Month: August 2003

British Gov’t Workers Required to Report Inter-Office Sexual Liasions

UK newspaper The Observer reports that fears of sexual harassment lawsuits have prompted many government agencies in Great Britain to require employees to report any sexual relationships they are having with their colleagues to their respective human resources department.

And such fears appear to be well-founded. According to The Observer,

Research by academics at the University of Sydney suggests that almost a quarter of failed office relationships end in sexual harassment cases, and a survey in America by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 52 per cent of companies believe they suffer in some way because of romance in the workplace. Nearly a third of employees quizzed said they feared office affairs would end in claims of sexual harassment. Small wonder then that 95 per cent of personnel managers said they believed office romances should not be allowed or, at least, should be discouraged.

Which, of course, takes further along the road to where Daphne Patai predicted the sexual harassment industry was eventually headed — to stigmatizing heterosexual relationships as inherently suspect.

Are two of your coworkers sleeping together? Well, clearly, somebody should be watching that situation to make certain it doesn’t get out of hand. As Patai put it, “Two fundamentally opposing world views are currently in collision. One of them sees sex (especially male sexuality) as a perpetual danger. The other sees sex as primarily a source of pleasure for both women and men.”

Clearly the former are in charge in the UK.

Source:

Personnel affair. The Observer, July 20, 2003.

Conviction in False Rape Case Yields 9 Month Sentence

Jacqueline Barkely, 38, had hired a lawyer to help her bring a lawsuit against a woman whom she accused of sexual misconduct.

That accusation was false. When Barkley’s lawyer, Steven Anderson, 45, spurned his client’s cards and letters professing her love, she then made false allegations that Anderson had raped her on the floor of the lawyer’s office.

Barkley went so far as to send text messages to one of Anderson’s legal partners that appeared to be from Anderson and contained a “confession” to the rape.

Barkley was found guilty of wasting police time and breach of the peace, but only received a 9 month jail sentence for her lies. That’s a relatively light sentence for charges that could have ruined Anderson’s career and left him facing legal proceedings if the charges had been believed.

Source:

Woman in false rape claim gets 9 months. Ausian Cramb, Daily Telegraph (UK), August 2, 2003.

BBC to Women: Don’t Shoot at Drunk, High Men Who Break Into Your Homes

Nothing better illustrates the differing attitudes between the United States and the United Kingdom over home self-defense than an article by a BBC correspondent who took shooting classes in the United States.

Vanessa Collingridge’s resulting article, Women who ‘shoot to kill’, tries to make women the hook for a story about a Phoenix, Arizona,-based handgun training course. Collingridge writes of her fellow students in the class,

Most of the course participants are here to improve their gun skills — not for sport but their own protection.

Mosa Laren, a primary school teacher, raved to me how “empowered” she now felt.

Collingridge puts empowered in quotes, there, I suspect, because the BBC’s point here is to demonstrate that people who carry handguns for self-protection are not really empowered at all. But she chooses an odd case to get that message across — the justifiable homicide of 16-year-old Anthony Choate.

Collingridge writes,

There is widespread incredulity that someone has been jailed in Britain for defending themselves and their property – even if the end result was the death of an unarmed 16-year-old.

Recently, however, that mood was tempered in Salem, Oregon, where 16-year-old Anthony Choate was shot and killed after drunkenly wandering into a stranger’s garage.

Once inside, he lit a fire – something he often did in a stove at home.

Homeowner Linn Stordahl heard a noise and went to investigate. On opening the garage door, he found smoke and flames and shouted a warning to the shadowy figure beyond them.

Many Americans feel it is their right to defend their property
But when the figure came towards him, Stordahl pulled the trigger and fatally wounded him in the neck.

A Grand Jury later cleared Linn Stordahl of all charges, though Stordahl now faces intimidation from local teenagers – and perhaps the depths of his own conscience.

It’s a sobering tale to those who call for American-style gun laws in the UK.

It is bizarre enough that Collingridge describes the fire as if this was something to be expected and not out of the ordinary. Hey, this kid lit fires in the stove at home, why wouldn’t he light them in your garage? But, predictably for the BBC, Collingridge also leaves out a few details of this shooting.

For example, Collingridge forgets to tell her readers that when Stordahl entered the garage and saw the fire, he asked Choate what the young man was doing in the garage. Choate then began to walk toward Stordahl. Stordahl told Choate to stop, but Choate ignored the warning. Stordahl again warned Choate to stop and informed the young man that he had a gun, but Choate kept walking toward Stordahl. Only after these warnings went unheeded did Stordahl discharge his weapon, ultimately killing the 16-year-old.

For some reason Collingridge also forgets to mention that Choate’s autopsy found that the young man had a blood alcohol level of .31 and that he also tested positive for both marijuana and cocaine.

So what is the message that Collingridge has for American women? Well, if you happen to find a man high on drugs and alcohol setting fires in your garage, and if that man advances toward you while ignoring your warnings to stop, whatever you do, don’t use a handgun! Think of that poor young unarmed man! You wouldn’t really want to hurt him, would you? Just sit back and hope the police arrive in time. Maybe say a few prayers that the man won’t rape you before police show up.

