27 years old, Ida Loch Hansen from Denmark, who had been in the city working, ironically enough, on the issue of women welfare, faced a harrowing experience when she was molested blatantly in a crowded bus on her way back from Hazratganj to Indiranagar. Choosing to sit in the cabin near the driver because she considered it safe, Ida was molested by a young boy of about her age. Though she had faced eve-teasing before, this blatant physical assault was made at her for the first time.
What was more shocking for her was the fact that though the bus was full, nobody tried to take a stand in response to her screams and in fact, it was only when she raised an alarm that the conductor asked the molester to take a backseat. To add to her misery, instead of reporting the matter to the nearest police station or dropping the man out of the bus, the driver and the conductor forced Ida to get off before her destination.
I think we could end this little problem pretty quickly by allowing women to purchase and carry legal firearms. Imposing stiff penalties for these kinds of sexual assaults would also be a good deterrent. I would not want my daughters to have this kind of thing happen to them. And I find the lack of moral courage of bystanders to be very unsettling.
I’ve noticed that this happens a lot with European bystanders who are confronted by Muslim thugs. Do secularism and Hinduism have the worldview scaffoliding to ground self-sacrifical acts, such as protecting the dignity of others? Maybe some of our Indian commenters can comment about why no one in the bus stood up to protect the screaming victim?
UPDATE: Andrew e-mails this story about a Sudanese woman who is facing 40 lashes… for wearing pants. This is ridiculous.
Violence and unrest in Honduras & China – we need to continue to stand up for human rights and democracy around the world!
I regret the military takeover in Honduras, but it’s clear President Zelaya was in violation of his country’s constitution.
The Hill writes:
McCain’s statement runs in direct conflict with the Obama administration’s position on the coup. Last week, the president said that the coup was “not legal” and that Zelaya is still the president of the Latin American nation.
Members of Congress have generally been mum on the situation, but some tensions are beginning to show, especially amongst Republicans. Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said that Zelaya “trampled on the Honduran constitution” and called the Honduran president’s effort to extend his term a “blatant power grab.”
Zelaya proposed a constitutional referendum that would allow him to seek reelection, superceding term limits layed out in the country’s constitution. Members of the Honduran military arrested him and forced him into exile on June 29.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the ousted president today.
The Honduran Constitution specifies that Presidents are only allowed to serve one-term. The current President Zeyala decided that things would be better if he were allowed to serve indefinitely. He tried to arrange a referendum to redo the Constitution so that he could serve a second term.
The Supreme Court declared that the Constitution does not allow the president to call a referendum, only the Congress can do that. So, they ordered the army to prevent the dictator from carrying out his plan to seize power anyway.
But Obama loves communist dictators. He would not side with the Iranian people against their Islamo-fascist dictator, and he will not side with the Honduran people against their communist dictator. It makes you wonder what Obama has against Constitutions, liberty, free market capitalism and limits on power, doesn’t it?
The latest
Obama’s UN representative introduced a resolution in the United Nations, along with other Marxist dictatorships in Venezuela and Bolivia, to support the Marxist dictator of Honduras.
The U.S. co-sponsored a successful U.N. resolution supporting Honduras’s ousted leader Tuesday as Republicans began to speak out against the Obama administration’s condemnation of the overthrow.
Manuel Zelaya, who was arrested and forced into exile Sunday, addressed the U.N. General Assembly after the unanimous vote on the resolution sponsored in part by Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela and the United States.
“The resolution that the United Nations has just adopted unanimously … expresses the indignation of the people of Honduras and the people worldwide,” said Zelaya, who began his speech by thanking Venezuela and Ecuador.
Obama even wants to speak with the exiled dictator:
…”I believe, if he — if he does come either today or tomorrow, that he will likely meet with officials from the State Department, some of whom, as I said, have been in contact,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in Tuesday’s briefing, repeating this when pressed by a reporter about whether Zelaya would meet with Obama.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged Zelaya to try to speak with Obama while in D.C., saying the American president’s support would “deliver a major blow” to Honduras’s interim government.
But the Republicans in Congress are siding with the Honduran people, and against socialist dictators:
“Manuel Zelaya trampled the Honduran Constitution by pushing for his illegal referendum to allow him to rule indefinitely, and by firing the top military official, General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, when he refused to comply with Zelaya’s unconstitutional orders,” Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said in a statement to The Hill on Tuesday.
“There is little doubt that Zelaya, in his blatant power grab, has moved Honduras down a dangerous path toward less freedom, less security, and less prosperity. He consistently ignored the checks and balances which are essential to a democratic government.”
The referendum had been judged illegal by Honduras’s highest court and was opposed widely through political and military circles, including within Zelaya’s own party.
Hondurans are understandably afraid that, backed by Chávez agents and money, it could lead to similar antidemocratic subversion there. In Tegucigalpa yesterday, thousands demonstrated against Mr. Zelaya, and new deputy foreign minister Marta Lorena Casco told the crowd that “Chávez consumed Venezuela, then Bolivia, after that Ecuador and Nicaragua, but in Honduras that didn’t happen.”
It’s no accident that Mr. Chávez is now leading the charge to have Mr. Zelaya reinstated, and on Monday the Honduran traveled to a leftwing summit in Managua in one of Mr. Chávez’s planes. The U.N. and Organization of American States are also threatening the tiny nation with ostracism and other punishment if it doesn’t readmit him.
…As for the Obama Administration, it seems eager to “meddle” in Honduras in a way Mr. Obama claimed was counterproductive in Iran. Yet the stolen election in Iran was a far clearer subversion of democracy than the coup in Honduras. As a candidate, Mr. Obama often scored George W. Bush’s foreign policy by saying democracy requires more than an election — a free press, for example, civil society and the rule of law rather than rule by the mob. It’s a point worth recalling before Mr. Obama hands a political victory to the forces of chavismo in Latin America.
Meanwhile, the Honduran people marched in the streets against Obama and his communist dictator buddies, reports Gateway Pundit.
Hondurans protest against the unilateral meddling in their national affairs by Cowboy Socialist Barack Obama
Imagine what conservative Christian Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush would have done in a similar situation. They would have defended the rights and liberties of the people from the arbitrary power of socialist dictators. But they understood the value of liberty, democracy and human rights. They were prepared to take stands against the tyrannies of communism and fascism. They did not want to be loved by evil tyrants.
WINTERY KNIGHT 