theglobaljournal.net: Latest activities of group Defending Human Rights

Reasons you should Choose Coursework Writing UK

2016-07-30T13:08:24Z

The educational system in UK itself is very hard for any students. Though teaching standards may differ from the universities or schools you attend the general impression is same. The professors don’t necessarily teach you how to write you coursework, thesis etc. but they expect a perfectly written, and well organized papers which a student might find difficult to complete. There are numerous advantages when you buy essays online. The services available in UK have an advantage of knowing the schools or collages better than services outside. So that they will be much more familiar with the rules, writing styles etc. Another important factor is language barrier, as the language is English in which coursework is to be written, the grammatical errors will be very less if you choose a native service. When a student looks for help, they prefer the one with language proficiency, commitment to the fundamental values of academic integrity and honesty. The coursework writers in UK pass the all criteria.

The academic writing services in UK provide free reviewing of their website and their academic writers. This facility enables students to interact with the writers and share their views and ideas. They also provide free guidance on the subjects you are studying. Students who buy essays online can have look through the previous assignments done by them and verify the quality of their works.

Students who write essays and coursework finds it challenging and difficult when considering their time spend studying and with their regular class schedules. What more surprising is that the professors who ask them to write coursework writing uk do little help for the students, even the department won’t take enough care in making students well prepared for writing dissertations or thesis. Buy essays online provides a helping hand to the students where they can easily their papers without spending much. The advantage of buying is not just works like buying a grocery from shop. It is by constant communication with the writer and the student and makes the student aware of the content of the essay or coursework. Students can verify this on their website and research their past reviews and check whether if they are genuine. There are a number of other benefits when you attain academic papers that is you can learn how coursework to be written, how to tackle the problems encountered when writing the essays, constructing cogent arguments and tackle research problems etc.

The essays and coursework writing UK provide unique research tool and invaluable academic perspective writings. With the help of their service you can excel in your academics with a plenty of relaxing time. When students buy essays online their goal might be to outperform other students and they go for the best service available at an affordable price rate. The main qualities that you might find in essay writing help are:

1. Quality of the service and delivery time, the essay or coursework is written by highly qualified writers who have dedicated their life for this and deliver the papers on time.

2. Plagiarism free writing: This is another important factor when you look to buy essays and coursework.

3. Property right, the paper which is being bought comes with full ownership rights.

4. Service with no extra cost, it is no additional cost will be incurred than displayed price.

The Benefits of Using Assignment Writing Service

2016-06-30T13:42:05Z

Students’ academic life is packed with a number of assignment writing. They are required to write case studies, book reviews, essays, research papers, dissertations, thesis papers, term papers etc. However, none of the students will be comfortable with writing any of these assignments due to their ignorance in writing. Students cannot flee away from writing assignments as it can influence their grades. Hence, assignment writing services seen online come as a practical option for the students to get done their various assignments effectively. Today, more and more students are seeking writing assistance from online writing services because the benefits of using assignment writing services are many. It saves your time, erases tension, stress, anxiety, fear, struggle with writing, and makes you cheerful.

Saves Your Time

As far as the students are concerned, time is very important and valuable to them. They get only less time for other activities during their academic years. Students have to deal with different sorts of assignments including case study paper writing and other tests during their school, college and university years. They have got to handle more than one assignment at a time and it creates stress amid students. They may not be able to handle different assignments at the same time. So, when you buy book reviews online or other assignments from assignment writing services, you can save a lot of time. You can use up those saved time to write some other assignments.

On Time Delivery

One benefit of using assignment writing services is that it helps you to submit the assignment on time. Online writing services focus on completing your assignments punctually. Professor set a deadline when they assign case study paper writing or any other assignments. When you buy book reviews online, writing services ensure on time delivery and it guides you to submit the assignment in good time to your respective professors. If you are bemused for time and you have one or two assignments that require to be written almost immediately, hire assignment writing services to perform the job for you.

Top Quality Assignments

Another very important benefit of using assignment writing services is that it presents you top quality assignments. Whether you are required to handle case study paper writing or book reviews, assignment writing services will lend a hand with 100% original and professionally written papers just for you. Obviously, professors expect a good assignment from the students and if they fall short to write a good paper, they are likely to receive poor grades for the assignment. Since students are ignorant with writing diverse assignments including book reviews, they have no choice but to buy book reviews online.

With assignment writing services, you can get the guidance of expert writers in the field. You will take delivery of your order in the short time possible from writing services online and it will be far before the deadline set by you. The writers of writing service stick to your demands and specifications so that the finished work is of the highest quality.

Educational Rehabilitation of Children of Farm Suicides by BJS

2015-11-16T12:32:14Z

"The emerging farmer suicide capital of India" isn't a qualifier which any region in the world would ever want to allude to itself. Sadly Marathwada, a historically backward region of Maharashtra has been a helpless witness, falling prey to a yet another vicious phenomenon of farmer suicides over last few years. It is no wonder then that Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana (BJS), a leading nonprofit organization with an extensive experience in disaster response has felt the urge to extend its maximum contribution to alleviate the woes of the bereaved families. The rapidly spreading problem of farmer suicides is nothing short of a disaster and BJS aims to address a potentially bigger problem emanating from this scenario in a manner which holds the promise of having a long lasting impact on the lives of the survivors of the suicide victims.

The loss of a loved one and especially an earning member always deals a cruel blow to the kith and kin of the victim. Matters become worse for the impoverished and the marginalized sections of the society; the economic impact of the tragedy gets compounded by the psychological impact on the traumatized family members. At such times children belonging to such families become the most vulnerable of the lot and nothing can prepare them enough for the multitude of challenges that come in the wake of such a tragedy. It is extremely crucial to provide a conducive psychosocial environment to such children in order to prevent them from succumbing to cycles of trauma, depression and loss of purpose in their early lives. The hard hitting reality of the loss of income and life often leaves very little choice for the surviving elders in the family, but to go out and work (especially for sugarcane cutting as in Marathwada)to keep the hearth running. Very often the children are left alone at home to fend for themselves. In the absence of proper care and timely attention to such children, myriad social problems could surface in the long run for them. Thus it is critical to constructively engage them and channelize their minds in the proper direction when tragedy strikes. Education is by far, the only means to shape the lives of such children and keep them from going astray.

It is with this intent and after looking at the grim picture of the Marathwada region, that the project of the educational rehabilitation of the children (boys and girls) from the households of farmers who have committed suicides across Beed, Latur and Osmanabad districts has been undertaken by BJS. BJS would do so by relocating the children, identified through a planned mechanism and moving them to its state-of-the-art Wagholi Educational Rehabilitation Centre (WERC) in Pune. WERC is a facility established by BJS specifically for such purpose since the 1993 Latur earthquake. BJS has a successful history and a proven track record of rehabilitating over 3000 disaster affected children since then.

