Beaten up and forced into sex

MALACCA - A 19-year-old girl was locked up, assaulted and forced to have sex with several men whom her captors brought before she was rescued during a police raid at a budget hotel in Taman Melaka Raya here.

The victim, from Sungai Semun, Perak, told police she was battered with a television cable several times and her pictures taken whenever she bathed at the home of a 20-year-old woman, said to be vice ring's leader.

Muslims forced to eat pork before being shot: How far will Umno go?

It is sad to see that Utusan has taken the decision to highlight the atrocities by the Communists in this country. Although, it is very noble of them to relive history for the benefit of Malaysians, most people are totally aghast at the way Utusan chooses to do it.

Caricatures published in the Umno-owned newspaper of Muslims being forced to eat pork, before being shot is simply not very tactful. The Chinese and Indians and the rest of the non-Muslims in this country consume pork. Most Indians shun beef. Most Buddhists in this country and even pious Indians are vegetarians and do not consume meat of any kind.

Kelantan prison detainees forced to strip naked

A former training director for election watchdog Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) has complained of human rights abuses during his almost two-week-long detention at the Pengkalan Chepa Prison in Kelantan.

Ahmad Syauqey Abdul Ghani said he and 113 other prisoners were ordered to strip in front of one another on June 23, the day he was sent to the prison.

"I was scared and confused, along with the other detainees who also had to strip naked. It was very embarrassing.

Supervisor forced us to have sex: Foreign workers

PORT KLANG - Foreign women eking out a living at a factory here were allegedly forced by their Bangladeshi supervisor to sleep with him, failing which they would be transferred to another state.

Tired of his antics, one of the victims has come forward to spill the beans on their ordeal. A 24-year-old Cambodian woman said the man in his 30s, who is employed by a local recruiting agency to hire foreign workers for the factory, had victimised many women over the past few months.

"He would show up at the women's quarters at night and force some of them to have sex with him. He would get angry if he was refused and would threaten to transfer the women out.

"Several days later, the women who refused to sleep with him would receive letters of transfer to a factory in another state," she said.

Some of her colleagues complied with his desires for fear of being transferred out.

Although the Cambodian woman had refused to sleep with the man so far, she claims she had been molested by him on several occasions.

She added that most of her colleagues who had to give in to his demands did so because they were unable to bear the cost of transport to move to another state.

The woman and her friends are now living in fear of being transferred out for no reason.

She recently lodged a police report on the matter at the Bandar Sulaiman police station.

A police spokesman said the matter was being investigated.

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Libya: 'Forced to rape in Misrata'

The rebels did not want the men to be identified

Was there a systematic campaign of rape by forces loyal to Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi during the battle for Misrata?

Two young prisoners in a detention centre in the city tell me the answer is almost certainly "yes", and that they took part in the gang-rape of four women.

The men, aged 17 and 21, are sitting on a sofa - heads bowed - in the same filthy, bloodstained army fatigues they were captured in two weeks ago.

They are obviously nervous, but speak clearly.

The authorities in this rebel-held city were reluctant to let us interview them, but finally agreed on condition we do not reveal the soldiers' names.

Before I go any further, let me acknowledge that it is clearly in the rebels' interest to portray Col Gaddafi's forces in the worst possible light.

It is also possible that the soldiers were coerced into telling us lies.

And there is a big difference between individual acts of violence committed during wartime and a systematic campaign to target civilians.

Here, in their own words, then is what they told me, through a reliable interpreter.My impression was that the men were telling the truth and that - although there are credible stories of abuse of pro-Gaddafi troops by rebel forces - the conditions and atmosphere at the prison, which I have visited before, appeared benign.

The 17-year-old did most of the talking and his colleague occasionally nodded or added a few sentences. I've added some details in parenthesis.

'Shot them in the leg'

"They brought us in a group of 400 people to Misrata, saying the city is under attack from Algerian and Egyptian mercenaries and that we have come here to liberate Misrata. They divided us into groups and we went our separate ways.

"First we knocked at a door and nobody opened so we broke the door and entered the house.

"The mother was screaming and when we pointed the gun at her, she stopped screaming.

"Then we tied up the mother and father and their boys [three of them] by their feet and hands. Then we shot every one of them in the leg.

The extremely conservative culture in Libya regards rape as a matter of profound shame

"Then the officers took the girls upstairs, and we were told to go on the roof [to keep guard] until the officers had finished the rape and then we were told to rape the girls too.

"We felt scared, but when we refused to rape, they started to beat us.

"There were four girls aged between about 20 and 24.

"They were conscious [during the rapes]. I raped one.

"The girls said nothing. They were tired and they were in bad shape because there were 20 officers before us.

"It happened in the morning, and lasted about an hour and a half.

"The officers brought in a music system and listened to pop music, and smoked and danced during the rapes.

"I'm not happy with what I did but I don't feel nervous or frightened now, and I want to emphasise that the officers forced us to rape.

"They told us that if you rape any girls, we will give you money and we got 10 dinars [$8, £5] each afterwards.

