Transgender Pakistanis find solace

 in a church of their own


Nisara Gill, right, leads a prayer service at Pakistan's first church for transgender worshippers, in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. Transgender Pakistanis are often mocked, abused and bullied, and Christians among them are a minority within a minority, often shunned even in churches. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s Christian transgender people, often mocked, abused and bullied, say they have found peace and solace in a church of their own.

Shunned by other churches, they can raise their voices high here.

During a recent service, transgender women, flowing scarves loose over their long hair, conducted Bible readings and raucously sang hymns, accompanied by the rhythms of a drum played by a transgender elder in the church.

The church, called the First Church of Eunuchs, is the only one for transgender Christians in Pakistan. “Eunuch” is a term often used for transgender women in South Asia, though some consider it derogatory. The church’s pastor and co-founder Ghazala Shafique said she chose the name to make a point, citing at length verses from the Bible saying eunuchs are favored by God.

In Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, on the Arabian Sea coast, it sits in the shadow of towering brownstone cathedral, where the congregation says they don’t feel welcome.

“People looked at us with eyes that are laughing at us,” said Nena Soutrey, a transgender woman whose life has been a tragedy of beatings, bullying and abuse.

“No one wants to sit near us and some even say we are an abomination. But we’re not. We are humans. We are people. What is wrong with us? This is who we are,” she said, a bright red scarf over her shoulders.

Transgender women and men of all faiths are often publicly bullied and humiliated or even face violence in deeply conservative Pakistan, though the government has recognized them officially as a third gender. Often disowned by their families, they resort to begging and work as wedding dancers. They often are sexually abused and end up as sex workers.

Transgender Christians are a minority within a minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim country. Christians and other religious minorities often face discrimination and feel their place is tenuous. While the community can find support among themselves, transgender Christians are most often rejected.

At churches, they are told to sit at the back and sometimes told not to dress as a woman. Arsoo, a transgender woman, said that in churches with separate women’s and men’s sections, she was bounced back and forth, told by the women to sit with the men and told by the men to sit with the women.

“I found myself in such a confusing situation,” she said.

Arzoo said she loved to sing the hymns or recite the Bible, but in churches she attended they asked her not to sing.

“I would try to come in front but the others, they considered it a dishonor if we participate,” she said. “I don’t understand why they feel like this. We are human too, born of our parents. The way God created them, God also created us.”

At their new church, the pastor Shafique celebrates the nearly three-hour service, but it’s the transgender congregation that takes the lead.

The church is set up in the courtyard outside Shafique’s home. Brightly colored carpets give warmth to the cement yard. Pale blue plastic chairs, many of them dirty and cracked, serve as pews. It’s located in the same sprawling compound as the cathedral, protected by high walls and a steel gate.

But there’s no mistaking that the humble church belongs to them: A giant six-foot billboard emblazoned with a large cross proudly announces in English, “The First Church for Eunuchs.” An Urdu translation underneath uses the term transgender Pakistanis more often use for themselves, “khwaja sira.”

Shafique, a rare female pastor in Pakistan, was first approached about starting the church by an unexpected advocate, a Muslim — Neesha Rao, Pakistan’s only transgender lawyer. Rao tells with pride how she begged on the streets for 10 years to put herself through law school.

Rao said she was moved by her transgender Christian friends who were often afraid to announce their faith, fearing a further abuse, but also couldn’t find solace among fellow Christians.


“I am a Muslim child and a Muslim transgender, but I had a pain in my heart for the Christian transgenders,” said Rao as she attended a Friday evening service. She attends every week, she said, standing behind the worshippers.

Shafique belongs to the Church of Pakistan, a united Protestant Church of Anglican, Methodist and Reform Churches. So far, her efforts with the hierarchy to get her church recognized have been rebuffed.

“They tell me there are theological issues,” Shafique said. “I am still waiting to hear what those theological issues are.”

She is sharply critical of clerics who would rather their transgender congregants were invisible or stayed away all together and of parents who reject their transgender children.

“Church elders have told me they are not clean, ... that they are not righteous,” she said. “We reject them ... and then they become so broken and then they get into all bad things. I say we are to be blamed, the church and the parents.”

Pakistan’s recognition of a third gender was a remarkable move for the conservative country. It was life changing for many because it allowed them to acquire identity cards, needed for everything from getting a driver’s license to opening a bank account.

“This is a great step,” Shafique said. But she added it doesn’t change attitudes. Parents often refuse to give their transgender children their birth certificates needed to get an ID card or forbid them to use their family name.

For Soutrey, the church is a refuge from a lifetime of pain.

Tears welled up and her voice cracked as she told of how her mother died when she was just 12, and her brothers beat and insulted her. Finally, she fled to live on the streets and found acceptance within the transgender community. She has stopped going out at night because of harassment and abuse.

“First thing I want to say is no one should have to suffer as transgenders suffer,” said Soutrey, between her tears. “People treat us worse than dogs,” she said, even in mainstream churches she attended.

“This church is important for us because we are free and happy sitting here, worshipping the God who created us.”