BJS believes that for a crisis so acute, the intervention has to be long term and is therefore ready to invest close to a decade on every child who will thus be brought to WERC. This project will entail that the responsibility of the holistic education, food, accommodation, daily needs, counseling, healthcare and nutrition of all these children would be entirely borne by BJS from Std V- XII. We are hopeful that this project will bring a ray of hope in the lives of the families of these children as much as it will be a life changing experience for the children themselves.

About WERC

The Wagholi Educational Rehabilitation Centre (WERC), a sprawling 10 acre campus had been established to cater to the educational, psychological, social and other needs of around 1000 earthquake- hit children from Latur & Osmanabad in 1993. Over the years this facility has grown to be a learning ground for thousands of children from other disaster affected areas and also from the malnourished tribal belts of Melghat and Dahanu in Maharashtra. The vision is to integrate these children with the mainstream social scenario so that they are capable of contributing to the nation building process in future. This infrastructure consists of a residential facility along with a school from Std V-XII affiliated to the State Board and a senior college affiliated to the University of Pune. The premises also house the hostel staff quarters, a huge dining area, playground and sports facilities and a 24X7 medical centre.

Project Scope:

a) The children currently studying from Std V onwards would be moved to WERC. The reason behind this is that the WERC co-education school in Pune currently operates from Std V-XII.

b) The households that have been identified for this project belong to the districts of Beed, Latur and Osmanabad where suicides have occured between 1st Jan 2015-31st Oct 2015. These districts have been chosen primarily for the following reasons:

Latur & Osmanabad- BJS has a record of successful educational rehabilitation of 1000 earthquake affected children of Latur and Osmanabad who were brought to WERC, Pune in 1993 and went on to complete their schooling and higher education before settling down comfortably in their professional lives. These WERC alumni from Latur and Osmananbad, now regularly volunteer in several disaster response initiatives of BJS. Hence they would also serve as a strong guiding force for the new students being brought in from these districts and help boost the morale of the families.

Beed- BJS also commands a goodwill in Beed as it has been running a values education program 'Mulyavardhan' in around 350 Zilla Parishad schools of Beed district with the help of its own staff of 180 local teachers since 2009. Familiarity with the demographic landscape of Beed and a functional active local staff were important grounds for consideration of Beed as a project area.

BJS was also instrumental in the restoration of 115 water bodies within a span of one month from May-June 2013, one of the worst drought years in the history of Maharashtra. 20 lakh cubic meters of the fertile silt was excavated and spread over 2500 acres of farmlands to increase their productivity. As a part of that project, BJS had undertaken a detailed survey of the topography and the demography of the Beed district. This information was an added advantage during the planning of the current project.

Project Objectives

The project has been envisaged with multiple objectives in mind which cater to some immediate as well as several long term needs of the families of the victims:

providing a conducive psycho social environment to the children from the affected households through a well developed curriculum of WERC
sharing the responsibility with the affected families of the education and wellbeing of their children
nurturing attitudes and life skills in these children for creating productive and responsible members of the society
empowering children to be the change agents for bettering the socio-economic prospects of their own families by availing and leveraging the opportunities that good education can provide

Project Plan and Management

Against the prevailing backdrop, Shri Shantilal Muttha- founder BJS, conceptualized the entire project and a decision to go ahead was collectively taken by the BJS Prabandh Samiti on 25th October 2015. Moving with great alacrity in view of the growing urgency of the situation, a project management team was formed headed by BJS district office bearers in the respective districts and senior staff from Pune WERC as follows:

Pune WERC- Shri Ashok Pawar and Shri Salunkhe
Beed district- Shri Rajendra Munot and Shri Kishor Pagariya
Latur district- Shri Sunil Kocheta and Shri Kishor Jain
Osmanabad district-Shri Vijay Bedmuttha and Shri Sunil Dungerwal

That was followed by the formation of survey teams who were to conduct a detailed survey of the affected households. For the first time female surveyors were being sent out to be able to easily establish an emotional connect with the women survivors from the affected households who had lost their male member. 13 such teams were formed with each comprising a female teacher from the BJS Wagholi or Pimpri school, a local female Mulyavardhan teacher and 2-3 local BJS volunteers to assist in the logistic arrangements. A comprehensive training of the surveyor teams was held on 30th Oct at the BJS Head Office, Pune. The actual survey of around 450 households across the three districts culminated on 3rd November, the findings of which have been presented later. The children from Std V-Std XII will be brought to Pune on 21st November and their classes will commence on 23rd Nov.

After processing the formalities of school and hostel admissions by seeking the necessary permissions from the concerned authorities, the children will be provided specialized care in several ways for which the WERC school and hostel staff will be specially trained. Proper records of the health (physical and psychological) of every child will be maintained after a thorough check up followed by counseling sessions by seasoned psychologists and diet plans drawn up by nutritionists for the children. At WERC the children will also undergo a baseline assessment to gauge their academic levels and a remedial support will be provided for the children to catch up on the academic front.

All for Smiles

For the causes behind this agrarian crisis to cease to exist, it will take a concerted effort from a legislative, executive and social standpoint. However given the status quo, with this project BJS hopes to be the silver lining for every dark cloud that has descended upon these families. It is a determined attempt to save and secure the future of an entire generation in these villages for which a conscious effort is being made to provide a long term support to the children. For all those children who stand at the threshold of a new horizon BJS is eager to embrace them with open arms.

Wind of Change

2013-07-06T21:00:36Z

Delhi saw widespread protest on the Nirbhaya issue .

I am writing this article on the day when the Headlines reads 'Yet another brutal incident of Rape in Delhi , Bus Driver rapes a 10 year girl of his neighbourhood ' and yet again i hang my head in shame . The Delhi rape case had a quite strong effect on me. In many ways , it startled me from my slumber . The last time around when I felt so disgusted was perhaps when the Taj attack took place in India, the way Shopian rape incident occurred in Kashmir or when I read about the brutal way in which Soma Suri was raped under custody. There are countless incidents such like that in modern times when I have felt disgusted , when I have clenched my fist in anger to smash the culprits but have also been made to realize of my limitations as a ‘Common man’ of the ‘Largest Democracy’ of the world .

What was even more shocking was the apathy of the local people and the police after the act when they even debated at the crime spot where the victim and her friend were fighting for life whether they came under their police station or not rather than rushing them to hospital immediately. Over the years I feel that as we are marching ahead on the path of progress , somewhere our moral grounds have dampen into a sludge.

Cases of violence and rapes are rampant not only in Delhi but also elsewhere in hinterland and lesser known dark corners of the country. Maybe I feel that this problem is a case of the depleting moral values of the modern Indian society. Many conservatives maintain that ‘capitalism and consumerism and growing individualism’ have led to ‘decay in the society’. Often ‘westernization’ is blamed but i tend to disagree , Rapes are solely due to the ebb at which moral grounds have been pushed in India today . After the incident, there was rage in the nation, there were protests all across the nation but will this materialize to anything substantial? That remains a question to be asked.

