(HERALD ZW) President’s tough stance against rapists hailed
September 20, 2013
Herald Reporter —
Women and child rights groups have solidly endorsed President Mugabe’s tough stance against rapists, saying it was a significant step in the fight against the vice. Co-ordinator of Katswe Sistahood, Talent Jumo said the call by the President for stiffer penalties against rapists highlighted the urgent need for the formulation of clear national strategies that would help deal with the crimes which were rampant in the country.
“Cases of sexual abuse should not be tolerated and the punishment must be severe,” she said. “We support and applaud our President for calling for stiffer penalties to stop the abuse children and women.”
“We are very happy to be receiving attention at such a high level and we are glad that the President raised concern over the rape issue. At least we know we have someone who recognises the pain we as women have been going through.”
She said Zimbabweans should rally behind the President and support moves to enact laws that see rapists being castrated.
President Mugabe early this week underscored the need to impose stiffer penalties like castration to stem rising cases of rape in the country.
Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children director, Mr Taylor Nyanhete hailed the President for sparking debate on rape and for showing his grave concern over the crimes.
“We support the President and we believe that when he called for such an action to be taken, he was raising a point that enough is enough. Rape cases are on the rise and the President has a point,” he said.
“Since these perpetrators take delight in destroying the future of these young women and children, a harsh punishment like castration is the only way to deliver a message that will get through to them. All other means have failed to end the crimes.”
Other organisations said castration was the way to go but said that efforts needed to be made to educate and raise public awareness.
“Though punishment is the right way to go, we also need to protect the welfare of our children by educating the public on the importance of valuing our children and respecting their rights,” a child rights activist said.
The President warned the public that harsher sentences would be imposed on rapists as the Government intensified efforts to combat the crime.
Labels: RAPE, ROBERT MUGABE, TALENT JUMO
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(BLACK AGENDA REPORT) Memo to the International Criminal Court: Put Up or Shut Up About Not Targeting Africans
Tue, 06/04/2013 - 10:12 — Mark P. Fancher
by Mark P. Fancher
Is the International Criminal Court guilty of “international racial profiling”? The ICC has managed to indict only Africans for crimes against humanity, “while ignoring numerous civilian deaths caused by U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan and other crimes committed by non-Africans.”
Memo to the International Criminal Court: Put Up or Shut Up About Not Targeting Africans
by Mark P. Fancher
“It is important to determine the U.S. role, if any, in the commission of these crimes.”
The U.S. military has been blamed for training Congolese soldiers who raped scores of civilians in the little village of Minova. As a consequence the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) now has a new opportunity to dispel the widely-held belief that the court’s mission is to target only Africans and to ignore the crimes of imperialists. Many would likely be shocked if the ICC prosecutor were to investigate and interrogate any U.S. military personnel who trained the soldiers who committed the rapes.
The ICC was presumably established to pierce the sovereign shields that have historically protected soldiers and government officials – including heads of state – from efforts to hold them individually responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and criminal aggression. The fantasy of a U.S. president standing before the court having to answer for imperialist crimes may never become reality. That’s because unless a country has signed on to the “Rome Statute” (the treaty that created the International Criminal Court) that country is usually beyond the court’s reach.
President Clinton had reservations about the court, but he nevertheless took the first step toward signing on. President Bush later withdrew from the court altogether. Since then, the International Criminal Court has indicted a substantial number of African government officials while ignoring numerous civilian deaths caused by U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan and other crimes committed by non-Africans. Some have characterized this as international racial profiling, and it has caused considerable resentment throughout Africa.
“It has been reported that the soldiers were drunk and openly planning to engage in mass rape.”
Acknowledgment that the U.S. provided training to soldiers involved in the wanton, mass rapes adds another dimension to these crimes. A special United Nations human rights report says that at least 135 women were sexually assaulted by members of Congo’s army as troops fled from a battle with the M23 rebel group. Reuters news service quoted a U.N. official as saying:
“We do know in the U.N. which are the two battalions [involved in the rapes]. Interestingly, one of them was trained by the Americans – that’s what the American ambassador himself told me.”