___

Associated Press writer Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

CLIMATE REFUGEES 

Punishing hurricanes to spur more Central American migration

By CLAUDIO ESCALON and MARÍA VERZA

1 of 7

FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2020 file photo, a resident walking through a flooded street looks back at storm damage caused by Hurricane Eta in Planeta, Honduras. Flooded out Honduran and Guatemalan families stranded on rooftops in the most marginalized neighborhoods after the passage of hurricanes Eta and Iota portend a new wave of migration, observers across the region say. (AP Photo/Delmer Martinez, File)

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — At a shelter in this northern Honduran city, Lilian Gabriela Santos Sarmiento says back-to-back hurricanes that hit with devastating fury this month have overturned her life. Her home in what was once a pretty neighborhood in nearby La Lima was destroyed by flooding.

The 29-year-old woman who never finished middle school had managed to build a life for herself, most recently cleaning COVID-19 wards at a local hospital. Now, having lost everything, she says she sees no future in Honduras at her age and with her level of education.

“I think that in Honduras it is very difficult to do again what it took me 10 years to do,” Santos said. So her plan is to leave for the United States.

“If there’s a caravan, I’m going,” she said, referring to the large groups of migrants who make the arduous journey together, often on foot.

Inside shelters and improvised camps across Central America, families who lost everything in the severe flooding set off by the two major hurricanes are arriving at the same conclusion.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, more than 4.3 million Central Americans, including 3 million Hondurans, were affected by Hurricane Eta alone. Those numbers only rose when Iota, another Category 4 storm, hit the region last week.

The hurricanes’ destruction comes on top of the economic paralysis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the persistent violence and lack of jobs that have driven families north from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in great numbers during recent years. Add an element of hope from the incoming government of President-elect Joe Biden, and experts predict the region is on the verge of another mass migration.

“This is going to be much bigger than what we have been seeing,” said Jenny Arguello, a sociologist in San Pedro Sula who studies migration flows. “I believe entire communities are going to leave.”

“The outlook is heartbreaking.”

It’s still early. Tens of thousands remain in shelters, but those along the migration route have already started to see storm victims begin to trickle north.

Eta made landfall Nov. 3 in Nicaragua, leaving a path of death and destruction from Panama to Mexico. Iota hit the same stretch of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast Nov. 16, pouring more rain on still flooded countries. At least 150 people were killed and more than 100 remain missing.

The same day Eta landed, U.S. voters elected Biden amid a pandemic that has devastated the continent for more than eight months. The Democrat has promised a more compassionate approach to immigration even as desperate families weigh their options inside mud-filled Central American homes.
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Among the hardest-hit areas was Honduras’ north, the country’s most productive agricultural region. The Sula Valley reported massive crop losses raising fears of food shortages. Damaged businesses mean fewer jobs.

Thousands of homes were destroyed and the infamous gang violence has not relented. Some residents around San Pedro Sula reported gangs charging a tax to boats trying to rescue people from flooded neighborhoods.

Mauro Verzeletti, director of the Casa del Migrante in Guatemala City, said the storms will increase poverty on top of the violence people already faced, forcing more to migrate.

“They’ve already started to come, it has begun,” he said, adding that a group of eight Hondurans driven out by the storms had arrived last week, stayed the night and continued on their way.

Jarlin Antonio Lorenzo has been living for days under a San Pedro Sula overpass in an encampment without any bathrooms after being flooded out of his home. He said there was no other option but to migrate.

“You’re going to see all of these faces in the caravan,” he said, pointing to those around him. “We’re going because we can’t stand the poverty, the hunger.”

Felipe Del Cid, Americas chief of operations for the Red Cross, described a “triple emergency” in countries like Honduras and Guatemala, referring to Eta, the pandemic and the years-long drought that has made even subsistence agriculture impossible across a long swath of the region. He said the Red Cross was preparing for internal displacement, as well as migration to other countries.

Honduras’ Red Cross was just finishing up its search and rescue phase after Eta when Iota hit, said Mauricio Paredes, vice president of the Honduras Red Cross in San Pedro Sula.

“There’s a lot of flooding again in some cities that had flooded before, but this time it has been more severe and faster because the levees that protect the cities had been damaged by Eta,” Paredes said.

Meanwhile, big expectations are building for the incoming Biden administration. A dramatic change in tone toward migrants is the most immediate expectation, followed by hopes for the elimination of the Trump administration policy that made asylum seekers wait out their cases from Mexico.

Still, changes, particularly to the U.S. asylum process, could take time.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat from New York, introduced a bill that would grant Temporary Protected Status to Guatemalans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans already living in the United States. Trump had sought to end so-called TPS, potentially sending thousands of families back to their native countries, in some cases decades after they left.

But experts caution that Biden will be careful not to make changes that could attract a new wave of migrants.

They also warn that policies in Mexico and Guatemala to stop migrant caravans are unlikely to change. Guatemala dissolved a caravan of mostly Hondurans in early October before it reached Mexico.

“The change of government doesn’t mean the United States is going to weaken its borders so that there would be a massive migration. All of the families in the region have to take this into account,” said César Ríos, director of the non-governmental Salvadoran Migrant Institute.

