sacw.net - 16 January, 2013
PAKISTAN - INDIA: END THE HOSTILITIES ON THE LINE OF CONTROL PETITION TO END TENSIONS AT LOC

To,
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari,

Dear Sirs,
We, the people of Jammu and Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control, have been observing with great concern the escalation of tensions at the LoC that have been building up gradually since June 2012 and have suddenly taken an ugly turn since the first week of January, 2013.

[The full list is close to 200 names see: http://www.sacw.net/article3534.html]

(v) QUELLING BORDER CLASHES WITH PAKISTAN
by Praful Bidwai
Indian and Pakistani militaries must be compelled to behave in a responsible, restrained and civilised fashion across what’s admittedly a difficult, rough-terrain border with huge troop concentration.

http://www.sacw.net/article3561.html

(vi) Frothing at the Mouth (Editorial, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVIII No. 04, January 26, 2013)
Television news is fast becoming the most dangerous extremist in India's civil society.
http://www.epw.in/editorials/frothing-mouth.html

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8. INDIA: RETROGRADE VIEWS ABOUT WOMEN - SELECT EDITORIALS
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The Times India - Jan 9, 2013 - Editorial

SHADES OF INFAMY: IT IS JUST AS WELL THAT RETROGRADE OPINIONS ABOUT WOMEN ARE OUT IN THE OPEN

How deep the poison of sexism runs in our body politic should be obvious from the outrageous statements of a number of worthies in the wake of the rape and murder of the 23-year-old woman in Delhi. They include leaders of avowedly progressive political parties and unabashedly reactionary ones. The head of a Hindu organisation that claims to promote 'cultural nationalism' has joined the fray as has a Muslim outfit known for its rigid interpretation of Islamic practices. Not to be left behind is a self-proclaimed spiritual guru with a shady past who had the temerity to suggest that the Delhi rape victim would have avoided her tragic fate had she chanted the Saraswati mantra, called her assailants brothers and begged them to protect her!

What these worthies share in common is the dogged belief that women, who, they claim, are in thrall of the materialist and promiscuous culture of the West, are as much to blame for the indignities heaped on them as their tormentors. They invite trouble because of the way they dress and conduct themselves, because of the sexual choices they make and because they lay greater emphasis on their careers than on their responsibilities as wives and mothers. All of this, the argument runs, transgresses divinely-ordained traditions.

Some of these statements are outright bizarre. The home minister of Chhattisgarh, for example, stated that women were under a malefic configuration of stars which explains the high incidence of rape in the country. A khap panchayat leader held that the consumption of fast food — like chow mein — leads to hormonal imbalance heightening in the process the urge to indulge in acts like rape. Others felt that the use of mobile phones, jeans and T-shirts by women are to blame for violence against them. But these views, like those of the RSS, the Jamaat and Asaram Bapu, reveal, to put it bluntly, a warped mind.

They are an assault on the dignity of the individual and an affront to the Indian idea of modernity. They shame us in the eyes of the world and indeed in our own eyes. The only positive spin that one can give them is that they are now out in the open and thus subject to a close and sustained critical scrutiny. The death of the Delhi rape victim has lanced a huge, festering boil on our body politic and for that reason alone she deserves our unstinted gratitude. 

o o o

Indian Express, Jan 08 2013

EDITORIAL: THESE GIVEAWAYS

After years of silence, it’s good that sexist assumptions are now being aired and exposed

Women’s safety and agency have long been considered unworthy of public debate in India. But now, it seems that everyone has something to say — a story, an explanation, a theory. Abhijit Mukherjee’s comment about “dented and painted” protesters was only the beginning. Since then, eminences from every political party and ideological bent have weighed in. Strange alliances seem to have sprouted between men who might disagree on everything else, but share perfect understanding on what a woman’s place should be. The RSS chief would like a return to “Bharatiya” models of marriage, where a woman is a powerless drudge. The Jamaat-e-Islami thinks co-educational schools are the problem. Congress leader Botsa Satyanarayana suggested that the young woman who was gangraped had invited trouble by being out at night, and Asaram Bapu also thinks that she would have been spared if only she had appealed to the rapists, addressed them as “brother”. Meanwhile, over in Puducherry, the education department has decided to tackle the problem by hiding schoolgirls in shapeless overcoats. In Rajasthan, the solicitous solution involved replacing skirts with pants/salwars.

The bad old tropes have all been aired, one by one — blaming the victim, suggesting the problem lay in women’s freedom, their stepping out of the supposed domestic cocoon (itself a site of injustice and violence, a fact scarcely acknowledged). Women’s bodies have been held responsible for tempting men to hurt and violate them. Women’s rights to their cities and public spaces, their right to spend their time as they choose and wear what they like — rights that are automatically, thoughtlessly exercised by men — are being questioned all over again.

