WORLD

Expatriates in New York rally against Jamaat

Expatriate Bangladeshis have rallied in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York seeking executions for all convicted war criminals and a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party.

The protesters submitted a memorandum to be forwarded to the UN Secretary General for his attention.

Imran H Sarker, Spokesman for the Ganajagaran Mancha in Shahbagh, has expressed solidarity with the protest by phone and requested them to continue their movement until the demands are met.

Bangabandhu Parishad’s US unit President Dr Nurunnabi coordinated the teleconference with Imran.

The rally kicked off around Sunday noon (local NY time, early Monday Dhaka time). The whole area was rocked by the independence time slogan ‘Joy Bangla’.

Bangladesh witnessed the beginning of an unprecedented mass uprising, led by youths, on Feb 5 after Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. Many people felt the sentence was ‘too light’ for the ‘Butcher of Mirpur’. Demonstrators initially limited their protests in capital Dhaka’s Shahbagh intersection, but it ultimately spread across the country and abroad.

At the beginning of the rally in New York, Bangladesh’s national anthem was sung and recitations from all religions followed. Saimon Hossain administered the oath taking of those gathered.

Students of various colleges and universities took part in it.

Various platforms of expatriate Bangladeshis joined the rally. Expatriates from Boston, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Atlantic City and New York joined the rally with placards and banners.

Many had Bangladesh’s national flag wrapped around their heads.

17.03.2013

Swiss tourist gang-raped in MP: police

The attack on Friday night in Madhya Pradesh comes three months after a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was gang-raped and beaten in a moving bus and thrown bleeding on to the street in a case that sparked outrage in the country. She died later in hospital in Singapore.

One woman is raped every 20 minutes in India, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. But police estimate only four out of 10 rapes are reported, largely due to victims' fear of being shamed by their families and communities.

The Swiss woman and her husband were touring the state by bicycle and were camping overnight in the forest.

Seven men attacked the couple in their tent and four of them raped the woman, Dilip Arya, deputy inspector general of police, told Reuters. They also stole their valuables.

The woman has since been discharged from hospital, he added. No arrests have been made.

After the physiotherapy student was raped and beaten in Delhi last December, millions took to the streets demanding the death penalty for her attackers and official action to reduce the number of assaults on women.

Four men and a juvenile are on trial for that attack. A sixth defendant, who police say was the ringleader, was found dead in his cell on Monday.

UN body agrees on women's rights policy

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A UN policy-making body agreed upon a declaration Friday urging an end to violence against women and girls despite concerns from conservative Muslim countries and the Vatican about references to women's sexual and reproductive rights.

Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, Nigeria and Sudan, along with Honduras and the Vatican, expressed reservations about the declaration of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, but did not block adoption of the 18-page text.

While the declaration of the commission, created in 1946 for the advancement of women, is non-binding, diplomats and rights activists say it carries enough global weight to pressure countries to improve the lives of women and girls.

"People worldwide expected action, and we didn't fail them. Yes, we did it," Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile and head of UN Women, which supports the commission, told delegates on Friday after two weeks on negotiations on the text.

Shannon Kowalski, director of advocacy and policy at the International Women's Health Coalition, said the declaration was a victory for women and girls, but could have gone further to recognize violence faced by lesbians and transgender people.

"Governments have agreed to take concrete steps to end violence," she said. "For the first time, they agreed to make sure that women who have been raped can get critical health care services, like emergency contraception and safe abortion."

Earlier in the talks Iran, Russia, the Vatican and others had threatened to derail the declaration with concerns about references such as access to emergency contraception, abortion and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, activists said.

A proposed amendment by Egypt, that would have allowed states to avoid implementing the declaration if they clashed with national laws, religious or cultural values, failed. Some diplomats said it would have undermined the whole document.

But on Friday, Egypt's delegation said it would not stand in the way of the declaration for the sake of women's empowerment. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Islamists had warned on Thursday that the declaration could destroy society.

'FREE OF FEAR'

The United States welcomed the declaration but lamented that references were not made to lesbian and transgender women and that the term "intimate partner violence" was not used to capture the range of relationships in which abuse can happen.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice last week boasted that all 50 US states have laws treating date rape or spousal rape as equal to that of rape by a stranger. In contrast Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood decried the idea of allowing women to prosecute their husbands for rape or sexual harassment.

Last year, disagreements over sexual and reproductive rights issues prevented the commission from agreeing upon a declaration of a theme of empowering rural women. The commission was also unable to reach a deal a decade ago when it last focused on the theme of ending violence against women and girls.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said states now had a responsibility to turn the 2013 declaration into reality.

"Violence against women is a heinous human rights violation, global menace, a public health threat and a moral outrage," Ban said in a statement. "No matter where she lives, no matter what her culture, no matter what her society, every woman and girl is entitled to live free of fear."

Germany's UN Ambassador Peter Wittig said the declaration was balanced and strong. "It sends a much-needed message to the women around the world: your rights are crucial," he posted on Twitter.