Five out of six men convicted of gang-raping a Pakistani woman were acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday, in a highly watched decision that critics say will set back the struggle for women’s rights.
The Supreme Court's verdict upholds a previous High Court judgment to acquit the alleged rapists of Mukhtaran Mai. It also commutes the death penalty of a sixth man convicted of raping her to life imprisonment. Ms. Mai became a national and international symbol of a then almost nonexistent women’s rights movement in Pakistan when she spoke out against her attackers following her ordeal in 2002. Today's verdict highlights the bumpy road ahead for that movement.
Pakistan Court Frees Five in Notorious Rape Case
Israeli TV shows Palestinian torture
Israel's Channel 2 TV station has released video footage showing Palestinian detainees being tortured by Israeli troops in the regime's desert prison of Naqab (Negev) back in 2008.
The footage showed one Palestinian died and several others sustained injuries due to the torture by the Israeli soldiers, Qodsna news agency reported.
Israeli town rallies against African refugees
The shift is most obvious, perhaps, in Eilat, the small city in the south where Anei and several thousand African asylum seekers live. Here, refugees find their children barred from municipal schools.
And in a move that has alarmed both human rights organisations and the local branch of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the municipality has hung red flags throughout the city as part of a municipal campaign against African migrants - initiated by employees of the state of Israel and financed with public funds.
US public supports Palestine statehood
It becomes clearer every day that Binyamin Netanyahu's government is terrified by the prospect that the Palestinians are planning to unilaterally declare a state later this year. In fact, it is safe to say that no other proposed Palestinian action has ever shaken up any Israeli government the way that the idea of a unilateral declaration has.
According to Haaretz, Prime Minister Netanyahu is so frightened at the prospect of a Palestinian declaration that he is considering withdrawing Israeli forces (not settlers, of course) from the West Bank as an inducement to prevent the Palestinians from acting:
Netanyahu is weighing a withdrawal of Israel Defence Forces troops from the West Bank and a series of other measures to block the "diplomatic tsunami" that may follow international recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Orthodox IDF soldiers accused of abusing Palestinian prisoners
An Israel Defense Forces soldier from a unit made up exclusively of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men was convicted on Wednesday in the Central Military Court of illegal use of a weapon and disgraceful conduct.
The soldier, a member of the Nahal Haredi Brigade unit, was found guilty as a result of photos taken on his cellular phone, in which a Palestinian prisoner was shown tied up. The pictures were discovered when a military criminal investigation team conducted a search for drug use in the unit.
WikiLeaks cable casts doubt on Guantanamo medical care
The U.S. offered to transport, guard and pay for medical procedures for any captive the Pentagon couldn't treat at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba, according to the cable, which was made public by the WikiLeaks website. One by one, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Mexico declined.
5 Wash. peace demonstrators sentenced to prison
Two priests, a nun and two women in their 60s who cut through fences at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor to protest submarine nuclear weapons were sentenced Monday to prison terms ranging from two to 15 months.
U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle sentenced Jesuit priest Stephen Kelly, 62, of Oakland, Calif., and retired teacher Susan Crane, 67, of Baltimore, to 15 months in prison, U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Emily Langlie said.
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