The problem won’t be solved by having stricter laws or heated debates on the News channels. As even there I found patriarchic and dogmatic opinions doing rounds almost everywhere as Nirbhaya struggled for her life in hospital. In fact some factions of the media was even interested in revealing her name when the Indian Law strictly states that naming a rape victim is prohibited which was appalling . I hope that this incident does not becomes a debating ground for what women should do and what they should wear rather it should raise questions on the mindset of the society which rejoices killing women in fetuses and takes pleasure in branding rape as ‘consensual sex’ most of the times for money and is insensitive enough to even say that ‘She use to dress indecently so she had it coming ‘after someone gets raped.

I believe that we have to take a holistic approach to solve the issue. It’s about time when our education system needs to take up the responsibility of inculcating good moral values in youngsters. In our pursuit of producing Engineers and Doctors, we have overlooked the moral values of our generation and the cases against women are ramifications of such negligence. Rapes happen everywhere whether at workplaces, in Page 3 circles, on roads or in slums- it is not associated with one particular strata of the society but rather with its dogmatic mindset . In fact , many women are daily subjected to 'marital Rape' but the law is yet to recognise that .

Regular Sessions need to be conducted even in workplace to ensure that Women employees do not face discrimination and are treated well. I would also expect those who have been vociferously raising their voice in social media to also come forward and resist any such incidents they come across in real life. Actions are all we need at the moment. Mere words won’t suffice. As the Justice Verma commitee has submitted its report and the new Rape law is passed , I feel that the problem is far too deep entrenched in our mindset that it has almost transcended law and judiciary . In most of the cases , the rapist knows the victim from before . The mindset has to change and it needs to change everywhere from villages to metropolitans. Let us together pledge that we won't let her death go in vain , lets stand together in this fight . A wind of change is all the Indian society needs to feel and it needs the participation of each and every member of the society for the wind to blow. Till then i can just listen to Scorpions and imagine that

"The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change"

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change

- Shashank Saurav

Theatrics surrounding the Uttarakhand Tragedy

2013-07-04T04:24:13Z

In India, tragic incidents have always been marked by theatrics and drama by the political class much to the chagrin of those who suffer at its hands. The mass tragedy caused by the Uttarakhand floods didn’t spared our eminent politicians from trying to hog the limelight in this hour of heart rending tragedy. Be it be the lackadaisical approach of the Uttarakhand Chief Minister who was busy scheduling his Switzerland itinerary or the way Narendra Modi ( our much hailed NaMo ) campaigned for his Gujarat model even while he had gone to visit the flood affected areas . Also the goof up which his PR agency made while announcing that he flew down 15,000 Gujaratis from Uttarakhand on his own. The overenthusiastic Indian media didn’t even cared to check the veracity of the statement and publicized it even more quite zealously. It was quite late that an Article published in TOI made sense enough to rubbish such outrageous claims. Narendra Modi’s offer to help by giving away his helicopters and to build Kedarnath Temple was also shown the door by the Uttarakhand Chief Minister.

Then when Narendra Modi left then we had a famous duel between TDP & Congress leaders of Andhra Pradesh who wanted the victims to fly with them. This is not yet over, the biggest one is yet to come . While till now we kept on talking about how these parties tried to hog the limelight, the biggest of these public gimmicks was done by none other than Sonia Gandhi who waited 72 crucial hours while the survivors died out of hunger and lack of water to ‘flag off’ the trucks carrying relief materials after Rahul Gandhi returned from his Spain trip. This was shambolic and a shining example of the ebbs to which politicians have fallen in modern India that they kept on delaying it so as to gain some brownie points in the eyes of the common public. I am starkly critical of all these incidents as they yet again proved that Politics is a selfish ‘business’ in India and is yet to rise above petty things even in hours of crisis . In the face of this tragedy, the man who disappointed the most was Uttarakhand CM- Vijay Bahuguna. He was busy alleging the centre that it didn’t had any mechanism to deal with such catastrophe rather than taking the blame on himself as to how around 67,000 tourists were allowed in the region even when Metrological Department has issued several warnings. His counter allegations and refusal to accept Narendra Modi’s help of over two dozen helicopters and his offer to help reconstruct Kedarnath Temple was met with widespread angst. However, it can be argued that Modi’s intent was also to gain brownie points by doing this and hence he publicised this quite openly.

Rescue operations by the Army Personnels .

Heroism was in vogue among politicians amidst the rising number of people who were dying and were being rescued at Ground Zero by the real heroes of this tragedy – i.e., the Army personnel who helped them selflessly to ensure that they were rescued safely. Congress MLA from MP Sanjay Pathak claimed that he saved some passengers through his helicopter and this led to almost a stampede at the Dehradun Airport with every politician lining up his aircraft so as to ‘claim’ that he ‘saved’ x number of people. All this was happening when there were not even centres to keep track and information of all the missing people in the tragedy .

I am not a pessimist but my optimism has lost in colour by the incidents that I saw in this hour of crisis. While some leaders were shedding crocodile tears over the issue, they had done less to ensure that more problems do not further arise due to it. Much of the Relief work was even stopped when Sonia Gandhi and PM Manmohan Singh were taking an aerial survey of the flood affected areas, quite ensconced in their private luxury jet while people were dying due to hunger. It’s such a shame that while Politics was supposed to be a noble profession to serve the society, it has rather become a selfish and profitable business in the present scenario in the World’s Largest Democracy.

The Rescue operation is over by now and many people are still missing and are trapped within the debris. This tragic incident exposed the vulnerability of our Disaster management Techniques and made a mockery of all the grand claims that the Govt. had made post the 2004 Tsunami which had killed 11,000 people in India. The estimated death toll is expected to touch 3,000 at least with more than that people still missing. Vijay Bahuguna , Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi are mere names , the thing which we need to cleanse the most is the standard at which politics is done in India . While Politicians keep on denying their obligations and continue their blame game , it’s the life of the common man that suffers the most .

- Shashank Saurav

The Pain Of Lost Innocence

2013-06-30T16:27:45Z

Today more than half of Indian children face child abuse at least once in their lifetime. The New Delhi rape of ‘Gudiya’ showed that child abuse is rampant across the country. The use of cyberspace and Internet-information systems has further aggravated the issue - children are not just abused, but even subjected to child pornography.

In January 2013, a brutal child rape in New Delhi reignited the critical issue of child abuse that we as Indians have conspicuously shied away from for several years. Five years-old, Gudiya was raped and brutalized by two men, Manoj (19) and Pradeep (21) living in the same building. They not only abused her, but even slashed her throat and left her unconscious in a pool of blood. Recently, an incident in Gurgaon was reported where a 45 year-old father raped his daughter for three years. In a privately run shelter home in Haryana, children and young women were beaten, sent out for sex work, trafficked and abused in horrible ways. Three years ago, we had the Nithari case, where an influential businessman and his servant were involved in child abuse and murdered 11 children, burying them in their courtyard.

