How 'sex addiction' has historically been used to absolve white men

SEX ADDICTION IS A CHRISTIAN EXCUSE FOR

BEING HORNY IN OTHER WORDS IT DOES NOT EXIST

Kimmy Yam 1 day ago

While authorities said Atlanta-area spa shooting suspect Robert Aaron Long, 21, told investigators he was motivated by "sexual addiction" and claimed he had no racial motivation, health specialists say the explanation falls short.

© Provided by NBC News

Capt. Jay Baker, a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, said Long — who is accused of killing eight people, six of them Asian women — indicated that the spas were "a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate." However, experts say such rationale has been used before in attempts to exonerate white men. The explanation also discounts racial dynamics and can “cause harm” in the way the public understands these issues.

White men have traditionally been given a pass when they say it -- and have the privilege of overlooking how race is a factor, experts say.

“Historically, the term ‘sex addiction’ has been used by white males to absolve themselves from personal and legal responsibility for their behaviors,” Apryl Alexander, associate professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver, told NBC Asian America. “It is often used as an excuse to pathologize misogyny.”


The defense of sex addiction itself, Alexander said, is a highly controversial one as those in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and sex research continue to debate whether to formally recognize it. Currently, the idea that sex addiction is a disorder is not supported by research, nor is it accepted as a clinical diagnosis, she said.

“A lot of individuals who are doing this kind of self-reports of sexual addiction are having normative sexual behaviors and urges, but they might be excessive. Or for a lot of people, it's rooted in shame that ‘I'm having these attractions and emotional desires that are normal, but I don't recognize them as normal,’” Alexander said.

Though American Psychiatric Association added the concept of sexual addiction to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1987, it later retracted the term and has since rejected the addition of the idea to its later editions including the DSM–5, which is widely seen as the definitive resource on mental disorders, on the basis of the lack of supporting evidence.

Alexander said this sexual behavior doesn’t affect the brain in the same ways other addictions, including substance use and gambling behavior, do, either, calling the characterization of Long’s behavior “concerning.”

The self-identification of sex addiction, she said, is often seen in individuals who are raised in conservative and religious environments, “where there's a high level of moral disapproval of their natural kind of sexual urges and desires.” Many of these populations are overwhelmingly white.

In examining acts of gender-based violence, Alexander said such attacks often occur at the intersection of misogyny, racism, xenophobia and homophobia. She emphasized that contrary to what Long told police, such violence “doesn’t just occur in isolation.”

Richelle Concepcion, president of the Asian American Psychological Association, said accepting the suspect’s rationale in this case erases several colliding dynamics of class, immigration status and gender that impact the communities most at risk for physical and sexual violence.

“Quite frankly, it’s really difficult to attribute the atrocious behaviors to an addiction, especially when you look at the demographics of a majority of those who were murdered,” she said. “Race and gender do play a role in this.”

“It’s really unfair to take his word as there is intersectionality that exists pertaining to the lives taken, especially when one considers that the suspect claims to have gone to these businesses with the intention of eliminating the threat of temptation,” Concepcion added.

Still, sex addiction is a common defense invoked by white men in power. After a number of allegations emerged from multiple women, including several who were underage at the time, accusing comedian Chris D’Elia of requesting sexual favors, he responded with a video in February saying, “Sex controlled my life.” He added, “I had a problem and I do have a problem.”

Harvey Weinstein similarly claimed in a 2017 video that he wasn’t “doing OK” and “I’ve got to get help,” after numerous accusations of sexual harassment and rape. In a statement provided to NBC News, his brother Bob Weinstein described him as “obviously a very sick man.”

And former congressman Anthony Weiner, for example, in 2017 broke down in front of a judge after being sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting an underage girl. Weiner, who called himself a “very sick man for a very long time,” had aimed to avoid jail time after the judge acknowledged that he had sought and received treatment for the behavior.

But controversies don’t end at the diagnosis itself, and treatments have also been criticized for insufficiently addressing the role of misogyny in sexual behavior. Ideas, including society’s hypersexualization of Asian women, Alexander said, often go unexamined.

“They often don't talk about these hypermasculine attitudes or misogynistic messages that individuals are getting, whether that's from pornography or society at large,” Alexander said. “A lot of these so-called treatment programs often reinforce gender stereotypes. They talk about things like ‘Women are tempting you,’ ‘Women in pornography are trying to seduce you, and that's why you need to avoid’ instead of talking about your own kind of personal attitudes and behaviors that cause you to marginalize women.”

Such framing of women as “temptresses,” particularly in reference to Asian women, in part shifts onus from perpetrator to victim, Concepcion said. It plays into a stereotype of women as manipulative dragon ladies, fueling dangerous perceptions that make them uniquely vulnerable to violence. She explained that there’s a tendency to attribute the reasoning behind violence and murderous acts to others’ malicious intent, creating the perception that these victims who were killed intentionally provoked the perpetrator to violence.

“There have been examinations recently of television shows and even movies from years ago that depicted Asian women as temptresses, which appear to prove these stereotypes of Asian women as fact,” she said.

Alexander said larger toxic societal issues need to be unpacked in this context of treatment, in addition to other experiences that may have contributed to such behaviors.

“Those are the things that need to be addressed as underlying issues in this constellation of things that may have led to maybe sexual preoccupation,” she said. “The sexual compulsions or preoccupations are often associated with other types of underlying psychological issues, unmet emotional needs, childhood trauma or, again, power and control dynamics that contribute to oppression.”

But experts stressed that even when people exhibit attitudes that are indicative of oppression and marginalization of others, that does not often lead to committing an act of mass violence. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, statistics show that roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of violent acts can be attributed to people who have a serious mental illness. In reality, individuals confronting mental health issues are more than 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime compared to the general population.

For people dealing with sexual preoccupation that may be causing them distress, experts recommend help and support that approach the issue with positivity. Treatments that are shame-based are never effective, Alexander said, and mitigating feelings of shame comes with comprehensive sex education. Sexuality is marginalized so frequently in culture and it’s not uncommon that people harbor difficult emotions around the subject, unsure of how to wrestle with it, she said.

“A lot of our sex education is rooted in shame and stigma, that we don't talk about normative sexuality and how to work through that — that maybe your urges are natural,” she said.