But this open season for sexism is also welcome — because each of these ridiculous claims is now being held up to the light. The young people moved to protest after the gangrape, and those who expressed their anger afterwards, made many intemperate points, including calls for hanging and castration, but none of them wanted a solution that impinged on women’s freedoms, imposed curfews, denied them certain kinds of work or pleasure, swaddled them in protective layers. The focus was clearly on the men who did not respect the will of a fellow human being, and a society that makes excuses for such crime. This outpouring has shown up the difference between those who assume a woman’s full and equal citizenship, and those who remain a part of the problem. 

o o o

The Telegraph - January 14 , 2013 | 	
 EDITORIAL: JUST WORDS

Laws against sexual violence hold up a useful mirror to the assumptions of the society that drafts them, and India’s are particularly revealing. For one, it is taken for granted that sexual violence among adults will always be directed at women. Women are victims. This expectation has its own convoluted, if concealed, logic. Victimhood generates associated responses: a victim is wounded, unfit, pathetic, anything but a fighter, a protester, an individual bent on asserting her rights. The assumption that the victim is a woman doubles the timidity, passivity and shame expected of her. At long last, a global rights organization, Amnesty International, has asked for a “gender-neutral” law on sexual violence that shall apply equally to targets of violence irrespective of age, sex, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or appearance. The organization has shrewdly chosen as examples words such as “modesty”, “honour” and “morality” that occur in the wording of laws against sexual intrusion as well as plentifully in the discourse around them.

Such words lay bare the dangerous implications of the laws. Associating ‘modesty’ and ‘honour’ with women exposes the reluctance of this society to punish men for sexual violence, because such words provide loopholes that allow the criminal to get away by suggesting that the victim was not ‘modest’, whatever that may mean, in dress or behaviour. That ‘she asked for it’. ‘Modesty’ and ‘honour’ are control words, drawing the boundaries that women are not supposed to transgress. Amnesty International is asking for a law that will make only the physical and mental torture its focus. But good sense is not India’s forte where women are concerned. So this may or may not work.

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9. SELECTED POSTS ON COOMMUNALISM WATCH
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INDIA: PAWNS IN, PATRONS STILL OUT!!: THE STRANGE TRAJECTORY OF INVESTIGATIONS IN CASES OF HINDUTVA TERROR
by Subhash Gatade (sacw.net - 17 January 2013)

Many office bearers of RSS are also under scanner of the investigating agencies for their alleged involvement in the Samjhauta bomb blast. The NIA (National Investigating Agency) has already interrogated one amongst them. Many have been issued notices also...There are many workers of RSS from Malwanchal who are under scanner of the agency...According to informed sources a senior office bearer of the Kendriya Karyakarini (central executive) of RSS would also be questioned....Rakesh Dubey, a Vibhag Karyavah of RSS has confimed that he has received notice and is cooperating with the investigating agency.

Full Text at: http://www.sacw.net/article3536.html

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THE FORGOTTEN CARNAGE OF BHAGALPUR
by Warisha Farasat

Twenty three years ago Bhagalpur district witnessed one of the worst communal riots in post-independent India. The victims - mainly Muslims - are still struggling, socially and fi nancially. This essay lays out the main fi ndings of the official commissions of inquiry set up to investigate the carnage and interweaves the context of a research study by the Centre for Equity Studies documenting the experiences of victims/survivors in Bhagalpur on justice and reparations, and makes policy recommendations on the framework for reparations for the victims.

http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/the-forgotten-carnage-of-bhagalpur.html

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INDEPENDENT FACT FINDING REPORT ON ON DHULE RIOTS IN MAHARASHTRA (2013) 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/independent-fact-finding-report-on-on.html

SC ISSUES NOTICE TO GUJARAT GOVERNMENT (ZAKIA JAFRI V/S NARENDRA MODI) - PRESS RELEASE CITIZENS FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/sc-issues-notice-to-gujarat-government.html

KARNATAKA: POLITICAL ARITHMETIC OF YEDDYURAPPA'S 'SECULARISM' (SHIVASUNDAR) 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/karnataka-political-arithmetic-of.html

MUSLIM RIGHT AND HINDU RIGHT SET TO DISRUPT JAIPUR LITERATURE FESTIVAL 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/muslim-right-and-hindu-right-set-to.html

THE KILLING FIELDS OF ASSAM: MYTH AND REALITY OF ITS MUSLIM IMMIGRATION
by Vani Kant Borooah
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/the-killing-fields-of-assam-myth-and.html

HINDUTVA EXTREMISTS PLANNED TO TARGET JUSTICE SACHAR 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/hindutva-extremists-planned-to-target.html

BRAINWASHED TO DEFEND PATRIARCHY: WISDOM ON WOMEN FROM A RASHTRIYA SEVIKA SANGH CAMP 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/brainwashed-to-defend-patriarchy-wisdom.html

WHEN HINDUISM MEETS THE INTERNET (Vinay Lal)
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/when-hinduism-meets-internet-vinay-lal.html

AKBARUDDIN OWAISI AND OTHER HATE-MONGERS - EDITORIAL, EPW 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/01/akbaruddin-owaisi-and-other-hate.html


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10. A LETTER FROM THE FINNISH HUMANIST UNION - SUPPORT SANAL EDAMARUKU
===================================
Please write a letter to the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh and urge him to do the needful to get the blasphemy cases against Sanal Edamaruku quashed and ensure his safety.
http://www.sacw.net/article3552.html



INTERNATIONAL:
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11. WHY THE WORLD IS MORE DANGEROUS WITH FEWER GIRLS
by V. Rukmini Rao and Lynette Dumble
====================================
http://tinyurl.com/avwngxr
Sydney Morning Herald - January 17, 2013 

In India and China, where the ratio of men to women is skewed in favour of men, there are higher levels of rape and violent conflict.

