The Daily Blog

Monju Begum, Bangladeshi Woman, Cuts Penis Off Of Man Who Tried To Rape Her.

A Bangladeshi woman is believed to have taken the law into her own hands — literally — and thwarted rape by severing her neighbor’s penis as he attempting to assault her.

As the BBC is reporting, Monju Begum, 40, a married mother of three, claimed to have made the sensitive cut as she fought back after neighbor Mozammel Haq Mazi forced his way into her shanty and began to assault her while she was asleep. The incident took place Saturday in Mirzapur village, Jhalakathi, about 124 miles south of the nation’s capital, Dhaka.

“As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife,” police chief Abul Khaer is quoted by the AFP as saying. “She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime.” He went on to note, “It is quite an unusual incident. As far as I am aware, this is the first time that a woman has brought a severed penis to the police station as evidence.”

Begum has filed a case alleging that Mazi — a 40-year-old, married father of five — had been harassing her for six months. Officials at a hospital in nearby Barisal say that, unlike the notorious U.S. case of John Wayne Bobbitt, it will not be possible to re-attach Mazi’s organ. “We are treating him so that he can urinate normally without the penis,” a hospital official is quoted by the BBC as saying. Police say Mazi is likely to be arrested as soon as his condition improved.

Dismissing Begum’s allegations as a lover’s quarrel gone awry, Mazi has professed his innocence. ‘I am a double victim: first, she cut my penis and now police say they are going to arrest me for attempted rape,” he is quoted as saying, and claims he and Begum had a 15-year-long relationship. Later, he told the BBC, “We were having an affair and recently she suggested that both of us can go and settle down in Dhaka. I refused and told her that I cannot leave my wife and children, so she took revenge on me.”

Kenneth Moreno, Franklin Mata Fired From NYPD After Misconduct Charge.

The NYPD fired two Manhattan cops today hours after they were acquitted of rape, according to the New York Daily News.

Officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata were found not guilty today of raping a drunken East Village woman they’d been called to help. Both men, however, were found guilty of official misconduct for going back into the woman’s apartment three times without alerting their superiors.

“The guilty verdict reached today involved a violation of the officer’s oath of office and merits immediate termination,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters at a press conference today, according to the Daily News, “Both officers will be terminated today.”

“The charges that these officers were convicted of are enough to kick them out of the NYPD, which we’re moving to do,” Mayor Bloomberg said, according to The New York Post.

Moreno and Mata both face up to two years in prison when they are sentenced on June 28th.

In another development, a demonstration has been planned to protest Moreno and Mata’s acquittal. It is scheduled for tomorrow, Friday May 27 from 5-7pm In front of the Manhattan Criminal Court building at 100 Centre Street. A Facebook group called “PROTEST THE ACQUITTAL OF TWO NEW YORK CITY COPS FOR RAPE”, who’s organizing the demonstration, wrote this statement on their Facebook page:

Why: On Thursday May 26, New York police officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata were found not guilty of charges that Moreno raped a woman in her apartment while Mata kept guard, despite the fact that the amount of evidence against the officers in this case was overwhelming. Instead, the jury convicted both officers of official misconduct for entering the woman’s apartment, but found them not guilty of all other charges, including burglary and falsifying business records. This despite the fact that one of the officers had been recorded on tape admitting to using a condom when having sex with the woman who made the accusation. The cornerstone of the defense required that the woman was too drunk to have a credible account of the incident, but sober enough to consent to sex.

Join us in protest. Because raping a drunk women while on patrol is more than “official misconduct”. Because calling 911 should not be an invitation to be raped. Because NO behavior, including being drunk, is an invitation to be raped. Because rapists do not deserve the protection of our tax-funded police department and city officials. Because we recognize this incident as part of the NYPD’s long, horrific history of violence - sexual and otherwise - often and disproportionately against people of color. Because the people of NYC will not accept victim-blaming, cronyism, and a culture of silence that allows rapists to roam free, without consequence.

17 Victims Sue Pentagon Over ‘Plague’ of Sexual Violence.

WASHINGTON — It may become a landmark case to force the military to take rape and sexual assault seriously. Or it could be yet another failed attempt in a decades-long battle by women to be accepted in the armed forces.

Seventeen veterans and active-duty service members today took the first step to determining that, suing the Pentagon on charges of violating their constitutional rights to serve their country.