With the resources available to help people living with mental illnesses, Concepcion said it’s never acceptable to chalk this violent behavior up to having a “bad day.”

“Many of us have bad days and yet a majority of us focus on other forms of coping to alleviate the impact of said days,” she said. “It is never justified to take lives or engage in acts of violence when we ourselves have experienced less than ideal days.”

Guangzhou 1927: The Paris Commune of the East

On the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Paris Commune, its legacy is remembered in the Guangzhou Uprising, when workers and peasants established a popular republic in the southern Chinese capital in 1927.

Tings Chak
20 Mar 2021


(Article originally commissioned and published by The Funambulist 34 

(Mar-Apr 2021)

It was in the Russian autumn of 1920 when Qu Qiubai first heard L’Internationale – the socialist anthem born of the Paris Commune of 1871. Eugène Pottier, author of the song’s lyrics, was a Communard and elected member of the workers’ state that lasted 72 days in the French capital. Though written nearly half a century earlier, that song had been adopted only recently as the anthem of the Bolshevik Party. Until today, this song is one of the most translated and sung anthems of the oppressed around the world. Qu was attending the third anniversary celebration of the October Revolution, having traveled through Harbin – China’s northernmost provincial capital – to reach Russia. Fluent in French and Russian, he was sent to be a correspondent in Moscow for the Beijing Morning News (晨报), covering the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution.

In 1920, the communist movement in China had barely begun, but the nation was hungry for its ideas. The colonial plunders of two Opium Wars marked the beginning of the “century of humiliation”, which saw the ceding of Hong Kong to the British and the sacking of the Old Summer Palace by Anglo-French forces. The Qing dynasty fell in 1911 only to be succeeded by a puppet Republican government. The country was divided, feudalism and warlordism were rampant. The Chinese people were hungry – physically and spiritually – for its nation to be set free.

Like the thousands of young radicals of the time, Qu was politicized in the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I saw the ultimate betrayal of China’s interests – instead of having its territories returned, the Western Allies would agree to transfer Shandong Province from the colonial hands of Japan to Germany. In response, a national movement led by students in Beijing was born, anchored in anti-imperialist, anti-feudal and anti-patriarchal politics. This awakening gave birth to the New Culture Movement – with New Youth as its key publication – and an opening for new ideas to guide the country’s transformation. Among its leaders were Beijing University professors, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, who were pivotal in bringing Marxist ideas into China. They both helped found the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1921.

The betrayal by Western Allies was felt all the more after the contributions that the Chinese people made to the Great War. To meet their growing labor shortages, French and British states relied heavily on the colonies across Africa, Indochina and China. 140,000 Chinese people – mostly peasants – joined the French and British war efforts, while another 200,000 fought on the Eastern Front with the Russian Red Army. The Chinese Labor Corps did every task but bear arms – they dug trenches, worked in munition factories, repaired equipment on the frontlines, buried the dead. Thousands died, though this part of history is little told in the West. Around that same time, there was another group of young Chinese people heading to France. Originally initiated by Chinese anarchists in 1908, the program became formalized into the Diligent Work-Frugal Study program in 1919 that brought 2000 Chinese workers and peasants to Paris – they would work in factories in return for their Western education. The poor living and working conditions politicized many of these students – on February 28, 1921, 400 Chinese work-study students demonstrated against further reductions in bursaries. Events like this one brought the movement closer to the WWI-generation workers as they began organizing together in the Renault factories from the industrial suburbs of Boulogne-Billancourt to La Garenne-Colombes. It was from the factory floors and in the university halls where Marxism would enter the Chinese revolutionary thought. Among the students were Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, founders of the European branch of the CPC. Zhou Enlai would serve as Premier for 26 years and Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who succeeded Mao Zedong upon the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
BRIGHT FLOWER, HAPPY FRUIT

Though the Paris Commune was largely unknown to the Chinese public up until that point, these exchanges among workers and intellectuals in France, and the ideological opening that the May Fourth Movement created, helped bring that history forward. Several early communist leaders studied, wrote and popularized the history of the workers’ state. In 1920, Li Da – one of the 12 founding members of the CPC – wrote about the need for the Chinese Revolution to take the path of armed struggle. In 1922, Zhou Enlai wrote in New Youth (新靑年) about the “short-lived flower” of the Paris Commune and its continuation in the October Revolution. The following year, in the 50th anniversary edition of Shen Bao (申報)– one of China’s first modern newspapers – Li Dazhao first explained the concept of the “commune” to a Chinese public. First transliterated as kangmiaoen (康妙恩), the revolutionary concept gained its own form in the Chinese language, gongshe (公社) – a workers’ republic.

Qu Qiubai was among the communists who not only translated essential texts on the Commune’s history but was also the first to translate L’Internationale into Chinese – the song he first heard in Russia three years before. While playing the organ, he painstakingly revised the lyrics to find a translation of the word “international” – which only has two syllables in Chinese (国际) – that could suit the melody. He finally settled on the transliterated ying te na xiong nai er (英特纳雄耐尔) to keep true to the cadence of the song, which remains in the officially adopted version until today.

By this time, Qu had already joined the CPC, upon the invitation of Zhang Tailei in 1922. A year earlier, Qu also met the Bolshevik leader Lenin, who had studied intimately the lessons of the Paris Commune. Just months before leading his own country to revolution, Lenin dedicates a chapter on it in The State and Revolution (1917):


The Commune is the first attempt by a proletarian revolution to smash the bourgeois state machine; and it is the political form “at last discovered”, by which the smashed state machine can and must be replaced.

We shall see further on that the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, in different circumstances and under different conditions, continue the work of the Commune and confirm Marx’s brilliant historical analysis.

In some short months after its publication, the October Revolution would indeed continue the work of the Commune and confirm Marx’s analysis. In this tradition, the Chinese communists would also carry on these the legacy of these two revolutionary experiences.

On 18 March 1926, the first mass commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Paris Commune took place in China. 10,000 people gathered in the southern capital of Guangzhou. They sung L’Internationale and chanted “Vive la Commune de Paris!” despite the rain. On this occasion Mao Zedong writes, if the Paris Commune was a “bright flower”, then the October Revolution was the “happy fruit”, from which more fruits could be born. On the Commune’s ultimate defeat, Mao points to two reasons: the lack of a unified and centralized party to lead the workers, and the compromise of showing too much mercy to the enemy. In his keynote speech at the celebration, the Cantonese leader, Zhang Tailei, pointed to the concrete experience that the Paris Commune gave for Chinese workers to take power – a foreshadowing of what would come in the following year.