Where our society is heading is hard to say and even fathom. I am deeply disturbed and shocked to read countless stories of young girls subjected to abuse by their nearest ones. Despite ubiquitous protests following these incidents, every day we discover even stranger cases of child abuse. We are also yet to discuss the root of this issue. Instead, we discuss violence against women in terms of rape as a property dispute. Even on news channels I hear patriarchal views during debates, where many blame the dressing style of women for ‘encouraging’ rapists to rape them. The Gudiya incident was a straight slap in the face to this chauvinist mindset and made us swallow harsh realities that we have until now knowingly evaded.

Today 53.4 percent of our children face child abuse at least once in their lifetime. These incidents have gone unnoticed for too long due to our negligence. More often than not, these abuses are perpetrated by a family member, a family friend or an uncle. They are kept private and not revealed as it becomes a ‘prestige’ issue for the family of the victim. I am sometimes appalled and ashamed by such hypocrisy. What about punishing the culprit? Why aren’t we bringing them to justice? According to the National Crime Records Bureau, between 2001 and 2011 there was a three-fold jump in registered child rape cases - from 2,113 in 2001 to 7,112 instances 10 years later. The majority of these incidents are not even recorded in police files.

Child rape incidents have increased by 336 percent since 2001 in India according to a study conducted by the Asian Centre for Human Rights. Our country finds it difficult to talk about sex, let alone sexual abuse. While our movies are full of thigh-slapping oafs dishing out double-entendres, our society’s redress of abuse victims, not to mention police insensitivity, is a travesty. Child sex abuse is a particularly taboo topic - it is not just brushed under the carpet, it is locked away in teak closets and swept under expensive sheets of more homes that you can even imagine. It is this silence that is frighteningly empowering to the culprits.

Recovering and Healing from Incest (RAHI), an NGO that was started by Anuja Gupta - herself a victim of child abuse - carries out extensive research in this field. The following are just a few startling observations:

64 percent of victims are abused between the age of 10-18 years
32 percent of victims are abused between the age of 2-10 years
87 percent of victims are repeatedly abused
19 percent of the abused are currently living with at least one of their abusers

Most of these abused children have their mothers at home. The study was even more shocking, as it showed that this rate does not depreciate according to the strata of the society - in fact, it even appreciates. More than 70 percent of the children from upper class families suffer abuse from family members and people whom they trusted.

The solution in my view lies in the fact that we need to advise and educate our children about their sexuality and about how someone can exploit them. Whether it is the dogmatic society structure or the conservative mindset here in India, we generally do not even talk about the necessary details of what type of touching is wrong and where it crosses line with our children. This makes them even more vulnerable as they do not realize when they are being subjected to abuse. Most are so scared they do not even report these incidents to their parents - many out of fear of being outcast for reporting incidents against influential members of their family. On one hand, they are pressured by the abuser and on the other hand, we disbelieve them so much that they plunge into the darkness of depression.

We should not be paranoid and deprive children of the joy of childhood, but we need to make sure we give them the confidence that they have our full faith when they report such incidents. We need to trust them and instill faith and confidence. These are incidents that haunt the victim for a very long time and can shatter their self-confidence. Let us hope that with time , the society changes and we can stand by our children both compassionately and vigilantly in this hour of crisis.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

Guantánamo: The Endgame?

2013-05-23T17:45:40Z

Fahd Ghazy is known at Guantánamo Bay as 026, his Internment Serial Number. These numbers were assigned to Guantánamo prisoners in chronological order according to their arrival. Fahd has a low number because he was among the first prisoners sent to the offshore prison former President George W Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney established to detain and torture captives in the “war on terror.” Fahd was initially housed at Camp X-ray – a makeshift arrangement of kennels recognizable from the iconic photographs of shackled men in orange jumpsuits and blackout goggles. He was just 17 years old, plummeting down a rabbit hole, unaware he had arrived at what would be his home for the next 11 years and counting.

A few months before Fahd’s arrival, it would have been impossible to foresee the tragedy about to befall him. He was married and celebrating the arrival of his baby daughter, Hafsa. He had just received his diploma from Al-Najah, a secondary school near Beyt Ghazy on the outskirts of Sana’a, Yemen. An ambitious and capable student, Fahd graduated first in his class. Like any young father, he believed obtaining a university degree would guarantee his family a better life. Sana’a University is well regarded, so Fahd applied. He was admitted to the Faculty of Science and awarded a scholarship. The good news reached him in his cell at Guantánamo.

In 2007, the Bush administration rightly concluded that Fahd did not belong at Guantánamo and decided to send him home. When I began representing Fahd roughly five years ago, he showed me a worn piece of paper containing the official notice of his impending release. The letter is laconic, stating only that Fahd “has been approved for release from Guantánamo, subject to the process of making appropriate diplomatic arrangements for his departure.”

In May, Fahd will turn 29. He is still at Guantánamo. The notification of his release is meaningless, just a painful reminder of how different things might have been. Fahd and I spoke to each other a few weeks ago and he gave me some news: he is on a hunger strike and has not eaten since February.

As The Global Journal reported in April, Fahd is not alone – at the time of writing, the mass hunger strike at Guantánamo had reached its third month. Fahd and the other men I represent report the strike has near universal participation in Guantánamo’s two main detention facilities, Camps 5 and 6. For all of its predictability, the impact on the prisoners’ bodies has been no less harrowing. Their weight has dropped so precipitously that some of the men are skeletal. Fahd has begun limiting his movements to conserve energy. Many prisoners are losing consciousness, some repeatedly. Others have been coughing up blood.

The less visible toll of starvation remains unclear. At Guantánamo, secrecy is paramount. Civilian access to the prisoners is severely restricted. No independent physician has yet evaluated the hunger strikers. Clinical research in the field, however, cautions us to brace for the worst. According to the World Medical Association, at day 40 of a hunger strike, irreversible cognitive impairment and physiological damage can occur. Death soon follows.

Remarkably, the United States (US) government seems untroubled. On 11 April, Under Secretary of Defense, William Lietzau, wrote to the Center for Constitutional Rights to assure us “detention practices at Guantánamo are humane.” He also reminded us the Department of Defense “support[s] the preservation of life through appropriate clinical means…” For the uninitiated, that means force-feeding through nasogastric intubation – strapping prisoners to restraint chairs, forcing rubber tubes up their noses and pumping liquid supplements into their stomachs. Eleven men at Guantánamo are being kept alive in this manner.

A crackdown by the Guantánamo guard staff triggered the current hunger strike. During cell searches in February, guards confiscated the prisoners’ personal effects, including family photos and keepsakes – items of monumental significance when memories of a loved-one are receding into oblivion. But worse, under the pretext of searching for improvised weapons, the prison administration reinstituted a policy of searching the prisoners’ Qur’ans – a decision as provocative as it was reckless. The Department of Defense knows from past experience that searching the pages and binding of the Qur’an constitutes desecration in the eyes of the prisoners and invites the very response that has now jeopardized the lives of dozens of men.

