Female Archives

More than 60 female Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails

March 7, 2018 by administrator

female Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails

A prominent non-governmental organization says 62 female Palestinian prisoners are currently held in Israeli jails.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said at least six of the 62 female Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails are under the age of 18.

The NGO also called on international human rights groups to shed light on the issue.

Some 7,000 Palestinians are currently behind bars in 17 Israeli prisons and detention centers, according to reports.

More than 400 Palestinians are being held without trial under so-called administrative detention, which is a policy according to which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge. Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes to voice their outrage at the administrative detention.

Palestinian prisoners complain that they have been subjected to assault and torture at Israeli prisons.

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Nearly 30 female Israeli lawmakers sexually abused: Report

May 31, 2016 by administrator

Nearly 30 female members of Israel’s Knesset have fallen victim to sexual harassment or sexual assault at some point in their lives, a report says.

Of the total 32 current female lawmakers at the Israeli legislature, 28 revealed they had suffered from some sorts of sexual abuses in the past, Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported on Tuesday, citing a survey conducted by Israel’s Channel 2.

The report added that two of the lawmakers, Michal Biran from the center-left alliance Zionist Union, and Merav Ben Ari from the centrist party Kulanu, experienced the harassment even after they had entered the Knesset.

“Even today, the fact that I’m a single woman in the Knesset puts me in unpleasant situations. Sometimes people make comments … I don’t want to elaborate, but there was a situation recently in the Knesset,” said Ben Ari, speaking of a recent incident in the Knesset building.

“There was an incident that repeated itself in the planning and building committee, of which I was a member. Another city councilor would make remarks of a sexual nature regarding things that I said, and the whole room would burst out laughing,” said Rachel Azaria from Kulanu party.

“I consulted with the legal adviser and other officials, and they all said there was nothing to be done,” she said, recounting a bitter experience she had when she was a Jerusalem City Council member.

The lawmakers also exposed different kinds of other sexual abuses, which happened on military buses or on the streets.

In December, the Israeli interior minister and vice-premier, Silvan Shalom, was forced to resign after his ex-staffer revealed that she was sexually harassed by her boss and was “touched” against her will, giving details on how he had abused her more than a decade ago.

Subsequently, “several other women also alleged that the minister sexually assaulted them,” according to a December 20, 2015 Ha’aretz report.

The Israeli interior minister is by no means the first top Israeli politician to leave office over sexual misconduct.

Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav stepped down in 2007 on charges of raping two women as a cabinet minister in the late 1990s, as well as sexual assault against two of his female staffers as president.

The issue of sexual misconduct is also frequently reported in the Israeli military, which has given rise to heated debates over the past years.

The Israeli military itself says it has launched about 250 investigations into sexual abuse allegations over the past two years. Twelve of the investigations concern alleged rape, up from eight in 2014 and five in 2013.

Source: presstv

Female Turkish journo loses custody of children after leaking video from Syria arms smuggling trial

May 18, 2016 by administrator

Arzu Yıldız © Twitter

Journalist Arzu Yildiz was sentenced to 20 months in jail and lost her parental rights after exposing a video related to a weapons-smuggling scandal denied by the Turkish government, in what her lawyer said was “an act of revenge” by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Nobody can take my children away from me… not even the Sultan himself, let alone the court,” Yildiz told Can Erzincan TV, outside the court in the southern city of Mersin.

The journalist’s sentence is related to a 2014 incident in which prosecutors uncovered trucks belonging to MIT, Turkey’s national security agency, smuggling weapons for rebels across the border to Syria. President Erdogan has insisted that the vehicles were carrying humanitarian aid and accused the prosecutors of “treason and espionage,” as well as of being agents of his US-based nemesis Fethullah Gulen.

The prosecutors were arrested and put on trial before a closed court, before being sentenced to prison terms. Yildiz obtained video of the proceedings, however, and posted the prosecutors’ testimonies, which contradicted the government’s claims, on YouTube. She was later charged with breaching court confidentiality.