They accused two secretaries of defense of condoning, ignoring and implicitly encouraging sexual abuse in the ranks in a 42-page complaint filed in federal district court in Alexandria, Va., which contains phrases like “f—-ing whore,” “bitch” and “troublemaker.”The plaintiffs, who include two men, come from every military branch. They charge they were victimized twice — once by their assailants and again by the institution they served.

“The system is driven by rape myths,” said Myla Haider, a former Army criminal investigator who was raped by a co-worker. The co-worker was later court-martialed in another case as a “serial sex offender.”
“There is a pervasive attitude within DOD that any man might commit these types of offenses and therefore when these things do come up it is seen as something that is commited by a peer or just another soldier” and not taken seriously, said Haider, a plaintiff in the suit.

Such attitudes aren’t new. Ever since the infamous Tailhook scandal broke out in 1991 after the first Gulf War, an unending series of investigations, congressional hearings, reports, training regimens and special offices have sought to end the problem that the acronym-obsessed service now has given its very own name: MST — military sexual trauma.

Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation, who has watched for decades as women warriors fought to be accepted in the macho ranks of the military, said the challenge in civil court “is necessary because so much else has failed.”

As a Marine captain, Anuradha Bhagwati witnessed her own senior officers violate sexual harassment policies.Bhagwati is now the head of the advocacy group Service Women’s Action Network. She says she has seen those violators “shirk their responsibilities to their own troops … transfer sexual predators out of the units instead of prosecuting them, promote sexual predators during ongoing investigations and accuse highly decorated enlisted service members of lying.”

She called sexual violence “a plague upon the United States military” that “threatens our national security by undermining operational readiness, draining morale, harming retention and destroying lives.”The stories told by Haider and other plaintiffs at a news conference this morning were harrowing. Among them:

• Kori Cioca, the lead plaintiff, said she was constantly harassed by her Coast Guard supervisor. After she made a mistake during a knot-tying quiz, he called her a “stupid f—-ing female, who didn’t belong in the military” and then spit in her face. After complaining to her superior, the abuse escalated to stalking, sexual harassment and ultimately rape in December 2005. Despite an admission from her rapist, commanders told Cioca if she pressed charges she would be court-martialed for lying and later faced retaliation.
• Sarah Albertson was raped by a fellow Marine who outranked her in 2006. Because they had been drinking alcohol, both she and the man were charged with “inappropriate barracks conduct,” and she was ordered to “respect” her assailant. Commanders forced the corporal to interact with her rapist for two more years, suspending her security clearance and downgrading her work assignments because she took prescription medicine to cope with the trauma of being forced to live and work with her rapist.
• Rebekah Havrilla was an Army sergeant serving in Afghanistan in 2006 when she was sexually harassed by a supervisor and later raped by another soldier. She reported it under the military’s restricted reporting policy. When she later saw her rapist at a base in Missouri, she went into shock and sought the help of a military chaplain. She said he told her “it must have been God’s will for her to be raped” and recommended she attend church more often.

Most of the plaintiffs have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental stress problems. They charged the Pentagon with a “systemic failure to stop rape and sexual assault.”The suit names former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his successor, Robert Gates, for failing to “eradicate a well-entrenched misogynistic military culture that permits Command to scoff at rape allegations, threaten victims with courts martial and exercise unfettered discretion to decide to use ‘non-judicial punishment’ to penalize rape and sexual assault.”

The lawsuit specifically cites Rumsfeld, desperate for volunteers to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, for granting “moral waivers” to recruits arrested or convicted of domestic and sexual violence. Despite a federal law making it a felony for such offenders to possess a firearm, he provided an exception to members of the military.Sex crimes, it noted, soared 24 percent in the year before Rumsfeld’s resignation in 2006.

Gates is charged with “failing to take reasonable steps” to protect the plaintiffs from repeated abuse. It notes that he directed the head of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault and Prevention and Response Office to ignore a congressional subpoena to testify and failed to create a centralized database of sex crimes as mandated by lawmakers.

The current defense secretary’s “failures to act … led to a steady and dramatic increase” in the number of rapes and sexual assaults, rising by 25 percent in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 and continuing to increase at double digits annually since then.

“Sexual assault is a wider societal problem, and Secretary Gates has been working with the service chiefs to make sure the U.S. military is doing all it can to prevent and respond to it,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a statement.

“That means providing more money, personnel, training and expertise, including reaching out to other large institutions such as universities to learn best practices. This is now a command priority, but we clearly still have more work to do in order to ensure all of our service members are safe from abuse.”