Hunger strikes are nothing new at Guantánamo. As early as 2002, prisoners resorted to starving themselves to expose the horror of indefinite detention without charge or trial. But this strike is different. It is desperate. Until now, my clients have been surviving at Guantánamo on hope. For Fahd, who has spent more than a third of his life at the prison, an enduring hope that he will see his daughter again is his only comfort. But hopelessness is an equally powerful sentiment. It has convinced many at Guantánamo to risk their own demise to protest a system of such violence.

This may be the beginning of the endgame at Guantánamo. Four years ago, there was consensus across the American political spectrum that Guantánamo should be shuttered. So how did we reach the point where most of the 166 remaining prisoners are engaged in a potentially deadly hunger strike?

The explanation was glaringly obvious at a public hearing in Washington, DC last month. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the Americas’ foremost human rights body, called representatives of the Obama administration to comment on its Guantánamo policy. It was the first time they had done so since the President’s re-election. The IACHR asked two questions: does the US still intend to close Guantánamo? And, if so, what steps are currently underway to achieve that objective? After 11 years, 166 prisoners detained in perpetuity (all but a handful without charge), 86 men languishing despite being cleared for release, torture methods with peculiar names like the “frequent flyer program,” hundreds of attempted suicides and nine deaths, there was nothing else to discuss.

The IACHR posed the questions with the same urgency that recently led United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to decry the suffering at Guantánamo and demand the facility’s immediate closure. Renewed international scrutiny of Guantánamo is driven by an abiding concern that President Obama’s course of action – inaction, really – threatens to normalize one of the most abominable relics of the Bush/Cheney era.

If the Obama administration shared that concern, detailed answers would have been forthcoming. They were not. Senior administration officials failed to offer a single measure currently underway to close the prison. It was a fine display of diplomatic rhetoric, but offered little for men like Fahd whose very survival may depend on glimpsing light at the end of the tunnel. The most obvious explanation for the administration’s silence is also the most disheartening. The President appears to have calculated he can withstand the political costs of continuing to operate the detention facility. He has made his peace with Guantánamo as an enduring part of his legacy.

Criticism like that seems pointed only if one ignores the President’s record, especially in regards to Congress. Obama met every legislative maneuver to keep Guantánamo open with acquiescence. Congressional obstructionism began with the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which barred the use of funds to transfer Guantánamo prisoners unless the Secretary of Defense personally certifies each man for release. Under the legislation, however, such an act is possible only after the Secretary of Defense determines the country slated to receive an ex-prisoner meets certain security conditions – a practically unachievable qualification.

Each subsequent iteration of the NDAA has included the same onerous restrictions. Congress correctly gambled that the President would fold if the legislation even marginally increased the political cost of releasing Guantánamo prisoners – hence the cunning, and utterly effective, device of requiring the Secretary of Defense to personally sign off on each transfer. Still, even Congress could not have predicted Obama would abandon his plan to close Guantánamo altogether. Yet, that is precisely what he has done.

Administration officials disagree. They insist Obama is dedicated to closing the detention facility. Try convincing the prisoners. The numbers speak for themselves: transfers from Guantánamo have plummeted from roughly 71 in 2009-10, to just five in the years since – not including Adnan Latif, who left in a coffin in 2012. And as far as anyone can tell, President Obama never sought the certification of a single prisoner for transfer – not even one of the 86 men the administration itself cleared for release. Nor did he require former Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, to invoke the waiver provisions that would permit the administration to sidestep the NDAA’s most severe restrictions. I see no evidence the President will make recently confirmed Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, break rank with his predecessor.

Equally devastating to Fahd, and the 90 or so of his countrymen at Guantánamo, is the President’s persistent defense of his moratorium on repatriations to Yemen. The moratorium was instituted in 2010 after the failed “underwear-bomber” attack, which was seen as proof that Obama was no longer “soft on terror” – a trope that is both cynical and starkly at odds with his wide-ranging and lethal drone program. The gambit paid political dividends, but with it, President Obama gained the unfortunate distinction of adding collective punishment on the basis of nationality to the litany of Guantánamo’s human rights violations.

Like Fahd, my client, Tariq Ba Odah, is trapped at Guantánamo under the moratorium. When I first learned of the current hunger strike, I thought of him immediately. Tariq is what is known at Guantánamo as a ‘long term’ hunger striker. He began his strike six years ago, in February 2007. Nearly every day since, he has been strapped to a restraint chair and force-fed through his nose. But for Tariq, who has never been charged, to voluntarily accept food from his jailer would be to surrender the last shred of his humanity. He weighs just 90 pounds and is slowly withering away. Tariq recognized long ago that death is probably the fastest way out of Guantánamo. In any event, it is becoming the most common. More men have died in US custody at Guantánamo than have been convicted by military tribunal.

President Obama should be deeply concerned Guantánamo’s remaining prisoners are arriving collectively at Tariq’s grim conclusion: Guantánamo is a death sentence from which there is likely no reprieve. If indeed this is the endgame at Guantánamo, it will be an excruciating one for the prisoners. Perhaps the President can weather the political costs of continuing to operate Guantánamo. I wonder though if he has yet weighed the human cost. Inevitably, this will be the measure by which history judges Obama if he presides over the slow death of a population of exclusively Muslim prisoners at an offshore internment camp, most of whom are cleared for release and have never been charged or tried.

Subscribe or order a copy of The Global Journal.

Photo © Center for Constitutional Rights

Photo on Homepage © by Edmund Clark

The Art Of Subversion

2013-05-22T16:57:37Z

On 14 June, Iranians will go to the polls to choose the successor to outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Against the backdrop of escalating nuclear posturing, and with memories still fresh of the popular disaffection embodied in the mass protests of the Green Movement, the world will be watching. Beyond the clichés, however, Iranian society is more complex than meets the eye. For Tehran’s artists and intellectuals in particular, each day is a delicate balancing act between freedom and subversion.

At the House of Culture at Park Honor el Mandan in the heart of Tehran, around 300 people are gathering for an indie rock concert. An hour before the beginning of the show, the entrance is already heaving. All up the narrow stairs, veiled women and men are squeezed together, clutching cameras – most are young and would not dare to miss the opportunity to attend a performance of this type. Farid, son of a famous Iranian actor and a musician since childhood, is the group’s lead singer. Dark haired, disheveled and bearded, he is, at 35, about to give his first ever public concert. “Without my father’s connections, I never could have organized such an event,” confesses the young musician, hovering at the door.

After the show, the sun disappears behind the towering grey skyline of the Iranian capital, as if melting into the smog. The early-evening March air is still chilly and the young musician re-buttons his coat before leaving the premises in a hurry. Farid later recounts how a mysterious man approached him, nagging him incessantly to rewrite his songs according to verses of the Qur’an. Farid nodded politely, replying he would think about it.