It has been reported that U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) also acknowledged that the U.S. trained a Congolese light infantry battalion in 2010.
The UN report says: “Some of the human rights violations documented in this report may, as a result of their type and nature constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined by Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute…” It remains to be seen whether there will be an ICC investigation of these crimes, and if so whether it will delve into the U.S. connection.
If Congolese soldiers are prosecuted, it is important to determine the U.S. role, if any, in the commission of these crimes, even if the prosecutor concludes that in this case the U.S. is not subject to ICC jurisdiction. This is because Article 28 of the Rome Statute provides in relevant part that a military commander “or person effectively acting as a military commander shall be criminally responsible for crimes…committed by forces under his or her effective command and control…as a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly over such forces…”
“An honest criminal investigation demands at a minimum that AFRICOM answer questions about a battalion that it trained.”
The court’s perspective on these crimes could be significantly affected by evidence of what these soldiers were ordered to do – or not do. It has been reported that the soldiers were drunk and openly planning to engage in mass rape. Were AFRICOM advisors on the ground with the troops, and did they know any of this? If so, did soldiers infer from the conduct of these advisors or other commanders that there was a green light to commit the crimes?
It may well be that AFRICOM personnel were nowhere near the scene of the crimes, and they had no direct knowledge of what happened. But an honest criminal investigation demands at a minimum that AFRICOM answer questions about a battalion that it trained. If AFRICOM personnel were not on the ground monitoring these troops, given past experiences with trainees and client soldiers who have gone rogue in Mali, Libya and elsewhere, U.S. military advisors should have known the risks of leaving such soldiers unattended. An impartial prosecutor should be willing to ask these hard questions without fear or hesitation. The Obama administration, which claims that it has moved the U.S. from hostility to “positive engagement” with the ICC should be willing to allow military personnel to answer the prosecutor’s questions.
In response to the pointed assertion that the ICC will not try British prime ministers or U.S. presidents, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said: “…our job is not to violate the due processes of law or to pick on individuals, as to who to prosecute or who not to prosecute. The office of the prosecutor is there for all the 121 States Parties, acting in full independence and impartiality.” If that is true, it’s time to put up or shut up. Even if in the end there is a determination in this case that an indictment of U.S. military personnel is not legally permissible, there are many Africans who would find it gratifying to – for at least one time – see AFRICOM confronted, interrogated, publicly exposed and made to squirm.
Mark P. Fancher is an attorney who writes frequently about armed conflicts in Africa. He can be contacted at mfancher@comcast.net.
Labels: HUMAN RIGHTS, ICC, RAPE
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Nawakwi wins rape threat case
By Abigail Chaponda in Ndola
Sat 02 Feb. 2013, 12:30 CAT
CHIEF resident magistrate Collins Lundah yesterday convicted former UPND national youth chairman Joe Kalusa and fined him KR10,000 for threatening to organise cadres to gang rape FDD leader Edith Nawakwi.
And in an interview after Kalusa's conviction, Nawakwi said it was sad that women in Zambia were regarded as weaker vessels.
Kalusa was charged with one count of threatening violence.
Matters before court were that Kalusa, 40 on September 14, 2012, allegedly issued the threat in Ndola to the effect that he would organise cadres to "gang rape" the opposition leader.
Kalusa had vowed to organise UPND youths on the Copperbelt to 'gang rape' Nawakwi in order to teach her to respect married men like UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema.
His threats were issued after due to Nawakwi's criticism of Hichilema in the media.
In passing judgment, magistrate Lundah said out of the KR10,000, five thousand should be given to Nawakwi as compensation.
He said the KR10,000 should be paid within three days in default nine months imprisonment.
Lundah said he regarded every woman as his mother, sister and daughter, and that women should be respected.
He said that insulting a woman was as good as insulting one's mother.
"Politicians should always remember to talk about issues and not insult each other. Talk about issues that are affecting people and not who has children with who and who is having sex with who. Use civil language to each other and not insults," he said.
