Women in Saudi Arabia stand up to authorities by breaking driving ban By: Mori Rothman

Women in Saudi Arabia stand up to authorities by breaking driving ban

By: Mori Rothman

 

WORLD -- October 26, 2013 at 4:30 PM ET

Women in Saudi Arabia took to the streets today in an act of defiance against the country's ban on driving. 

The ban on driving stems from conservative religious customs and isn't actually written in law -- but that hasn't stopped police from arresting women who get behind the wheel.

Despite public warnings from the Interior Ministry and conservative religious leaders, many women posted videos of themselves driving in different parts of Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh, Jeddah, and Al Hasa. The authenticity of these videos could not be independently verified by PBS NewsHour.



Activists have been urging Saudi women to film themselves while driving on Oct. 26 and post it online as part of a web-based campaign that collected more than 16,000 signatures on a petition before the site was hacked.

Dr. Madeha Al-Ajroush, who spoke to the NewsHour earlier this afternoon via Skype, said that she went driving in Riyadh and noticed several cars closely following her.

She said that although some women reported receiving calls telling them not to drive, many women drove anyway -- and vowed to continue to drive until the rule is changed.

Second man arrested for India girl rape, chaos in parliament

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  View PhotoReuters/Reuters - Police try to stop supporters of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as they march towards the residence of the chief of India's ruling Congress party Sonia Gandhi during …more 

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police arrested a second man on Monday in connection with the rape and torture of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi and parliament was adjourned twice amid an uproar about the crime which has rekindled popular fury at widespread sexual violence.

The anger echoes the response to the gang rape of a 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist on a bus on December 16. She later died of her injuries. Protesters are angry authorities have failed to prevent more such crimes.
 

Police say the child was abducted on Monday last week and kept in captivity by two men in the basement of the building that she lived in with her family. Neighbors say they found her two days later after hearing her cries.


Media reported several other attacks on children over the weekend, including that of a nine-year old girl in the north-eastern state of Assam, who had her throat slit after being gang-raped, TV channels said.

A man was arrested at the weekend for the attack on the five-year-old and is due to appear in a Delhi court this week. The second suspect, in his early 20s, was arrested early on Monday at a relative's house in the eastern state of Bihar on information received from New Delhi, local police chief Rajeev Mishra said.

"He was arrested about 1 a.m.," Mishra said. "...Delhi police and local police made a combined effort to arrest him."

Brutal sex crimes are common in India, which has a population of 1.2 billion. New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures.

But most such crimes go unreported and justice is slow, according to social activists, who say successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women and children.


The December 16 attack brought thousands on to the streets in protest and provoked national debate about the rising number of vicious attacks on women, putting the issue firmly on the 
national political agenda a year before elections.

Activists planned a fourth day of street action amid heavy security in Delhi after protesters tussled with police and tried to reach the homes of India's leaders at the weekend. The protesters are calling for Delhi's police chief to resign.

The five-year-old girl's name has not been revealed, but media have nicknamed her "Gudiya", or doll. She has undergone surgery and was in stable condition on Monday, a doctor at the hospital where she is being treated told reporters.

The lower house of parliament was adjourned twice after opposition politicians rushed into the building, some demanding discussion on the rape case. Others were protesting against corruption and other issues.

"Though parliament has recently passed tougher legislation to prevent rapes, the evil has not abated and such incidents are still on the rise throughout the country," House Speaker Meira Kumar said before the house was adjourned.

The upper house of parliament was due to hold a debate on violence against women in the afternoon.

(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel and Annie Banerji; Additional reporting by Nita Bhalla; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Russian punk band found guilty of hooliganism, sentenced to two years By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Lookout

Click on the photo to see Pussy Riot slide show (Pussy Riot/Live Journal)

Three members of Pussy Riot -- a Russian punk band and feminist collective that mocked Russian president Vladamir Putin during a "punk prayer" in a Moscow cathedral--have been found guilty of hooliganism and sentenced to two years in jail

Judge Marina Syrova announced the verdict from a district court in central Moscow, about two miles from the Christ the Saviour Cathedral where the guerrilla group performed its "flash" stunt.

The band members--Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30--were arrested on March 3, several weeks after the performance, and charged with "hooliganism." They've been in jail ever since.

Their trial drew enormous international interest, sparking catcalls from international free-speech advocates and spawning dozens of protests. Some of those were reported on Twitter during the verdict and sentencing, involving an impromptu musical concert and some protests in public areas in Moscow and London.

Madonna, Bjork, Paul McCartney and Courtney Love were among a long list of musicians to come out in support of Pussy Riot, calling on the Russian government to set the band members free. Last week in Berlin, more than 400 people joined a protest led by electro-singer Peaches.

[Slideshow: Russian feminist punk band on trial]

"In one of the most extravagant displays," the Associated Press said, "Reykjavik Mayor Jon Gnarr rode through the streets of the Icelandic capital in a Gay Pride parade ... dressed like a band member--wearing a bright pink dress and matching balaclava--while lip-synching to one of Pussy Riot's songs."

What started as "a punk-infused political prank," London's Independent said, "has rapidly snowballed into one of the most notorious court cases in post-Soviet Russian history."

Five members of the group, which formed in 2011, were arrested in January after a video of a Putin-baiting performance in Moscow's Red Square circulated online. They were detained for several hours by police, fined and released, NPR said.

But the 10-member Pussy Riot, inspired by the American "riot grrrl" movement and bands like Bikini Kill, vowed more protest performances.

Pussy Riot's stunt at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church, was a response, they said, to Patriarch Kirill's public support of Putin in the build-up to Russia's presidential election. Putin won a third term as president in March.

"Holy Mother, send Putin packing!" the group sang.

The Guardian called the trial, which began on July 30, "worse than Soviet era."

"By the end of the first week of Pussy Riot's trial," the Guardian's Miriam Elder wrote last week, "everyone in the shabby Moscow courthouse was tired. Guards, armed with submachine guns, grabbed journalists and threw them out of the room at will. The judge, perched in front of a shabby Russian flag, refused to look at the defense. And the police dog--a 100 [pound] black Rottweiler--no longer sat in the corner she had occupied since the start of Russia's trial of the year, but barked and foamed at the mouth as if she were in search of blood."

Lawyers for the women complained during the trial that the trio were being starved and tortured in prison. Two threatened to go on a hunger strike after they were initially jailed.

"Their treatment has caused deep disquiet among many Russians, who feel the women are--to coin a phrase from the 1967 trial of members of the Rolling Stones--butterflies being broken on a wheel," the BBC's Daniel Sandford wrote.

Syrova was subjected to unspecified threats during the trial, Russian authorities announced on Thursday--assigning bodyguards to protect her before and after she announced the verdict.

Several Russian pop stars, though, questioned the outpouring of support for Pussy Riot.

"What is so great about Pussy Riot that all these international stars support them?" Russian singer Valeria wrote on her website, according to Reuters. "They must be saying this because someone ordered them to."

"Art and politics are inseparable for us," the band said in an interview with the online newspaper Gazeta.ru in February. "We try to make political art. Performances and their rehearsals are our job. Life in Pussy Riot takes a lot of time."