Dimanche dernier, une jeune femme a été
agressée sexuellement dans un bus circulant à New Delhi. Agée de 23
ans, elle a été hospitalisée dans un état critique. Depuis, les
manifestations massives se multiplient dans la capitale indienne pour
dénoncer l’attitude du gouvernement à l’égard des femmes, et notamment
celles issues des minorités tribales. Tous les rassemblements ont
entraîné de violents affrontements entre les forces de l’ordre et la
foule. Ces dernières n’ont pas hésité à faire usage de gaz lacrymogène
et de canons à eau, notamment contre des groupes d’étudiants qui ont
tenté de passer outre les cordons policiers pour se diriger
[Tear gas and water cannon were used against protesters marching on the presidential palace]
There has been outrage in India over the attack on a bus last Sunday that has left the 23-year-old woman in a critical condition in hospital.
Six people have been arrested.
The government has tried to halt the rising anger over the attack by announcing a series of measures intended to make Delhi safer for women.
They include more police night patrols, checks on bus drivers and their assistants and the banning of buses with tinted windows or curtains.
But the protesters say the government’s pledge to seek life sentences for the attackers is not enough – many are calling for the death penalty.
Some carried placards reading “Hang the Rapists” and “Save women. Save India” as they marched on Saturday.
Junior home minister RPN Singh appealed for calm after the clashes broke out. “This is not a way to protest,” he told India’s CNN-IBN television. “Trying to storm buildings and breaking barricades is not a way to start a dialogue.”
The woman and her friend had been to watch a film when they boarded the bus in the Munirka area intending to travel to Dwarka in south-west Delhi.
Police said she was raped for nearly an hour, both she and her companion were beaten with iron rods and thrown out of the moving bus into a Delhi street.
Doctors said on Saturday that the woman remained in a critical but stable condition, but had been removed from a ventilator.
“She is doing much better than yesterday,” said BD Athani, superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital.
The attack has prompted a week of candle-lit vigils and demonstrations amid some soul-searching about the safety of women in Delhi and other parts of the country.
Police figures show that, in Delhi, a rape is reported on average every 18 hours and some form of sexual attack every 14 hours.
Indian novelist Arundhati Roy said rape is seen as a “matter of feudal entitlement” in many parts of the country, and the reason this case had come to light is because the woman victim belongs to the affluent middle class.
She said attitudes towards women need to change in India, because a change in the law only will protect middle class women, but “the violence against other women who are not entitled will continue”.
————————————————————
By Harmeet Shah Singh, Mallika Kapur and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
New Delhi (CNN) — Police in India blasted protesters
with water cannon and tear gas Saturday as clashes broke out at a rally
in New Delhi against rape, leaving scores of people drenched and angry.
The demonstration was prompted by wide public outrage over what police said was the gang-rape and beating of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in the capital last Sunday.
Her injuries were so severe she spent days in intensive care in a city hospital, battling for her life. Police said Saturday that she had recovered enough to give a statement to a magistrate from her hospital bed the previous evening.
Dozens of police, some equipped with bamboo canes, flanked the water cannon as it blasted out on to the thousands of protesters assembled by New Delhi’s historic India Gate.
Some demonstrators attempted to break through the security barriers
blocking access to the country’s government district, parliament
building and presidential palace.
Others chanted, punched the air in defiance and waved banners as the police sought to disperse them from Raisina Hill, the seat of Indian power.
“Hang them till death,” read the placard of one protester seeking capital punishment for rape suspects.
“Stop this shame,” read another. A third said, “Give them the same physical torture.”
Shouts of “We want justice” also rose above the large and diverse crowd, symbolizing a widely felt anger over attacks against women. Banners proclaiming the same message were marked with a hangman’s noose.
One young woman protester, who said her leg was injured by a blow from a police baton, lamented what she called a failure of democracy in the country.
!["Official]()
“Today, I have seen democracy dying,” she said.
New Delhi’s police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said up to 35 protesters and nearly 40 police personnel were injured.
Thirty barricades were damaged in the course of the protest, he said, and police fired 125 tear gas shells. A number of vehicles were also damaged, he said.
Saturday’s furious protest was just the latest held across the country in the past week, where official data show that rape cases have jumped almost 875% over the past 40 years — from 2,487 in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011.
New Delhi alone reported 572 rapes last year and more than 600 in 2012.
Bhavyaa Sharma, a 19-year-old student at a leading women’s college in the capital, told CNN how she fears for her safety when she leaves the campus. Sexual assaults on women in the city have horrified her and her female friends.
“I feel vulnerable here,” said Sharma, accompanied by her classmates. “I am very sure about it. Delhi is not safe for women.”