And Nawakwi said many children, women and grandmothers were being abused and threatened with permanent injuries where they live or at their work of places.
"I wish to commend the magistrate, he has set precedence. He has written the law that shall be followed from on onwards. Up until this point, our menfolk did not realise that verbal violence is a criminal offence under the Penal Code," she said.
Labels: CADRES, COURTS, EDITH NAWAKWI, JOE KALUSA, POLITICAL VIOLENCE, RAPE, UPND
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Kalusa vows to set UPND cadre rapists on Nawakwi
By Abigail Chaponda in Ndola
Mon 17 Sep. 2012, 10:20 CAT
FORMER UPND national youth chairman Joe Kalusa has vowed to organise party youth on the Copperbelt to 'gang-rape' FDD leader Edith Nawakwi "to teach her to respect married men like Hakainde Hichilema".
Kalusa, who angrily stormed Post offices in Ndola on Friday, said Nawakwi was a bigger 'pig' and did not have respect for men.
"The last time Nawakwi called our president HH, 'Kadansa'; we tolerated her. Today she has called our president a pig; we will not spare her this time around. She has made a very big mistake by calling our president a pig," he said.
"We are going to organise UPND youths on the Copperbelt to gang-rape Nawakwi in order to teach her to respect men like our president HH. She has gone too far."
Kalusa said Nawakwi should not be mudslinging people when she knew she had issues to sort out.
He said Nawakwi should behave like a mother and set good examples to her children by respecting men.
Kalusa, however, asked that the story be withdrawn because Copperbelt security officers called to question him on his statement before it was published.
"Where have you seen a person being interrogated before a story comes out? This is not good. Office of the President here in Ndola called, asking me if it was true that I was going to organise youths to gang-rape Nawakwi. So I think just drop the story," said Kalusa.
Reacting to Hichilema's verbal attacks on her, Nawakwi said Hichilema was "a male chauvinist pig who belongs to the dust-bin of the Stone Age".
Hichilema on Wednesday described Nawakwi as a hired gun of the PF, who seemed to have run out of meals to cook in the kitchen, adding that she should confine herself to the kitchen and stop attacking him.
"This girl Nawakwi, who is saying 'Hakainde has done this, Hakainde has done that...' What has Hakainde done? Nawakwi, the hired gun for the PF. That is all she is," said Hichilema. "It's too much of this Nawakwi. Please if you have run out of what to cook in the kitchen, go and look for something at the market."
Labels: EDITH NAWAKWI, JOE KALUSA, RAPE, UPND
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Court denies Chinese charged with indecent assault bail
By Mwila Chansa-Ntambi in Luanshya
Fri 02 Dec. 2011, 13:30 CAT
LUANSHYA magistrate Chitundu Nanyangwe Kalungu has refused to grant bail to four Chinese nationals accused of indecently assaulting under-age girls in Luanshya. This is in a case where the four are separately indicted for indecent assault on females contrary to the Laws of Zambia.
Chinese nationals Zhu Xiaujin, Hongping Liu, Zhang Daliu and Yang Ciang Qiang are all accused of indecent assault. They all denied the charge.
The accused persons through their lawyer from Nkana Chambers applied for bail pending trial in line with section 123 of the criminal procedure code cap 88 of the Laws of Zambia.
The lawyer, a Mr Chali, submitted that the accused persons were all of fixed abode and that granting them bail would in no way prejudice the prosecution. He submitted that the accused were willing to abide by all the bail conditions that the court would impose and that they were capable of raising sureties.
But the state objected on grounds that the accused persons may leave the country.
But Chali stated that the fact that the accused persons were not Zambians did not disqualify them from getting bail.
In her ruling, magistrate Kalungu said there were no sufficient grounds to admit the accused persons to bail at present.
She said much as the defence said the accused were willing to surrender their passports, different travel documents could be arranged for the accused by their embassy.
"If for instance different names are used to obtain travel documents, port of exit officers at Zambian ports would be none the wiser," she noted.
Magistrate Kalungu added that while the accused were of fixed abode, it can be agreed that they were not ordinarily resident in Zambia.
