SILENCE

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  Ex-editor: 'Silence is the threat'

  Posted at 00:30

  Charlie Hebdo's former editor Philippe Val: "Do you know what threatens democracy the most? Silence. To reduce ourselves to silence means that we will lose all we have gained of liberty, freedom for women, for homosexuals, the freedom to come and go as we please, moral freedom.

  "But we must not believe that the Muslims who are today outraged by what has happened cannot understand it. They can understand it. They can understand that today, their religion needs to reform. So that it does not in the heart of the democracy where they have chosen to live, create terrorists, terrorism, which is of course opposed by most Muslims, who are victims of it."

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

I view a lot of blogs around the world and I feel very strongly about Human Rights, in particular Women's & Children's Rights for it is my belief that these issues are generally neglected world wide.

Last night I visited Gerry Adams blog Léargas (means 'Insight') and after reading his words I was inspired to share them with you.

A cause and consequence of women’s inequality.

The recent conviction of Adrian Bayley in Australia for the brutal rape and murder of Jill Meagher, the savage murder of Jolanta Lubiene and her eight year old daughter Enrika in county Kerry and the media furore around the photos of celebrity cook Nigella Lawson being assaulted by her husband, have all brought into sharp focus the issue of violence against women.

Co-incidentally two weeks ago the annual report for 2012 from Women’s Aid was published. Its facts were equally shocking.

·       One in five women in the Irish state will experience violence and abuse from an intimate partner

·       3,230 disclosures of direct child Abuse to the Women’s Aid Helpline – a 55% increase on the previous year

·       11,729 calls to the Freephone Helpline

·       32 calls per day

·       49% of the women supported in One to One service were experiencing abuse from a former husband, partner or boyfriend

·       30% of first time one to one support visits were with women from migrant communities

·       The most dangerous time can be when a woman is planning or making her exit and in the period afterwards.

The facts are equally stark in the north. The Making the Grade report in 2007 revealed that:

·       In 2006/7 the Police Service Northern Ireland responded to a domestic incident every 22 minutes of every day of the year.

·       In 2006/7 there were more domestic violence related crimes (10,115) than the combined total for sexual offences against children, indecent exposure, robbery, armed robbery, hijacking, fraud and counterfeiting, shoplifting, dangerous driving, offences and firearms offences

·       20% of all attempted murders in 2006/7 had a domestic motivation

·       The rate of conviction for rape decreased from 28.2% in 1994 to 19% in 2005.

·       The number of recorded rapes increased from 292 in 2001 to 457 in 2006.

·       84% of victims of sexual offences were women.

But as with any statistics it is essential that you look beyond the bullet points and focus on the human experience that they reflect.

The Women’s Aid report records harrowing accounts of this experience. Women have described being locked in and prevented from leaving their houses, being drugged, assaulted and hospitalised, being beaten while pregnant or breast-feeding, being gagged to stop screaming, being raped and sexually abused, including being pinned down and assaulted, and being forced to have sex in return for money to feed their children.

For women violence includes but is not limited to domestic violence, forced marriage, rape and sexual assault, crimes in the name of honour, murder, trafficking and sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation, sexual harassment and stalking. It causes physical damage ranging from death to miscarriages to broken limbs. Sexual offences can also result in sexually transmitted diseases and forced pregnancies, as well as leaving long term psychological damage.

Kofi Annan, the former head of the United Nations said:

“Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace.”

Safe Ireland also published the results of a one day survey which revealed that almost 850 women and children received support and protection from domestic violence over a single 24-hour period on November 6th last year.

The survey found that more than 500 women and over 300 children sought domestic violence services on that day. Almost 270 women and children were accommodated in refuge, with 21 women being turned away due to lack of space. The census also found that more than 20 pregnant women looked for safety from violence.

At its core violence against women is a cause and a consequence of women’s inequality. It cannot be challenged and defeated without a recognition of this.

So how do we end it? Coherent, integrated and properly economic, social, cultural and political strategies are needed. Such strategies do work. 

Regrettably, in the south the promised consolidated domestic violence legislation contained in the Programme for Government has yet to be delivered. This week I again asked about this in the Dáil. The Minister for Justice wrote me a letter saying that it will be ‘progressed as soon as possible having regard to the need for consultations and other legislative priorities in the Department of Justice and Equality.’

Other legislative priorities? What greater priority should there be than protecting the lives and human rights of women and girls.

The bottom line is that there is no underlying strategic approach or priority being given to this issue.

The Minister also told my comrade Mary Lou McDonald that the government has still not signed the European Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.  It apparently supports the aims and terms in principle but he claims there is a ‘particular difficulty reconciling property rights under the Irish constitution with the requirement under Article 52 of the European Convention and the availability of barring orders.’

This is also the rationale presented by the Minister for rejecting Woman’s Aid recommendation for an on call system for accessing emergency barring orders to give women and children protection. And yet when the government rushed through legislation in the Dáil earlier this year on the Irish Bank Resolution Company it included a provision requiring the ‘permanent or temporary interference with property rights for the common good.’