There is some optimism emerging from the latest study by the US National Bureau of Economic Research examining the ratio of men to women around the world. The World Bank expressed similar optimism in 2009.

Both institutions are buoyed by the partial reversal of South Korea's skewed child sex ratios, which had peaked in the mid-1990s at 116 boys per 100 girls.
South Korea's restored balance, while retaining a male dominance that remains above the accepted biological range (and with greater imbalances persisting among babies born to older mothers), is attributed to the simultaneous introduction of economic, social and legal initiatives.
Government policies that improved gender equality and promoted awareness-raising campaigns are also credited with fundamentally altering the country's underlying patriarchal norms.
Both institutions also claim that child sex ratios skewed towards males (masculinised ratios) are peaking in China and India. Such a claim is highly debatable, especially in light of India's most recent census of 2011, which signalled that 37.25 million girls were ''missing'' from the group aged 0 to 6 years.

Similarly contentious is the World Bank's claim that the ''missing girls'' phenomenon can be addressed in Asia with ''continuing vigorous efforts to reduce son preference''.

Certainly son preference is a major factor in a world of disappearing girls, but patrilinear mindsets alone could not have brought about the current crisis in female numbers.
Rather, only by acting in tandem with imposed population control programs, increasingly cheap technologies that identify an unborn child's sex, and the availability of abortion that stretches beyond the rule of law, has son preference succeeded in distorting the age-old balance between male and female births, thereby creating a generation faced with an unnatural excess of males.

Throughout human history, a masculinised population has translated into criminal and violent conflict; and contrary to predictions that females would become more valued in their scarcity, a masculinised sex ratio has instead amounted to the increased likelihood of girls and women contending with rape, abduction, bride-sharing, trafficking, forced marriage, and various other forms of violence and discrimination.
Both India and China are proving no exception to past experiences, with a significant correlation between increased crime and the falling female component of the sex ratio in India, and a doubling of crime rates during the recent period of male-dominated sex ratios in China.
Defying widely held impressions, the crime of rape is yet to be officially linked to masculinised sex ratios. Yet, according to 2011 statistics from India's National Crime Records Bureau, rape has been the country's most rapidly growing crime since 1971.
Increasing by a staggering 792 per cent in those 40 years, rape dwarfs the rise in other serious crimes such as murder (106 per cent), armed robbery (27 per cent) and kidnapping (298 per cent).
At the same time, in India's states where the sex ratio is highly skewed in favour of males, the daily reports of rape and gang rape are consistent with notions that a surplus of men, devoid of the feminising influence of sisters, girlfriends and wives, are driven towards committing violent crimes against women.
In fact, it might well be said that to deny the link between the country's masculinised sex ratio and national average of 22 women raped each hour is to live in disgraceful disregard for the lifelong suffering the crime inflicts upon girls and women.
China and India are not the only nations with masculinised child sex ratios.
Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong in Asia, and the east European countries of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Serbia are plagued by decreasing numbers of female births relative to those of male births.
This has significantly distorted ratios of females to males among children aged from zero to six. Most often this is described as gendercide or the killing of specific members of a sect.

But today's skewed sex ratios amount to outright femicide or the killing, specifically, of women.

In fact, were the girl child instead the endangered white rhinoceros, the entire world would be up in arms on her behalf.

V. Rukmini Rao and Lynette Dumble work at the Gramya Resource Centre for Women in Andhra Pradesh, India.

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12. IRAQI WOMEN SEEK A NEW LIBERATION
by Karlos Zurutuza
====================================
Inter Press Service
An interview with Hanaa Edwar, general secretary of Iraqi Al Amal Association and head of the Iraqi Women Network.

BAGHDAD, Jan 16 2013 (IPS) - From full literacy declared in the seventies, Iraq is down to 40 percent literacy for women. From the first woman prime minister and the first woman judge in the Middle East in 1959, Iraq has slipped to a place where an abnormal number of widows struggle, and where child marriages are on the rise. Hanaa Edwar is putting up a fight to win Iraqi women their freedoms again.

Q: What kind of work does your organisation do to protect women rights?

A: Through Al Amal we have been administrating the Iraqi Women Network, an office that promotes outreach amongst local women organisations by enhancing relations with many international organisations as well as involving women in different activities and training courses. One of our biggest achievements has been the Parliament quota thanks to which 25 percent of the MPs are female. Now we’re working on a new campaign in the frame of the Arab Spring to protect personal freedoms.

