Sunday, December 29, 2013

Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.

"The Portable Sowell: The Imprudence and Stupidity ..." -- most requested highlight of the week.



"Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Not Born In A ..." and "Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Under The Tree..." -- Isaiah did two comics last week.



"Nikita wraps up tonight on The CW (Ava and C.I.)," "Some thoughts on Nikita," "Nikita how it all ends (spoilers)," "Nikita: Less than 30 minutes until the final episo...," "Nikita series conclusion tonight," "The final new episode of Nikita," "tonight nikita takes down amanda," "Don't miss tonight's Nikita," "Nikita wraps up tonight," "Nikita's series finale tonight," "Last episode of Nikita" -- Ava, C.I., Betty, Mike and more on Nikita.



"Saving Mr. Banks Tanks," "julia roberts flops again," "Ephron nailed it," "Wesley Snipes," "the sad comic movies," "Winona Ryder and Edward Scissorhands" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" -- Stan, Rebecca and Betty go to the movies.


"Medea can't stop whoring" -- while Medea, Elaine points out, does her same tired act.



"Nothing"


"Ava and C.I. are the TV experts," "Lucy and Desi are still the champions" and "Thoughts on NBC's Revolution" -- Ann and Marcia cover TV.

"Do as he says, not as he does" and "THIS JUST IN! OBAMACARE'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR HIM!" -- leadership has always eluded him.


"Christmas" -- Elaine on the holiday.


"How to know what books to skip" -- Ruth gives you a shopping tip.


"Happy Holidays, Jesse Richard" -- Trina offers a greeting.



"Favorite Chrismas song," "Baby, please come home," "Jody Watley's going on tour," "They're pirating The Rump Queen" and "Aretha truly is the queen" -- Betty, Ann and Kat cover music.




"Iraq" and "Some things to pay attention to (including Iraq)" -- Elaine and Mike cover Iraq.


"Journalism" and "i prefer self-examination to cheerleading" -- Ruth and Rebecca share some thoughts on journalism.


"Public domain victory"  -- Marcia calls it a win.




"Tortilla soup in the Kitchen" -- Trina offers a recipe.


"Is it over?" and "THIS JUST IN! WHITE HOUSE ON THE ROCKS!" -- Carney is not having Barack's baby!!!!!





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Third Estate 2013 archives by week

We're having no problem with our archives at present.

However, we have in the past.  So it's a tradition that we do a post and put it on the links of all our archived weeks  for the year each year.


2013 (731)

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Third Estate 2012 archive by week

And here's the 2012 archive by week that Dona just noticed we didn't do in 2012.



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Sunday, December 22, 2013

Truest statement of the week

How do you go from "Since I'm not your everything, how about I'll be nothing?" to having your husband, Jay Z, on your video from your new album saying "I am Ike Turner, Eat the cake Anna Mae" -- a line from a movie that clearly illustrates one of the most vicious wife beaters who almost killed another amazing icon, Tina Turner. It's like in one stroke she undermined Tina Turner's march toward victory and mocked it saying that kind of domestic violence is alright.

My God, it's as if she turned back the clock 50 years in one moment.


-- Frances Cudjoe Waters, "How Did Beyonce Go From Tina Turner to 'Anna Mae'" (Huffington Post).
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Truest statement of the week II



There is not very much democracy left in America, a country which endlessly brags about how democratic it is. Every now and again we are pleasantly surprised when the people and their interests are served instead of the 1% and their factotums in government. Those moments are few and far between but when they take place it is always because an individual decides to take on the system directly. In 2013 Edward Snowden was the person who risked his freedom to tell every human being with access to modern communications that they were under United States government surveillance. 


-- Margaret Kimberly, "Edward Snowden: Person of the Year" (Black Agenda Report).









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A note to our readers

Hey --

Another Sunday and another edition.

We could have posted earlier if we'd worked all night.

We didn't.  We slept.

Around noon we started this edition.  It's 6:36 pm as we type this.

We would have been done sooner but it's just us this weekend -- Ava and C.I.

We're the ones in charge of the edition.  We're the ones who had to type everything.



First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:




The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.



And this edition's articles?  Here they are:

With us in charge of this edition and events last week, our goal was to make this the edition that focused on women. This is Frances Cudjoe Waters and this is her first truest.  