Paris Commune 100 year stamps.

FROM THE CITY TO THE COUNTRYSIDE

The 1920s saw a rapid expansion of the urban working class – trade unions multiplied, strikes were frequent and the CPC’s ranks grew with the organization of the masses. In the industrial center of Shanghai alone, 1926 saw 169 strikes affecting 165 factories involving over 200,000 workers. In Guangdong, the Seamen’s Strike of 1922 was victorious and the Guangzhou-Hong Kong General Strike of 1925 lasted 16 months and garnered unprecedented mass support from domestic workers, dockworkers, rickshaw drivers and “coolies”. These experiences showed how organized labor could threaten colonial life and capitalist order.

Despite industrialization, China was still an overwhelmingly peasant society. In his 1926 Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society, Mao studied the composition of China’s 450 million population. The urban proletariat, however quickly it was growing, still only totaled two million people – the vast majority of Chinese people were peasants. Mao estimated 400 million people were “semi-proletariat” who farmed their own land, but also earned wages as tenant farmers or wage laborers – he called them “our closest friends” (Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society, 1926).

In this foreboding text, Mao also warned that the national bourgeoisie forces could not be trusted. At that historical moment, the CPC was in an alliance with the national bourgeoisie led by the Nationalist Party (KMT) in a “United Front” against warlordism and imperialism. That pivotal year would see an abrupt end to this alliance and the subsequent “White Terror” of mass killings of communists at the hands of the nationalists and their hired hands. The mass insurrections of 1927 were attempts at transforming the symbol of the Paris Commune into a living practice in China, and necessitated a strategic shift in the revolutionary process.

The 1927 commemoration of the Paris Commune ballooned in size, drawing up to one million workers and peasants across the country. At the Wuhan celebration, labor leader Liu Shaoqi called on the workers to carry on the spirit of the Paris Commune jointly with the struggle against imperialism and warlordism. Three days later, 800,000 workers led by Zhou Enlai launched a general strike in Shanghai that overthrew the warlord-controlled government and established a Provisional Municipal Government. Shanghai became the first large city under the leadership of the CPC. But on 12 April, defying the United Front strategy, the KMT under Chiang Kaishek would stage a coup and order the slaughter and disappearance of thousands of Communists with the aid of police of the foreign-occupied areas and criminal organizations. The CPC-KMT alliance was over. The subsequent communist-led urban uprisings from Nanchang (1 August) to Hunan (7 September), and finally to Guangzhou (11 December), would all be brutally crushed.

ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS’, PEASANTS’ AND SOLDIERS’ SOVIETS!

At 3:30 am on 11 December, the first attack began at the police stations. It was led by commander Zhang Tailei, who was killed in an ambush the following day – he was 29 years-old. A series of coordinated actions took over the city. Their demands were: Rice for the workers, land for the peasants! Down with militarist wars! All power to the Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Soviets! Behind this mobilization was the Guangzhou Soviet, covering an area of half a million peasants working in conjunction with the urban workers unions. A war council with a 10:3:3 ratio of workers, soldiers and peasants, respectively, led the uprising that lasted three days. Upon taking the city, this body issued a series of eight decrees, mass printed and distributed. The first three focused on the establishment of Soviet power, arming of the people and retaliation against counter-revolutionaries. The fourth secured an eight-hour working day and rights for the waged and unemployed. The fifth dealt with the economy and the nationalization of industry. The sixth demand looked at the property of the bourgeoisie. The seventh to the army wages and restructuring. The eighth and final demanded the reorganization of trade unions. At that moment, however, the military organization of the bourgeoisie was still too strong. Had they held the city long enough for the peasant reinforcements – a six-day march away – history may have turned out differently. Ralph Fox – British journalist and communist later killed fighting in the Spanish Civil War – wrote on the significance of the “Guangzhou Commune”:


For three days a great city in an eastern country dominated by imperialism was seized and held by the oppressed classes ruling through their Soviet. Technical and military errors there were, but, politically, no mistakes were made. The Communist Party of China, which led and organized the revolt, has reason to be proud of its application of Lenin’s teachings in the difficult circumstances of China. The work of the Party in the insurrection showed not only that it had the closest contacts with workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie and soldiers, but that it understood how to rally the widest masses of all these classes to the support of the revolution by correct slogans and a sure political line. (The Commune of Canton, 1928)

1927 was a turning point for the Chinese Revolution. That the uprisings were brutally repressed was pivotal in the CPC’s strategic shift from the cities to the countryside – towards the creation of a people’s army and towards the peasantry – “our closest friends”. In Lessons of the Commune (1908), Lenin writes, “And although these magnificent uprisings of the working class were crushed, there will be another uprising, in face of which the forces of the enemies of the proletariat will prove ineffective, and from which the socialist proletariat will emerge completely victorious.” Something similar could be said of the Chinese uprisings. After that year of White Terror, at the Sixth Congress of the CPC in 1928, 11 December was officially marked as the anniversary of the Guangzhou Uprising, which “not only opened a new chapter for the Chinese Revolution but also has great significance in the history of world revolution, with the same value as the great Paris Commune”. Holding true to this, the Guangzhou Commune has indeed been remembered, studied and honored since.

2020 was the 93rd anniversary of the Guangzhou Uprising, which became known as the “Paris Commune of the East”. For this occasion a new “red drama” was produced in conjunction with an exhibition at the Guangzhou Uprising Memorial Hall. The late-Qing dynasty building was once used as a Police Academy before being transformed into the seat of the Guangzhou Soviet. In 1987, this site was turned into an official memorial. At the 12 December commemoration event, students from the People’s Liberation Army school recited the tale of Zhang Tailei, a puppet show told the story of the Uprising’s female leaders and the great granddaughter of hero Yang Yin tied a red ribbon around a student’s collar – the symbolic passing on of a revolutionary legacy from one generation to the next.

