HARARE - Zimbabwe police severely tortured a dozen trade unionists held for trying to stage a protest over poor wages, leaving some with fractured limbs and a top official in hospital, lawyers told a court on Friday. Riot police arrested scores of members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) Wednesday, disrupting a planned march in the latest clampdown by President Robert Mugabes government.
At their first court appearance Friday, defense lawyers said the unionists were assaulted excessively and brutally during arrest while demanding better pay and access to anti-retroviral HIV/AIDS drugs.
Magistrate Olivia Mariga ordered an investigation into the torture charges, which state prosecutors did not dispute. She also granted bail to all those detained in the capital pending trial on October 3.
Defense lawyer Sarudzayi Njerere said police beat the group, including ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo and Secretary-General Wellington Chibebe at a Harare police station. The accused persons were tortured brutally and severely. Wellington Chibebe has been unable to be here because he has been hospitalized, said Njerere.
Many of the accused limped into the courtroom while several wore arm slings and bandages. The defense said the ZCTU members were initially denied medical attention and forced to wade barefooted through raw sewage in cells condemned as inhumane by the Supreme Court.
Rights group Amnesty International said it was gravely concerned over the torture and over the holding of rights activists and mothers with babies, who were arrested earlier this week and denied access to adequate food and medical care.
They noticed, did they?
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/16/2006 00:00 ||
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Amnesia International then added, "These guys still arent as bad as Bush", and then said, "Just ask Sean Penn".
Islamabad, Sep 16 (IANS) After Mukhtaran Mai, a case of Mumtaz Mai has come to light in rural Pakistan, where women become victims of tribal warfare, family feuds or quite simply, male violence.
The News International Saturday reported the case of one Mumtaz Mai and her daughter, Ghazala Shaheen Bathi, who were abducted, held in captivity and gang-raped for 12 days because daughter Ghazala dared to become educated. The mother-daughter duo earned the wrath of the Mirali tribesmen when it became known that Ghazala had passed her Master's in Education from Bahauddin Zahariya University on Aug 25.
The girl's father Mohammed Hussain, a retired armyman belonging to village Chak Sher Khan near Kabirwala in Multan, was also beaten up.
Influential people are said to be involved in this case too. The newspaper report repeatedly hinted at the involvement of 'a minister of state', but did not name him.
When informed by the villagers, the local police acted after 12 days, only to help the accused. While three men managed to escape, the local villagers prevented the car carrying the two women from driving away. It is said that among the three men overpowered the villagers included two bodyguards of the minister.
Kabirwala's police chief Daud Hussain has been quoted as denying the incident.
"Lies! All lies!"
The police reportedly clarified that the two women had run away from their home 'on their own'. However, the newspaper said authorities in the local hospital confirmed that the two women had been raped.
Posted by: john ||
09/16/2006 11:47 ||
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nice - moderate muslims, I'm sure
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/16/2006 12:41 Comments ||
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Examine this story carefully. This is borderlining on vigilantism, which is generally caused when the police and authorities don't or won't do their job.
Real soon, I wouldn't be surprised if mob violence doesn't result in a bunch of these criminals being lynched. Of course, *then* the authorities will get terribly excited. But it will force them to either act to protect their citizens, or it will have to declare open war on them.
#6
"Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state." (ABC's "The View," 9/13/06)
Stupid cow
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/16/2006 16:21 Comments ||
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#7
In most of the South the education of slaves was a crime before 1865: education endangers oppressors.
NB: Democrats maintain this policy up until today by supporting the teacher's unions above the interests of students and parents.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/16/2006 17:13 Comments ||
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#8
nice catch RC
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/16/2006 17:18 Comments ||
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#9
There are no 'moderate muslims', and even if they were, you would not find them in Pakistan. Musharraf doesn't count, since he keeps his hold on power at the point of a gun, and needfully so.
At every level of their society, the same old foul smelling drivel: Death to the infidel, death to America, death to the Jews, death to women who 'dishonor' Isalm, etc, etc, etc.
Dear God, when will we wake up and realize this is a war for the very existence of the civilized world?
A Muslim teenager who fell in love with a Hindu student on the internet has fled her home in Britain against her parents' wishes and married him in India. The clandestine affair between Subia Gaur, 18, and her boyfriend Ashwani Gupta, 22, has provoked intense media interest on the subcontinent and captured the imagination of the Indian public, who turned up in their hundreds to watch the ceremony.
The traditional Hindu wedding, which took place in Mr Gupta's home town of Ghaziabad, near Delhi, on Monday, was broadcast on television throughout India.
Miss Gaur, from Plaistow, east London, met her husband three years ago in an internet chatroom. They exchanged photographs, began talking secretly through the night and fell in love. The relationship was conducted in secret for many months before Miss Gaur travelled to India to meet Mr Gupta for the first time, on the pretence of visiting her grandparents in Bombay. "I knew the first time I met Ashwani in person that he was the one I was going to marry," she said from her new home in India. "It is hard for people to understand what we have been through. My family have put a lot of pressure on me and I didn't want to hurt them, but I had to be with the man that I love.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john ||
09/16/2006 00:00 ||
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Acid and Machetes on order.... for the standard Muslim interfaith wedding celebration, of course
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/16/2006 0:48 Comments ||
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This story has a number of things in common with my own experience in looking for an Indian wife. Except that after meeting me my inlaws were very receptive.
That and they didn't conspire to kill us both. We've been married in the US and India. Non-denominational Western wedding and a Hindu (Araya Sarmaj) wedding.
