Will a Horrific Bus Gang-Rape in Delhi Finally Change India's Culture of Rape?

[Syt]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27631241

India gang rapes: Outrage over police 'discrimination'

There is outrage over police inaction in a village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where two teenage girls were gang raped and hanged from a tree.

The father of one victim said he was ridiculed by policemen when he sought help in finding his missing daughter.

He said when the policemen found out he was from a lower caste, they "refused to look for my girl".

At least three men, including one policeman, have been arrested in connection with the incident.

The victims' families have complained that police had refused to help find the missing girls, aged 14 and 16.

India has numerous castes and divisions among them run deep. Violence is often used by upper castes to assert power and instil fear in lower castes.

Police said two men had been arrested for the gang rape and murder of the two girls, who were cousins from a low caste.

A constable was also detained for conspiring with the suspects and for dereliction of duty, authorities said, adding they were looking for one more suspect and one constable.

"[When I went to register a complaint to the police station about my missing daughter] the first thing I was asked was my caste. When they found out that I came from a low caste, they shooed me away and refused to look for the girls," the father of one of the victims told the BBC.

He said instead of helping him, the police "helped the accused as both were of the same caste".

Though both the victim and the accused belonged to a caste grouping 'Other Backward Classes', the victims were placed lower in the caste hierarchy.

Senior police official Atul Saxena said there would be a "thorough investigation" into the allegations of caste discrimination by the police.

People in Katra Shahadatganj, a village of 10,000 people in Badaun district where the incident took place, say caste "plays an important role in social affairs" in the community.

Rape cases that have shocked India

    23 January 2014: Thirteen men held in West Bengal in connection with the gang rape of a woman, allegedly on orders of village elders who objected to her relationship with a man
    4 April 2014: A court sentences three men to hang for raping a 23-year-old photojournalist in Mumbai last year
    15 January 2014: A Danish woman is allegedly gang raped after losing her way near her hotel in Delhi
    17 September 2013 : Five youths held in Assam for allegedly gang-raping a 10-year-old girl
    4 June 2013: A 30-year-old American woman gang-raped in Himachal Pradesh
    30 April 2013: A five-year-old girl dies two weeks after being raped in Madhya Pradesh
    16 December 2012: Student gang raped on Delhi bus, sparking nationwide protests and outrage

A neighbour of one of the victim said the police "discriminated" against people from the lower castes in the village.

"Even though the police has suspended some constables, the ones who replace them would not be any better, they would discriminate too," he said.

"People from our caste are poor and illiterate and do not get employed in positions of power and influence."

Mr Saxena denied that caste biases played any part in "influencing police behaviour" in the state.

"The police follows its rule book and considers all criminals equal before the law. There might be one or two cases like this one and we will make sure that the culprit doesn't go scot-free," he said.

Austrian ORF quotes the head of the Samajwadi party that rules in Uttar Pradesh. He was campaigning in the recent elections against harsh sentences for rape. "Men are men. Sometimes they make mistakes."

[The Brain]

Sometimes a culture is a little too rich.

[MadImmortalMan]

Maybe police officers should only be recruited from the lowest caste... 

[grumbler]

Maybe police officers should only be recruited from the lowest caste... 

Of course, Untouchables are not the lowest caste.  That's a western myth.






They are so low as to not even qualify as part of a caste.  By Indian standards, they are no more able to claim caste membership than farm animals are.

[Syt]

Austrian news site says the girls lived in a house without a toilet, which is why they had stepped out at night.

Not only does the lack of toilets cause a stink, it also causes rape.

"I hate the smell of poop in the morning. It smells like ... rape!"

[garbon]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/08/indian-minister-rape-remark-anger-violence-women

Indian politician's 'accidental rape' remark adds to rising public anger

A minister from the ruling party of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has said rapes happen "accidentally", amid renewed outrage over attacks against women.

In the latest controversial remarks by a politician, Ramsevak Paikra, the home minister of central Chhattisgarh state, who is responsible for law and order, said on Saturday that rapes did not happen on purpose.

"Such incidents [rapes] do not happen deliberately. These kind of incidents happen accidentally," Paikra, of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which also rules at the national level, told reporters.

Paikra, who had been asked for his thoughts on the gang-rape and hanging of two girls in a neighbouring state, later said he had been misquoted. His original remarks were broadcast on television networks. The remarks come just days after Babulal Gaur, the home minister of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh state, said about rape: "Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong". Gaur made the remarks on Thursday amid growing anger over the gang-rape and murder of the girls, aged 12 and 14, in the northern Uttar Pradesh state late last month.

Modi, whose party came to power in a landslide election victory, has so far stayed silent over the rapes.

India brought in tougher laws last year against sexual offenders after the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi in December 2012, but they have failed to stem the tide of violence against women across the country.

The chief minister in Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, already under fire over his handling of the double gang-rape, accused the victim's families of coming under the influence of a rival political party. Yadav also hinted that his government had taped phone calls between the families and a politician from the Bahujan Samaj party (BSP).

"We have phone records of a BSP MLA [member of the state legislative assembly]  ... The BSP asked them [the families] to return the compensation offered by the state," Yadav told the Hindustan Times in an interview published on Sunday.

The brother of one of the victims dismissed Yadav's claims, saying the family was not "under the influence of any party, including the BSP".

Yadav's father, Mulayam Singh – leader of the Samajwadi party – was the target of public anger in April when he told an election rally that he opposed the recently introduced death penalty for gang-rapists, saying "boys make mistakes". Women's groups criticised the comments as evidence that politicians were unable to stem sexual violence because they lacked respect for India's women and were ignorant of the issues.