Up until the anniversary, the immersive drama was performed four times a week. Actors and audience members alike jointly reenact the uprising, donning costumes and taking up weapon props, all the while singing L’Internationale. When Qu Qiubai first heard this song in Russia a century ago, he probably had little idea what role he would play in bringing this anthem from the “bright flower” of the Paris Commune to the Guangzhou Commune. He never lived to see the “happy fruit” in the establishment of PRC in 1949, nor the centenary of the founding of the CPC on 1 July of this year. In 1935, he was captured, tortured and executed by KMT forces. It is said that he sang L’Internationale until his last breath.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

Tings Chak is the lead designer and researcher of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, editor of Dongsheng News and a Globetrotter/People’s Dispatch fellow.

THIS IS A PRELUDE ARTICLE TO POSTINGS ON THE 150 ANNIVERSARY OF THE PARIS COMMUNE 1871-2021 WHICH WILL CONTINUE HERE SUNDAY MARCH 21.

German police clash with protesters over Covid-19 restrictions
Issued on: 20/03/2021 -

Police forces clash with protesters in Kassel, Germany,

 March 20, 2021. © Swen Pfoertner, AP

Text by: FRANCE 24 

Protesters in a central German city clashed with police on Saturday over coronavirus measures, with officers using water cannons, pepper spray and batons against people trying to break through police barriers, the German news agency dpa reported.

More than 20,000 people participated in the protests in Kassel, and in addition to clashes with police there were also several scuffles with counter-protesters.

Thousands of people marched through downtown Kassel despite a court ban, and most didn't comply with pandemic hygiene measures such as wearing face masks. Several reporters were attacked by the protesters, dpa reported.

Federal police, who had been brought in in advance from other parts of the country, used water cannons and helicopters to keep the crowds under control.

Police said that several people were detained, but didn't give any numbers.

Various groups, most of them far-right opponents of government regulations to fight the pandemic, had called for protests Saturday in cities across the country.

Virus infections have gone up again in Germany in recent weeks and the government is set to decide next week on how to react.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday Germany will have to apply an “emergency brake” to reverse some recent relaxations of restrictions as coronavirus infections accelerate.

Exponential growth of new cases

Germany’s national disease control center said new infections were growing exponentially as the more contagious COVID-19 variant first detected in Britain has become dominant in the country.

On Saturday, the Robert Koch Institute reported 16,033 new cases and registered 207 additional deaths, bringing the overall death toll to 74,565 in Germany.

In Berlin, some 1,800 police officers were on standby for possible riots, but only about 500 protesters assembled at the city's landmark Brandenburg Gate. Meanwhile, around 1,000 citizens came together on Berlin's Unter den Linden boulevard to protest against the far-right demonstration.

Police had to intervene when some far-right protesters tried to attack press photographers, but in general, a police spokeswoman told dpa, “there's not much going on here.”

In advance of the Berlin protests, authorities had announced they would create three special, police-protected areas where journalists could withdraw to when under attack by protesters. As in other countries, reporters are increasingly targeted during far-right demonstrations in Germany.

Protesters also hit the streets in other cities across Europe. In London, demonstrators opposing the U.K.'s months-long lockdown defied police who warned of potential fines and arrest for violating prohibitions on most group meetings.

In Finland, police estimated that about 400 people without masks and packed tightly together gathered in the capital, Helsinki, to protest government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions. Smaller demonstrations were scheduled in other Finnish cities.

#DISARM   #DEFUND  #DISBAND

France’s Senate approves the right of police to carry weapons off duty

Issued on: 20/03/2021 

French gendarmes (national police) are equipped with the SIG Sauer SP 2022 9mm pistol, pictured here at the German-Swiss company’s stand at the European Police Congress in Berlin, Germany on February 15, 2011. © John MacDougall, AFP

Text by: Aude MAZOUE

France’s Senate passed Thursday Article 25 of a security law that allows off-duty police officers to carry their firearms into public establishments such as theatres and shopping centres, and forbids the management of such places from preventing it. The article drew opposition from across the political spectrum despite its passage.

Not as well known as the same security law’s Article 24, which aimed to criminalise the dissemination of images of police officers that could harm their “physical or mental integrity” and sparked widespread protests in France, Article 25 provides that local officers and gendarmes (national police) who carry their weapons while off-duty can no longer be refused access to places like museums, cinemas, shopping centres and schools, which France classifies as ERP – establishments open to the public.

While French senators passed Article 25 by a vote of 214 to 121 without any changes to the version already approved by the lower-house National Assembly, the article raised questions and provoked an outcry from senators of all political persuasions.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin pointed out during the Senate’s debate that police officers carrying weapons while off-duty is not a new phenomenon. Since 2016, officers have had the right to carry their firearms outside working hours if they have requested it from superiors. Today, more than 30,000 officers in France bring their firearms home.

“We’re not setting the world on fire,” Darmanin said of Article 25.

“There is simply a custom that the owner of the establishment receiving the public can refuse entry” to an off-duty officer carrying a gun, Darmanin said to senators. To end this custom, “we are proposing to introduce legislation … which should please the legislators that you are.”

But not all present were pleased. A series of amendments aimed at eliminating Article 25 was defended by lawmakers from the Socialist and Green parties, as well as senators from the communist-majority CRCE and European Democratic and Social Rally groups. Furthermore, more than 20 senators among the chamber’s centrists, right-of-centre Les Républicains and Independents also backed the amendments.

‘Not a trivial matter’

“Deciding to carry a weapon is not a trivial matter," said Laurent Lafon, a centrist senator from the Val-de-Marne département (administrative area) in the Paris region. “First of all, for the police and the gendarmes themselves. But also for others. How would we feel if we saw a person in a theatre wearing civilian clothes and carrying a weapon sitting next to us? Would we feel reassured, or would we feel worried?”

Lafon’s arguments were shared by Sylvie Robert, a Socialist senator from the western Ille-et-Vilaine département. “Nothing proves that an armed policeman makes an ERP more secure.”

“We must move away from this simplistic logic," Robert added, bringing up the possibility of an "accident" if a weapon is dropped or stolen.

Anne-Sophie Simpere, an advocacy officer at Amnesty International France, said that “all measures that further facilitate the carrying of weapons are regressive” in an interview with FRANCE 24.