Two weeks earlier, a pair of thieves were hung in the very same park, found guilty of threatening a passer-by with a sabre. Many believe the choice of location for the executions – an area cherished by artists and intellectuals alike – was no coincidence, but instead a tacit warning from the government. For others, however, it was simply linked to the site’s proximity to the crime scene, the park being the closest open public space in the neighborhood.

Two months ahead of the Iranian presidential elections, the intelligentsia exists in a limbo between total liberty and perpetual paranoia. Few countries in the world project such a contested image of freedom of expression. For foreign civil society observers, the picture is clear – in the most recent Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders ranked Iran 174th out of 179 countries. According to the Paris-based NGO, not content with imprisoning journalists and bloggers, the Iranian regime led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also “harasses the relatives of journalists, including the relatives of those who are abroad.”

Yet, contrary to the image most commonly painted by Western media, the situation is not so black and white. The lifestyle of Tehran’s artists is highly representative of this continuing dichotomy between freedom and oppression. A group marginalized within civil society on account of their actions and free spirit, they at the same time represent the core of Iranian identity. If their position is sensitive, it is also because the cultural heritage of the country is one shaped by mixed values. Dating back to the fall of the Sassanid Empire at the hands of Muslim invaders during the 7th century, contemporary Iranian society is marked by a double belonging – the twin influences of ancient Persia and Islamic tradition.

Though not especially charming at first glance, Tehran bursts with often hidden cultural treasures, as if shielding the newcomer from the extent of the city’s true beauty. Strolling towards Engelhab Square – ‘square of the revolution’ and Tehran’s cultural heart – one would not expect a decrepit high-rise to house an art space in its basement. It is here, however, that Sarah opened her gallery five years ago.

The large paintings of nudes exhibited in such a minimalist setting are outwardly shocking given the context. Most are by famous artists who could not exhibit anywhere else in such a conservative society. Marjan, a divorcee in her early forties, welcomes us without a scarf. Her gallery – not officially declared – is ‘semi-illegal.’ Usually, before each exhibition, the works to be included must be sent to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance for approval. Operating off the books, however, Marjan never complies. Advertisements for upcoming shows are disseminated via Facebook and word of mouth. On the flyers she distributes, there is no address.

Despite the difficult exhibition conditions, there are many galleries in Tehran, largely concentrated in the center and north of the city. The Gallery Guide provides the details of more than 30 art spaces that can be visited. All are more or less controlled and under the custody of the government, but content varies hugely from one to another. The pieces displayed in the House of Culture are more ‘politically correct,’ for example, than those in the Aaran Gallery, despite being situated a mere few blocks away.

Introduced to the visual arts early in her childhood, Marjan is not naïve and understands she enjoys special treatment. “The government knows me; they are watching me. But plastic arts are treated differently from other arts. And frankly, right now, the authorities have other priorities.” Recently, Marjan granted carte blanche to three artists from different generations, assuming all responsibility for their work if they were to produce any pieces that proved controversial. Ultimately, however, she was left disappointed with the lack of risk the painters took in their projects. Not a single subversive message emerged. “It looks like the limit is inside of them,” says Marjan, slowly peering into the distance.

Censorship is an inescapable theme on the Iranian art scene. After a year’s leave presenting in France and Switzerland, Rostam, a young artist, has returned home to Tehran for a new exhibition. “In Iran, the red line between what is allowed and what’s not is blurred. We navigate between absolute freedom and total paranoia.” During the event launching the exhibition, hundreds of visitors of all ages arrive. One corner of the room is enclosed by large windows, leading to a patio surrounding an empty swimming pool. Outside, from the small veranda, the skyline is visible. Women’s veils drape casually off their heads, lending an air of mystery and rebelliousness. Rostam estimates Tehran’s artistic community numbers no more than 1,000 individuals. “We all know each other. We go to the same exhibitions, the same restaurants.”

* Names have been changed to protect interview subjects.

Fighting Censorship: An Interview With Grigoriy Okhotin

2013-04-16T17:46:34Z

Tell me a little bit about your project: OVDinfo.org. What do you hope to achieve? And what role does the Internet play?

Our project came into existence after the first major protest against mass election frauds in December 2011 during which a lot of people were arrested. We realized that something needed to be done after many of our friends were arrested – so we started gathering information about who was being incarcerated, where they were taken, and what was being done to them. Very quickly, however, it became clear that we could do something more interesting and practical than simply an emotional project.

OVDinfo.org was what we came up with. At the beginning, we had two leaders; I was responsible for the media part, whereas, my friend and colleague programmed our database and was responsible for the technological aspect. We decided that we would be the liaison between the media and the detained activists. We would gather the information, gain credibility and have the media use our information. Then, in order to liberate people, we would enable lawyers to use this information. Finally, the third stage – which evolved independently – was to demonstrate the level of political repression in Russia.

The information we gather daily shows the extent of the problem. The goal is to eradicate detentions, but if they do happen, they must be safe and legal. We scare the police with our evidence. As soon as their departments and their names show up in our database, the police become scared to physically abuse detainees. Law enforcement is scared to violate the law because they understand that they are being watched. This is our main vision.

Along the way, we’ve come up with new ideas. For example, we interview the detainees. These are psychological, not media interviews, that reveal how the system is structured – how the police, prisons and courts function and interact. This understanding is necessary for reform; we are collecting this information to be able to make our own suggestions and improve the system. Perhaps, this will not happen now, not in the current political situation, but someday, it will be possible.

Your second question was regarding the Internet. In many ways, I am not a supporter of the theory that the Internet significantly changes one’s life, nor that it changes activism in the sphere of politics or human rights. Because for me, one of the main roots of our movement are the chronicles of the samizdat; which were produced by soviet dissidents and human rights defenders of the 60s and 70s. The Internet did not exist during their movement, but they too gathered information and protected political detainees – these chronicles then became known in all the foreign embassies and all the foreign correspondents whom had offices in Moscow. As a result, the Soviet regime could no longer easily suffocate or kill or imprison these detainees. Of course, the Internet changes the circumstances, but mostly it speeds up and eases our tasks. Our main instrument is a hotline, so when someone is detained, people can call this phone number, but they can also do this via Twitter or an online form. However, this is only a question of speed, it does not make a principle difference. Of course, information spreads online much faster than the cycle of a daily newspaper. We publish a piece of news 15 minutes after we find out about it, and within 30 min it is already published in all Internet news publications. But if this was a newspaper; within 24 hours, the public may no longer be interested. However, the Internet is not the biggest factor. Media is media and the Internet is just another media.

More seriously, the Internet influences all kinds of instruments like crowdsourcing. We can say that crowdsourcing would not be possible without the Internet; it would just be too expensive. In this way, we can gather information from other cities without having our own branches and staff in those locations. For example, we made a video service with the help of crowdsourcing. [We put out a call] that if you have a video of people being detained at demonstrations, you can easily and comfortably upload it to our site. From there, lawyers or journalists can use it for their purposes. Of course, without the Internet, such services are impossible.