She added that it was not known under which circumstances the accused persons were employed.
Magistrate Kalungu therefore denied to grant the accused bail for the aforesaid reasons and granted them leave to appeal to the High Court.
Trial was set for next Monday.
Labels: CHINESE, COURTS, RAPE
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C0MMENT - One rape is one too many. However, if you do the math, if this number is somehow representative nationwide and throughout the year, 124 girls in 12 days, that is 10.333 per day, or 3772 per year. Zimbabwe has a population of 13 million, I presume that 6.5 million are women. So the random odds of being raped are 3772/6.5 mn, or 0.058%. Which isn't even 1/10th of one percent of all women in Zimbabwe. Just in case someone wants to spin this into an excuse to invade Zimbabwe.
124 girls raped in 12 days countrywide, say police
Friday, 16 September 2011 02:00
Freeman Razemba Crime Reporter
ONE-hundred-and-twenty-four girls were raped in the first 13 days of this month countrywide as the crime rate soars, police have confirmed.
Police say murder cases rose from three per week to 12 during the pe-riod.
According to police statistics, be-tween September 2 and 13 this year, 25 murder cases and 18 armed robberies were recorded. Chief police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvu-dzijena yesterday confirmed the emer-ging trends.
"These cases were recorded be-tween September 2 and 13 this year and we are concerned by this sudden increase where we recorded 25 murder cases, 18 armed robberies and 124 rape cases of juveniles," he said.
Snr Asst Comm Bvudzijena attributed some rape cases to negligence by guardians and parents who left juveniles in the custody of relatives and strangers for long periods.
"It is at this particular time that these girls are raped in most cases by persons who are known to the relatives. We appeal to the courts to mete out deterrent punishments to those convicted of such offences," he said.
Snr Asst Comm Bvudzijena said the highest number of rape cases were recorded in Harare, Midlands and Mashonaland East provinces.
On the 25 murder cases, Snr Asst Comm Bvudzijena said the level was unprecedented as normally four cases were reported a week countrywide.
"But this has multiplied three times the normal average per week. Mostly, some of these cases could have been avoided," he said.
Police attributed the surge in murder cases to drunkeness, petty arguments and economic hardships with people fighting over amounts ranging from US$1 to US$10.
He urged people to seek counselling from relatives or the police.
Harare recorded the highest number of armed robberies with nine, Bulawayo and Mashonaland East recorded two each, while Midlands, Manicaland, Masvingo, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central had one each.
The police spokesperson said robbers were targeting mostly taxis which then they use to commit crimes.
He urged businesspeople to desist from keeping large amounts of cash at home or their business premises.
Some thieves masquerade as police officers when approaching their targets.
"Even if they are wearing police uniform, they should ask for the police identification particulars, which shows the face of the officer, force number, rank, name, date of birth and international registration number," Snr Asst Comm Bvudzijena said.
Labels: RAPE, WAYNE BVUDZIJENA
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COMMENT - 'Claime officials' is not the same as doing a large scale survey.
10 raped on SA border daily: officials
Desperate plunge ... Zimbabweans wade across the Limpopo River on their way to South Africa
by Staff Reporter
24/05/2011 00:00:00
AT LEAST 10 Zimbabwean women are raped DAILY while making the perilous journey across the border into South Africa, refugee and health groups operating on the border said on Monday.
Despite South Africa’s easing of travel restrictions for Zimbabweans, police say thousands still risk their lives by using illegal entry points – largely because they have no money to obtain passports.
The result is that women and children entrust their lives to strangers who promise to ease their entry into South Africa, only to turn around and abuse them.
On occasions, it’s the men who are sodomised, an official from the Musina-based United Refugee Centre for Girls and Boys (URCGB) said in an interview.
“We handle more than 50 Zimbabweans visiting our centre every day and of these people, the majority are women. You will find that at least 10 of them would have been raped and mugged, translating to about 300 women, including children, who are raped every month at the border,” said Jacob Matakanye, a board member of the URCGB.
