New Zealand Female Lawmakers Kicked Out After Disclosing Sexual Assaults

http://www.newsbharati.com/ New Zealand Female Lawmakers Kicked Out After Disclosing Sexual Assaults.



Female New Zealand Lawmakers Ejected After Disclosing Sexual Assaults

Tara John @tarajohn  1:43 PM ET    

Prime Minister John Key Makes State Of The Nation Speech

Phil Walte—Getty Images

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key delivers his 2015 State of the Nation speech to the Auckland Rotary Club at the Stamford Plaza on January 28, 2015

The Speaker said they were 'out of order'





Several female lawmakers were ordered to leave New Zealand’s parliament on Wednesday after revealing that they were victims of sexual assault.



The women were responding to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key’s comments on Tuesday about a fight over detained New Zealanders, the Guardian reports. Key had told opposition members that they were “backing the rapists” after a fight over the detention of certain New Zealanders by the government of Australia.



On Wednesday, Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei told the Speaker, David Carter, that she was deeply offended by Key’s remarks. “As the victim of a sexual assault, I take personal offense at the prime minister’s comments, and ask that you require him to withdraw and apologise,” Turei said, according to the paper. A number of other MPs joined the call for an apology, referencing their personal experiences of assault.



Carter said he found Prime Minister’s comments unparliamentary, NBC reports, but said it was too late after the remarks to demand an apology. After repeated warnings, Carter ejected several lawmakers for being out of order, according to the Guardian. A number of MPs also walked out in solidarity.



“It’s deeply disappointing that the speaker and the Prime Minister do not take the concerns of sexual survivors seriously,” one lawmaker, Judie Logie, told the New Zealand Herald. “It’s completely unacceptable to trivialize the concern and experiences of so many New Zealanders in the way that has happened today.”

Afghanistan Hazaras Protests Beheading of 7 People by ISIS at Zabul

http://www.newsbharati.com/ Afghanistan Hazaras Protests Beheading of 7 People by ISIS at Zabul.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani appealed for calm after angry protesters from the ethnic Hazara minority tried to force their way into his Kabul palace on Wednesday to demand justice for seven members of their community beheaded by Islamist militants.



In one of the biggest demonstrations seen in Kabul in years, thousands of people marched through the Afghan capital to demand government action after the killers dumped the partially beheaded bodies of their victims earlier this week.



The murders, which the United Nations denounced as a potential war crime, have fuelled a growing sense of insecurity since the Taliban briefly seized control of the key northern city of Kunduz in late September.



Chanting "Death to Ghani, death to Taliban," the demonstrators marched 10 km (six miles) to the palace, bearing the green-draped coffins of the dead and demanding the president come out to face them with a response.



"The only way to prevent such crimes in the future is to take over all government offices until they wake up and make a decision," said Sayed Karim, 40, one of thousands who filled Mazari Square in western Kabul.



In a hastily arranged television address, Ghani, whose unwieldy national unity government has come under growing pressure because of deteriorating security, promised action but called for emotions not to spill over.



"We are committed to avenging our countrymen's blood. We will spare no effort," he said, accusing the militants of stoking regional and ethnic tensions. But he added: "We must avoid reactions that end in anarchy."



At one stage, protesters attempted to scale the walls of a building near the palace, prompting police to fire warning shots to scatter the crowd.



Seven people were wounded, including five from bullet wounds, a spokesman for the public health ministry said.



SECTARIAN RISK



Besides swelling the daily toll of killings, the deaths of the seven Hazara, who included three women and two children, have heightened the risk of sectarian hatred further poisoning relations in a country made up of a patchwork of ethnicities.



The Hazara are a Persian-speaking, mainly Shia minority who have long faced persecution in Afghanistan, with thousands massacred by the Taliban and al Qaeda in the 1990s, but a series of murders and kidnappings this year has stoked a mood of growing despair.



"This sends a very dangerous message to the people of Afghanistan, its government and its international allies," said Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, speaker of the lower house of parliament. "This issue doesn't belong to a family, a tribe or an ethnic group, but it belongs to all Afghans."



The killings in the southern province of Zabul occurred amid fighting between rival Taliban factions and Islamic State militants that has underlined the risk of further fragmentation and reduced the chances of a resumption to stalled peace talks.



Demonstrators said Hazara people were being killed every day on roads between Ghazni, Bamyan and Wardak provinces to the west of Kabul, where the hardline Islamist Taliban movement controls much of the countryside after international forces stopped most combat operations last year.



Besides blaming the Taliban and Islamic State, some Hazara took to social media to point the finger more generally at Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group from which Islamist movements recruit most of their followers.

"We're from this country," said a demonstrator who gave her name only as Sohaila. "We have to have the same rights as other citizens."