Saturday, December 31, 2022

17-year-old girl assaulted in Sulaimaniyah suburb

Saturday brings one big news story out of Iraq: a mass arrest following an assault.  Nik Martin (DW) reports:


Sixteen young men were arrested Saturday in Iraq's automonmous Kurdistan region after a viral video showed a teenage girl being attacked by a group of youths.

The incident took place a day earlier at a motorbike rally in the suburbs of Sulaimaniyah, the region's second city.

Footage of the attack was shared on social media, sparking widespread condemnation.

It shows dozens of young men and teenage boys following the girl before some of them assaulted her, kicking her against a car.

AFP notes that the woman attacked was 17 and "The incident took place in the suburbs of Sulaimaniyah, the Kurdistan region´s second city, where footage shared online showed dozens of young men and teenage boys following the girl before some of them assaulted her, kicking her against a car."  Holly Johnstone (THE NATIONAL) adds:'


She was reported to have been attacked after arriving at a motorcycle race where men asked that women be excluded.

While the Kurdistan Region has laws against domestic violence and is often upheld as an example of more progressive attitudes towards women, gender-based violence remains a problem.

At least 24 women were killed in such circumstances in the first half of 2022, according to a local anti-trafficking and women's rights foundation.

The “senseless assault” is the result “of a barbaric narrative used systematically against our women”, said Rewaz Faeq, the speaker of the Kurdistan Parliament, said in a post on Twitter accompanied by video of the attack.





It is New Year's Eve or already New Year 2023 depending upon what time zone you live in.



I'll be doing the year-in-review and posting it here before 6:00 am EST (hopefully and hopefully long before that).  We'll have other year in review content as usual -- both from other community sites and some new pieces to be posted here.  Isaiah has a new comic that will go up as well.


The following sites updated:


ljk

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