He added: "When our counsellors interview the victims, you find that some of them were gang-raped by armed people who also rob them of their belongings such as clothes and money.
“These incidents are very traumatising because some of the victims are elderly women who are raped in front of their children and spouses.
“In some cases, men are also forced to rape people they would be travelling with.”
Matakanye’s organisation has established a help centre in Musina, but he says the two nurses working at the centre, who also double up as counsellors, are struggling to cope.
The international health volunteer group Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) said it was treating at least 20 women victims every month.
“Some of the rape victims are as young as 13, and we also treat men who have been sodomised along the border. A majority of the rape victims, including men, sustain serious wounds and cuts,” said Christie Mwongera, the group’s project co-ordinator.
Mwongera said they estimated that tens more rape victims never report the attacks, and if they do, it is usually too late to provide adequate care, especially where sexually-transmitted diseases have been passed on.
MSF has established Sexual and Gender Based Violence clinics in the border towns of Musina and Beitbridge to offer trauma counselling and promote HIV-Aids awareness.
Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi, the South African police spokesman for Limpopo Province, said the lifting of visa restrictions for Zimbabweans had not eased the flow of illegal immigrants.
"We continue to urge people to desist from using illegal crossing points as they are putting their lives at risk,” he said.
The South African government estimates that there are over two million Zimbabweans living there, more than half of them illegally. Last year, South African officials called on Zimbabweans to regularise their stay by applying for work permits, and close to 300,000 were approved.
Over the last 20 years, South Africa has been a favourite destination of Zimbabweans fleeing economic problems and political violence back home.
Labels: BORDERS, RAPE
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Assange besieged: Making a mockey of real crime of rape
by Israel Shamir & Paul Bennett
07/12/2010 00:00:00
THE plot thickens as our favorite hero of the Matrix; our own “Captain Neo” Julian Assange, faces danger yet again. When we last parted company with the legendary founder of WikiLeaks, he was breathing a sigh of relief after dodging spurious double-rape charges. The complaints were dropped, and our hero was free to roam the globe once again.
But soap opera plots are repetitive; the story was quickly recycled and now our brave captain is again under threat of being castrated on Stockholm’s Stora Torget, or whatever the latest craven penalty is for molesting sacred Nordic virgins in a land where Vikings once ruled.
In other words, the farcical rape charges have once again been leveled against the Pentagon’s Public Enemy Number One. Julian Assange now stands accused of: (1) not calling a young woman the day after he had enjoyed a night with her, (2) asking her to pay for his bus ticket, (3) having unsafe sex, and (4) participating in two brief affairs in the course of one week.
These four minor charges, worthy of Leopold Bloom’s mock trial in the Nightown chapter in Ulysses, have been shaken and fermented until they were able to cook up a half-baked rape case! Step down Iran; Sweden takes the cake! While Iran is notorious for unyielding conservative sentences against adulterers, Sweden shows us what the liberal side of the coin looks like as she invents criminal charges for failing to telephone and for careless use of preservatives in consensual acts of affection. Worse, they are purposely conflating consensual sex with rape for political purposes. In this, Sweden makes a mockery of the very real crime of violent rape.
The Swedes have a practical reason behind their deceptively slapstick police-work. The WikiLeaks founder, pursued by malevolent forces around the world, sought momentary relief beneath Sweden’s reputation as a bastion of free speech. But the moment Julian sought the protection of Swedish media law, the CIA immediately threatened to discontinue intelligence sharing with SEPO, the Swedish Secret Service. That got the present right-wing government out of its chair, as it does everything it can to bury the Prime Minister Olof Palme’s legacy of careful neutrality.
The suspicion of whether the rape farce is an orchestrated campaign, might be illuminated by these facts: (1) Sweden sent troops to Afghanistan, (2) Assange’s WikiLeaks published the Afghan War Diary which exposed this cruel and needless neo-colonial campaign. Furthermore, the expected release of new secret materials by WikiLeaks might just influence the general elections on September 19. Perhaps that explains the sudden police raid on a WikiLeaks server.