Margaret Kimberly's had truests before.  This is her first for 2013 however.  Betty, Ann, Kat, Ruth and Stan joined us in voting on both truests.
This is our big story.  Beyonce is a feminist, we were told.  No, she's not.  This became an issue last week with her new album which promotes violence against women in the track "Drunk In Love."  As we explain here, this false claim of feminism is based on a weak statement Beyonce made about feminism being grafted onto her strong defense of her right to show her tits and ass onstage.  The press created a 'quote' and ran with it.  It is not as it is printed in the actual magazine interview.  Will they do corrections?  We doubt it.  (A) We think they're dishonest liars.  (B) They're too vested in the lie at this point.  Joining us to work on this editorial were Dallas, Elaine, Rebecca, Betty, Ruth, Ann, Marcia and Stan.

The Iraq feature.  We had several ideas.  In the end, we decided covering press silences would allow us to include the largest number of  issues women in Iraq face so we decided we'd have two editorials.  Joining us in working on this editorial were Dallas, Mike, Elaine, Betty, Ruth, Ann, Isaiah and Trina.  Added 7:43 a.m., 12-23-2013: Readers Joan and Roberto both e-mailed to note we meant "Iraqi women" in the title and not "Iraq women."  We actually intended to write "Iraq and women."  But we goofed up and didn't catch our error.  Since Joan and Roberto did, we're going with their title of "Iraqi women."  Thank you both for catching that.  And the e-mail address, by the way, is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. 
As usual, we wrote the TV pieces ourselves.  In this one, we're taking on the lies -- non 'Beyonce is a feminist!' lies -- and the lousy year in TV that 2013 was for women.

If you head an organization to prevent violence against women, you don't go on NPR and praise an album that promotes violence against women.  Kim Gandy is the hypocrite of the year.  Cedric, Kat, Ruth and Ann joined us on this piece.
'You keep saying us is just you two but the credits above not Ty, Jess, Dona and Jim!'  They were with their families today.  So this edition is Ava and C.I., sorry.  But Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess worked on this piece with us last Sunday.  It wasn't finished but over two-thirds were done.  We finished it out today with help from Ruth.
Stan's "Wolverine" inspired this.  We were thinking of it Saturday when we first heard the news that all of Rogue's scenes were cut from the film.  Stan, Ann, Ruth, Dallas, Cedric and Marcia joined us to work on this piece.

When Jim asks for two TV articles from us, we groan and object.  Without Jim this weekend, we did two.  Why? We honestly thought we didn't have enough.  Our goal was twelve features minimum so no one said they were short changed.  Our Ms. magazine parody fell through.  After two attempts did not work out, we said, "That's it.  It goes the trash pile, we're not posting articles after midnight.  We're moving on to work on something else."  If we had realized that we would have 18 articles, we wouldn't have written this.
We're sure people will object to the title.  We're also of the opinion that middle classs feminism and upper class feminism need to take a long break.  Working class feminism seems a lot more focused and a lot less hung up these days.  And if you're hurting women, guess what, you're a stupid bitch.  We're just not in the mood to pretty it up for The Genteel.
Prachi made an error.  This is our women's edition.  She's a woman.  And this was actually written by Dona and us three weeks ago and got dumped on the trash pile.  Why?  It was ready to post.  It was even typed.  For some reason it didn't go up.  No one's sure why.  Since it was done and we could post it and since Prachi Gupta fits our women focus edition, we did.

Ann misread a comment.  We've all done that.  Jezebel's way of billing comments led her to think one person had posted something.  When Ann figured out that wasn't true, a planned piece that the three of us were going to do fell through.  So we did this quick short piece -- Ann and us.
Ruth, Trina, Wally joined us to author this piece.
A repost of Kat's amazing review.
A press release from Senator Patty Murray's office.

Great Britian's Socialist Worker remembers a female scientist.  
Mike typed this and he, Rebecca, Cedric, Kat, Betty, Ruth, Marcia, Stan, Ann, Isaiah and Wally wrote it.

That's what we've got to share this week.

Peace and happy holidays.  We'll see you next Sunday.

--  Ava and C.I.












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Editorial: The 'pro-woman' propaganda dumped on the feminist movement

Beyonce Knowles shakes her ass.  She pushes her tiny breasts up high and pads them out.  She goes into the recording studio with men, she has men co-writing every one of her 'songs,' she has men producing her albums.

Somehow somewhere some way people got the idea she is a feminist.

And her album this month, on "Drunk In Love," portrays Ike Turner's beating and battering of Tina Turner -- his terrorism of her -- as sexy and about being in love.