We want to use this aspect of the Internet to enhance coordination. For example, right now we are coordinating legal help by sending e-mails and making phone calls. This takes a lot of time. So we want to create a simple service where you can request legal help and this electronic request would automatically go out to ten human rights-defending organizations; one of them would then agree to help. This would all happen online without extensive moderation/efforts. These kinds of technologies and services are how the Internet contributes to human rights. What is surprising is that this is still very underutilized. Everyone is talking about it but there are so few in reality. We’ve searched many sites of international organizations and very few of them are using online instruments and online rights defense. This is truly new ground, everything else is just a question of speed; fifteen minutes instead of a day.

In comparison to television and printing press, the Internet is relatively uncensored in Russia. Of course, sometimes there are DDoS attacks that are carried out by groups who may have links to the government. In your activities, have you come across such attacks on your site?

No, our site has not been attacked. I don’t know why. But we did experience something that was more unpleasant for us, which was a DDoS attack on our hotlines. For example, when 500 telephone calls come in per minute, it is no longer possible to get through. Our site hasn’t been DDoS’ed [this is a verb], but this is a very widespread tool for fighting free media. Perhaps it hasn’t happened, because we are still a very new organization. Larger organizations, such as Memorial or Human Rights Watch, have yet to be DDoS’ed. They really do tend to attack mass services, such as blog platforms.

Furthermore, this doesn’t just happen randomly, but usually on the eve of some important event - to overload a site two days before a big demonstration, for example. They just take out the blog platforms completely so that people can neither communicate nor coordinate. Over the last two years, the instances of DDoS attacks on independent media have increased. As you rightly noted, this is somehow tied to the government yet it hasn’t been proved. Since it is the Internet, everything is quite anonymous, but the impression is that a budget is set aside in advance. Perhaps, they haven’t had enough time to include our website in their budget.

In relation to Internet media compared to television.

In response to your question regarding the difference between Internet and television as a form of media; we monitor very carefully who cites our website and uses our information. Surprisingly, our data is used by everyone, including government-owned newspapers, but mostly in the Internet versions, not the print versions. Television companies also use our information occasionally, but, once again, on their internet releases rather than on air.

Besides DDoS attacks, do you foresee more serious threats to Internet freedom in Russia now or in the near future?

Yes, the situation is rapidly getting worse. Indeed, the Kremlin became scared of Internet freedom after the revolution in Egypt and the killing of the Libyan leader. They believed the tall tale that the revolution was a result of Twitter and Facebook, which is, of course, not the case. Without grassroots activity, it would have been impossible. Internet is just an amplifier of activity. Without that activity, there would be nothing.

Despite this however, the Russian government started to adopt new legal measures to curb Internet freedom, such as black lists. In Russia, we love children, they are almost holy, so under the guise of protecting children from pornography, drugs, and suicide, the government created a black list which was formed via very non-transparent conditions. Yet what is most interesting is that the system used IP addresses; by using one IP address, there could be a pornographic site or my site, drug propaganda or a blog post. This is absurd. Everyone was very much against this law, including Yandex, the search engine. The government promised that it would take all this into consideration, but of course it didn’t.

Within one month of its creation, our Pirate Party released an analytical report that 95% of what goes into the Black List does not relate to pornography or drug propaganda. So far, this list hasn’t been used in political battles, but the government can close an IP address forever simply by registering a pornography site to the same IP address.

There is another negative development. Right now we have GONGOs, or so-called civil society organizations created with the help of the government. In one of the provinces the GONGO conducted an experiment to create a White List. This means that when you buy an Internet package, you will have access only to the White List of websites, which have been checked for the absence of “bad” content. Currently, in this list are 5,000,000 websites, which is less than 1% of all world websites. This is a Russian innovation. This doesn’t even exist in China. So this all happens when you sign a contract with your Internet provider. But if you don’t want this, you have to sign a separate contract saying that you don’t want to protect your children from pornography. This experiment is only in one province and remains unofficial – but still, it’s an alarming development.

Yet more than the above problems, there exist several other issues. For instance, companies that are close to the government acquire social platforms to exert control. Livejournal – originally owned by an American company - was the most popular blog service in Russia; and the government simply had it bought up by a Russian company.

Moreover, social media is being put to criminal trial for spreading extremism. This is just another tool for putting pressure on activists. The latest example was against activism to close a school – an activist organization posted a quote by Hitler that stated, “If you wanted to control your population, close your schools.” They were then blamed for spreading extremist propaganda. Of course, it had nothing to do with real extremism.

Another incident was somewhere in the provinces. A political activist received a warning that he was noted for extremist activity because another user put a photograph with extremist content onto his vKontakte [Russian version of Facebook] wall. But it was the owner of the wall that was blamed. Of course, this is a very alarming episode, especially in the provinces. In Moscow, such an act would not have been possible – people protest such human rights violations, and activists can usually get good lawyers. In the provinces, however, there are very few activists – it’s a difficult moment.

Yet the DDoS attacks remain the most common activity. It is very difficult to protect your site from them. Even the biggest sites cannot protect themselves. It is just too cheap to overload a site, about 200 USD for even the most heavily-securitized IP addresses. At the same time, to be DDoS’d is not catastrophic.

You mentioned the difference between Moscow and the provinces. But there is also a difference between generations. For example, the International Research and Exchange Board’s Media Sustainability Index of 2012 indicated that the younger generation has a bigger expectation of freedom because they use the Internet, which is less censored than television. What effect might this generational difference have on the situation in Russia?

There is a general sense that Russia is changing on a societal rather than political level; but they are mostly related to consumer behavior. Automobile insurance works quite well in Russia and people are becoming more used to following a contract. They know that if they are paying for insurance, they are promised a certain service and they will receive that service. Since we have a lot of drivers, this affects a big part of society. They become used to signing contracts and following through with them. This carries over and now people demand the same from the government with whom they feel that they are in a binding contract. They pay taxes, after all.

Another factor is that now in Russia you can buy 40 different types of cheese, 40 different types of jeans and so on - so people are used to choices. But despite this variety, we have Putin over and over again. So people who have become used to consumer freedom are beginning to carry this over to the political sphere. Internet works in the same way, when you can look at this site or that site and compare different sources of information, you begin to question what you’re told. You’re told something from the “box” [how Russians refer to the TV] but you say “I will check that on Wikipedia”. So those who are used to using the Internet have stopped trusting the “box.” It is true that the Russian television audience is aging and decreasing. In 2012, for the first time, daily Yandex users in Russia surpassed television viewers. This change clearly effects the way society thinks and behaves in regards to its rights.

Yet, I don’t think that this is such a difference in age. For example, I was an observer at a voting station and there were some elderly official that said “be careful because whatever you say, he will find something about it on the Internet”. They think the Internet is one, big wasteland. So this understanding [of checking information] is not just among the younger generation but everywhere.