“The fact that (Biden) has committed to a respectful approach to human rights doesn’t mean they’re going to make immigration easier.”

At the same time, Ríos sees only growing necessity. “We are going to enter a very painful reality in the region. Poverty is going to increase in our countries in Central America and families are going to have more needs.”

For Santos, back at the San Pedro Sula shelter, losing everything has reinforced why so many of her countrymen have left.

“When they go, it’s that the anguish has already overwhelmed them, they can’t anymore,” she said. “I’m headed there too.”

__

Verza reported from Mexico City. AP writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this report.

#ENDTHEDEATHPENALTY

Man convicted for murder of Texas couple seeks stay of execution

#RIGHTTOLIFE



Brandon Bernard is set to be executed December 10 at the U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Ind. File Photo courtesy of the attorneys for Brandon Bernard




Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Lawyers for a Texas man convicted of killing a married couple asked a federal judge Tuesday for a stay of his execution, citing evidence allegedly suppressed during his trial two decades ago.

Brandon Bernard, 40, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 10 at the U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Ind. He's one of several death row inmates to be scheduled for lethal injection this year after the U.S. Justice Department resumed federal executions this summer.

Bernard's lawyers filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana saying they've discovered evidence showing their client had a lesser role in the crime and the gang that perpetrated the killings.

"Expert evidence that Bernard occupied the gang's lowest rung would almost certainly have persuaded at least one juror to vote for life," the motion said.

Defense lawyers accused the government of withholding evidence showing that Bernard was "on the very periphery of the youth gang" that killed the Texas couple. They said they found the evidence while reviewing court documents for the re-sentencing of one of Bernard's co-defendants, showing the information was in the government's possession.

In addition to the stay, Bernard's lawyers asked for a hearing on the new evidence.

Bernard, along with an accomplice, Christopher Vialva, were sentenced to death in 2000 for the 1999 deaths of Todd Bagley and Stacie Bagley, married youth ministers.

Prosecutors said the Bagleys gave Vialva and two other accomplices in the case a ride in their car, but the men held the couple at gunpoint and put them in the trunk of the vehicle. They stole the couple's money and a wedding ring.

Bernard's lawyers said he was not with the three accomplices when they kidnapped the Bagleys and was called to join the other perpetrators later in his own vehicle.

The four men then drove the Bagleys and the two vehicles to Fort Hood Army base, where prosecutors said Vialva shot both victims in the head, instantly killing Todd Bagley. They then set the car on fire.

Stacie Bagley, unconscious from a gunshot wound, died of smoke inhalation, federal prosecutors said.

Defense lawyers said Bernard believed he was called to help dispose of the Bagley's vehicles and let them go free. Police arrested the four men after their vehicle slid off the road into a ditch near the Bagleys' burning vehicle.

Because the murders took place on a military reservation, they were considered federal offenses

Vialva was executed for his role in September.

Earlier this month, dozens of people -- including jurors from Bernard's trial -- signed a clemency petition asking President Donald Trump to commute his death sentence. The petition asked Trump to consider Bernard's age at the time of the crime -- 18 -- his clean prison record, his remorse and outreach work while incarcerated. They asked for his death sentence to be commuted to life in prison.

Jury foreman Calvin Kruger said that while the trial evidence showed that Bernard is "guilty beyond any doubt" of the murders, "it also clearly showed that Brandon Bernard was not the ringleader behind these offenses, but a follower."

He also said he didn't believe Bernard's attorney "did a good job in defending him."

"To me, it seemed like his attorneys were going through the motions and nothing more."

Two other jurors agreed with Kruger's assessment of the trial attorney.

Mark Bezy, a former federal Bureau of Prisons warden, said he supports clemency because of Bernard's record of good conduct. He said that "should Bernard's death sentence be commuted, the could and would function exceptionally well in a less-restrictive environment without posing any risk to institutional security and good order, or posing any risk to the safety and security of staff, inmates or others."

U.S. Attorney General William Barr resumed federal executions in July after a 17-year hiatus. Daniel Lewis Lee, Wesley Purkey and Dustin Honken were executed in July; Lezmond Mitchell and Keith Dwayne Nelson in August; William LeCroy and Vialva in September; and Orlando Hall in November.

Lawsuit: CBP held dozens of minors for several days in the last 2 months

Nov. 24 (UPI) -- A new lawsuit filed by a non-profit law firm accuses U.S. Customs and Border Protection of detaining dozens of migrant children, including infants, over the last two months at southern border facilities for longer than 72 hours, and some for as long as 18 days.

The lawsuit dated Monday and filed in a California U.S. district court by the National Center for Youth Law accuses CBP of detaining 35 children for more than 72 hours last month alone, 15 of whom spent at least five days in unlicensed facilities, including two infants under the age of 10 months.



In September, 36 children were detained for longer than the legal three days, including a one-month-old infant who was held for 16 and a half days.

One of the minors, a 15-year-old who was detained at the Weslaco Border Patrol Station earlier this month, detailed being kept in a cramped room with 30 other minors, forcing them "to sleep in a sitting position because there were so many people in the room," the lawsuit quotes him as saying.