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An American Tea Party website the RightwingNews.com suggested that “a CIA agent with a sniper rifle rattle a bullet around [Assange’s] skull the next time he appears in public as a warning”. Rest assured that the CIA is wiser than the Tea Party. They at least have learned the lesson of Che Guevara. Nowadays they ruin a rebel’s reputation instead of wasting a bullet. They won’t raise Assange up to become a martyr, they simply use his own erstwhile allies to reduce him to a laughing stock. They stain him with opprobrium.
It is much more certain and final than the marksman’s shot. History is witness to their growing efficiency in using this tactic. In the 70’s, they could only bring themselves to say that Philip Agee was a womanizer and a drunkard. Nowadays they do not stint at charges of pedophilia, for example to humiliate Scott Ritter for failing to go along with George W Bush’s charade of Iraqi WMD. As you might expect, the rape campaign against Assange might be just an initial volley. Perhaps they will decide he is a pedophile too. The unspoken threat is enough to send some faint-hearted supporters of WikiLeaks scurrying for cover.
The bullet can always come later, once the victim has been successfully isolated by the smear campaign. The Gospels tell us that hardly anyone followed Jesus to Golgotha, though just a week earlier the people of Jerusalem hailed Him with hosannas. A Jewish anti-Gospel explains that this was the result of a successful smear campaign managed by Judas, a surprisingly modernist reading for an early medieval story.
For a smear that really sticks, you need to get it from an ex-apostle. An accusation by a Caiaphas does not impress. If you are targeting a leftist, hire leftists. For example, Trotskyites were willing and useful tools against the Communists. Pseudo Anti-Zionists are currently being used to hamstring a genuine Pro-Palestinian movement. Who are the Judases of this campaign against our Julian?
* An anonymous group claiming to be “Wikileaks insiders” uploaded a new site full of “revelations” about Assange’s past and present, claiming he lives in luxury in South Africa on donated funds – though he appears almost daily in Swedish media and police reports.
* Another ex-apostle is the Icelander politician Birgitta Jonsdottir, who is misrepresented as a “Wikileaks spokesperson”. She called on Assange “to step down” and leave Wikileaks to drift without his guidance – as if WikiLeaks is somehow separate from Assange.
* The pseudo-progressive organization Reporters Sans Frontières attacked Assange for endangering the lives of innocent American secret agents in Afghanistan. Despite its ‘leftist’ terminology, RSF is a private organization drawing funds from US government sources aiming to destabilize Cuba. It is connected to Cuban émigrés in Miami.
* Anna Ardin (the official complainant) is often described by the media as a “leftist”. She has ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups. She published her anti-Castro diatribes (see here and here) in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Misceláneas de Cuba. From Oslo, Professor Michael Seltzer points out that this periodical is the product of a well-financed anti-Castro organization in Sweden. He further notes that the group is connected with Union Liberal Cubana led by Carlos Alberto Montaner whose CIA ties were exposed here. Note that Ardin was deported from Cuba for subversive activities. In Cuba she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro group Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White). This group receives US government funds and the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is a friend and supporter. Wikipedia quotes Hebe de Bonafini, president of the Argentine Madres de Plaza de Mayo as saying that “the so-called Ladies in White defend the terrorism of the United States.”
However we do not have to accept the single-bullet theory. Life is more complicated than that. In addition to her anti-Castro, pro-CIA streak, Anna Ardin apparently indulges in her favorite sport of male-bashing. A Swedish forum reports that she is an expert on sexual harassment and the male “master suppression techniques”. Once, as she was lecturing, a male student in the audience looked at his notes instead of staring at her.
Anna Ardin reported him for sexual harassment because he discriminated against her for being a woman and because she claimed he made use of the male “master suppression technique” in trying to make her feel invisible. As soon as the student learned about her complaint, he contacted her to apologize and explain himself. Anna Ardin’s response was to once again report him for sexual harassment, again because he was using the “master suppression technique”, this time to belittle her feelings.