"This was my first time to have sex. I have four sisters at home."

No official complaints

I asked the men if they knew of other instances of rape, and whether it happened often.

"I think it happened so many times. Most of the people who raped families here were from the special forces and we heard on the radio [their military radio system] that there were about 50 families that experienced rape."

The rebel authorities in Misrata say they believe there may be hundreds of victims, but so far no-one has made an official complaint.

The fighting in the city has only just ended, and many families have been displaced while others are missing.There are many possible reasons for this.

The city's phone network is down and communications are slow.

The number of rapes may be far smaller than officials are suggesting.

But perhaps the most significant factor is the extremely conservative culture in Libya - and in Misrata in particular - which regards rape as a matter of profound shame for an entire family, and not something to be mentioned in public.

"This is very sensitive - a delicate matter," says Dr Ismael Fortia, an obstetrician living in Misrata, who is now on a medical committee that has been set up to investigate the rape allegations and to try to help any victims.

"No victims have come forward, but we hope after some psychological [help] they'll come and talk to us."

Dr Fortia believes that the final figure will probably run into the hundreds.

"I think this is a big problem - much bigger than we think. People [in Misrata] feel deep pain, and depression. This has affected us much more than anything else during the fighting."

Dr Fortia confirmed two stories I had heard elsewhere in the city from a number of sources.

The first is that some rebel fighters have now offered to marry the rape victims, "to spare their families from shame".

The second is that there are a number of "rape videos", recorded by Col Gaddafi's soldiers on their mobile phones, which are now circulating in Misrata.

I have confirmed the existence of at least one, which was seen by a trusted colleague.

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Horror story of Pakistani woman forced to parade naked

Shahnaz Bibi says the trauma of her ordeal has meant that her life is finished

Earlier this month police in Pakistan arrested several men for stripping a middle-aged woman naked and parading her in a village after one of the offenders accused her son of having illicit relations with his wife. The BBC's Aleem Maqbool travelled to the north of the country - where the incident happened - to find out more about a case which has shocked most Pakistanis.

"That day, I had no idea anything was wrong," says Shahnaz Bibi.

She had been at home in the village of Neelor Bala in northern Pakistan. Her husband was away in the city of Lahore where he worked as a driver.

She is clear and determined as she recounts details of her assault.

"I suddenly heard people smash the front door, they were shouting," she says. "They asked my 11-year-old son where I was and of course he told them."

Shahnaz Bibi says four men, armed with pistols and rifles, burst into her room. She says she knew them all as members of the same family, and as neighbours.

"Before I knew what was happening they tied my wrists and pushed me hard out into the lane, abusing me and sometimes throwing me to the ground," she says.

"They dragged me to an open plot of land. There, they tore off all of my clothes.

"For a full hour they pushed me around and paraded me naked. I cried and pleaded with them but they wouldn't listen and they kept beating me."

Shahnaz Bibi says that very soon the entire village was watching.

'Humiliated'

"Men, women and children were all there, but nobody came forward to help. Nobody even tried to cover me up," she says.

"One of the men was holding up a rifle and saying that if anyone came forward, he would kill them, so one came near me the whole time, but everyone was just standing around watching the drama.

"In between abusing me and pushing me and exposing me, the men were telling me my son had had an affair with a girl from their family. I knew nothing about it."

All Shahnaz Bibi says she knew before the assault was that a woman in the village was getting divorced. What she says she did not realise was that her son was accused of being the reason behind it.

Police say there had been a meeting of some of the men of the village to sanction the divorce, and that it was immediately after that meeting that several of the men rushed to Shahnaz Bibi's home.

"I said they should have discussed it with us, or should have gone to the police about my son if they felt he had done something wrong, but they just wanted to humiliate me."

Continue reading the main story

"After a long time, they finally left me, pushing me and abusing me more. I ran to my house to put some clothes on."

At this point in telling us what had happened to her, Shahnaz Bibi's voice cracks and she bites her lower lip. Then, after evidently having tried hard to keep her composure, she breaks down in tears as she continues.

"Me and my son were both crying and we ran into the forests outside the village. I was too embarrassed to go home so I slept the night in the forest," she says

"We had no money, so we persuaded a driver to take us far away."

Shahnaz Bibi now says that she can never return to her village. Three days after the attack though, she did come back to the district to see the police.

"You know, not a single person had reported the incident," she says.

"The police registered our case, and thanks to them some of the men are in jail, but others are still on the run. I'm so frightened; any of them or their relatives could kill me for reporting them."

In Pakistan, targeting a woman for the alleged crimes of her family members is not uncommon. There are regular reports of feuds being settled through women being burned with acid, mutilated, raped or even killed.

Pakistan's penal code even has a specific law relating to stripping a woman and exposing her in public. It is punishable by life imprisonment or death.

"I want them punished, though it won't help me much," says Shahnaz Bibi.

"Before all this, I was poor but I had a respectable life, I was happy. But after something like this, my life is finished," she weeps.

"How can I go back to a village where every single person has seen me naked? I feel ashamed even to show my face to my own brothers and sisters."

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