The court document also accuses the CBP of failing to supply information that shows it is complying with COVID-19 requirements but details from testimony that the minors are not being properly protected from the pandemic.

"I have been given one disposable face mask and I have to use the same face mask every day," the 15-year-old boy said. "I have not been provided hand sanitizer since my arrival. I have not been provided gloves. I do not have access to soap for hand washing."

An 8-year-old boy at the same station who was separated from his ill mother said he does not know why he has been left alone.

"My mom is somewhere else," he said, according to the lawsuit. "I think she is in the hospital because her back hurts. I have not been able to talk to her because she is sick. They told me that I cannot leave until she gets here."

He also reported having no soap to wash his hands and that he was only given only face mask and that there is no social distancing being practiced.

"When we are in line, we sit or stand close together," he is quoted as saying. "I think many people here will get sick from COVID. That makes me scared."

The lawsuit says the defendants, who have been named as U.S. Attorney General William Barr and the United States, have "steadfastly refused" to disclose the reason the children were being detained.

A letter obtained by CNN signed by Rep. Joaquin Castro addressed to Department of Homeland Security head Chad Wolf said holding children in CBP custody "for extended periods" is against the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997 that applies child welfare protections to immigrant minors. Other laws require them to transfer unaccompanied minors to Office of Refugee Resettlement juvenile coordinators within 72 hours and that all detainees should generally not be held for longer than this time frame while officials should be expending every effort to discharge them as soon as possible.

"We demand an immediate explanation for these prolonged detentions and that DHS comply with the law and swiftly place unaccompanied children in the Office of Refugee Resettlement or parole accompanied children and families into the interior," the letter reads.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY


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In Thailand, protesters take aim at King Vajiralongkorn's royal funding machine:
The Crown Property Bureau

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

POSTMODERN FUEDALISM
Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida greet their royalists as they leave a religious ceremony to commemorate the death of King
Chulalongkorn, known as King Rama V, at The Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, Oct 23, 2020.
Reuters

Thailand’s oldest bank, Siam Commercial Bank, faced a political and financial reckoning of sorts in September when youth-led pro-democracy protesters launched a campaign to have people withdraw money from the bank and boycott it.

The move was part of protesters’ demands to reform the monarchy by attacking the king’s own privy purse. King Maha Vajiralongkorn , or Rama X, is currently the biggest shareholder of the bank – which was founded by his great grandfather, King Rama V, in 1907.

In monetary terms, Siam Commercial Bank, which is one of Thailand’s largest commercial financial institutions, has yet to feel the pinch of the activists’ initiatives, but the campaign trained a spotlight on how the king accumulates and spends his fortune, adding pressure on the traditionally revered monarchy like never before.

Pro-democracy protesters initially planned to march on Wednesday to the office of the Crown Property Bureau, a quasi-governmental institution that manages the king’s wealth, to stage a peaceful and symbolic demonstration. Protesters later changed the location to the Siam Commercial Bank’s headquarters.

Pro-reform movement leader Anon Nampa said the group’s demands include the repeal of the 2018 royal amendment on the crown property act, so as to prevent the monarch spending his wealth at his discretion and to initiate public oversight of the king’s purse.

By doing so, “regardless of how many future kings there will be, the assets of the nation will not be lost”, he said on his Facebook page on Tuesday.

Read AlsoThai protesters openly criticise monarchy of King Maha Vajiralongkorn


Thai police on Tuesday summoned seven leaders of the protests, including Anon, to face charges of lèse-majesté, or insulting the monarchy, over comments made at demonstrations in September. The charges carry prison terms of up to 15 years, but the protesters have until November 30 to answer the summonses.

One of the seven, Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak, said his family had received a summons on the charges and he was not worried.

“This will expose the brutality of the Thai feudal system to the world,” he said. “We will keep fighting.”

Since ascending the throne in 2016 after the death of his father, King Bhumibol , King Vajiralongkorn has overturned the traditional role of the Crown Property Bureau as an investment arm of the royal family, putting all of the assets that had been under its control under his own name in 2018.

Read AlsoTesting royal taboos: Inside Thailand's new youth protests


Even though the assets have since been subject to taxes and are still managed by the bureau, this has not prevented the protesters from demanding an investigation and overhaul of the king’s financial conduct.

The king has appointed trusted confidantes to lead the bureau, including ultraroyalist former army chief Apirat Kongsompong as deputy director, making a public audit impossible – even by the military-backed government of Prayuth Chan-ocha .

The 2018 legal amendment allowed the king to appoint and remove all board members, where the bureau’s board of directors previously answered to the finance minister.

Other questions related to the public accounting of the king’s spending have also arisen.

Read AlsoBiggest Thai protest in years cheers calls to reform monarchy


During the Thai parliament’s fiscal budget debate in September, Bencha Saengchantra, an opposition MP from the Move Forward Party, questioned how the government budget in support of the king’s personal cavalry and helicopter units could overlap with the budget for the armed force branches for the same services.

“We have raised questions about the budget related to the monarchy, but we never really get the clarification we need, even when the country is mired in economic hardship,” she said.