“This measure places a heavy responsibility on police and gendarmes, who must always be ready to act even in a place of celebration. What would happen if one of them were to drink while carrying their weapon?” Simpere said. “It would have been good to carry out a study to determine whether this type of measure is truly necessary.”

Festival organisers also fear that security staff will now be forced to let armed plainclothes officers in with a simple police identity card, which can be easily falsified.

‘False debate’

But Denis Jacob, the secretary general of Alternative Police, a union associated with the CFDT labour federation, told FRANCE 24 that concerns about Article 25 constitute a “false debate”.

“Since 2016, police officers have been going to public places with a hidden firearm in a holster or a bag in the summertime, and it’s never been a problem,” Jacob said. “On the contrary, it is an additional security guarantee to know that police officers and gendarmes can intervene in case of an attack.

“French police officers are still far from their American counterparts, who have full authority to use their weapons. In France, weapons’ use remains extremely restricted, and weapons can only be used in the strict context of legitimate defence.”

Frédéric Ploquin, a police specialist and the author of the book Les Narcos français brisent l'omerta (French narcotics agents break the code of silence) also has a positive view of Article 25.

"Firstly, there is no obligation for officers to carry a weapon off duty,” Ploquin said to FRANCE 24. “And it’s only a question of intervention in a terrorist context like the Bataclan,” he said, referring to the Paris concert hall where armed Islamist militants killed 90 people on November 13, 2015.

“Many [officers] confided to me that they don’t want to hide with others under the tables in case of an attack. They prefer to intervene for the love of the job,” Ploquin said. STRANGE LOVE

Whether reassuring or alarming, the French Senate has spoken on Article 25. Since it was adopted by both chambers of parliament on the first reading, the article cannot be amended in the National Assembly.

This article was translated from the original in French.

Morocco’s cannabis farmers: ‘Poor and living in fear’

In Morocco’s impoverished Rif mountains, cannabis farming provides an essential economic lifeline. Now, the Moroccan government looks set to legalise the drug’s use, cultivation and export for medicine and industry. But many farmers, who say they face poverty, the fear of arrest and exploitation by dealers and traffickers, are not convinced the law change will do much to improve their lives.

Myanmar’s fleeing police officers put India in a tight spot

Issued on: 19/03/2021 - 

Myanmar nationals who say they are fleeing policemen display the three-finger salute in a temporary shelter at an undisclosed location in India's northeastern state of Mizoram on March 13, 2021. 

© Sajjad Hussain, AFP

Text by: Leela JACINTO


The arrival in India of Myanmar nationals, who say they are police officers fleeing junta orders to shoot at unarmed demonstrators protesting against the February coup, has put India in a sensitive position. The popular mood in India’s border Mizoram state to help ethnic kin across the border must be balanced with regional geostrategic interests.

When Myanmar’s military seized power in a February 1 coup, authorities and residents in the northeast Indian state of Mizoram immediately knew their state – which shares a 404-kilometre border with Myanmar – would catch a cold from the junta’s latest sneeze.

The Mizos of Mizoram have ethnic and cultural ties with the Chins across the border in Myanmar’s western Chin state. Both Mizos and Chins belong to the Zo ethnic group, which was divided by colonial borders that were accepted by postcolonial administrations in India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Mizoram’s residents were unequivocal about which side they supported in the oncoming clash between Myanmar’s military – called the Tatmadaw – and its citizens. Just two days after the shock coup announcement, students in Mizoram’s capital, Aizawl, held demonstrations where banners demanding the restoration of democracy and proclaiming solidarity with “our Zo brothers in Myanmar” were displayed.

Mizo artists and musicians got on the job, producing artworks and songs assuring their fellow Zos in Myanmar that their protests against the dreaded Tatmadaw – which has cracked down against the ethnic Chin minority in the past – would not go unheard across the border.

“To all my brothers and sisters of Myanmar, I just want to let you know that you are not alone in the struggles you’re facing right now,” intoned Mizoram’s best-known singer, Rebecca Saimawii, in a YouTube clip, before singing the revolutionary Burmese song, Kabar Ma Kyay Bu, which has turned into an anthem of sorts of the 2021 civil disobedience movement.

The discourse of Mizoram’s state authorities mirrored the popular mood. “If the people of Myanmar have to flee the military, Mizoram will welcome them with open arms and give them food and shelter,” Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga – who uses one name – told the state assembly on February 25.

So, when small groups of Chins began crossing the shallow Tiau River into India’s remote northeastern border districts, it was an expected development that would have gone largely unnoticed by the Indian national, and certainly the international, media.

But by the end of February, reports emerged that the refugees included less than a dozen police officers who said they were fleeing Tatmadaw orders to shoot at unarmed demonstrators protesting the coup.

Their arrival coincided with a toughening response by Burmese security forces after an initial period of relative restraint following the February 1 coup. With world attention focused on Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement, news teams from India’s capital, New Delhi, started arriving in the country’s overlooked border districts to cover “the first reported case of police fleeing Myanmar”.

The development was “not surprising” but certainly “politically important”, according to Avinash Paliwal of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. “It shows that police officers are defecting, that there is resistance within Burmese institutions. They don’t want to shoot and kill unarmed protesters,” he explained.

It wasn’t long before Myanmar asked India to return the police officers. A district official in Mizoram told Reuters she received a letter from her counterpart in Myanmar’s Chin state that they had information about eight police officers who had crossed into India. “In order to uphold friendly relations between the two neighbour countries, you are kindly requested to detain eight Myanmar police personnel who had arrived to Indian territories [sic] and hand over to Myanmar,” the letter said.

The development put Indian authorities in a sensitive situation, one they would have preferred to handle quietly, away from the international media gaze, as they have in the past.

But the 2021 civil disobedience movement in Myanmar is unlike any of the previous protest movements in the 1980s and 1990s.

Asian giants compete for hearts, minds, markets

As the Tatmadaw unleashes a vicious crackdown on an unarmed citizenry, the bloodshed is unfolding in plain sight on social media, captured by tech-savvy young protesters manoeuvering Internet blackouts, and disseminated by activists and diaspora groups incensed by the human rights abuses.

Statements by regional and global powers, as well as multilateral bodies such as the UN, are parsed by concerned communities frustrated by the world’s incapacity to stop the brutality as death tolls rise with the junta showing no signs of bowing down to international opprobrium.