And though many feminists have rightly said, "No, you can't promote violence against women and be a feminist," many others wanted to insist that it wasn't that bad and Beyonce's so wonderful and a feminist and . . .


How the hell did we get here?


I love my husband! Feminists are all lesbians, right? 

Jo Ellison is a reporter.  She didn't lie.  She wrote a feature for the May issue of British Vogue entitled "Mrs Carter Uncut."

A lot of people have noted this article.

On Saturday, we pulled the article and learned that none of them had actually read it.

Here's a passage where Beyonce's defending the outfits she wears:
But being Beyoncé doesn't allow for contradiction. She's baffled by the criticism that her on-stage persona, a sexually voracious, semi-clothed glamazon, is in any way antithetical to her message of female empowerment. 
"That's exactly why I can [wear those outfits]!" she insists. "Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I'm just a woman and I love being a woman. If you're attractive then you can't be sexy, and you can't be intelligent? Whatisall of that?"


Get it?

Beyonce's defense of her T&A outfits leads to this:



Is she a feminist? 

 "I don't know. That word can be very extreme. But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality, and that we have a ways to go and it's something that's pushed aside and something that we have been conditioned to accept. But I'm happily married. I love my husband."


"But I'm happily married. I love my husband."  Because, you know, them feminists all be lesbians.

That's what's she saying.

And if her response to the question of whether or not she was a feminist had been accurately reported by the rest of the press, Ms. magazine wouldn't have embarrassed themselves putting Beyonce on the cover.


The big liars.

Do you know her?



Elizabeth Plank's avatar image
Elizabeth Plank
Executive Social Editor at PolicyMic. Masters degree from the London School of Economics. Behavioural science consultant by training and feminist crusader by passion.
         

It's Elizabeth Plank, Kim Gandy's bottom bitch apparently.   Or maybe it's vice versa.

Plank, we never knew of until we had to research how a pro-violence against women performer suddenly became a feminist?

Plank's the liar who really distorted Beyonce.

Plank's pimped the lie like so many others.  Here's Plank betraying feminism in April 2013:

 Hip hip hurray! Beyonce has finally come out of the proverbial feminist closet! During an interview with Vogue UK, she explained that although she wasn't a fan of labels, she definitely identified as a feminist:
"I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality. Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I’m just a woman and I love being a woman."


That's not a quote, that's a construct.

"I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality" are remarks (not in full) when asked if she was a feminist.

"Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything?  I'm just a woman and I love being a woman" are remarks she made (see above) when asked about her barely-there-stage-and-video-wardrobe.

If you read the passages as they actually appeared in Vogue, no surprise, Beyonce's very comfortable talking about her own wardrobe, defending herself.  She can do that forever in a day.

She's far less talkative when the issue is feminism.

Beyonce's weak claim to be a feminist came as she was under fire for "Bow Down, Bitches" (we only learned of that song yesterday).

The track came out in March.

By April, she was a 'feminist.'

It's not journalism.

Elizabeth Plank spun it.


Her link?

Doesn't go to Vogue.


It goes to Huffington Post, a video with a man telling you what he says Beyonce told the British magazine.

Seriously, Plank?

You're an 'editor' and you can't even go to the source material?

So you're not just a liar, you're also stupid.

Again, here's Jo Ellison's UK Vogue article.  And, yeah, we can credit the woman who authored the report.

How very 'feminist' of Plank to have failed to credit the woman who wrote the report.


What was actually said

So the question Ellison posed to Beyonce was, "Is she a feminist?"

And Ellison reports Beyonce's full response.


I don't know. That word can be very extreme. But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality, and that we have a ways to go and it's something that's pushed aside and something that we have been conditioned to accept. But I'm happily married. I love my husband.



"I don't know."  "That word can be very extreme."  Propagandist Plank cuts that off, like she cuts off the "But" at the start of the sentence she does quote.

"But I guess I am a modern-day feminist."

With that weak ass statement, in the midst of a homophobic stance, Beynce Knowles was wrongly portrayed as a feminist.


Faux Journalists Don't Do Fact Checks or Corrections

Having gotten the 'quote' wrong in April, Elizabeth Plank not only didn't correct her shoddy journalism, she kept repeating the lie.  This month, she wrote again about 'feminist' Beyonce and, again, used the 'quote' to establish Beyonce's feminist cred.