Q: What are the most pressing problems for Iraqi women today?

A: We represent more than 55 percent of the Iraqi population but we are buried in a society which has been exclusively drawn on male patterns. We cannot see any women leading political blocks or occupying high positions in the government. However, I would say that marginalisation of the local women is due to cultural reasons more than political.

A painful issue is that of the million and a half widows in the country left by the war. Before 2003, Iraq was already full of them but their number increased after the invasion in 2003. They live in very dire conditions and they can hardly make a living with a 100 dollars pension.

Q: Wasn’t Iraq a pioneer country in the region in social development?

A: In 1959 Iraq had the first woman minister and the first female judge in the whole Middle East. One of our biggest achievements that year was the personal status law, according to which marriages would be registered in court. Today a big number of marriage contracts are illegal, so women are left in a very fragile situation because it leads to many legal problems which also affect their children.

Speaking about children, girls are often forced to marry at the early age of 10 or 12 and, today, we even have the ‘temporary marriage’, something which has obviously been imported from Iran. Worrying cases of domestic violence crimes are on the rise amid the government’s total indifference. The government is supporting religious orthodoxy which imposes strict dress codes. Women not wearing hijab – the Islamic veil – are being discriminated against and, what is worse, girls are being brought out from schools and mothers from their jobs.

Q: Is the women quota in Parliament working as expected?

A: There is a representative share of 25 percent thanks to which there are 84 women in the Iraqi parliament. However, most of them got their seats due to their personal affinity with the leaders of the political parties, and not because of merit. It’s doubtless true that, despite the difficulties, there is still a large number of women able to hold these positions with responsibility, but most are relegated to the background.

Q: There’s also a Ministry for Women in the current Iraqi executive. Isn’t it effective either?

A: It’s called the ‘State Ministry for Women’ and there’s a draft law to change it to ‘State Ministry for Women and Family’. This speaks volumes about the role Iraqi women are supposed to play in our society. Anyhow, we are against any sort of ministry for women because we think that women issues shouldn’t be linked with one particular ministry but with society as a whole. Besides, it has very little budget. A Ministry for Women will always be linked to a political party, so what we need is a more independent commission that monitors government policies and empowers programmes to improve women’s lives.

Q: Senior NGOs have recently pointed to a dramatic increase in the number of suicides among Iraqi women. Even cases of female genital mutilation have been reported.

A: The alleged ‘suicides’ often help to hide murders, and help family members to wash the ‘honour’ of the family. And they are committed amid the biggest impunity because they are seen as ‘domestic issues’ by the judicial system. The FGM cases occur in some remote areas of Kirkuk, Suleymania and some parts of Erbil in the Kurdish Autonomous Region. About 70 percent of women have reportedly suffered this aggression in the mentioned areas but hardly any in the rest of the country.

Q: How is sectarian division affecting Iraqi women and the society as a whole?

A: This is a fabricated sectarian hatred which started in 2006 and which has been imposed and boosted from the highest levels to divide and rule through violence and fear. The lack of dialogue between the leading political parties, and the ever growing role of religion is choking our society. Many families won’t let their daughters marry somebody from another sect, and that’s something new in our society.

Q: Next spring will mark the tenth anniversary of the invasion of the country. Can we talk about any social improvement since 2003?

A: It is true that after the invasion we wiped off our isolation in the international arena as well as the taboo over free thinking. Before 2003 you simply could not talk of political pluralism, active civil organisations or any kind of contact with the outside world. But after the invasion and destruction of the country, our borders opened to terrorist groups that added to the local militias, both Shia and Sunni. We are mired in a mess where instability and the lack of security are the only constants. Today we are facing a tremendous political crisis; we have moved from a three-decades long dictatorship to a state which has no effective government.

===================================
13. COLLUDERS IN SEXUAL VIOLENCE: DON'T LET THEM OFF THE HOOK
by Rebecca Johnson [1] 
===================================
Open Democracy - 15 January 2013

Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, recent events within the Socialist Workers Party: all four cases show how socially powerful figures can benefit from a 'culture of collusion' perpetrated by those around them.

How many people knew or suspected that Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith were sexual predators and serial abusers? The recent reports from police and other accounts show that these men's activities were "common knowledge" in some circles. So what sustained decades of inaction and let these persistent abusers carry on with such impunity?

Met police Commander Peter Spindler spoke of Savile having 'groomed a nation' [10]. Seized on by others [11] to explain how so many blind eyes were turned, the notion of Savile grooming the nation should be treated with caution.  The phrase implies that the whole country was a victim of this creepy entertainer's manipulative techniques, which lets those who saw or knew and did nothing - the colluders - off the hook. 