Six suspects, including the bus driver and a minor, have now been arrested in connection with Sunday’s rape.
As fury about the assault gathered pace, some Indian lawmakers even called for treating rape as a capital crime.
“We’ll work collectively to see we make a law which is deterrent and preventive,” said New Delhi’s chief minister, Sheila Dikshit.
India’s Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters Saturday that the government would work toward increasing punishment in “rarest of the rare” rape cases.
But pressed on whether the administration would agree to demands for death by hanging in such instances, he said: “We’ll have to see in what way it (the rape sentencing) can be enhanced.”
Shinde said the government was pushing for a speedy trial for the attack.
Authorities are also taking a number of steps to improve security for women in New Delhi, particularly on public transport, he said.
“(The) government shares the widespread concern and support that has been expressed throughout society for the girl who has so suffered. Government also respects the right of legitimate protest,” he said.
“At the same time, there is need to exercise calm at this juncture and for everyone to work together to improve the safety and security environment.”
In the meantime, the victim has been promised the best possible medical care, Shinde said.
A physician described the woman’s condition Saturday as better than a day earlier, but said there was still a risk of infection. She is receiving psychological as well as medical care, he said.
Following the brutal assault, the country’s human rights body shot
off notices to city police and federal authorities, demanding an
explanation.
“The incident has raised the issue of declining public confidence in the law and order machinery in the city, especially in its capacity to ensure safety of women, as a number of such incidents have been reported in the national capital in the recent past,” the National Human Rights Commission said in a statement Tuesday.
Home Secretary R. K. Singh announced the suspension of five police officers in the wake of Sunday’s rape.
Meantime, some observers say anti-women acts in India stem from the country’s largely patriarchal social setup.
Indians’ preference for sons over daughters, for example, has manifested itself in a worrisome population imbalance. The 2011 census of the world’s second-most populous nation recorded an alarming drop in the percentage of girls among country’s preschoolers.
For every 1,000 boys up to 6 years old, the census counted 914 girls, a drop from 927 a decade ago. It’s illegal in India to abort a child because of its sex, but such abortions happen, often aided by illegal clinics.
vers le palais présidentiel.
Posted on December 22, 2012 by reed
[In the capital of India, which the government has claimed is
"the world's largest democracy," a brutal rape of a young woman has
brought thousands of outraged protestors into the streets. Rape is a
common terror that women face in Delhi and throughout India. What
brought these massive protests to the streets, this time? As the
following articles point out, "Police figures show that, in Delhi, a rape is reported on average every 18 hours and some form of sexual attack every 14 hours....Indian novelist Arundhati Roy said rape is seen as a 'matter of feudal entitlement' in many parts of the country, and the reason this case had come to light is because the woman victim belongs to the affluent middle class".....She said attitudes
towards women need to change in India, because a change in the law only
will protect middle class women, but 'the violence against other women
who are not entitled will continue'." -- Frontlines ed.]
Indian police have used tear gas and water
cannons to keep back thousands of protesters marching in Delhi over the
gang rape of a young woman.
Violence broke out as the protesters, mainly college students, tried
to break through police barricades to march on the presidential palace.There has been outrage in India over the attack on a bus last Sunday that has left the 23-year-old woman in a critical condition in hospital.
Six people have been arrested.
The government has tried to halt the rising anger over the attack by announcing a series of measures intended to make Delhi safer for women.
They include more police night patrols, checks on bus drivers and their assistants and the banning of buses with tinted windows or curtains.
But the protesters say the government’s pledge to seek life sentences for the attackers is not enough – many are calling for the death penalty.
Some carried placards reading “Hang the Rapists” and “Save women. Save India” as they marched on Saturday.
Junior home minister RPN Singh appealed for calm after the clashes broke out. “This is not a way to protest,” he told India’s CNN-IBN television. “Trying to storm buildings and breaking barricades is not a way to start a dialogue.”
The woman and her friend had been to watch a film when they boarded the bus in the Munirka area intending to travel to Dwarka in south-west Delhi.
Police said she was raped for nearly an hour, both she and her companion were beaten with iron rods and thrown out of the moving bus into a Delhi street.
Doctors said on Saturday that the woman remained in a critical but stable condition, but had been removed from a ventilator.
“She is doing much better than yesterday,” said BD Athani, superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital.
The attack has prompted a week of candle-lit vigils and demonstrations amid some soul-searching about the safety of women in Delhi and other parts of the country.
Police figures show that, in Delhi, a rape is reported on average every 18 hours and some form of sexual attack every 14 hours.
Indian novelist Arundhati Roy said rape is seen as a “matter of feudal entitlement” in many parts of the country, and the reason this case had come to light is because the woman victim belongs to the affluent middle class.