The outrage is also brewing in a region of intense strategic competition, where a soft power battle for hearts and minds – and markets – of the world is being waged in a pandemic age.

Myanmar’s location between India and China puts a spotlight on Asian powers that welcomed the Tatmadaw’s 2011 experiment with “tutelage democracy”, investing in massive infrastructure projects with little regard for the lack of scrutiny and civil rights guarantees in the country.

>> Read more on Myanmar’s ‘tutelage democracy’

With China and India, the world’s most populous nations, waging a great game of strategic influence in Myanmar, the country’s opposition movement is intensely focused on how their giant Asian neighbours respond to the current crisis.

Protesters staged demonstrations outside the Chinese embassy in Myanmar’s commercial capital, Yangon, weeks after the coup, accusing Beijing of supporting the military junta despite Chinese denials.

Meanwhile the Indian embassy in Myanmar earlier this month was forced to put out statements on Facebook and Twitter blasting “mischievous and biased” reports that India was among a group of nations – including China, Russia and Vietnam – that watered down a draft UN Security Council resolution that included the removal of any reference to a “coup”.

As Myanmar’s opposition movement clamours for international sanctions to cripple the Tatmadaw’s coffers, once shadowy border regions – where trafficking continued as national authorities managed cross-border ethnic insurgencies – are now getting unprecedented attention

New Delhi constrains Mizoram’s ‘open arms’

The recent request by a Chin state official to his Indian counterpart in Mizoram asking for the return of the police officers sparked a prompt response from the Indian central government in New Delhi.

Amid reports of hundreds of refugees, including women and children, crossing the frontier, India’s home [or interior] ministry last week issued a communiqué to officials in four states bordering Myanmar to take steps to prevent an illegal influx from the neighbouring country.

Law enforcement officials were directed to take “prompt steps in identifying the illegal migrants and initiate the deportation processes expeditiously and without delay", according to Indian media reports.

“The Mizoram state government had a more humanitarian approach that people with social linkages and historic ties across the border were in distress and fleeing persecution. Their stance was pretty clear, they didn’t mean to try to undermine India’s foreign policy towards Myanmar. But it puts New Delhi in an awkward position especially since Myanmar asked New Delhi to extradite the police officers,” explained Paliwal.

Vulnerable refugee groups at the mercy of national, regional interests

The plight of the Myanmar migrants in Mizoram was taken up by the New Delhi-based NGO, the National Campaign Against Torture (NCAT), which filed a complaint to India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on March 8, urging it to process asylum applications. “The 11 Myanmar police personnel who refused to obey orders to crack down on the peaceful pro-democracy activists face certain torture and possibly death sentences in case of refoulement to Myanmar by the Government of India,” said NCAT coordinator, Suhas Chakma, in a statement.

But a week later, Chakma had still not received replies to the complaint or any word from local authorities on asylum applications. The National Human Rights Commission failed to respond to FRANCE 24’s queries despite repeated attempts.

“The government of India has directed the state government of Mizoram not to speak about the issue or about standard operating protocols because India and Myanmar have a very delicate relationship in terms of insurgent groups on both sides of the border,” explained Chakma in a phone interview with FRANCE 24 from New Delhi. “I hope the NHRC will take a decision that’s fair and impartial and also timely without delaying it to wait for the situation to cool down.”

India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, a fact emphatically noted in the Indian home ministry’s letter to local authorities in the border states requesting them to “take appropriate action as per law to check illegal influx from Myanmar into India”.

“The fact that India doesn’t have a law to assist applications for naturalisation and refugee status leaves victims at the mercy of the central government,” explained Chakma. “If it’s a politically, or a geopolitically, important group, such as the Tibetans, nobody touches them.”

India is home to hundreds of thousands of refugees primarily from South Asia, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) supports the Indian government with programmes assisting refugees fleeing conflicts and natural disasters.

But the fates for vulnerable refugee groups, such as the Rohingya Muslims, in India are precarious, subject to domestic religious nationalism or regional geopolitical concerns.

Joint India-Myanmar army operations in border areas

The Indo-Myanmar border region has been host to myriad armed ethnic groups on both sides of the 1,400-kilometre frontier for decades.

The Tamadaw’s troubled relationship with Myanmar’s diverse ethnic minorities has swung from deadly “pacification” operations to ceasefires that open resource-rich border areas to infrastructure projects and investments in what some experts call “ceasefire capitalism”.

>> Read more on Myanmar’s troubled union and ‘ceasefire capitalism’

However, the ceasefire deals tend to be precarious as locals – deprived of their lands while deriving little or no advantage from projects that enrich the Tatmadaw – join militant splinter groups, keeping up low intensity insurgencies in Myanmar’s border areas.

India has also faced a low intensity insurgency problem along its Myanmar border that has subsided in recent years. While any problem along India’s western border with Pakistan will dominate the national news for weeks, the insurgencies in India’s northeastern states however tend to be overlooked.

In early 2019, for instance, while the media was focused on India-Pakistan tensions following an attack on Indian soldiers in Kashmir, the Indian and Myanmar armies conducted major joint operations targeting ethnic militant groups along the India-Myanmar border. The insurgents were targeted for threatening the Kaladan Project that will link Myanmar’s Sitwe seaport to India’s Mizoram to the north and Calcutta to the west, according to Indian media reports.

A year later, the Tatmadaw handed over 22 militants captured in Myanmar to India in what was described as a “huge message” to insurgent groups “that Naypyidaw is in sync with New Delhi”.

Playing off India and China

Myanmar is strategically important for New Delhi, particularly under the current administration’s “Act East” policies aimed at extending India’s economic relations with Southeast Asia.China, which has a bigger political and economic footprint in Myanmar, considers its southern neighbour part of its historic zone of influence, one that is increasingly important for Beijing’s maritime access to the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

Aware of the competition, the Tatmadaw has effectively played off its competing neighbours, drawing in Indian investments in a bid to decrease China’s strategic hold on Myanmar.

Both India and China cooperated with Myanmar’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party before the February 1 coup. But with senior NLD leaders – including Suu Kyi – behind bars since the military takeover, Beijing and New Delhi have to play a delicate balancing act in Myanmar.