She has insisted throughout that she was not the only one to publish the videos and objects to the jailing of the prosecutors.

“I thank everyone for their messages and support. I have no worries. I don’t care about whatever punishment they give me. I’m just doing my job,” Yildiz tweeted after Wednesday’s ruling.

While her two children will not be physically taken away, Yildiz will have no legal authority to make any decisions on their behalf for at least the next two years.

“This was an act of revenge,” her lawyer, Alpdeger Tanriverdi, told Reuters. “There are many cases in which the court does not execute this article of the penal code. They didn’t have to do it.”

source: RT

‘Help me, help me!’: Last words of the female suicide bomber before blowing herself up in Paris flat

November 19, 2015 by administrator

The first female suicide bomber ever to operate in Europe shouted ‘Help me, help me!’ to police before blowing herself up today, according to the Daily Mail.
The blonde haired woman, named as Hasna Aitboulahcen, is said to be the cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged ISIS mastermind of the bloodbath in Paris on Friday in which 132 died.

http://video.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2015/11/18/9185181436809294319/640x360_9185181436809294319.mp4
As police special forces accompanied by soldiers moved towards a flat in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of the French capital where Abaaoud was said to be holed up, she appeared at a window shortly after 6am.
It is believed that Abaaoud was also killed in the raid this morning, however French authorities have yet to confirm the death.
Kalashnikovs were being used against the security forces, but after an an hour and a half of furious exchanges, there was a lull in the fighting.
It was then that the woman looked down from a third floor apartment window and shouted ‘Help me! Help me!’
An eyewitness identified only as Christian, 20, told Le Parisien: “During a 10 or 15 minute lull in the shooting I heard a woman shouting: “Help, help, help me!”
“The police asked her to identify herself, and to show herself. She held her hands up but she didn’t reveal her face.
“She withdrew her hands out of sight, and then put them up again several times.
“They police shouted at her: ‘Keep your hands in the air!’ They told her: “We’re going to shoot.”
The shooting resumed. The police were firing from the roof of the building opposite. Suddenly there was an enormous explosion. It was probably the woman who blew herself up.
“The windows shattered. Lots of objects from the apartment were thrown into the street, pieces of human flesh as well. They are still there. You can see a bit of the head, of skin, of ribs.”

The female suicide bomber cried out ‘God is great’ in Arabic before detonating her explosives and killing herself for ISIS, MailOnline has learned.

“The woman terrorist cried out before she set off her bomb,” eye witness Yasmine told MailOnline.

Turkey: Female soldier tells mourning mother ‘rich people don’t become soldiers, don’t die’

August 30, 2015 by administrator

A non-commissioned female officer, accompanying the mother of a killed soldier during his funeral, took the attention of the media when she said that rich people would not become soldiers nor be martyred, while trying to soothe the mother’s pain.

In an attempt to comfort Cennet Özata, the mourning mother of 23-year-old Mustafa Kemal Özata, who succumbed to his injuries days after being wounded in clashes with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the female officer said the rich would not die in clashes as they would not become soldiers at the fallen soldier’s funeral, held in Turkey’s central province of Konya on Aug. 29.

“Aunty, don’t I know? Would the rich become soldiers? No. The rich would neither become a soldier nor a martyr,” said the female soldier, as Cennet Özata was explaining her hard economic situation while raising all seven of her children.

Specialized Sgt. Özata, who was injured in clashes in the southeastern province of Hakkari’s Yüksekova district on Aug. 14, succumbed to his injuries on Aug. 28, at the GATA military hospital in Ankara where he was being treated.

His mother said his son had to work in bazaars after graduating from high school and added that her husband was a driver.

The female soldier’s words came a week after the brother, also an officer, of a killed soldier had lashed out the country’s main political figures, during his younger brother’s funeral ceremony.

Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan, the elder brother of slain army captain Ali Alkan, who was killed after PKK militants attacked a military outpost in the southeastern Şırnak province’s Beytüşşebap district late Aug. 21, directly targeted politicians during the funeral in the southern province of Osmaniye on Aug. 23, where more than 15,000 people, including several members of the parliament participated, while also questioning the reasons behind the latest outbreaks of violence.

“Why do those who have been saying ‘solution’ since yesterday now say war?” Alkan asked, in reference to the Kurdish peace process, which came to a halt late July after being conducted for more than two years, bringing an end to the 30-year-long clashes between the Turkish security forces and PKK militants.

“This son of our homeland was just 32 years old. He couldn’t get enough of his country or his beloved ones yet. Who is his murderer?” Alkan asked at the ceremony.

Following the outburst, which was caught on camera, sources told daily Hürriyet that the gendarmerie general command is set to start disciplinary proceedings in accordance with internal procedures.

Meanwhile, speaking to Hürriyet, Interior Minister Sebahattin Öztürk said the lieutenant colonel’s reaction was “understandable but wrong.”

Source: hurriyetdailynews

For Female Farmers: Organizations raising funds to support women in Armenia’s rural communities

June 4, 2015 by administrator

By Gayane Mkrtchyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

The Oxfam Armenian Office and the OneArmenia organization initiated a public fundraising with the means of which they plan to build greenhouses in four border communities in the province of Tavush in order to support female farmers.

“The fundraising started this May 4 and will end on June 14; the aim has been to collect $40,000. The stress is put on supporting female farmers creating more economic opportunities for them so that women are able to increase both their income and their social status,” head of the Oxfam Armenian office Margarita Hakobyan said.

The initiative aims at funding the Economic Justice program run by Oxfam carried out in the provinces of Tavush and Vayots Dzor.

Oxfam, an organization founded in the UK, is an international confederation of 17 organizations working in approximately 94 countries worldwide to find solutions to poverty and what it considers injustice around the world. It has carried out various programs in Armenia since 1994.

Nazaret Seferyan, head of the OneArmenia Armenian office, said they will try to help families living in border villages to create job opportunities and decrease emigration.

“So far 100 people have made donations, the total amount forms more than $9,000, there are those who have nothing to do with our organization, but they decided to find money for this program. Within this program we have 15 people one of whom decided to collect $500, another one – $1,000 and donate to the program,” Seferyan said.

(OneArmenia has implemented a number of programs in Armenia and Karabakh due to fundraising campaigns).

In the province of Tavush 18 agricultural consumer cooperatives were founded, four storage complexes for fruit and vegetables were built and put into operation, 21 greenhouse households were built.

Margarita Hakobyan said: we have one aim only – to support small farming economies, specifically women to provide sustainable livelihood by means of developing economic possibilities.

“Women form 70 percent of cooperative members. Those who live in communities where there are greenhouses have regularly paid jobs and can provide a regular income,” she said.

The program envisages the creation of 12-15 new jobs in each community, where annually 7-8 tons of additional products will be provided and annual revenues will reach 1.5 million AMD (more than $3,100).

Hakobyan emphasizes the social component of the initiative.

“They are not simply greenhouses, factories, they are also social initiatives. 40 percent of the production or income out of those economies is directed toward solving community problems. For instance, fruit and cans are sent to schools or kindergartens,” she said. “Farmers are also provided with interest-free loans for selling their products; they are mostly given to supermarkets, as well as to local restaurants. As a result one family gains an income of 10,000 AMD (about $20) a day.”

The organizations emphasize not only the women’s work in the greenhouses but also their participation in the administrative system of the cooperatives: how actively women participate in processes of decision-making. To picture the image better in several communities in the province of Vayots Dzor, in Yghegis, Zedea and Hormo they created cooperatives for women only.

“If we contrast them with our mixed cooperatives we can see that women work much better. In mixed cooperatives men take the administration in their hands not allowing women to control, because there comes the income, the money, and men like controlling money, but men and women manage money differently,” Hakobyan said. “Women work more honestly and transparently, are more accountable, men keep their income, of course it is not about all men, but that is the result that we had.”

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