As the police/NSPCC reports on Savile acknowledge, power and status are useful tools for sexual predators.  They undoubtedly knew that most of their victims would be too frightened, confused or ashamed to speak. That is a common reaction to sexual violence: assaulted on such a deep and intimate level, survivors often want to keep it quiet. Some try to make themselves believe that what was done to them was less awful than it actually was; or they blame themselves, as if they caused the abuse by their own fault or naivity.   Rapists and abusers rely on pervasive patriarchal attitudes that mean that the testimony of women and children will be treated as suspect, and many victims will fear the exposure and consequences of going public, increasing the likelihood that they keep quiet.  The more clever and manipulative predators deliberately target people who are less likely to be believed, such as troubled children, youngsters excited by fame, and people in a junior or supplicant position in organisations where the predator holds status and authority.

This explains why many victims keep quiet, but a central question that seems to have been submerged in much of the handwringing and column inches is why so many others who 'suspected' or 'knew' about patterns of abusive behaviour failed to take action.  How many colleagues were aware of inappropriate, predatory or illegal behaviour but chose to look the other way? What really went through the heads of those who knew or heard about an abuser's activities and did nothing or, worse still, suppressed evidence and silenced the victims?  How many of these were in positions of authority or connected in professional or personal capacities with the abusers or the workplaces and institutions that were used to gain access to vulnerable girls and boys?  When considering why predators like Smith and Savile were able to be so confident that they would not be held to account or punished, we have to look at the attitudes of others with relevant influence and authority.  The various reports detail how some investigators played into the abusers' strategies by undermining rather than supporting victims and whistleblowers.  Patterns of abusive behaviour were ignored or overlooked as allegations tended to be treated as isolated, one-off events.  One of Savile's accusers was coerced into silence after being told that lawyers would make "mincemeat" of her.   The most vulnerable - children in institutions, as targeted by Savile and Smith - were even punished for lying.   Such systemic cultures of collusion facilitated the decades of serial abuse.  Despite years of persistent rumours and concerns, how many people who should have rung alarm bells continued instead to give Savile and Smith protection, status, accolades and other benefits?  Such trappings of fame and power help serial abusers to avoid scrutiny and gain greater access and power to abuse more easily.

There may be a number of different reasons why some people choose to collude rather than speaking or acting to expose inappropriate and harmful behaviour that they see or hear about.  Some may be afraid of the consequences of rocking an important boat, while others may enjoy the attention, flattery, friendship and other personal benefits they receive directly or indirectly from their proximity to a famous man.  Several decades after feminists began challenging "casting couch" harassment whereby producers or professors (usually male) considered it a right and a perk to "have" their pick of fledgling students and actors (usually female), the dynamics of power, gender and vulnerability are still manipulated by sexual predators, aided and abetted by colluders who maintain the cultures of impunity that allow serial abusers to feel confident of their power to evade punishment.  Some of Savile's colluders seem to have viewed his crimes as normal for the swinging sixties, "a bit of fun", or even to have admired him for getting away with it.

What of the others who were aware of  Savile's "dark side" and Smith's "predilections" but chose to turn a blind eye?  Some, worse still, sustained them with public awards, facilities and positions that gave them even greater access to their unfortunate prey.  Were these colluders also victims, seduced by the charm or celebrity these high profile, famous men exploited, as implied by the "grooming" explanation?  Were they awed into keeping quiet because "Jimmy" raised so much money for charity and "Cyril" was a "well-respected" MP?  Did they actively collude, or were they just cowards who didn't want trouble, who perhaps felt that they needed first and foremost to preserve their own jobs, institutions or causes?

Some staff reportedly tried to help or protect those in their charge.  They  knew enough to be concerned. Surely they knew that abusing children was not only abhorrent but illegalŠ so how is it that they could not get the perpetrators stopped and brought to justice?  Some apparently tried to blow the whistle, so why did they give up?  Savile and Smith couldn't ensure such silence single-handedly. It appears that at least some who sought to expose them were ridiculed, threatened and bullied by colluders in positions of influence.  If so, these intimidators chose to become accomplices. Through them, the cultures of collusion and impunity were perpetuated at all levels.

Some in positions of authority have justified their inaction by claiming there was insufficient evidence to be sure of getting a conviction.  Yet in these cases there appears to have been more than enough evidence to justify acting to prevent harm to potential further victims.  Even if Smith and Savile denied wrongdoing or tried to turn the tables by accusing their accusers (familiar tactics that they employed with bluster and indignation),  it is now clear that if those in authority had chosen to investigate more seriously, there were plenty of grounds to have cut Savile and Smith off from the positions of power, access and influence that gave them impunity.  Actions to sideline and deny access to the predators could well have encouraged other victims to come forward, thereby providing sufficiently clear evidence for a court to convict.