“India is very concerned that the junta doesn’t go exclusively in the hands of China, so Myanmar’s refugees are a very sensitive issue,” explained Chakma.

“China and India are unhappy with the coup because it affects stability and their economic interests in the region. But every country knows they have to deal with the Tatmadaw. New Delhi has a delicate balancing act maintaining pressure on the Tatmadaw while ensuring stability, the safety of the Indian community in Myanmar, and its interests,” explained Paliwal. “But these regional powers risk becoming truly redundant in a political sense if they don't work together to find a quick solution to the crisis. Indian and Chinese infrastructural connectivity projects will suffer hugely with acute instability and civil violence in Myanmar.”

 

More than five million people have fled Syria since the start of the country's decade-long war, with little or no prospect of returning home. While the vast majority live in neighbouring countries, such as Turkey and Lebanon, others have crossed oceans and continents to start a new life far from their loved ones. FRANCE 24 brings you some of their stories.

Meeting the Syrian refugees exiled by war - FRANCE 24

Algerians demonstrate in their thousands to demand free press, judiciary

Issued on: 19/03/2021 - 

Algerians march during a demonstration in Algeria's capital, Algiers, 

on March 19, 2021. © Ryad Kramdi, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Thousands protested in Algiers Friday to demand press freedom and judicial independence, as the Hirak pro-democracy movement keeps up its weekly demonstrations, despite a ban on gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic

The Hirak protest movement was sparked in February 2019 over then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term in office.

The ailing strongman was forced to step down weeks later, but the Hirak continued with demonstrations, demanding a sweeping overhaul of a ruling system in place since Algeria's independence from France in 1962.

"Freedom means expressing myself how I want and not how you want," one placard on Friday read.

Press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Algeria 146 out of 180 countries and territories in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index, a 27-place drop from 2015.

Several journalists were assaulted at the demonstration a week earlier, and Algerian authorities have threatened to permanently withdraw international broadcaster FRANCE 24's media accreditation.

"Nothing justifies attacking a journalist or any other person," said Ali, a retired teacher in his sixties who declined to provide his surname.

He told AFP he hoped for "free, professional and above all objective and impartial press".

Protesters also called for an "independent judiciary".

Since the movement's second anniversary on February 22, thousands have taken to the streets for weekly protests, which had been suspended for almost a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Friday's demonstration came as Algeria marked the anniversary of the March 19, 1962, ceasefire that ended its war of independence from France.

"19 March 1962: ceasefire, 19 March 2021: cease repression," one protest sign read.

"Return the power to the people," protesters demanded, addressing the ruling class.

Demonstrators also criticised President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's decision to call early elections on June 12 in an attempt to assuage the country's political and economic crisis.

Tebboune has reached out to the protest movement while also seeking to neutralise it.

"No elections with the mafia gang (in power)," protesters chanted.

Local media reported demonstrations in several other cities, despite poor weather.

 

Is this a tipping point? Protests in UK and Australia calling for end to gender violence

A tide of anger sweeps across the English-speaking world as women in Australia and the UK take to the streets to demand an end to gender violence. Annette Young talks to Tabitha Morton, the deputy leader of the UK's Women's Equality Party as to whether this massive outcry is set to become a tipping point.

Also a ban on girls singing in public imposed by Afghanistan's government is overturned. This after a social media campaign called #IamMySong has women sharing videos of themselves belting out their favourite tunes.

Plus we meet South Africa's first female helicopter pilot who's established a foundation to train hundreds of young women in aviation.

Turkey quits landmark Istanbul Convention protecting women from violence

Issued on: 20/03/2021 - 

Women protest against Turkey's withdrawal from Istanbul Convention, an international accord designed to protect women, in Ankara on March 20, 2021. © AFP - Adem Altan

Text by: NEWS WIRES|

Video by: Sanam SHANTYAE

Thousands protested in Turkey on Saturday calling for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reverse his decision to withdraw from the world's first binding treaty to prevent and combat violence against women.

Erdogan’s overnight decree annulling Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a blow to women’s rights advocates, who say the agreement is crucial to combating domestic violence. Hundreds of women gathered in Istanbul to protest against the move on Saturday.

The Council of Europe's Secretary General, Marija Pejčinović Burić, called the decision "devastating."

“This move is a huge setback to these efforts and all the more deplorable because it compromises the protection of women in Turkey, across Europe and beyond,” she said.


04:17

The Istanbul Convention states that men and women have equal rights and obliges state authorities to take steps to prevent gender-based violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.


Some officials from Erdogan’s Islam-oriented party had advocated for a review of the agreement, arguing it is inconsistent with Turkey's conservative values by encouraging divorce and undermining the traditional family unit.

Critics also claim the treaty promotes homosexuality through the use of categories like gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. They see that as a threat to Turkish families. Hate speech has been on the rise in Turkey, including the interior minister who described LGBT people as “perverts” in a tweet. Erdogan has rejected their existence altogether.

Women’s groups and their allies who have been protesting to keep the convention intact immediately called for demonstrations across the country Saturday under the slogan “Withdraw the decision, implement the treaty.” They said their years-long struggle would not be erased in one night.

Rights groups say violence against and killing of women is on the rise in Turkey but the interior minister called that a “complete lie” on Saturday.

77 women killed since start of the year

A total of 77 women have been killed since the start of the year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. Some 409 women were killed in 2020, with dozens found dead under suspicious circumstances, according to the group.

Numerous women's rights groups slammed the decision. Advocacy group Women's Coalition Turkey said the withdrawal from a human rights agreement was a first in Turkey. “It is clear that this decision will further encourage the murderers of women, harassers, rapists,” their statement said.

Turkey's justice minister said the government was committed to combating violence against women.

“We continue to protect our people's honor, the family and our social fabric with determination," Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul tweeted.

Erdogan has repeatedly stressed the “holiness” of the family and called on women to have three children. His communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the government's motto was ‘Powerful Families, Powerful Society."

Many women suffer physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands or partners, but up-to-date official statistics are unavailable. The Istanbul Convention requires states to collect data.

Hundreds of women and allies gathered in Istanbul, wearing masks and holding banners. Their demonstration has so far been allowed but the area was surrounded by police and a coronavirus curfew begins in the evening.

