Egypt: ‘Secret police’ deployed in Cairo parks to prevent sexual harassment, robbery during Sham El-Nassim

April 9, 2018 By administrator

(Ahram) Egypt’s interior ministry has deployed “secret police” to Cairo’s parks and gardens in an attempt to prevent robbery and sexual harassment during the Sham El-Nassim national holiday on Monday, according to Cairo governor Atef Abdel Hamid.

In press statements, Hamid said significant measures had been taken to secure the capital’s public parks and gardens during the holiday, with an operations room set up to monitor the situation in every park.

Monday marks the traditional Egyptian spring holiday of Sham El-Nassim, which is often celebrated with family outings to parks and other outdoor excursions. Reports of sexual harrassment in public places are normally higher during the holiday.

Egypt’s security forces typically boost security during national holidays, with female police officers deployed to prevent sexual harassment on the streets.

According to a United Nations Women study in 2013, 99.3 percent of Egyptian women surveyed said that they had experienced sexual harassment.

The Sham El-Nassim holiday always falls on the day after Easter Sunday in the Coptic Christian calendar.

Egyptians typically devour the traditional meal of pickled mullet fish, known as fesikh, which is marinated in vinegar for one year prior to consumption.

The health ministry issues health warnings each year, urging citizens to buy their fesikh from known and trusted vendors, to check expiration dates, and not to buy from street sellers or attempt to make it at home.

Media Watchdog Condemns Azerbaijan’s Harassment Of News Agency

August 18, 2017 By administrator

The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Azerbaijani government’s use of tax-evasion charges to harass the Turan news agency, the last independent media outlet based in the country.

Turan reported on August 11 that tax officials accuse it of underdeclaring its profits since 2014 and are demanding more than 37,000 manats ($20,000) in back taxes and other fees.

“It was just a matter of time before the authorities targeted the last independent media outlet still operating in Azerbaijan,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

Azerbaijani officials began a criminal investigation against Turan on August 7 and sent a tax inspector to the news agency’s offices the following day to begin an audit, Turan said.

Turan denies the allegations and has referred the matter to a Baku economic administrative court, pointing to many irregularities in the investigation, including the fact that officials did not mention a recent audit — exonerating Turan — that was made in response to similar allegations.

“These proceedings are designed to cripple a respected news agency financially,” Bihr said. “We call on the authorities to end this systematic harassment of the last independent media voices and to drop the investigation into Turan.”

Created in May 1990 by journalists who did not want to work for the state media, Turan was one the Soviet Union’s very first independent news agencies and produces news in Azeri, English, and Russian.

Turan was nominated for RSF’s Press Freedom Prize in 2014.

The Azerbaijani authorities have clamped down on independent media in the country in recent years, including the closure of RFE/RLs Baku bureau in late 2014.

The last opposition newspaper, Azadliq, was forced to stop producing a print edition in September 2016.

Armenian Activists Cite Harassment By ‘Suspicious People’ #ElectricYerevan

June 27, 2015 By administrator

By RFE/RL’s Armenian Service

A demonstrator holds an Armenian flag as others shout slogans during a protest against an increase on electricity prices in Yerevan on June 25.

Activists from the “Electric Yerevan” protest movement that has rallied thousands of supporters in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, in weeklong protests against electricity price hikes say certain “suspicious people” have begun to harass members of the group as well as peaceful demonstrators.

In a statement on June 27, the No To Plunder activists called on Armenian officials to pay attention to the issue and urged law-enforcement bodies “not to try to threaten us and to act strictly within the boundaries of the law.”

They did not disclose any specific cases of harassment.

Protesters insist that President Serzh Sarkisian revoke a June 17 decision by the state’s tariff-setting body raising energy prices by some 16 percent starting August 1.

They have said that they will not leave the avenue until Sarkisian announces the cancellation of the tariffs on national television.

They are also demanding that the current tariff be reconsidered and lowered, and they want punishment for the police officers who beat activists and journalists in a violent breakup of June 23 protests.

Armenian police chief Vladimir Gasparian has called on electricity price protesters who continue to block a central street in Yerevan to show “common sense” and end a street blockade in the capital city he said is “hindering” ordinary life.

Gasparian talked to several members of parliament who had come to Marshal Baghramian Avenue to stand as “human shields” between security personnel and the protesters to ensure riot police do not take violent action against the crowd.

He asked them to urge the young activists to unblock the avenue, which is one of the central thoroughfares near the state administration buildings of Armenia, including President Serzh Sarkisian’s offices.

“We show tolerance and exercise restraint, but you obstruct the vital functions of the city,” Gasparian said. “Now you form a ‘human shield’ as if we are enemies of our people.”

“Tell the young people that we perceive their action philosophically, but it does not mean that they must block the whole of Yerevan…. Police will not take action against citizens if they remain within the boundaries of the law. Do not block the city.”

Demonstrators on June 26 had briefly blocked a square adjacent to Baghramian Avenue, paralyzing traffic there. But after calls from police they moved out of the traffic junction.

On June 27, police said they had detained one demonstrator with a gun. They identified the man as Tigran Rostomian, 23, and said that his gun was confiscated after he was taken to a nearby police station.

In Gyumri, the second-largest Armenian city, where citizens have also held protests against rising electricity prices, police detained two people who took part in a recent march.

According to a report, one of them possessed a substance “looking like marijuana” and the other had a folding knife.

Police said they confiscated the drugs and knife and were investigating the matter.

In Yerevan, Sarkisian and Russian Transportation Minister Maksim Sokolov on June 26 commissioned a joint audit of the Russian-owned company that operates Armenia’s power grid.