All she's established is that Elizabeth Plank ("Liz" when she's lying about Beyonce on MSNBC) is a lousy journalist incapable of fact checking, issuing a correction or telling the truth.


Beyonce offered a weak "But I guess I'm a modern-day feminist" but don't call me a lesiban! piece of b.s. that idiots like Elizabeth Plank, Ms. magazine, Janell Hobson, Kim Gandy and so many others pimped as a feminist statement.

Now if they hadn't falsely combined the weak-ass statement with Beyonce's defense of her right to show skin on stage, it wouldn't have worked.

And presumably that's why none of them have had the honesty to self-correct their lies.


-------------------------------


You cannot endorse violence against women and be a feminist.  For those who are stupid enough to fall for Beyonce and Jay-Z's bulls**t that violence against women is sexy and about love, here's some reality from NOW.


Violence Against Women in the United States: Statistics
Despite the fact that advocacy groups like NOW have worked for two decades to halt the epidemic of gender-based violence and sexual assault, the numbers are still shocking. It is time to renew our national pledge, from the President and Congress on down to City Councils all across the nation to END violence against women and men, girls and boys. This effort must also be carried on in workplaces, schools, churches, locker rooms, the military, and in courtrooms, law enforcement, entertainment and the media. NOW pledges to continue our work to end this violence and we hope you will join us in our work.

MURDER

In 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner.1 That's an average of three women every day. Of all the women murdered in the U.S., about one-third were killed by an intimate partner.2

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (Intimate Partner Violence or Battering)

Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner.3 According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year.4 Less than 20 percent of battered women sought medical treatment following an injury.5

SEXUAL VIOLENCE

According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which includes crimes that were not reported to the police, 232,960 women in the U.S. were raped or sexually assaulted in 2006. That's more than 600 women every day.6 Other estimates, such as those generated by the FBI, are much lower because they rely on data from law enforcement agencies. A significant number of crimes are never even reported for reasons that include the victim's feeling that nothing can/will be done and the personal nature of the incident.7

THE TARGETS

Young women, low-income women and some minorities are disproportionately victims of domestic violence and rape. Women ages 20-24 are at greatest risk of nonfatal domestic violence8, and women age 24 and under suffer from the highest rates of rape.9 The Justice Department estimates that one in five women will experience rape or attempted rape during their college years, and that less than five percent of these rapes will be reported.10 Income is also a factor: the poorer the household, the higher the rate of domestic violence -- with women in the lowest income category experiencing more than six times the rate of nonfatal intimate partner violence as compared to women in the highest income category.11 When we consider race, we see that African-American women face higher rates of domestic violence than white women, and American-Indian women are victimized at a rate more than double that of women of other races.12

IMPACT ON CHILDREN

According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund, "growing up in a violent home may be a terrifying and traumatic experience that can affect every aspect of a child's life, growth and development. . . . children who have been exposed to family violence suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as bed-wetting or nightmares, and were at greater risk than their peers of having allergies, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, headaches and flu." In addition, women who experience physcial abuse as children are at a greater risk of victimization as adults, and men have a far greater (more than double) likelihood of perpetrating abuse. 13

IMPACT ON HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the cost of domestic violence in 2003 was more than over $8.3 billion. This cost includes medical care, mental health services, and lost productivity. 14

LEGISLATION

In 1994, the National Organization for Women, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund (now called Legal Momentum), the Feminist Majority and other organizations finally secured passage of the Violence Against Women Act, which provided a record-breaking $1.6 billion to address issues of violence against women.15 However it took nearly an additional year to force the Newt Gingrich-led Congress to release the funding. An analysis estimated that in the first six years after VAWA was passed, nearly $14.8 billion was saved in net averted social costs.16 VAWA was reauthorized in 2005, with nearly $4 billion in funding over five years.17

VIOLENCE BETWEEN SAME-SEX COUPLES

According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, "domestic violence affecting LGBT individuals continues to be grossly underreported . . . there is a lack of awareness and denial about the existence of this type of violence and its impact, both by LGBT people and non-LGBT people alike."18

Myths regarding gender roles perpetuate the silence surrounding these abusive relationships; for example, the belief that there aren't abusive lesbian relationships because women don't abuse each other. Shelters are often unequipped to handle the needs of lesbians (as a women-only shelter isn't much defense against a female abuser), and transgendered individuals. Statistics regarding domestic violence against LGBT people are unavailable at the national level, but as regional studies demonstrate, domestic violence is as much as a problem within LGBT communities as it is among heterosexual ones.19

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Editorial: Iraqi women

The Iraq War has not ended.  2013 already has the worst death toll of any of year of this decade.  In fact, you have to drop back to 2008 to find more deaths.