For many Thais, resentment towards the monarchy has been deepened by the country’s economic performance – GDP is expected to contract by more than 7 per cent this year – while millions are forced out of jobs in tourism and manufacturing.

Yet the king’s months-long stay at a luxury resort in Bavaria, Germany, during the pandemic has been in the headlines everywhere outside Thailand.

Read AlsoThai PM 'concerned' after student protest new demands on monarchy

“What makes this particularly egregious is that the king lives lavishly abroad on funds derived from taxes and income generated by Thais,” said Tamara Loos, a professor in Thai and Southeast Asian studies at Cornell University.

“In addition to the funds generated by the Crown Property Bureau, Thais pay for over US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) in costs generated by the monarchy to support the salaries of the staff working in the Royal Household Bureau, plus funds to provide for royal security and royal rural development projects.

“That alone is a major conflict of interest: using public funding to support a repressive monarch who does not appear to have the best interests of his population in mind,” she said.

Loos estimates that the king’s shares in Siam Commercial Bank, Siam Cement Group and other property holdings are worth about US$40 billion, although she added that “the total amount varies between US$30 billion and US$70 billion – the point being that no one really knows because it is not subject to public oversight”.

Read AlsoThailand tells universities to stop students' calls for monarchy reform


Siam Commercial Bank and Siam Cement Group were hit hard during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, according to a paper by the late Thai academic Porphant Ouyyanont, but bounced back upon the appointment of the Crown Property Bureau’s director at the time as the chairman of both companies – a move “designed to restore confidence … by linking them directly with the power and prestige of the Bureau”.

“Thanks to the royal ideology that [King Bhumibol] was a frugal man, no one really paid attention to how he accumulated wealth for himself and his family,” said Puangchon Unchanam, a political science lecturer at Naresuan University.

But Forbes magazine’s publication of its richest royals list in the early 2000s, which included the Thai royal family, “changed everything” for Thais, he said.

“Suddenly, some people started to wonder how the Thai king topped the world’s ranking of richest royals,” he said.

Read AlsoPro-monarchy groups spruce up police headquarters in Thailand


“The status of the CPB has become more awkward,” Puangchon said. “On the one hand, it still maintains all the political privileges it has received from the government. On the other hand, it looks more like a private company that is solely owned by the king.”

In effect, Paungchon said, the changes in the management of the Crown Property Bureau effected by the king were a rollback of normal ethics practised by most big businesses.

“It has become more difficult for the public to access the Crown Property Bureau’s annual performance, income, asset, and profit,” he said, since the king put the assets of the bureau under his name. “It looks more like a merchant’s company in the era before the introduction of the stock market than a modern corporation in the age of global capitalism.”

Loos, the Cornell University professor, said protesters’ demands for the reform of the king’s wealth management had a precedent in the era following the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, when the Thai state divided royal property into those properties which belonged to the king and “those deemed state property such as the palaces, and those business units used to finance the institution of the monarchy, which were placed under the Crown Property Bureau” in 1936.


Read Also'Illegal thoughts': How some exiled critics of Thai king are fuelling a revolt


Puangchon said the king’s motive in transferring the Crown Property Bureau’s assets into his own name had parallels to when King Rama VII, in the years before the 1932 revolution, transferred his assets to overseas banks to safeguard them against political instability. “Regardless of how the political situation unfolds under his reign”, he said, the current king “has to own the crown property personally and absolutely”.

This month, King Vajiralongkorn donated royal title deeds worth around 10 billion baht (S$443 million) to four Bangkok educational institutions in a move seen to reduce the pressure on the monarchy.

Ideally, if the king were to relinquish some of his powers and assets, or agree to the protesters’ demands for reform, it would “decrease his wealth and political power, but potentially increase the cultural capital of the monarchy as an institution, which has precipitously declined in terms of popularity and respect”, Loos said.

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.

Thai pro-democracy leaders summoned over royal defamation

Tue, 24 November 2020

Thai pro-democracy leaders summoned over royal defamation

Student-led pro-democracy protests are testing Thailand's royal defamation law, one of the harshest in the world

Twelve Thai pro-democracy protest leaders have been summoned by police to answer charges of royal defamation, the first use of the draconian law in almost three years, as Bangkok gears up for another major rally.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha last week gave the green light for authorities to lay lese majeste charges, which bar any criticism of the royal family, against demonstrators who could now face up to 15 years in prison.

Thailand has for months been rocked by youth-led protests demanding a new constitution, reform of the untouchable monarchy, and for Prayut to resign.

Tensions in the Thai capital are rising -- officers deployed water cannon and tear gas at a rally outside parliament last week, with 55 people injured and six shot in scuffles with royalists. The source of the gunfire is under investigation.

Anti-royal graffiti was also daubed around police headquarters in central Bangkok, and demonstrators threw paint at the compound.

Thailand has one of the harshest royal defamation laws in the world. It is routinely interpreted to include any criticism of the monarchy -- including content posted or shared on social media.

Under section 112 of Thailand's penal code -- which authorities have not invoked since early 2018 -- anyone convicted of defaming, insulting or threatening the king, queen or heir faces between three and 15 years in prison on each count.