Last year's scandal involving the French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn illustrates other aspects of collusion by friends and colleagues of high profile abusers. When Strauss-Kahn's arrest for raping a hotel maid in New York went public, it transpired that Strauss-Kahn was widely recognised in certain French circles as a sexual pest and predator.   It is necessary to state that I am not claiming that Strauss-Kahn was guilty of rape in New York, as the case never came to trial. Echoing the reasons police gave for not pursuing charges against Savile and Smith, the New York prosecutors eventually dropped the case against Strauss-Kahn on grounds that the maid, a recent immigrant from Guinea, might not make a believable witness.  However, as stories about Strauss-Kahn's "libertine" obsessions and other alleged assaults and "harassment" of women [12] had been circulating for years in France, there appears to have been a pattern. After he was arrested, some of the "open secrets" went public, and the mother of one, Anne Mansouret, a senior figure in France's Socialist Party, admitted that she'd persuaded her daughter not to tell the police of an attempted rape by "DSK" some years before, in case it might damage the Party.  According to the Guardian [13], although colleagues were well aware of Strauss-Kahn's "rather pathological relationship" with women, they turned an indulgent eye and protected him because he was regarded as a Socialist star and a "bright man with a future".

It is important to recognise how the collusion of patriarchal institutions and sycophantic colleagues enables some abusers to get away with sexual violence all their lives.  Unlike the furtive perverts that expose their penises by school gates,  Savile, Smith and Strauss-Kahn had large egos and were plausible liars and risk takers. As politicians or entertainers they made their livings as fast-talking communicators, exercising means of ingratiation, flattery and charm.  Skilled and manipulative enough to rise up the ranks, they may well have gained extra excitement from their risky behaviour, testing those around them to see what they could get away with. It is arguable that each time they persuaded or intimidated others into silence or collusion their success amplified their belief in their own superiority and untouchability, feeding their pathology and making them bolder and more dangerous.

In our celebrity-obsessed societies these big, confident egos drew others to provide them with access, camouflage and protection, whether wittingly or not. Strauss-Kahn's admirers openly called him a "seducer", a word associated with sexiness rather than abuse of power, thereby distracting from the techniques of manipulation, coercion and aggression employed by such men, who leverage their position, fame, eccentricity, public skills and other attributes to render themselves untouchable. In these high profile cases, the tools that facilitated their abuse included their status and engagement in causes and good works, such as charitable fundraising or political campaigns.

Class, age and power, as well as gender, are major factors in the calculations of sexual aggressors that count on getting away with their crimes.  It is perhaps unsurprising that such people are most likely to be protected in the testosterone-filled competitive worlds of politics, entertainment and diplomacy. That so many colluded isn't about a magical ability to 'groom a nation', but about patriarchal power and the structures, assumptions and prejudices of misogyny.  From casino banking to arrogant politicians and entertainers, patriarchal systems have always rewarded certain kinds of dominant and risk-taking behaviour equated with constructed masculinity.  In her 1979 anthem "Reclaim the Night" [14], Peggy Seeger [15] made the connection between male violence and the "system" that gives "prizes" to those that exploit and trample on oppressed and vulnerable people.  Such prizes may be direct and literal - public awards, knighthoods, high office - or indirect and institutional - Savile and Smith were given public respect and accolades for helping vulnerable teenagers and then appointed to positions in care homes, hospitals, reform schools and other public facilities that gave them special access, thereby facilitating their abuse.

Such prizes and positions provide tools to gain greater access to potential targets. They are also useful for intimidating witnesses and whistleblowers by threatening jobs or legal suits, for example. In addition, these worthy causes and public prizes are often evoked by colluders to justify their own behaviour in enabling the abusers to evade exposure and justice.  While some colluders may be passive because of fear, others may genuinely believe that it is right to say nothing in order to protect a cherished organisation or movement from being attacked by political adversaries.  It is also important to acknowledge that a lot of colluders enjoy the proximity and benefits they can gain from facilitating these important, famous, risk-taking male egos.  Whatever the reasons, however, sacrificing the rights and safety of the vulnerable can never be justified, regardless of whether the perpetrators happen to be socially powerful men or leaders in causes that we support. 

Let's be clear, I am not arguing that people who are accused are automatically guilty.  The point is to bring accusations into the open where they can be properly investigated.  If there is initially insufficient evidence to bring suspects to justice,  it is important - at the very least - to show increased vigilance, limit their access to vulnerable people, and make the environment safer for potential targets than for any abusers.  Such measures are not tantamount to finding someone guilty before trial; each allegation should also be properly investigated - but with due regard for the fact that lying, silencing and bullying are part of abusers' manipulative tactics, which often include isolating, ridiculing and accusing the accusers and witnesses who raise the alarm.

Anyone who thinks it prudent to conceal abuse for the sake of some noble cause or cherished institution needs to learn from recent events.  Sexual predators are willing to risk others as well as themselves.  As the BBC has recently discovered, covering for them will taint and tarnish the institutions they operate in far more than if their abuse is responsibly exposed and addressed, no matter how famous or important they may appear to be.  That is a hard lesson to learn, but people in peace movements and progressive parties need to stop the double standards that justify and collude with sexual violence in our own organisations. As illustrated by recent attempts by Britain's Socialist Workers Party (SWP) [16] to avoid dealing responsibly with allegations of rape by a senior party figure [17],  progressive movements need a clearer understanding of how sexual predators operate, how they choose their targets (which in the case of political parties or movements may well be new recruits or young, idealistic women who want to join, learn and help the cause), and also how they camouflage their abusive behaviour and find colluders willing to turn a blind eye because of their "good work" for "the cause".

