Category: Violence

NSW State Election 2019 : The GCA Position – Gun Control Australia

Our world-leading gun control laws are being undermined as a result of decades of pressure from the well-funded and powerful gun lobby.  Nowhere is this more evident than in New South Wales, where the total number of registered firearms has just broken through the 1 million mark – meaning there is now one gun for every eight NSW citizens.

NSW laws breach the National Firearms Agreement – the landmark pact all states and territories signed up for after the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre – 11 times.

Source: NSW State Election 2019 : The GCA Position – Gun Control Australia

‘We are now free’: Yazidis fleeing Isis start over in female-only commune

In Jinwar, north-eastern Syria, a pioneering group of women are rebuilding their lives away from the constraints of patriarchy

The women’s revolution, as it is known, is a significant part of Rojava’s philosophy. Angered by the atrocities committed by Isis, Kurdish women formed their own fighting units. Later, Arab and Yazidi recruits joined them on the front lines to liberate their sisters.

Source: ‘We are now free’: Yazidis fleeing Isis start over in female-only commune | World news | The Guardian

Brazil: four women killed every day in 2019, human rights body says

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on country to implement strategies to prevent and prosecute femicides.

With a population of more than 200 million, Brazil has only 74 shelters for victims of domestic violence, according to Human Rights Watch.

In Brazil, those women killed are often shot dead in their own homes at the hands of current or former boyfriends who have a history of domestic abuse, the IACHR said.

“The commission notes with concern that in most cases, the murdered women had previously denounced their aggressors, faced serious acts of domestic violence or suffered previous attacks or attempted homicides,” the IACHR said.

Femicides are not an “isolated problem” but reflect “sexist values deeply rooted in Brazilian society”, the IACHR said.

Source: Brazil: four women killed every day in 2019, human rights body says | World news | The Guardian

Why incels are a ‘real and present threat’ for Canadians

Criminologists and sociologists are sounding the alarm over extreme and violent internet subcultures that include incels, saying the threat they pose isn’t being taken seriously enough.

“It’s about their proprietary violence, that they think they have some sort of inborn inherent right and privilege to access women and women’s bodies and so that is the bit that animates them,” Barbara Perry, a criminologist specializing in hate crime at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, told The Fifth Estate.

And while Perry said she’s tracked 120 instances of alt-right violence in the last 30 years in Canada, during the same period there were seven incidents of Islamist-inspired extremism.

“I think that really puts in context what the risk is.”

Source: Why incels are a ‘real and present threat’ for Canadians | CBC News

To counter Women’s Wall, Ayyappa Jyothi volunteers line up with lamps across Kerala

On Wednesday, thousands of people, including a large number of women, were seen lighting lamps along several stretches that connected north and south Kerala, in an apparent political message to the Kerala government. The Sabarimala Karma Samithi, backed by the BJP, organised Ayyappa Jyothi, an event to counter the Kerala government’s Women’s Wall, which is an attempt to raise awareness about the LDF government’s stand on the Sabarimala case and to counter the Sangh Parivar’s protests against women entry to the shrine.

Source: To counter Women’s Wall, Ayyappa Jyothi volunteers line up with lamps across Kerala | The News Minute

Unafraid of backlash, 30 Chennai women prepare for journey to Sabarimala

Months after the Supreme Court of India allowed the entry of women between the ages of 10 and 50 to enter the Sabarimala temple in Pathanamthitta district in Kerala, not a single woman in the ‘menstrual’ age bracket has entered, thanks to violence and protests from Hindutva groups. However, on Sunday, news broke of a group of Chennai-based women, who have planned to make the journey, despite the threats and violence faced by women devotees and journalists over the last couple of months.

Source: Unafraid of backlash, 30 Chennai women prepare for journey to Sabarimala | The News Minute

‘Most dangerous place’ for women is inside their own home, UN study says

More than half of female murder victims last year globally, were killed by their partners or family members a new United Nations study has reported.

Source: ‘Most dangerous place’ for women is inside their own home, UN study says

Red Dead Suffragettes: When violence against women is reflected in our culture

The video of an in-game attack on an “annoying feminist” is a prime example of how endemic male rage against political women is in every aspect of our culture.

On 28 October, 2018, the YouTube channel of “Shirrako” uploaded a gameplay video from hugely popular cowboy videogame Red Dead Redemption 2, showing the player’s avatar punching a woman into unconsciousness, under the title “Beating Up Annoying Feminist”. Shirrako had almost 500,000 subscribers and the video quickly gained over 1.5 million views.

This “funny moment” Shirrako seems so blasé about, was so gratifying to them that a number of other videos of their attacks on the suffragist were uploaded over the next few days; “Annoying Feminist Fed To Pigs”, “Annoying Feminist Fed to Alligator”, “Dropping a Feminist To Hell” and “Trolling Feminist NPC Until She Gives Up”. This is an attack repeatedly played out, over and over again in different ways, with clearly identifying markers connecting the historical virtual world to our present. It has one message: watch me abuse, beat and brutalise this feminist.

Source: Red Dead Suffragettes: When violence against women is reflected in our culture

Daughters burnt alive with mother who failed to produce son

Manoj Chaurasia, Patna and Hugh Tomlinson for The Times write:
A mother has been burnt alive with her two young daughters by relatives in eastern India after she failed to bear her husband a son.
Bihar is one of India’s poorest states and discrimination against girls remains rampant. The gender balance averages 916 women for every 1,000 men, according to official records. In some districts, the figure for women slips below 900.
Determining the sex of a foetus was banned across India in 1994 to halt the widespread practice of aborting females, but it is still a thriving covert business and improvements in prenatal technology have made it easier to break the law. A United Nations report in 2013 detailed a steady decline in India’s gender balance, to 919 girls for every 1,000 boys. Some states have been caught inflating female birth rates to disguise their ratios.
Elsewhere in Bihar, a newborn girl was buried alive by her parents this week but found and saved by villagers after several hours in the shallow grave. Others have not been so lucky; there has been a spate of murders of baby girls in recent months.
Sachindra Narayan, a social scientist, said: “This shows the deep-rooted social bias. In a patriarchal society like Bihar, boys are still considered superior to girls as they are known as natural inheritors of family property.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/daughters-burnt-alive-with-mother-who-failed-to-produce-son-j0bnvlhdg

Modi’s temple protest turns to riot after India revokes ban on women

Hugh Tomlinson for The Times writes:
Women attempting to enter one of India’s holiest Hindu temples for the first time thanks to a court order were driven back by a mob this morning while hardliners pelted police with stones as tensions continued to rise over the judicial decision.
“We are ready to die . . . Come what may, we will not allow women to enter Sabarimala,” said P Ratnamma, a woman leading a group of female protestors. Like many at the site, she has threatened to kill herself at the temple gates if women are allowed inside.
Hindus consider menstruating women “unclean” and they are commonly barred from religious sites and rituals. The ban on women entering Sabarimala is cherished because the ruling deity there, Lord Ayyappa, is considered to be celibate.
The Supreme Court removed the ban last month. “Religion cannot be the cover to deny women right to worship,” Chief Justice Dipak Misra said in his last major judgment before retiring. “To treat women as children of a lesser god is to blink at constitutional morality.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/riots-outside-temple-after-india-revokes-ban-on-women-vr3wtz8gn