Armenian opposition and civic groups have accused the Electric Networks of Armenia of corruption and mismanagement, arguing that it can operate at a profit even without applying for higher electricity tariffs.

Long Overdue?

Vaghinak Shushanian, one of the leaders of the No To Plunder group that leads the protests, described the move as “belated.”

No To Plunder activists continued to insist that Sarkisian revoke a June 17 decision by the state’s tariff-setting body raising energy prices by some 16 percent starting August 1.

They also are demanding that the current tariff be reconsidered and lowered, and they want punishment for the police officers who beat activists and journalists in a violent breakup of June 23 protests.

Sarkisian told the Russia official that while some analysts “try to look for anti-Russian sentiments” behind the protests against electricity price hikes in Yerevan, he is glad that the protesters themselves dismiss this speculation as “nonsense.”

He added that he endorsed the unpopular rate hikes as necessary because of the depreciation of the national currency and the increased cost of energy production.

Sarkisian said the government will subsidize the rising cost of tariffs for some 105,000 low-income families, or some 400,000 citizens, by increasing their social allowances.

Sokolov said the audit of the electric company’s activities will be organized by an Intergovernmental Commission, with the involvement of experts and representatives of all the parties concerned.

The process will be open and transparent, he said, so that the results of the audit will be clear and unambiguous to everyone.

Turkish Armenian family left without income for praising Papal statement

April 20, 2015 By administrator

harassment of Armenians in Turkey

The harassment of Armenians in Turkey has increased after Pope Francis’ recent statement, in which he recognized the Armenian Genocide.

Following the statement, an Armenian family, which lives in Dumluyan village of Ceyhan District of Turkey’s Adana (i.e. Cilicia) Province, is facing the problem of subsistence, reported T24.com of Turkey.

After this statement, the governor of Ceyhan cut the social benefits of the family of Vannis Cetinyan—who had praised the Pope’s aforesaid statement—saying, “Go get [social] assistance from the Armenian diaspora!”

And the fellow villagers, in their turn, refuse to rent the agricultural machinery belonging to this family.

All this, however, did not worry Vannis Cetinyan, who asserted that there will be no peace unless Turkey recognizes the Armenian Genocide.

He noted that the family is being pressured by the villagers, and their children are called “infidel” and “enemy” at school.

“[But] no one can deny the Genocide,” Cetinyan said, and added: “Nothing has changed [in this regard in Turkey] since 1915.”

Iran summons Saudi envoy over teens’ harassment at Jeddah airport

April 6, 2015 By administrator

Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Saudi chargé d’affaires in Tehran in protest over the alleged sexual harassment of two teenage Iranian pilgrims by Jeddah airport officials, an official says. Source presstv

In the absence of the Saudi ambassador to Iran, the country’s chargé d’affaires was summoned to the Foreign Ministry last week, Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi was quoted as saying on Monday.

Qashqavi also slammed the airport officials’ actions as a “heinous and inhumane crime.”

He added following the summoning, Saudi officials arrested the two suspects after carrying out investigations, and promised that appropriate measures would be adopted.

The airport officials reportedly separated the two Iranians from other members of their group, who were returning from their pilgrimage, and sexually assaulted them.

Turkish women relate sexual harassment stories via social media

February 16, 2015 By administrator

Beren Saat, celebrity,

In Turkey women, Journalist, writers, intellectuals, speaking to foreign media as ’traitors’

Turkish women started a social media campaign on Feb. 15 to help end violence against women by sharing their own sexual harassment stories under the hashtag #sendeanlat (you tell your story too), after a 20-year-old woman was brutally killed in southern Turkey, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

The burned body of 20-year-old Özgecan Aslan, a psychology student who had been missing for two days, was discovered Feb. 13 in a riverbed in the Tarsus district of the southern province of Mersin.

The brutal slaying of Aslan created outcry around Turkey, where women, together with many men, took to the streets to protest Aslan’s murder and violence against women in general.

A social media campaign with the hashtag #sendeanlat was initiated to draw attention to violence against women, providing a space for women to share their own stories of how they were sexually abused or raped.

Beren Saat, a Turkish actress and celebrity, wrote via Twitter about her own experiences and how hard it was to be a woman in Turkey.

Saat wrote about the sexual abuses she has faced, starting from her school years up until very recently, even as a well-known actress.

“All the cat-calls at me while I was returning home from school with a school uniform skirt … my accelerated steps in the dark while returning home from preparatory school … the face of the child who showed me his erect penis to me inside our apartment building and me running home with trembling hands and not telling this story to anyone … my fight with a drunk broadcasting manager who grabbed my butt during the TV channel’s celebration night…” were examples of some of the abuse Saat related.

Didem Soydan, a well-known Turkish model, tweeted that she had received abusive text messages, which started with “so you’re a model,” after testifying and giving her cell phone number to police in the case of a woman who was forced into a car after being beaten.

Among the stories shared under the #sendeanlat, many women related either their own harassment stories or shared measures that women had to take in order to avoid sexual abuse.

“Not being able to turn the light on immediately when you enter your house to avoid being spotted at which flat you live,” or “Is there any man [in Turkey] who tells his mother to keep talking on the phone because a group of women are standing in his way?” and “We cannot wear lipstick, miniskirts, grow our hair long, go out at night, laugh because we are women, right?” were a few examples of the many shared stories which women in Turkey face.

Meanwhile, during a rally condemning Aslan’s murder in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri, a woman cried for justice as she related by megaphone the story of her rape.

“Enough already! What is the end to the murders, rapes and all these things? The judge said there is ‘consent’ because [the rape victim] has passed 16 years,” said M.N., the rape victim, referring to her own rape case, during which the suspect for rape walked free from court because the judge ruled she had given her consent to the sexual act as she was over 16 years old.