But what's troubling us is Sabrina Tavernise, Damien Cave, Ellen Knickmeyer, Tina Susman, Sahar Issa, Alissa J. Rubin, Anna Badkhen, Deborah Amos, Alexandra Zavis  . . .

You may know those bylines.

If so, you hopefully grasp that those women and Damien Cave, as well as a few other men and women, could write about Iraqi women.

It wasn't always that way.

At The New York Times, for example, John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins ignored women -- on the page.  Now outside of their writing, they were reportedly all over women -- passes and so much more.  But women really didn't exist in the reports they filed for The New York Times.

Over half of Iraq's population is female.  So it's really something to yet again be reading reports -- granted most are wire reports -- and wonder where are Iraq's women?


 A journalist was killed Sunday, December 15th.  Reporters Without Borders noted:



Young woman TV presenter is Mosul's latest media victim
Reporters Without Borders is appalled by TV presenter Nawras al Nouaymi’s murder yesterday in Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh. Unidentified gunmen shot her near her home in the city’s eastern district of Al-Jazair.
Aged 19, she was a student at Mosul university’s media faculty and had worked as a presenter for satellite TV station Al-Mosuliya for the past five years.
“We are stunned by this latest murder and by the failure of the local and national authorities to respond to the deadly campaign against journalists in Iraq,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The continuing violence and the impunity enjoyed by those responsible constitute a major threat to freedom of information.
“We again urge the authorities to deploy all necessary resources for independent investigations which do not rule out the possibility of a link between these murders and the victims’ work as a journalists, and which result in the perpetrators and instigators being brought to justice.

“Although the security forces have been aware for weeks of the existence of a list of 44 journalists in Nineveh province who are targets for ‘physical liquidation,’ no measure has been taken to protect these journalists. We call on the local and national authorities to address this omission at once.”



A 19-year-old journalist is killed.  And AFP breezes past it but tries to create a mythical savior out of a (male) police officer who hugs a suicide bomber?


The insults to Iraqi women from the western press never end.

One particular beef of ours over the years?

When a family dies.

To get accurate reporting on that from a western outlet shouldn't require our getting on the phone complaining.

But before we started doing that the death of a couple and two children would be reported like this:

A sticky bombing today killed 1 former government official/soldier/police officer, his wife and his two children.

His two children?

His?

Did he birth them from his own vagina?


It took non-stop complaining to editors to get that kind of reporting changed to: 1 whatever, his wife and their 2 children.

Something so basic took hours and hours of phone calls over months and months.

Or take the ongoing protests which passed the one-year mark on Friday.

If you're a western outlet and you aren't The Guardian newspaper, duck your head and hope no one notices.

Only that British paper could speak honestly about the protests and note that the outrage that got people into the streets was the torture and rape of girls and women in Iraqi prisons and detention centers.

In February, for example, Haifa Zangana (Guardian) wrote about the state of Iraqi women:



The plight of women detainees was the starting point for the mass protests that have spread through many Iraqi provinces since 25 December 2012. Their treatment by the security forces has been a bleeding wound – and one shrouded in secrecy, especially since 2003. Women have been routinely detained as hostages – a tactic to force their male loved ones to surrender to security forces, or confess to crimes ascribed to them. Banners and placards carried by hundreds of thousands of protesters portray images of women behind bars pleading for justice.[. . .]
 No wonder, ten years after the invasion, the Iraqi authorities are accused by US-based Human Rights Watch of "violating with impunity the rights of Iraq's most vulnerable citizens, especially women and detainees". HRW's account is echoed by a report by the Iraqi parliament's own human rights and women, family and children's committees, which found that there are 1,030 women detainees suffering from widespread abuse, including threats of rape.


By contrast, Jane Arraf, a Nouri al-Maliki enabler posing as a journalist (she used to enable Saddam Hussein while posing as a journalist), didn't find the plight of Iraqi women and girls of any interest and when she finally got around to mentioning rape, it was to quote a man.