- Major rally -

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights says 12 protest leaders have received a summons -- among them human rights lawyer Anon Numpha, Panupong "Mike" Jaadnok and prominent student leaders Panusaya "Rung" Sithijirawattanakul and Parit "Penguin" Chiwarak.

"I'm not scared just one bit and I believe that by being sent the 112 summons, it will bring out more people to (Wednesday's) rally," Parit told AFP.

"Does this mean the monarchy has declared an all-out war with the people, is that right?"

Protesters last week announced they would rally outside the headquarters of the Crown Property Bureau on Wednesday.

But overnight they flagged they would switch the protest to the main office of the Siam Commercial Bank -- in which the king is a major shareholder -- to avoid potential clashes with a rival ultra royalist rally.

Soon after coming to power following his father's death in 2016, the new king took control of the Crown Property Bureau which has assets in banks, companies and prime real estate.

The bureau's board was previously headed by the finance minister in an arrangement that gave a sheen of public oversight to a trust some experts estimate is worth $30-$60 billion.

The full assets are privately held and remain a closely guarded secret.

bur-lpm/jfx/hg

Violence against women rages in South Africa

"Government is not enough," she said. "And we are not looking at government anymore because we need to do these things on our own."


South African men and women protest gender-based violence outside parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, on June 30. File Photo by Nic Bothma/EPA-EFE

Nov. 25 (UPI) -- South Africa's constitution is revered for its commitments to human rights -- but it also has one of the highest rates of femicide, the slaying of women on account of gender, in the world.

Data released by the World Health Organization shows that 12.1 in every 100,000 women are victims of femicide, five times worse than the global average of 2.6. One in four women over 18 have experienced violence of some form from a partner in their lifetime, according to a 2016 Demographic Health Survey.

This is a problem that has only accelerated in the country since the lifting of COVID-19 lockdowns. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a June speech, "The scourge of gender-based violence continues to stalk our country, as the men of our country declared war on the women."

The United Nations recognizes Nov. 25 as the Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, highlighting the statistics showing gender-based violence as among the most pervasive yet underreported crimes across the globe.

In South Africa, what factors into the disparity between what is on the books and what is actually happening?

According to the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, an academic research organization based in Johannesburg, studies have found that police are less likely to intervene in cases of gender-based violence, as they are viewed as inter-relationship squabbles. This often results in the secondary victimization of the person reporting the crime.

Jackie Chauke, 49, was subjugated to secondary victimization by police on multiple occasions while she was attempting to escape her abusive husband in the Alexandra township in Johannesburg in 2011.

Chauke's husband tracked her movements and the two were getting into arguments so intense that each of them vowed to kill the other. One day Chauke made the decision to leave. She exited her house with trash in hand to make it seem like she was just taking out the garbage. It was a guise to escape to a police station. She reported emotional abuse and requested to stay at a shelter. The officer initially did not understand what emotional abuse was and said he could not help her.

"He got stuck," Chauke said. "He did not know what to do with me."

In that vulnerable moment, Chauke said she felt unsupported.

The officer eventually called over a captain who was familiar with a program where she was able to seek shelter and receive counseling. Chauke was thrilled when she saw her room for the first time.

Women can seek refuge in shelters, like Chauke did, but are typically only permitted to stay up to three months. During the three months, the women have access to legal advice and counseling. But that ends when their time there is up.

"I've had survivors come back. We also have survivors who hop from one shelter to the other," said Jeanette Sera, who oversees operations at a shelter in a Johannesburg suburb run by People Opposing Women Abuse.
During her three-month stay at the shelter, Chauke had to return home to retrieve some of her clothes and personal items. She was escorted by police, who were intended to be there to protect her, however, they quickly accepted bribery from her husband.

One of the officers turned to her and said, "You have a beautiful home, you have a car, a business and your husband is very sweet and humble, why do you leave your relationship?" Chauke responded, "If you want to come and stay here, then take over."

She wasn't supposed to be left alone with her husband as she packed her things, but she was.

She didn't know what secondary victimization was at the time, but remembers feeling as though the officer wasn't on her side.

The constitution of South Africa includes one of the most progressive and ambitious Bill of Rights, including rights to housing, equality of the sexes and human dignity.

Although this political goodwill is written into law, there is still a huge gulf between these aspirations and the reality on the ground.

"Implementation sucks," said Francesca Fondse of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

Fondse, who works as the South African Champion for Women against GBV, Domestic Violence and Intimate Femicide, said that although South Africa has great laws on the books, because of a lack of implementation the situation hasn't improved. Over 60% of the South African Police Service personnel are men, according to the service's 2019 annual report. Fondse said that the average police officer is someone who left school to join the force.

"He's probably seen his own father abuse his mother," Fondse said. "We have to re-educate."

The domestic violence training police officers receive from the Department of Justice, Fondse said, is a top-down operation. The department trains upper, middle and lower management and in turn they are supposed to train the officers in their precincts. This used to be an annual training, though Fondse now believes it to be quarterly.

The culture of machismo in the police force can disrupt the willingness of the officers to take the training seriously.