If we care about building more democratic, just and participatory movements, then we have to put principles such as diversity, nonviolence, and opposition to sexism, racism and other forms of abusive discrimination into practice. That means not being afraid to challenge and expose the perpetrators and the patriarchal practices that collude with abusive behaviour.  Since evidence of sexual harassment and abuse is often obscured because victims are left too scared to speak publicly, it is important to recognise and act on patterns, signs and signals.  One ugly story may be malicious or unfounded, but it should still be checked out. When someone's name is linked with more allegations or persistent rumours of inappropriate, predatory and coercive behaviour, it isn't a joke.  It's a potential threat. It warrants investigation.  If you don't take these indications seriously you may be perpetuating and colluding in crimes against vulnerable people.  Abusers don't only destroy innocent lives.  If you ignore or enable them, they may also bring you and your cherished cause crashing down.
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[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss-Kahn
[13] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/16/dominique-strauss-khan-arrest-france
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14. MALI: ISLAMISTS SHOULD FREE CHILD SOLDIERS
‘Sending our Innocents to be Slaughtered,’ Witness Says
===================================
Human Rights Watch - January 15, 2013

These Islamist groups have no business recruiting children into their ranks, much less putting them on the front line. These groups seem to be willfully putting scores of children directly in harm’s way. Before the military campaign goes any further, the Islamists should release these children back to their families.
Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch

(Nairobi) – Islamist armed groups occupying northern Mali should immediately release all child soldiers within their ranks and end the military conscription and use ofthose under 18, Human Rights Watch said today. With France carrying out aerial bombardment since January 11, 2013, to block the Islamists from advancing farther south, Human Rights Watch also urged rebel groups to remove children immediately from training bases in or near Islamist military installations.

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch by phone since January 8 – when hostilities between the Islamist groups and Malian army intensified – described seeing many children, some as young as 12, taking active part in the fighting. Witnesses also said that children were staffing checkpoints in areas that have come under aerial bombardment by the French or are near active combat zones. The Islamic groups – Ansar Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – have recruited, trained, and used several hundred children in their forces since occupying Northern Mali in April 2012.
[. . .]
Full text at: http://tinyurl.com/a3ykq4j

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15. 'MUSLIM PATROL' VIGILANTES FORCE LONDON WOMEN TO COVER UP
PTI | Jan 18, 2013, 03.32 PM IST
===================================
http://tinyurl.com/ajfyfov

The men, who operate hooded calling themselves 'Muslim Patrol', have uploaded videos of their exploits on the YouTube, the Daily Mail reported.

LONDON: An Islamic vigilante group has been confronting people in a London suburb asking women to cover up and to give up alcohol claiming they were living an 'unclean life', prompting authorities to clamp down.

The men, who operate hooded calling themselves 'Muslim Patrol', have uploaded videos of their exploits on the YouTube, the Daily Mail reported.

The three-minute video labelled 'The Truth About Saturday Night' has caused a stir online and shows the men walking London's streets and forcing a passerby to put a can of lager away, telling him they are the Muslim Patrol and that alcohol is a 'forbidden evil'.

They are also seen telling a group of women 'they need to forbid themselves from dressing like this and exposing themselves outside the mosque', the report said.

Scotland Yard says it is investigating the case. Muslim groups have, however, condemned them for their hard-line views and approach.

"We live in the UK and we are governed by UK law, there should be no mob rule. If people are involved in this behaviour then it is worrying but it is an isolated incident", Mohammed Shafiq, the chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim organisation which campaigns for a peaceful co-existence among communities, said.

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16. KEEPING FGM ON THE RUN? BETWEEN RESOLUTION AND CONSTITUTION
by Margot Badran
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Al Ahram - 10 Jan 2013

Though the banned practice of female genital mutilation has nothing to do with Islam, Egyptian Islamists look determined to re-legitimise it. The implications for Egyptian women are dire

On December 20 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution against the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).  On December 22 the national referendum in Egypt voted in a new constitution.  What do the resolution and constitution bode for the body politic and female bodies in Egypt?

UN Women called the resolution a “significant milestone” in the global drive to end FGM which has been perniciously imposed on young girls as a local custom and religious prescription. The result of sustained international effort with key input from Egypt, the resolution provides another tool for national governments possessing the political will to eradicate FGM and its assault on the rights of women to bodily health and personal integrity.

The new Egyptian constitution, borrowing from and extending the 1971 Constitution provisions, stipulates that laws must be grounded in the shariaa allocating power to the state and its various branches to determine what this means. With tafsir (interpretation of the Qur’an) in the hands of the government, hermeneutics becomes politics. 

With Islamists now holding major political power how will women fare?  In the National Assembly (now dissolved) Islamists called for the re-institution of FGM which is currently criminalised — along with eliminating a minimum marriage age, extending men’s custody over children, and limiting women’s abilities to enact divorce.  Such a ‘package’ speaks to the strengthening of men’s power and control over women and children with religioon invoked to achieve this end.