From the April 10th Iraq snapshot:


We spent several snapshots covering that Amenesty report [see this March 11th entry aptly titled "Iraqi women and girls (and the silence on this topic)" and snapshots for March 11th, March 12th, and March 13th].  I'm very familiar with it.  So I'm aware that when Jane Arraf chose to report on it, it was really strange that she focused on a male prisoner saying they threatened to rape his wife in front of him -- as opposed to a woman in the report who was threatened herself.  Apparently, to Arraf, women are property and the thought of a rape in front of their 'owner' (husband) is appalling but their being raped outside of their 'owner' isn't outrageous.  That would explain this miserable she filed that refused to note actual rape noted in the Amnesty report.   This is from the Amnesty International report entitled [PDF format warning] "Iraq: A Decade of Abuses."


More than three years before, members of the Human Rights Committee of parliament who visited the earlier women’s prison that was then located in al-Kadhemiya told reporters in May 2009 that two women inmates they had seen had testified that they were repeatedly raped in detention after their arrest and before they were transferred to the prison. 
Sabah Hassan Hussein, 41, a journalist, was reportedly arrested on 29 February 2012 when she went to the offices of the army’s Fifth Brigade in Baghdad’s Saydiya district to collect a car belonging to one of her relatives that the authorities had confiscated. She was detained and told that she was a suspect in a murder investigation. She was then transferred to the Directorate of Major Crimes (Mudiriyat al-Jara’im al-Kubra) in Tikrit, where she was held incommunicado, for about two months during which, she alleges, she was tortured. According to a member of her family interviewed by Amnesty International, she alleges that her interrogators burnt her with cigarettes, doused her with icy cold water and forced to undress in front of male police officers. The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) reported on 26 November that she had identified the police officers responsible for her alleged torture and that their names had been submitted to the Ministry of Interior. 
Sabah Hassan Hussein was returned to Baghdad from Tikrit in May 2012 and held at al- Sayid For detention centre she was acquitted by the Resafa Criminal Court at the first session of her trial on charges brought under the Anti-Terrorism Law on 23 January 2013. Another defendant charged with her, however, was convicted and sentenced to death. Despite her acquittal, Sabah Hassan Hussein remained in prison until 18 February 2013, when she was released and allowed to return to her family. She subsequently told Amnesty International that she filed a formal complaint with the authorities about her torture and other ill-treatment in detention. They were previously alerted to her torture allegations in November 2012; however, they are not known to have taken any steps to bring those responsible to justice.

That's just one story in the report.  Michele Lent Hirsch (Women's Media Center) noted of the report, "Female detainees are in a 'particularly vulnerable position,' Amnesty explains, given that any allegation they make of rape will be 'almost impossible to prove,' while interrogators can use threats of sexualized violence as a 'powerful inducement to force "confessions".'"  Again, Arraf ignored women.  


And then there's AFP which isn't interested in women at all and have made that very clear in the last two years.


Did you know that Iraq observes a prevention of violence against women week?

And that their week last two weeks actually?

Probably not.

And you're probably not aware that while the leaders in the KRG could and did attend functions and events for that effort to stop violence against women, that while KRG President Massoud Barazani and KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani issued remarks, the Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki never said one word.
(See the November 26th Iraq snapshot, the December 3rd one and the December 10th one.)

The White House is spending over a billion dollars each year in Iraq and the prime minister country won't even call out violence against women -- doesn't believe there is any such thing.

Amal Sakr (Al-Monitor) reported this month that the Iraqi government rejects women's shelters and:

"Living in a jungle ruled by men." This is how Dahaa al-Rawi, the chair of the Women's Committee in the local Baghdad government, described the status of women in Iraq. Women are marginalized and their abilities unrecognized — domestically, socially and politically. Women are subjected to violence of all forms and murder on an ongoing basis.

"We do not have any statistics about the status of women, or the daily violence that they are subjected to," Rawi said, adding, "In Baghdad's local government council, they view us as merely a secondary committee that does not play an important role."
Speaking to Al-Monitor, Rawi said that the same also applies to Iraq's state institutions and ministries concerned with statistics or women's issues. None of them have accurate data showing the extent of violence against women in Iraq.


But the western press ignores it.  Doesn't see it as an actual issue or as news.

Along with the British newspaper The Guardian, the only real exception is Germany's Niqash.  Suha Audeh's report this week is only this year's most recent report from Niqash on the status of women.



Iraq is said to be a land of widows but, reading the western coverage, you're left instead with the impression that not a single woman is in Iraq.




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