"It is difficult in some cases, where you have police officers that in their own personal lives abuse women," said Irvin Kinnes, an adviser to the South African Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police.

Chauke said she eventually made the decision to move back into the house with her husband, living in a separate wing, and uses the skills she learned through counselling to keep her independence. She now works at ADAPT, a non-profit aimed at providing victims training and counseling, and works in a police station in Alexandra to give counseling to victims.

Chauke has seen the increase in women coming into the police station to report abuse since the lifting of the COVID-19 lockdown. There was a 1.8% increase in attempted murder and a 3.2% increase in sexual offenses from July to September of this year, compared to the same time in 2019, according to data released by the South African Police Service.

She said she feels extreme fatigue from handling an increasing number of cases in this current uptick.

"I'm so tired," Chauke said. "The statistics are crazy."

Ramaphosa announced in September that three bills were being introduced to Parliament to help combat gender-based violence. The bills focus on tightening bail restrictions for perpetrators of sexual offenses, making the names on the National Register for Sex Offenders public and permitting protection orders to be completed online. Ramaphosa acknowledged in his statement that the barriers in the system make it incredibly difficult for victims to navigate.

"The sad reality is that many survivors of gender-based violence have lost faith in the criminal justice system," Ramaphosa wrote. "Difficulties in obtaining protection orders, lax bail conditions for suspects, police not taking domestic violence complaints seriously and inappropriate sentences have contributed to an environment of cynicism and mistrust."

Chauke acknowledged Ramaphosa's pushes to create change, but said she is tired of the inaction on the ground.

"Government is not enough," she said. "And we are not looking at government anymore because we need to do these things on our own."


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Scotland becomes first country to make menstrual products free nationwide

Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Scotland approved legislation on Tuesday making it the first nation to provide free access to menstrual products nationwide.

The bill introduced by member of the Scottish Parliament Monica Lennon creates a series of requirements to combat "period poverty," a term describing situations in which people who need period products are unable to afford them

Under the legislation,the Scottish government will be required to set up a nationwide program to allow anyone who needs period products to get them free of charge. This includes requiring schools, colleges and universities to make a range of products available for free in bathrooms and granting the government the power to make other public bodies provide the products for free.

Scotland made menstrual hygiene products free for students at schools and universities two years ago.

The Scottish government estimated the new program will cost about $32 million annually.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon praised the passage of the legislation on Twitter Tuesday.

"Proud to vote for this groundbreaking legislation, making Scotland the first country in the world to provide free period products for all who need them An important policy for women and girls," she wrote.

The Philippines wants to outlaw child marriage. But in Muslim-majority Bangsamoro, change will be hard

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

ByRAISSA ROBLES

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Some 15 per cent of Filipino girls are married before their 18th birthday, and 2 per cent are married before the age of 15.
Reuters

Ayesha Merdeka wants child marriages to be a thing of the past. They aren’t an abstract concept to her – they are the reality she has lived with for more than three decades after her grand wedding at the age of 15 made a splash in newspapers and magazines across the Philippines .

She is a member of a politically influential clan in what is now the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) – where most of the 3.8 million residents are Muslim, in contrast with the rest of the predominantly Catholic country – and hers was the first Muslim Maranao-style wedding to be held in the capital, Manila.

Ayesha’s father, Abul Khayr Alonto, was the founding Vice-Chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front. He recruited Nur Misuari, who became the group’s leader, into the rebel movement. Her father, who was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as chairman of the Mindanao Development Authority in 2016, died last year.

At the time of Ayesha’s wedding, then-president Corazon Aquino was seeking peace talks with the rebels. Several foreign diplomats from the US and Russian embassies attended the ceremony. But little did the guests know, the bride had no choice but to marry.

It was like having “an invisible gun on your head”, Ayesha, now 49, told This Week in Asia . She clarifies that she wasn’t forced into marriage – it was “more like [being] indoctrinated into the idea that marriage was a decision made by the elders. It’s like your mind was conditioned from the beginning that that area of your entire life is going to be decided by them.”

Ayesha, who still lives in the BARMM, said suitors, including those from abroad, began circling when she was 13 years old and still “boyish looking”. But her father put his foot down and said she had to marry within the clan.

A handout photo. Ayesha Merdeka on her wedding day.
PHOTO: South China Morning Post

He warned her that if she committed “a moral mistake, then I will make an example [of you] to the Bangsamoro women”, Ayesha recalled.

“The one thing that really held me after he said that,” she said, was that “his voice became imploring as he said, ‘Please don’t make me do that to you’. The voice is still at the back of my head but I trusted that my dad would choose the best man among the Moros [for me].”

‘An act of child abuse’

According to Girls Not Brides, a partnership of civil society organisations committed to ending marriages involving children, 15 per cent of Filipino girls were married before their 18th birthday, and 2 per cent were married before the age of 15.

Boys in the Philippines are less likely to enter into child marriages – in 2017, there were 32,000 brides between the ages of 15 and 19, four times the number of grooms, according to official figures.

Part of the problem, Girls Not Brides points out, is the trafficking of women and girls from rural regions to urban cities, as well as forced marriages.