Going back millennia in Egypt and other Nilotic lands FGM is a cultural practice that entails cutting the genitalia of young girls in order to mute or extinguish female sexual desire.  It is done to preserve sexual purity of females which is tied to the honor of men and the family (men’s own behavior is exempt from linkage with honor).  While not called for by any religion people have used religion to buttress the perpetuation of FGM imposed on Muslim and Christian girls alike.

 FGM is not an Islamic prescription—it is not mentioned in the Qur’an or in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).  Yet Islam has been wantonly used to sustain FGM’s gruesome assault on girls’ bodily integrity and well-being.  This boggles the minds of those who see Islam as a religion affirming the moral and bodily integrity of all human beings and not one that endorses the infliction of corporeal mutilation and suffering.

Serious efforts to stop FGM go back to the middle of the 20th century when it was prohibited by the Nasser government in 1959.  At the time of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994 national and international energies converged to intensify the FGM eradication campaign. In the run-up to the conference, veteran social reformers Aziza Hussain and Marie Assad established a Task Force which served as a vocal point for groups working in various professional and associational contexts. The highly networked Task Force supported activists reaching out to rural areas coordinating with local efforts to eliminate FGM. 

Intense public exposure elicited contradictory responses from Islamic religious scholars on FGM.  The Sheikh of al-Azhar at the time, Gad al-Haq, declared that female circumcision (as he and other religious scholars called FGM) was a religious requirement.  The Mufti, Muhammad al-Tantawi, issued a fatwa stating that female circumcision was not Islamic. Islamist lawyer Salim Al-‘Awwa wrote in Al-Sha’b that female circumcision was neither required nor praiseworthy. Shaikh Farid al-Wasil (who became Mufti in 1996) wrote in al-Akhbar: “There is no retreat from the previous fatwas on female circumcision issued by Dar al-Fatah which confirmed there are no religious texts within the domain of Islamic shariah which command or prevent female circumcision.” 

In the tumultuous political context in the wake of the ICPD the ban against performing FGM in hospitals was lifted.  When the ban was re-instated in 1996, Shaikh Yusif al-Badri, a member of the Higher Council for Islamic Affairs, and gynecologist Munir Fawzi, filed suits against the new ban. They claiming the ban violated the 1971 Constitution declaring the shariah to be the source of all law in Egypt. They cited the authority of the former Shaikh al-Azhar Gad al-Haq and backed it up with al-Badri’s readings of Islamic jurisprudence.  Reviewing the case the State Council declared in 1997 that the ban did not violate the constitution.  Keeping up the pro-FGM offensive Dr. Abu ‘Umaiyra, a former dean of the College of Usul al-Fiqh at al-Azhar, published an article in 1998 he defiantly titled: “Female circumcision is Legislated by God despite its Prohibition by the Courts.” 

The ongoing efforts of civil society led by NGOs working at the national and local levels were re-enforced by the support of the National Council of Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM, est. 1989) which was stepped up around 2001 after Moushira Khattab became secretary-general. The practice of FGM was put increasingly on the run. At the local level when people grasped more fully grave health risks and understood that religion, neither Islam nor Christianity, condoned FGM which was a harsh social practice they began to stop it and enthusiastically joined the campaign against it.  They turned FGM which had been seen as a badge of honor into an act of disgrace. Uprooting a deep-seated habit requires continual vigilance and encouragement.

Now with the ascendancy of Islamists to power FGM is finding renewed support. People heard Islamist parliamentarians from the floor of the National Assembly last year calling for a return of FGM.  In the run-up to the final round of the presidential elections last spring some members of the Muslim Brothers’ Freedom and Justice Party went around villages offering reduced-rate FGM operations. They were spotted, for example, in Minya Province in the village of Abu Aziz.  When their FGM services drew public attention they abruptly vanished fully aware that that performing FGM was a criminal act and denied any involvement in peddling the practice.

What is the fate of FGM between the new UN resolution and the new Egyptian Constitution?  The global jubilation attending the Resolution is tempered locally by the voting in of the new Constitution and the political context in which it was drafted and approved.  With the new UN declaration will there be another round of discrediting international instruments as “against Islam”?  Will articles of the Constitution be mobilised in an effort to enable—to make lawful—the practice of FGM which respected religious figures, including the present Mufti Ali Goma; previous Mufti Farid al-Wasil (recently appointed to the Shura Council); and Islamist lawyer, Salim al-‘Awa have declared beyond the bounds of Islam? 

What exactly are the procedures and mechanisms for determining if an act, say the outlawing FGM, is in accordance with the shariah?  According to article 4 of the Constitution al-Azhar must be consulted about compliance with shariah (although the scholar experts may differ producing another problem).  If religious scholars uphold the previous pronouncement that FGM is not Islamic and an Islamist dominant parliament votes for allowing FGM then what?   Is the shariaa which is open to various readings, to be a freely sought moral guide and inspiration or merely reduced to a political imposition?

Margot Badran is a historian and Senior Fellow at the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University and a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center of Scholars.

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