Ardin is apparently involved with a “Christian” Social-Democrat group. The Swedish church has a precious few male priests: what was once the struggle for female equality has ended up with men being effectively removed from service. Nowadays very few Swedish male-female couples marry in the church, or get married at all; most Swedish gay couples, however, are proud to become “man and wife” in the church. This is all good news for wealthy Swedes: deserted churches sell their properties (once enjoyed by the community) to be fenced off by the nouveau riche created by the latest privatization wave. So much for Swedish social democracy!
The second accuser, Sofia Wilen, 26, is Anna’ friend. Here is a video of an Assange press conference where one can see the girls together. Those present at the conference marveled at her groupie-like behavior. Though rock stars are used to girls dying to have sex with them, it is much less common in the harsh field of political journalism. Sofia worked hard to bed Assange, according to her own confession; she was also the first to complain to police. She is little known and her motives are vague. Why might a young woman (who shares her life with American artist Seth Benson) pursue such a sordid political adventure?
The brilliant Israeli writer Gilad Atzmon describes, in his funny novel My One and Only Love, how the secret services employ young ladies for honey-traps. Is this the case here? Perhaps it is nothing more than a case of gold digging. New legislation, in Sweden and all over Europe, has made men extremely vulnerable to extortion scams of this sort.
A young Swedish woman, 26 (her name withheld) succeeded in winning over a million dollars during the course of one vacation in Greece, as reported by the Daily Telegraph. She complained of being raped. Four men were arrested, their names disclosed, and their jobs jeopardized. She went back home a millionaire, her sacred identity safely preserved. Her success begs imitation: according to an EU report, Sweden has twenty times more rape complaints than were generated by the hot-blooded Italians. Most are dismissed right away, and justly so.
Rape is a horrible crime, and it should not be stretched to encompass minor misdemeanors and moral failings (like the failure to give an encouraging phone call the next day). Tellingly, when the complainant’s advocate was asked why the young women were unsure whether they were raped, he replied: “They are not lawyers”. Rape (like murder) is a crime that one needs no lawyers to understand. Rape is a capital crime: if the rape charges are proved false, then certainly the complainant should be charged with criminal defamation.
As for Julian Assange, we need him. We need our captain Neo, whether chaste or womanizer, in order to uncover the secret doings of our governments behind the Matrix. For our own sakes, we must all do our part to protect him from castrating feminists and secret services alike.
This article was originally published on www.counterpunch.org. Israel Shamir can be reached atadam@israelshamir.net
Labels: JULIAN ASSANGE, NEOLIBERALISM, RAPE, WIKILEAKS
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Five Kabulonga Boys pupils in court over homosexual acts
By Mwala Kalaluka
Mon 20 Sep. 2010, 15:30 CAT
According to facts before the court the five boys allegedly used to take the boy in question to the Ablution Block at the boys’ school or some vantage between Kabulonga Boys and Kabulonga Girls schools and made him suck their private parts before subjecting him to anal sex.
The five juvenile boys pleaded not guilty to the offence, which is contrary to section 158(1) of the Penal Code as read with Amended Act number 15 of 2005, before Lusaka magistrate Mwaka Mikalile.
Particulars of the offence in the matter are similar in respect to three of the boys, except for two, but the complainant in the matter is the same in all the five counts.
Particulars of the offence in respect of three of the boys, who cannot be identified as they are juveniles, state that on unknown dates but in January 2010 in Lusaka while in a public place namely Kabulonga Boys High School Ablution block did commit or procure an act of gross indecency with a male child of the same sex.
In the case of one of the boys, the particular of offence read that on unknown dates but in November 2009 in Lusaka while in a public place between Kabulonga Boys High School and Kabulonga Girls High School did commit or procure an act of gross indecency with a male child of the same sex.
The statement of offence for another boy read that in June 2010 at Kabulonga Boys High School Ablution Block, he did commit or procure an act of gross indecency with a male child of the same sex.
The five boys, aged between 16 and 18 and accompanied by a group of relatives, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Before their case was called into court, the five were respectfully seated on a bench outside the courtroom waiting for their turn in the dock.
The court then set October 7, 2010 as date for commencement of trial.
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, RAPE
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