This is the standard that the UK has arrived at in the persecution of Tony Martin. Martin’s home had been broken into eight times. Not receiving satisfaction from police, Martin bought a gun and when intruders broke in again, he shot them, killing a 16-year-old. For doing what the police could or would not do — protect his home — Martin received more time in jail than those who tried to burglar his residence.

Just sit around and wait to be a victim — that’s the BBC’s version of empowerment.

Sources:

Women who ‘shoot to kill’. The BBC, July 21, 2003.

BBC finds Salem case similar to shooting in UK. Albany Herald-Democrat, July 5, 2003.

Homeowner cleared in shooting of intruder. Associated Press, April 29, 2003.

Human Rights Watch Report on Nigerian Riots

Nigeria erupted into riots in November 2002 after a reporter opined that Mohammed would likely not only have approved of the Miss World beauty pageant, but would likely have taken one of the contestants for his wife. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and others castigated the woman who made that remark, causing her to flee the country for her own safety.

Now a Human Rights Watch report on the incident claims that the Nigerian police and military, among others, fanned the flames of the riots and used the outbreak of violence as cover for extrajudicial killings of political and ethnic opponents.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, Nigerian police did nothing to restrain Muslim protesters who reacted with violence to the newspaper article,

<blockquote.A group of protesters composed primarily of young Muslim men, believed to include students from Kaduna Polytechnic, arrived at the Kaduna office of ThisDay in three buses; others used motorcycles. They attacked and burned the newspaper?s regional office on Attahiru Road Malali, ransacked the newspaper depot and distribution centre and made bonfires out of piles of newspapers. There were no casualties, as the newspaper staff were not on the premises at the time. At no point did the police intervene to stop the violence by the protesters or make any arrests, despite the fact that the office of ThisDay was attacked in broad daylight and in full view of many residents and passers-by.

As to the extra-judicial killings by police and military, the Human Rights Watch report alleges,

Human Rights Watch uncovered detailed information on extrajudicial killings of civilians by both the police and the military during the three days of rioting in Kaduna. Instead of restoring law and order, in several instances members of the security forces turned against the very people they were supposed to protect. In some cases, the victims were boys or young men who were shot because they were caught breaking the curfew; in other cases, people were killed or injured when the police or military fired to deter rioting; other people were hit by stray bullets. In a number of instances, the police or military, taking advantage of the general chaos, targeted particular individuals with the specific intention of killing them. Overall, however, it was difficult to ascertain the exact reasons why members of the security forces shot particular individuals or groups of individuals. Despite several efforts, Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm the level at which orders were given for the police and the military to use lethal force. However, these cases form part of a well-documented pattern of extrajudicial killings by the security forces in the context of attempts to restore law and order in Nigeria.

Despite promises by Obsanjano that the perpetrators of the violence would be brought to justice and compensation paid to the victims of the violence, Human Rights Watch reports that neither promise has come close to being fulfilled. Not a single person, for example, was ever arrested in connection with the attack on ThisDay.

Source:

Nigerian police ‘fanned riots’. Alistair Leithead, The BBC, July 21, 2003.

The ?Miss World Riots?: Continued Impunity for Killings in Kaduna. Human Rights Watch, July 3, 2003.

Gambian President Puts Breaks on Polygamy . . . Sort Of

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced he was putting limits on widespread polygamy in his country — for the next three years, men will be allowed to have no more than three wives.

According to a BBC report Jammeh’s proclamation, however, the prohibition may not have much real effect,

“Pleas allow the young men to get married took” Mr. Jammeh [said] . . .

But the seriousness in his voice did not match the reaction of his audience who burst into laughter at his announcement.

The population is predominantly Muslim with more than 90% following Islam — and most Gambians are strict in their religious practices.

The BBC reporter suggests that the three wife limit is widely viewed as a measure designed to curry favor with the United States.

While other countries throughout the world have seen a fall in fertility over the past three decades, Gambia maintains extremely high fertility rates in part because of polygamy. Its TFR is 6.0, and in some parts of the country the male fertility rate is above 12.

Human rights groups also oppose polygamy, arguing that it generally exploits women and often leaves marriages in serious financial difficulties.

Sources:

Gambian freeze on polygamy. Demba Jawo, The BBC, July 22, 2003.

Modern methods of family planning and reproductive health services in The Gambia. Swiss Tropical Institute.

Autistic Boy Killed In Attempt to Drive “Evil Spirits” Away

Autism is a still poorly understood developmental disability that likely is neurological in origins. It is not caused by evil spirits,

Church members had wrapped the boy in sheets to keep him from scratching himself and others, but the boy was allowed to sit “any way that he feels comfortable,” Hemphill said.

“All I know is we’re not guilty of anything,” he said.

. . .

He said members of the church, made up of just six families, prayed for God to release the evil spirits that he said caused the boy’s illness. The church had been performing the prayer services for the boy three times a week for the past three weeks, Hemphill said.

“The boy just had a problem in his mind, and what we were doing was asking God to fix it,” Hemphill said. “He chose to fix it by taking him back home to Him.”

Source:

Cops Probe Death of Autistic Boy During Prayer Service. Associated Press, August 25, 2003.