She said attitudes towards women need to change in India, because a change in the law only will protect middle class women, but “the violence against other women who are not entitled will continue”.
————————————————————
By Harmeet Shah Singh, Mallika Kapur and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
Saturday. December 22, 2012
Students
chant anti-police slogans during a protest against the Indian
government’s reaction to recent rape incidents in India, on Saturday,
December 22, in New Delhi, India. The demonstration was prompted by wide
public outrage over what police said was the gang-rape and beating of a
23-year-old woman on a moving bus in the capital last Sunday.
The demonstration was prompted by wide public outrage over what police said was the gang-rape and beating of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in the capital last Sunday.
Her injuries were so severe she spent days in intensive care in a city hospital, battling for her life. Police said Saturday that she had recovered enough to give a statement to a magistrate from her hospital bed the previous evening.
Dozens of police, some equipped with bamboo canes, flanked the water cannon as it blasted out on to the thousands of protesters assembled by New Delhi’s historic India Gate.
Demonstrators
react from tear gas fired by police during a protest calling for better
safety for women. New Delhi alone reported 572 rapes last year and more
than 600 in 2012.
Others chanted, punched the air in defiance and waved banners as the police sought to disperse them from Raisina Hill, the seat of Indian power.
“Hang them till death,” read the placard of one protester seeking capital punishment for rape suspects.
“Stop this shame,” read another. A third said, “Give them the same physical torture.”
Shouts of “We want justice” also rose above the large and diverse crowd, symbolizing a widely felt anger over attacks against women. Banners proclaiming the same message were marked with a hangman’s noose.
One young woman protester, who said her leg was injured by a blow from a police baton, lamented what she called a failure of democracy in the country.
“Today, I have seen democracy dying,” she said.
New Delhi’s police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said up to 35 protesters and nearly 40 police personnel were injured.
Thirty barricades were damaged in the course of the protest, he said, and police fired 125 tear gas shells. A number of vehicles were also damaged, he said.
Saturday’s furious protest was just the latest held across the country in the past week, where official data show that rape cases have jumped almost 875% over the past 40 years — from 2,487 in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011.
New Delhi alone reported 572 rapes last year and more than 600 in 2012.
Bhavyaa Sharma, a 19-year-old student at a leading women’s college in the capital, told CNN how she fears for her safety when she leaves the campus. Sexual assaults on women in the city have horrified her and her female friends.
“I feel vulnerable here,” said Sharma, accompanied by her classmates. “I am very sure about it. Delhi is not safe for women.”
Six suspects, including the bus driver and a minor, have now been arrested in connection with Sunday’s rape.
As fury about the assault gathered pace, some Indian lawmakers even called for treating rape as a capital crime.
“We’ll work collectively to see we make a law which is deterrent and preventive,” said New Delhi’s chief minister, Sheila Dikshit.
India’s Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters Saturday that the government would work toward increasing punishment in “rarest of the rare” rape cases.
But pressed on whether the administration would agree to demands for death by hanging in such instances, he said: “We’ll have to see in what way it (the rape sentencing) can be enhanced.”
Shinde said the government was pushing for a speedy trial for the attack.
Authorities are also taking a number of steps to improve security for women in New Delhi, particularly on public transport, he said.
“(The) government shares the widespread concern and support that has been expressed throughout society for the girl who has so suffered. Government also respects the right of legitimate protest,” he said.
“At the same time, there is need to exercise calm at this juncture and for everyone to work together to improve the safety and security environment.”
In the meantime, the victim has been promised the best possible medical care, Shinde said.
A physician described the woman’s condition Saturday as better than a day earlier, but said there was still a risk of infection. She is receiving psychological as well as medical care, he said.
Police spray water and fire tear gas towards demonstrators.
“The incident has raised the issue of declining public confidence in the law and order machinery in the city, especially in its capacity to ensure safety of women, as a number of such incidents have been reported in the national capital in the recent past,” the National Human Rights Commission said in a statement Tuesday.
Home Secretary R. K. Singh announced the suspension of five police officers in the wake of Sunday’s rape.
Meantime, some observers say anti-women acts in India stem from the country’s largely patriarchal social setup.
Indians’ preference for sons over daughters, for example, has manifested itself in a worrisome population imbalance. The 2011 census of the world’s second-most populous nation recorded an alarming drop in the percentage of girls among country’s preschoolers.
For every 1,000 boys up to 6 years old, the census counted 914 girls, a drop from 927 a decade ago. It’s illegal in India to abort a child because of its sex, but such abortions happen, often aided by illegal clinics.
vers le palais présidentiel.
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