Assaults in Cologne and other European cities part V

[hiddenhome2]

Thread V

Bee TAHARRUSH GAMEA.

I know its autocorrect

Oh, those photos from Afghanistan I had no idea it was ever like that.

You could weep, how terrible it is for women now

One final thing before i sign off, those picture make it almost frivolous to have #Europe 2♀16
Indeed.

Help

There's a timeline here.

It looks like it's had a fairly interesting history (interesting as per the Chinese curse) and it doesn't outline the winners, the losers with each change of regime.

But have a look at 1978. That might be the event, and the new rulers, worth googling for further details.

I've been putting my kids to bed. Wow! Amazing gif Pink you are talented. And the paragraph for the petition sounds really smooth now. Olive and Mama you are good writers. (I wish I could write as fluently!)

The venus symbol was my idea.

I just wish the politicians in Europe has decided to help all the women and children in the refugee camps, it seems abit bonkers now that they didn't help the most vulnerable

I think the politicians will know what TAHARRUSH GAMEA is. It's been in the papers now. If not, they will google it and quickly find out.

Agree Bee. Everything feels back to front at the moment.

iPost Thanks very much for the timeline info. I've speed-read and it appears that two boyos had a massive falling out, one killed the other and, simultaneously, the Mujahadeen was stirring it. Great. I will read it tomorrow. Thanks.

I think taharrush gamea is just part of a larger picture of sexual assault being acceptable so doesn't need a specific mention. I also think Googling what is it may distract some from the message; it needs to be as simple and clear as possible.

It is so scary to realise how quickly this has all happened in Afghanistan. I wonder how all those beautiful and accomplished women are living now?

hashtag world - if needed...

Pros hashtag Cologne: recognisable, direct link to New Year, 'focusing event'
Pros hashtag Europe: It's affects women all over Europe?
Con Europe: Might be confused with a pro European stance i.e. not Brexit..

night.

ipost that link has sent shivers down my spine.

You could weep, how terrible it is for women now

Well hang on to a reserve supply of tears. We might need them for ourselves.

Afghanistan's women gained freedoms and lost them.

European women do not have any special immunity to the same phenomenon of "give and then snatch away".

Or at least, maybe we thought we did have special immunity, but anybody who still thinks we do ....has not been paying attention to the news for a week.

I think taharrush gamea is just part of a larger picture of sexual assault being acceptable so doesn't need a specific mention. I also think Googling what is it may distract some from the message; it needs to be as simple and clear as possible.

This is my feeling too.

It's not just taharrush gamea - crowd sexual assaults.

It's the Swedish swimming pools and jacuzzis having to be segregated.

It's the Parisian woman narrowly escaping being gang-raped by three men while travelling on a train.

It's being intimidated and stared at just for being out in public on your own as a western woman.

etc etc

I know iPost we could lose our freedom, this is what worries me. Those photos have shocked me tbh.

Ds doesn't believe we could ever lose our freedoms to that extent, but it makes me wonder.

He reckons ISIS will be defeated this year. Let's hope so.

Coming in late - have amended this slighly (bold=additions; underline=deletions)

On New Year's Eve, hundreds of women across Europe were sexually assaulted by large gangs of men with unacceptable attitudes towards women. All women living in liberal democracies must be free to move about in public spaces and to wear what they choose, without the threat of sexual violence. In the light of these recent events, which we fear have been recklessly minimised by sections of the mainstream media, we call on the British Government to have an honest and open debate about how they intend to address this menace to womens's safety (or something like that) and uphold the liberal and democratic rights and freedoms of women.

"I come from Egypt, where the sexual abuse of women has now reached an unbearable scale, in part because it was initially ignored or downplayed. This can be ascribed to a few factors: for one, it is difficult to admit in a supposedly religious, moral society that many women are sexually abused; for another, there are concerns about the effect a more open discussion might have on tourism, one of the country's main sources of income. And many even go a step further and blame the victims because of the way they dress. The hypocrisy and unwillingness to confront the problem have turned a limited phenomenon into an epidemic: over 95 percent of Egyptian women report daily experience with sexual abuse and sexual coercion

^ I said earlier we have no idea of the scale of abuse women face in such countries. Thanks to whoever posted this.

I am in awe of the movement and action in this thread so heartening.

I also want to re iterate I think Theresa May is a good person to email.

I am pretty sure we all have to email our own own MP's however we can do that but also email her - it wont hurt to have a goodly number of emails on this subject going to her office.

Hell, why not email Cameron too?

Good, polentapies.

I've emailed Theresa May.

Cameron: yes, why not.

And yet the BBC and other news outlets had no such qualms describing Steve Wrights victims as prostitutes during his killing spree in Ipswich in the winter of 2006. They could have just described them as women but they didnt @Vertigo

Will I emailed Theresa May earlier.

I'm working on the link resource, anyone know if MN have the equivalent of a sticky at the beginning of a thread or do we have to c&p it each time?

Who's going to start the petition?

It is so scary to realise how quickly this has all happened in Afghanistan. I wonder how all those beautiful and accomplished women are living now?

Yes. And it's worth remembering how the issue of "women's rights" got hijacked by the Bush neocons back in 2001 to offer an extra justification to the war with Afghanistan. No one gave a shit until 9/11. If you haven't seen it, watch the horrifying documentary "Beneath the Veil" which went out on C4 in June 2001. It's an incredibly brave piece of film-making. They've done very little for women there, in real terms. As the letter points out, it is mainly men who have benefitted at all.

Warning - both the documentary and the image and cases discussed in the Guardian letter are likely to be upsetting:

www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/on-demand/31771-001

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/24/afghan-women-still-suffering-extreme-abuse

Not sure David Cameron would be very interested, Samantha may be a better bet. In terms of Tories George Osborne and Zac Goldsmith are in play for higher jobs, so they may put their head over the parapet. Although I guess Goldsmith's campaign is already beset by racism attacks, so he might not want to get involved.

I prefer the #Cologne2x16 hashtag as it is catchier.
Having Europe or World will not make the link so easily.
These events have put Cologne on the map.

The mood is changing even in our backwater of a town. Babysitter got collected by her dad last night (DH had offered to walk her home, too). And I recall that last summer the local lido had security (previous year it was just life guards). Very different from the Germany of my youth.