The uproar came as police said a 30-year-old Malaysian woman was raped in a car last Thursday in the western state of Rajasthan. The woman was drugged and raped by a man that she had met to discuss business projects – the latest in a series of sex attacks on foreigners in India.

"As she came to us, we rounded up the accused and placed him under arrest. We have seized his car and also recovered a pistol from the vehicle," Amandeep Singh, a senior state police official, told AFP on Sunday.

Earlier this year, a Danish tourist was gang-raped at knifepoint after losing her way in central Delhi.

Politicians also came under fire after the fatal gang-rape in Delhi in 2012, a crime that angered the nation and shone a global spotlight on India's treatment of women. Several politicians have sought to blame the rise in the number of rapes on western influences such as short skirts and tight jeans, while the head of a village council pointed to fast food, which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.

[Valmy]

Several politicians have sought to blame the rise in the number of rapes on western influences such as short skirts and tight jeans, while the head of a village council pointed to fast food, which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.

Poor men.  Forced to rape by the evil West.

[CountDeMoney]

I'll agree about the fast food and hormonal imbalances, though.  After getting some McDonald's french fries fresh out of the basket, I'm ready to drive steel ingots with my cock.

Goddamn, they're good fresh. 

[Grey Fox]

Several politicians have sought to blame the rise in the number of rapes on western influences such as short skirts and tight jeans, while the head of a village council pointed to fast food, which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.

Poor men.  Forced to rape by the evil West.

Eh I agree with him, he's right. Solution is that is damn fucked up society needs to adapt and teaches their young men and women, gender equality.

[Valmy]

Eh I agree with him, he's right. Solution is that is damn fucked up society needs to adapt and teaches their young men and women, gender equality.

So nobody got raped in India before women started wearing western clothes and fast food joints opened up?  They just have a news media who judges them newsworthy now.

[MadImmortalMan]

McDonalds=rape culture!

I knew it!

[CountDeMoney]

McDonalds=rape culture!

I knew it! I'm lovin' it!

[garbon]

McDonalds=rape culture!

I knew it! I'm lovin' it!

I'm embarrassed for laughing.

[jimmy olsen]

Not India, but it is a mass attack on women.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/09/world/egypt-mob-attacks-women/?hpt=hp_t2

Mob sex assaults on women overshadow Egyptian inauguration
By Salma Abdelaziz, CNN
June 9, 2014 -- Updated 2315 GMT (0715 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

    Five women sexually assaulted at Egypt's inaugural festivities, anti-violence group says
    Interior Ministry says several officers trying to rescue women also were wounded
    Police arrest seven men Monday on charges of sexual harassment

(CNN) -- Uniformed Egyptian police pull a woman in nothing but her underclothes from a frenzied mob.

"Get back boy! Get back!" the officers say as one lifts his pistol into the air.

Large patches of skin on the victim appear bloodied and raw as she struggles to walk toward a police van with hordes of men still fighting for a handful of her body.

Moments later, she falls to the ground, naked. Police carry her into the vehicle, seemingly incapable of thwarting the crowd.

In the background, revelers set off fireworks and wave flags to celebrate the inauguration of Egypt's new president.

This is just one of at least five mob sexual assaults that took place in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday, according to the "I Saw Harassment" campaign, which documents sexual violence against women in Egypt. The attack is shown in a less than two-minute viral cell phone video that CNN cannot independently verify, but which activists say appears to match the details of an attack.

"It is shameful that the security leaders of the Ministry of Interior did not take into account any security measures or plans to prevent such incidents," a statement from the "I Saw Harassment" campaign reads. "Junior officers and individuals were left alone to face sexual harassment groups without any tools or plans."

Four of the five victims sexually assaulted in the square required medical attention, the "I Saw Harassment" campaign said. The attacks against them were so ferocious that several officers deployed to rescue the women were themselves wounded by the crowd, according to a statement from the Interior Ministry on Monday.

Police arrested seven men Monday on charges of sexual harassment after two women filed police reports and identified their attackers, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Video of one of the assaults was posted on YouTube and the video is a part of the ongoing investigation, said another official from the Interior Ministry, who was not authorized to speak to the media.

The response by authorities did little to squelch anger on social media channels, where many criticized the authorities and criticized local media for a lack of professionalism.

"They are happy, huh?" Maha Bahnassy said laughingly about the crowd on private network Tahrir TV during a live report on harassment from inside the square. Bahnassy publicly apologized Monday, saying her comments were misunderstood.

Activists said the anchorwoman's jarring remarks appeared part of a general trend by Egypt's pro-military factions to sideline the systemic violence against women in favor of glorifying Egypt's new head of state, former army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

The state-affiliated National Council of Women characterized Sunday night's violence as an orchestrated conspiracy against el-Sisi, saying, "The acts were meant to spoil the joy of Egyptians and their wedding of democracy." The group called on officials to find the "masterminds."

"Every day sexual harassment is a social epidemic affecting everyone, every day. Mob violence is an extreme form of this act that has been normalized by society," said Noora Flinkman, communication manager at HarassMap, a volunteer-based initiative aimed at combating sexual harassment. The group dismissed claims that the attacks were part of an organized political act against the new government.

A 2013 United Nations report from the Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women found that 99.3% of Egyptian women have experienced some form of sexual harassment and more than 82% of female respondents felt unsafe in the street.

The mass attacks come just days after Egypt passed the first law criminalizing sexual harassment, making it punishable by up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of 50,000 Egyptian pounds.

"For a long time harassers have been able to harass with impunity. Now with this amendment to the law it is a good opportunity to take action not just in cases of mob assault but in cases of everyday sexual harassment," Flinkman said. "We are waiting to see what steps the authorities will take."

[Ed Anger]

McDonalds=rape culture!

I knew it! I'm lovin' it!