What do you hope to achieve as a Freedom Fellow? You have come to Geneva and will continue on to Washington, D.C. What effect do you hope this will have for your activities in Russia?

Our project’s team is very interesting - we have journalists and programmers. We believe that throughout the world, NGOs do not fully utilize modern technologies for spreading their agenda. We are quite good at doing this in the context of Russian NGOs and we are interested in sharing our competences, to show them how to better utilize the Internet to spread their agenda. We would like to create trainings that emphasize knowledge sharing –that outline how an NGO site should look, and what activities that site should develop.

During this Fellowship, I will meet a large number of professionals in the NGO world. Their experiences will enrich my understanding and allow me to network. We then hope to collaborate in the future and help NGOs to modernize their websites and Internet activity. I ended up here unintentionally- I was invited to come here, so I came here. In the end it was timely and exactly what my colleagues and I believe we need.

Besides networking, do you hope to exert any pressure on a political level?

This fellowship was created to network and share experiences. There are many other forums that exert political pressure. We also engage in this by translating all of our reports into English and sending them around the globe. This fellowship is more about learning from each other. We are not alone - there are many people facing similar problems in other countries.

We love data and we love to make this data available to others for their use. This is, of course, only possible with the help of the Internet. This is the feature of the Internet that will change the world.

What is next for OVDinfo.org?

Besides software development of NGOs, we are expanding geographically - covering big cities outside of Moscow. We also want to expand our topics. Currently, we cover mostly detentions, but we want to also cover all types of political repression. We already cover police and freedom of assembly, so now we want to cover courts, prisons, and political migration. We are planning to do this in the next year or two. In a way, we want to become like propublica.org, an American, independent, non-profit media which produces investigative journalism on public interests by working with open data. They then distribute it via the Internet and by re-publishing at the partners’ traditional, off-line media.

Bollywood And Gender Violence

2013-04-02T11:30:59Z

The proliferation of sexual violence and female oppression in India is truly disturbing. The Times of India recently reported that 95% of women in Delhi and the surrounding areas feel unsafe outdoors. While the recent gang rape of a student in Delhi has brought significant attention to this issue, male sexual dominance deeply associated with violent tendencies is a mainstay of Indian culture. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Bollywood, where "eve-teasing" – a euphemism in India that refers to everything from provocative comments to groping - is historically displayed by cinematic heroes.

Steve Derné conducted an in-depth analysis of Hindi films during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The study found that Hindi films not only tend to “eroticize” sexual violence but these films often legitimize such violence[1] by showing heroes who use milder forms of sexual violence to gain the affection of heroines. Derné interviewed Indian men on how films shaped their beliefs about romantic relationships and women’s place in society more generally. These interviews confirmed the hypothesis that men at that time idealized submission in women and that that ideal was often supported and even amplified by the images they saw in films. What is notable here is that, by simultaneously legitimizing “mild” sexual aggression by men and idealizing submission in women, these films rob women of their agency.

A more recent study of nine randomly selected Bollywood box-office hits from the late 1990’s reveal that over 40% of sexual scenes included sexual violence [2], and perhaps even more shockingly, nearly 70% of the perpetrators of this violence were the “heroes”. The same study found that while “serious” sexual violence was shown in a negative light – moderate sexual violence, of the sort often perpetrated by the film heroes, was framed as fun. Once again, the narratives of these films serve to rob women of their agency, by treating them as prizes to be won by force.

Notwithstanding this, Hindi films have certainly evolved over time. More recent films have celebrated women’s abilities beyond their role as sexual objects. In the 2009 film “Wake Up Sid”, the heroine is not only a successful writer but encourages the hero to be self- sufficient, forcing him to grow up and effectively educates him. Furthermore, in the 2012 the sleeper hit “Kahaani”, the heroine is elevated to the status of an action hero and mastermind, manipulating a series of events to avenge the death of her husband and destroy a terrorist cell. Even with this substantial progress, however, many of old social mores remain. Another highly successful 2012 romantic comedy, “Cocktail”, again reinforced the image of the “ideal” Indian woman with a shy, traditional and selfless heroine juxtaposed to her modern and more liberal best friend.

These common film images, reflected in the attitudes of Indian youth, reinforce specific ideals of both masculinity and femininity. In a recent pilot study of college-aged students, researchers found that 32% of female respondents thought that eve-teasing was a way to display masculinity.[3] The acceptance of male aggression as a legitimate expression of masculinity by this group of educated women confirms the fact that these norms are still deeply entrenched in Indian society. In addition, the majority of male respondents reported enjoying watching scenes of eve-teasing in movies and 50% asserted that they believed women liked to be “teased”. The vast majority of male-respondents, 76%, reported that films and television played a role in the prevalence of eve-teasing behaviors. This shows that, over 20 years following in-depth studies and interviews by Derné, these “minor” acts of sexual violence are still eroticized by the Indian media industry.

Moreover, these images and storylines continue to rob female characters of their agency. This loss of agency affects young women and men’s attitudes and responses in their own lives. On the one hand, the same survey study found that 51% of female respondents ignore eve-teasing situations due to feeling helpless. 45% of women and 39% of men also revealed that not only was there no point in protesting against eve-teasing, but that such protest was likely to aggravate the situation. On the other hand, The Pink Gang, an impressive group of Indian women collectively acting to protect themselves, is taking pro-active steps to reclaim their agency. These women reject the deeply ingrained belief that women are helpless and take action to change their own situations and even their communities. This fundamental shift in these beliefs is vital for Indian women. These beliefs, however, will remain deeply rooted in Indian society, as long as young Indian women and men are subjected to images idealizing outdated and harmful notions of sexuality.

The recent commercial success of films, such as “Kahaani”, show that there is a growing demand for empowered heroines in Hindi films. This presents a significant opportunity for the Indian media to not only reflect present and past Indian societal attitudes towards women but also help re-shape them. In this way, it encourages the development of more three-dimensional, empowered heroines and heroes who fully respect women, thus condemning even mild sexual violence and its perpetrators. The films mentioned above highlight that this shift in media portrayals is already underway. In fact, over the last several years, public service announcements against eve-teasing have multiplied. However, the unification of the nation after the horrific Delhi gang-rape coupled with the proof that pro-feminist films can be commercial successes should lead to a rapid rise of more empowering portrayals of women in Indian entertainment.

References

1. Derne, S., Making Sex Violent: Love as Force in Recent Hindi Films. Violence Against Women, 1999. 5: p. 548.

2. Ramasubramanian, S. and M.B. Oliver, Portrayals of Sexual Violence in Popular Hindi Films, 1997-99. Sex Roles, 2003. 48(7/8): p. 327-336.

3. Ghosh, D., Eve Teasing: Role of the Patriarchal System of the Society. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, 2011. 37: p. 100-107.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.