The lawsuit cited the Pentagon’s own statistics that reported 3,230 rapes and other sexual assaults in 2009. Because the military acknowledges that 80 percent of victims don’t report the crime, the real number may be more than 16,000.

Moreover, the complaint charges that the Department of Defense “fails to report conviction rates from courts marital, which is critical data needed by Congress to assess whether reforms are being implemented.”Still, the plaintiffs face a high hurdle.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said the facts as presented in the complaint are “certainly disturbing” and merit attention from Pentagon leaders. However, he said he is “skeptical that this case, as a case, will gain any traction” in court.

From a legal point of view, he said, it is a steep climb for 17 plaintiffs to argue for systemic abuses in a military of some 2 million people.

“I don’t know that a culture of sexism and misogyny has ever been recognized as a basis” for suing for violations of equal protection, he added. “Not every sexual assault is a violation of equal protection.”

Moshe Katsav, Israel’s Former President, Convicted of Rape.

JERUSALEM — The 4 1/2-year-long rape trial against former President Moshe Katsav ended today with Israel’s former “No. 1 Citizen” convicted. Whether the case that transfixed the country will encourage more victims of workplace harassment to come forward remains to be seen.

Katsav faces at least four years in prison. His lawyers have said they will appeal.

The rape case stemmed from when Katsav, 65, was minister of tourism before he became president in 2000. He was also accused of sexual harassment from his time as president.

They are the most serious criminal charges ever brought against a high-ranking Israeli official. Although Katsav is a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, Israel analysts do not expect any backlash against the prime minister.

Most of the current trial was held behind doors. The verdict was broadcast live on all three Israeli television channels and trumpeted in banner newspaper headlines. Several dozen women demonstrated outside the courtroom against Katsav, holding signs saying “we believe you,” referring to Katsav’s former employee who brought the rape charges.

The court’s criticism of Katsav was harsh, saying his version of events was “riddled with lies.” Katsav had no immediate response to the verdict, although his son told Israel Television his father was innocent.

The verdict was the main topic of conversation in Israel today.

“This is a sad day for the state of Israel but a joyous day for Israeli democracy,” Yonatan Livny, a Jerusalem lawyer, said as he got off his motorcycle. “It shows how the law can reach any echelon of society.”

The presidency in Israel is a symbolic office, with the president often called “the No. 1 Citizen in Israel.” Livny suggested that the president should undergo a confirmation hearing similar to officials appointed in the U.S.

Katsav, who was born in Iran and immigrated to Israel as a child, said he was being unfairly judged because he is Sephardic, a Jew from an Eastern country. The elite of Israel have traditionally been Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe.

Katsav accused journalists of a “witch hunt” against him, but some Israelis felt the press was not vigilant enough.

“Before Katsav was elected, there were all kinds of rumors that he was a ‘lady’s man,’” Livny said. “The press knew these rumors and yet they were all afraid to pursue them and see if there was any truth to them.”

But others blamed the media for judging Katsav before the facts were in.”This might surprise you, but I think that the press convicted him before the trial even started,” said Irit Potter, a computer analyst who was having lunch with a colleague at a cafe in a Jerusalem mall. “I think the trial wasn’t handled well at all, and it could even backfire against feminists who might not want to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse.”

Others said the verdict is a victory for women’s rights.

“From today, every woman — whether she has a doctorate or a fourth-grade education — will know that there are some things no one has the right to do to her against her will,” Neri Livneh wrote in the Haaretz newspaper. “No one can harass her any more without being called to account. Even someone who was president when the first complaint against him was filed was not able to evade investigation and trial, despite enormous efforts.”

Katsav was forced to resign in 2007 just two weeks before his term was due to end. He originally accepted a plea bargain that would have him admit to lesser charges but would not entail a jail sentence. But he changed his mind and insisted he wanted a trial to prove his innocence.

Man, 63, convicted in 1991 Md. rape.

A 63-year-old man dubbed the “Silver Spring Rapist” was convicted Tuesday for a rape that occurred in 1991.

The trial came about after a DNA match to a suspect who was imprisoned for a different offense in New York after the rape, according to prosecutors.

Fletcher A. Worrell has been charged with nine rapes from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.

Police originally filed these charges in 2005. He could be responsible for as many as 20 rapes in the Silver Spring area over that time, according to prosecutors.

Worrell still has more prison time to serve in New York. Montgomery prosecutors intend to ask for a long sentence for the new conviction, saying they are concerned he may become eligible for release in New York.