So, I am a man with TWO wedding anniversaries (sp) I have to remember. But I have no regrets, my wife is a wonderful lady. The family has adopted me, and they seem quite proud to have an American in the family. Of course it doesn't hurt that they are wealthy even by American standards. I am the token Westerner.
Expert says Indians are prone to diabetes because centuries of food shortages have led to genetic changes that encourage the storage of food as fat
RISING incomes and huge servings of bad food - from deep-fried samosas to pizza and burgers - have sparked a surge in diabetes cases in India that threatens the health care system, experts say. The creaky medical system in this country of 1.1 billion people has traditionally focused on contagious diseases like malaria, polio and measles - made chronic by a lack of food and proper sanitation for millions.
But as India's economy grows, more and more people - half the population is under 25 - are swapping lives of physical labour and homemade meals of rice and lentils for sedentary office jobs and big helpings of greasy take-away. As a result, the number of diabetes cases, now at some 35 million, is expected to more than double in the next 25 years, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The heart bleeds. Or maybe it's the chapattis. No doubt they'll find a way to deal with it, just like the last couple generations of Americans found a way to deal with it.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/16/2006 00:00 ||
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half the population is under 25 - are swapping lives of physical labour and homemade meals of rice and lentils for sedentary office jobs and big helpings of greasy take-away.
Things are looking up. When gout raises its ugly head you'll know India has arrivee.
#2
maybe they can call an outsourced technical help center for advice
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/16/2006 8:30 Comments ||
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Samosa's are wonderful, along with Gulab Jamuns and other delicacies. When I was there in March visiting family, I participated in a delightful Hindu rite/festival called Holi. The neighbors stuffed all manner of Indian treats into me with no harmful side effects.
That and I looked like a technicolor fat Texan. They were amazingly hospitable people, of course being married to an Indian woman didn't hurt.
They invited me into their homes, stuffed me with all manner of treats, pulled me into the streets to dance with their wives and daughters and generally adopted me. Were amazed at my capacity for the consumption of spicy food.
I in turn introduced them to habenero jelly and jalapeno poppers. They were amazed and subdued by the firey heat of the mighty habenero! I have since sent packets of seeds, and quite a few have been making good money growing the tasty peppers and selling them. I call it good diplomacy, people to people.
Of course this post is appropo of nothing and off topic, but I really like the average Indian person on the street. They treated me like a celebrity simply because I was there in their community and not in some westernized and comfortable box.
This has turned into a Saturday afternoon ramble, so I'll close it. Oh, and, DEATH to Islam.
#4
I have since sent packets of seeds, and quite a few have been making good money growing the tasty peppers and selling them. I call it good diplomacy, people to people.
I call it crazy! Pepper proliferation is way the hell worse than nuke sleaziness. Indians already have peppers and have shown a willingness to use them for centuries, now you've given them the Hydrogen Habanero!
#5
Indians already have peppers and have shown a willingness to use them for centuries, now you've given them the Hydrogen Habanero!
I agree! I must admit that I was reluctant to expand their capsicum capabilities, but I concluded that there would be no harm done. However, my wife has informed me that they are trying to enhance the technology I inadvertantly bestowed upon them.
All across Vasant Kunj there is a war being waged as to who can produce a HOTTER pepper. As it stands now, no one can claim superiority because no one has what it takes to sample the product. I
neglected to educate them about scoville units.
That marked an improvement from August, when consumer confidence sank to a three-month low of 74.8. At that time, the toll of soaring energy prices was blamed for weighing on consumers' psyches. The recent drop in energy prices, however, provided people with some relief and propelled confidence to its best reading since February.
"The drop in pump prices is very visible to consumers and seems to have a huge impact," said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America's Investment Strategies Group. "Consumers seem to view gasoline prices as a barometer to their overall well being." After surging past $3 a gallon in many areas, gasoline prices are now hovering around $2.62 a gallon nationwide, the Energy Department says.
Economists believe that price relief figured prominently in the upswing in consumers' feelings about current economic conditions. This measure shot up to 118.8 in early September. That was up sharply from 92.1 in August and was the highest reading on record. Ipsos started the confidence index in 2002.
#2
It is possibe that this is bad news for the Donks because they have invested in failure in order to win. We have to be losing the WOT in order for the Donks to regain power. The economy has to tank because the republicans are evil. Poverty, crime, and education have to in peril otherwise the Donks can't win. The common theme here is not a positive one.
#3
CyberSarge -- the Donks have to destroy the US in order to save it. Look at their plans for our health care industry.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/16/2006 17:06 Comments ||
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#4
The price of gas affects the price of just about everything else we buy - food, clothing, everything but housing. A drop in gas prices means a gradual drop in everything else that has to be transported from one place to another. Dropping gas prices do help. More stateside oil production and refining would help even more.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/16/2006 23:57 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Islamabad, Sep 16 (IANS) After Mukhtaran Mai, a case of Mumtaz Mai has come to light in rural Pakistan, where women become victims of tribal warfare, family feuds or quite simply, male violence.
A Muslim teenager who fell in love with a Hindu student on the internet has fled her home in Britain against her parents' wishes and married him in India. The clandestine affair between Subia Gaur, 18, and her boyfriend Ashwani Gupta, 22, has provoked intense media interest on the subcontinent and captured the imagination of the Indian public, who turned up in their hundreds to watch the ceremony.
RISING incomes and huge servings of bad food - from deep-fried samosas to pizza and burgers - have sparked a surge in diabetes cases in India that threatens the health care system, experts say. The creaky medical system in this country of 1.1 billion people has traditionally focused on contagious diseases like malaria, polio and measles - made chronic by a lack of food and proper sanitation for millions.