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Another issue the group identifies is religion . Most registered child marriages in the Philippines take place in the BARMM – which is in Mindanao, the country’s second-largest island – where women can marry at a very young age under the 1977 Code of Muslim Personal Laws.

That legislation, enacted through a decree from then president Ferdinand Marcos, set the marrying age for Muslims at 15, but provided an exception – girls can be married as young as 13, provided they are menstruating, and a wali , or guardian, petitions for the marriage.

Last month, Senate Bill 1373, which criminalises marriages between an adult and a minor – defined as a person under the age of 18 – was unanimously approved by the Senate. A similar measure, House Bill 1486, has bipartisan support and is awaiting a nod from the House of Representatives that is expected to come by next year.

The Senate bill, which calls child marriage “an act of child abuse as it debases, degrades and demeans the intrinsic worth and dignity of children”, aims to punish relatives, guardians and those who facilitate such marriages with a fine of not less than 50,000 pesos (S$1,400) and between six and 12 years in jail, as well as the “loss of parental authority” over the victim.

Its main sponsor, Senator Risa Hontiveros from the opposition Akbayan party, told local media after the vote that the issue of early and forced child marriages was “a tragic reality for scores of young girls who are forced by economic circumstances and cultural expectations to shelve their own dreams, begin families they are not ready for, and raise children even if their own childhoods have not yet ended”.

However, even if the law is passed, realities on the ground will make its implementation difficult, according to Muslim rights activists in the Philippines who are seeking to end the practice.


Read Also Indonesia inches closer to outlawing child marriage



A senior member of the National Ulama Conference of the Philippines, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he did not think the proposed child-marriage law was “automatic for Muslims” given the concurrent existence of the Code of Muslim Personal Laws.

He revealed that there was an ongoing discussion between the ulamas on the conflict between the Code and the impending congressional legislation banning child marriages.

“We are trying to reconcile the two views – the Code says 15 [is the marrying age], while the [proposed Congress legislation] says 18,” he said, explaining that some Islamic scholars put the age of marriage for women “from the time she starts menstruating, but the Koran itself has no provision regarding that”.
‘It stops with me’

Experts say decades of war in the BARMM – including in the province of Magindanao, and the 2017 battle to retake the city of Marawi from Islamic State -affiliated militants – have made the region the poorest in the country, and caused a spike in the number of child brides.

“It alarmed us,” said Sittie Jehanne Mutin, former chair of the Regional Commission on Bangsamoro Women, of the rise in child brides among tens of thousands of internally displaced persons or refugees due to the protracted war between government troops and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The rebellion officially ended last year after a peace deal that saw MILF rebel commanders become administrators of the newly formed BARMM.

Read Also UN moves to prevent child marriage


Mutin said the war had taken a toll on families taking care of young girls, and marrying them off meant fewer mouths to feed, while it was also a way of preventing possible sexual abuse since strangers were crammed together in refugee camps. The really poor families did not mind even if the groom was decades older, she said, so long as “they can afford the dowry”.

She pointed out that the situation could not be addressed simply by an outright ban since there were multiple laws that existed and were applicable, including international Islamic law; Philippine sharia law, as outlined under the Code of Muslim Personal Laws; as well as the various traditional and customary laws observed by the 13 Muslim-majority ethnic groups in Mindanao.

Ordinarily, Mutin added, arranged marriages were a custom with built-in protective mechanisms. For instance, “parents will never force a child to marry without really looking at the advantages for their own daughter. That’s usually very high on their list.”

This community aspect is also evident to columnist and peace advocate Samira Gutoc, who took part in drafting the Bangsamoro Basic Law for the BARMM. She said there were many instances when young couples were made to abstain from sexual relations until the girl reached “the age of maturity” or started menstruating

.

A handout photo. Ayesha Merdeka today.
PHOTO: South China Morning Post

“The purpose of marriage is not just to strengthen power relations; it also provides social protection [and] protection against family vendettas,” Gutoc said, pointing out that some marriages were arranged between clans after slights were exchanged so as to prevent the clans from warring.

She was almost made to marry young herself, and recalls “running away” to show her refusal to do so – following in the footsteps of her mother, who had flatly rejected the notion after seeing her older sister marry around the age of 13 and drop out of school to bear children.

As for Ayesha, when asked about her own marriage, she explained that there were some arranged marriages that worked because “Islam emphasises duty over individual rights”.

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“It gets more complex when you really look at the culture,” she said. “I chose to be happy every day. There are a lot of things to be grateful for.”

Her husband visited and wooed her daily for three months before their wedding, keeping to a condition imposed by a stern aunt. “My aunt was crying throughout her wedding day because [she had only seen her husband] on that day.”

Ayesha, whose early marriage did not stop her from finishing a history degree and teaching for nearly four years in Libya, said Filipino Muslim women were “far more empowered” than those in the Middle East. In Libya, she would be summoned by the school head to “stop your revolution” about Muslim women’s rights.

It’s a revolution she continued at home. None of her three daughters – who are still single in their 20s and 30s – were forced into arranged marriages, she said, and her eldest son married for love.

“It stops with me,” said Ayesha, whose second given name, “Merdeka”, means freedom.

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.