So, we can have rushed legislation on property rights to aid banks but no legislation on property rights to help women victims of violence. And all the while violence against women continues.

reference:http://leargas.blogspot.ie

IRELAND'S DISGRACE

This particular piece of news is one of the most shameful things I have ever had to bring to your attention, for I consider it to be a national disgrace.

The following is an extract from todays Irish Times (6th February 2013)

Maureen Sullivan a Magdalene survivor 

STEPHEN COLLINS and HARRY McGEE

The Government will seek a "clear strategy and a clear plan" as to how best to deal with the findings of the report into the Magdalene laundries, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.

The Government came under renewed criticism today following the refusal of Mr Kenny to issue a full apology to the women who spent time in the laundries, despite the fact that more than a quarter were sent there by the State.

The 'Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries' was published yesterday by an interdepartmental committee chaired by Martin McAleese found the women were from many backgrounds.

Some were referred by courts, others released on licence from industrial schools before they reached 16 years of age, while some were young women over 16 years of age who had been orphaned or were in abusive or neglectful homes.

Responding to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin during Leaders' Questions in the Dáil, Mr Kenny said he was "genuinely concerned about bringing reconciliation and closure to the women involved". The report exposed the truth and "in that regard the first and major issue of concern to the girls and women in the Magdalene laundries was the removal of the stigma".

He didn’t want to get into "adversarial diplomacy" on an issue as sensitive and evocative of bad memories for people.

The Taoiseach said the Government itself would reflect on the issue and he would "like the space to work with government by putting a process in place so that we can help these women reach closure".

Mr Kenny told the Fianna Fáil leader that his government "refused to actually investigate it then. This Government is dealing with it in the context of the McAleese report which sets out the truth here."

Mr Martin, who chaired the committee dealing with industrial school abuse, told the Dáil he was "sorry we didn’t deal with the Magdalene laundries at the time".

He said the committee led to a State apology to survivors of industrial schools. And he told Mr Kenny that the 1,400 page report published yesterday on the Magdalene laundries "doesn’t take any stigma away".

"The only effective way for the stigma to be removed by the State is to apologise with no ifs and no buts," he said.

Responding to questions from Sinn Féin TD Mary Lou McDonald, Mr Kenny said some of the information contained in the report had not previously been available. It was the "duty and responsibility of the Government to examine it and reflect on it and decide what is the best thing to do from here", he said.

“I am sorry that so many women worked and were resident in Magdalene laundries in a very harsh and authoritarian environment," Mr Kenny said in response to criticism from Sinn Féin TD Mary Lou McDonald. Ms McDonald told the Taoiseach that yesterday had been the time for the Government to apologise and to tell the women: "You were wronged."

Mr Kenny said he did believe the stories of the women and that the report was the truth about what had happened to them and about their lives and their experiences.

He believed the Government had a responsibility to act to "bring closure" to the women and he acknowledged that many of them were elderly and not in robust health.

The Taoiseach said it was a case of having "a clear strategy and a clear plan as to how best to deal with it and that is what the Government will do". There would be a further opportunity to discuss the report in two weeks, Mr Kenny added.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said today the report was a "watershed" that had cast light on areas that had been in the shadows. However, he declined to comment when asked on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland whether it was wrong for the State to be involved with the laundries.

“I don’t want to use that type of language,” Mr Shatter responded when asked if it was “wrong for the State to collude with the enslavement of women and children?”

He also criticised opposition TDs who called for an apology yesterday before reading the report in full.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said he thought the Government would be "compassionate" in its response.

The facts had been "long and late" coming but the Government had set up the inquiry within a few months of coming into office. He said Dr McAleese had been the right person to conduct the inquiry.

Labour Party TD Gerald Nash tweeted that a "full, sincere" apology was needed. His Labour colleague Aodhán Ó Ríordáin tweeted that it was “clear that the state owes the Magdalene women an apology”.

"Quick progress on this issue is important," he said.

Footnote:

The  report by Dr Martin Mc Aleese, also reported that coroners do not appear to have been notified of deaths in the laundries for some years leading up to 1996. The inquiry into State involvement with the laundries said that end-of-life issues relating to the 879 women who died in the institutions since 1922 

An estimated 11,500 women passed through ten institutions between 1922 and 1996.

MURDER

AKMAL SHAIKH

This mornings' news of the execution of Akmal Shaikh by the Chinese Authorities was barbaric, unwarranted and a breach of human rights. It was an act of Murder as is the killing of any human being by another, whether that be via a judicial authority or an act of war or in whatever manner.

There is no excuse for Murder.

No country, no matter how small or large, poor or rich, can claim exoneration for Murder. There are no excuses regardless of reasons for the taking of life.

Thus it is that I offer my poor condolences to those families throughout the world who mourn the loss of their loved ones.