They shouted pro-LGBT slogans and called for Erdogan's resignation. They cheered as a woman speaking through a megaphone said, “You cannot close up millions of women in their homes. You cannot erase them from the streets and the squares.”

Turkey was the first country to sign the Council of Europe’s “Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence” at a committee of ministers meeting in Istanbul in 2011. The law came into force in 2014 and Turkey's constitution says international agreements have the force of law.

Some lawyers claimed Saturday that the treaty is still active, arguing the president cannot withdraw from it without the approval of parliament, which ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2012.

But Erdogan gained sweeping powers with his re-election in 2018, setting in motion Turkey changing from a parliamentary system of government to an executive presidency.

The justice minister wrote on Twitter that while parliament approves treaties which the executive branch puts into effect, the executive also has the authority to withdraw from them.

Women lawmakers from Turkey’s main opposition party said they will not recognize the decree and called it another “coup” on parliament, which had unanimously accepted the treaty, and a usurpation of the rights of 42 million women.

(AP)

Turkey quits Istanbul Convention on violence against women

Protests erupted in Turkey after President Erdogan decided to pull out of the landmark international convention which aims to protect women from violence


Erdogan's move prompted an outcry from activists

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has triggered nationwide protests for withdrawing Turkey from an international agreement to prevent violence against women.

The decision comes amid increasing calls in Turkey to combat domestic violence as femicide rates rise.

Turkish officials argue that national regulations are enough to ensure protection against gendered violence.

"The guarantee of women's rights are the current regulations in our bylaws, primarily our Constitution. Our judicial system is dynamic and strong enough to implement new regulations as needed," Family, Labour and Social Policies Minister Zehra Zumrut Selcuk said on Twitter.

How are women's rights groups responding today?

Women's rights activists reacted with dismay and called for street marches.

"I’m utterly appalled to learn that tonight Turkish government has officially announced they are withdrawing from Istanbul Convention. This in a country where three women are killed daily and femicide is a huge crisis," prominent Turkish author Elif Shafak wrote on Twitter.

Reporting from a rally in Istanbul, DW's Julia Hahn said many women responded to the decision with "anger and outrage."

Last year, senior politicians in Erdogan's conservative party, the AKP, "started arguing that this convention encourages immoral lifestyles like homosexuality. They were met with massive protests by women at the time," Hahn said.

But now "Erdogan has bowed in to pressure from hardliners in his coalition," Hahn continued, noting that the Turkish president is trying to use this issue "to re-energize his voter base amidst a period of economic downturn," she said.

Watch video 03:02 DW’s Julia Hahn reports from protest rally in Istanbul

As thousands rally across the nation today, organizers are expecting more protests in the next days and weeks to come, she added.

"Since even conservative women are in favor of the convention, there must be some kind of political rational from President Erdogan to come up with this decision at this time," reported Hahn

What is the Istanbul Convention?

The 2011 agreement, commonly referred to as the Istanbul Convention, was drafted by the Council of Europe in the Turkish city in 2011. It is a legal framework seeking to protect women and promote gender equality through legislation, education and spreading awareness.

According to the accord, signatories had to "take the necessary legislative and other measures to adopt and implement state-wide effective, comprehensive and coordinated policies encompassing all relevant measures" to prevent violence against women.

The convention was signed by 45 European countries, plus the EU as an institution.

Some conservatives in Turkey say the deal threatens family structures and promotes homosexuality, citing its principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

What is the situation for women in Turkey?

Women's rights groups had said Turkish authorities were not applying the legal norms of the Istanbul Convention nor providing the intended assistance and protective measures for women.

Watch video 05:00 Turkey: Violence against women

Activists also said the pullout was pushing Ankara further from aligning with the European Union's values, which Turkey remains a candidate to join.

At least 38% of women in Turkey are subject to domestic violence, according to the World Health Organization. The 'We Will Stop Femicide' platform reported 300 femicides in Turkey in 2020.

Hundreds of thousands of women had downloaded a smartphone app that Turkey created for them to report domestic violence, according to a Reuters report.

mb/dj (dpa, Reuters)

Turkey's Erdogan quits European treaty on violence against women

3/19/2021

ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan pulled Turkey out of an international accord designed to protect women, the country's official gazette said on Saturday, despite calls from campaigners who see the pact as key to combating rising domestic violence.

© Reuters/PRESIDENTIAL PRESS OFFICE 

Turkish President Erdogan talks to media after the Friday prayers in Istanbul

The Council of Europe accord, forged in Istanbul, pledged to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence and promote equality. Turkey, which signed the accord in 2011, saw a rise in femicides last year.

No reason was provided for the withdrawal, but officials in Erdogan's ruling AK Party had said last year the government was considering pulling out amid a row over how to curb growing violence against women.

"The guarantee of women's rights are the current regulations in our bylaws, primarily our Constitution. Our judicial system is dynamic and strong enough to implement new regulations as needed," Family, Labour and Social Policies Minister Zehra Zumrut said on Twitter, without providing a reason for the move.

Many conservatives in Turkey say the pact undermines family structures, encouraging violence. They are also hostile to the principle of gender equality in the Istanbul Convention and see it as promoting homosexuality, given its principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

Critics of the withdrawal from the pact have said it would put Turkey further out of step with the values of the European Union, which it remains a candidate to join. They argue the deal, and legislation approved in its wake, need to be implemented more stringently.

Turkey is not the first country to move towards ditching the accord. Poland's highest court scrutinised the pact after a cabinet member said Warsaw should quit the treaty which the nationalist government considers too liberal.

Erdogan has condemned violence against women, including saying this month that his government would work to eradicate violence against women. But critics say his government has not done enough to prevent femicides and domestic violence.

Turkey does not keep official statistics on femicide. World Health Organization data has shown 38% of women in Turkey are subject to violence from a partner in their lifetime, compared to about 25% in Europe.

Ankara has taken measures such as tagging individuals known to resort to violence and creating a smartphone app for women to alert police, which has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

Erdogan's decision comes after he unveiled judicial reforms this month that he said would improve rights and freedoms, and help meet EU standards. Turkey has been a candidate to join the bloc since 2005, but access talks have been halted over policy differences and Ankara's record on human rights.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jane Wardell and William Mallard)