Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. AFGHAN FAMILY BREAKS RAPE SILENCE — One Afghan family in Ghazni province has chosen to break the wall of silence surrounding crimes of rape in the hopes of finding justice for a 7-year-old family member who was repeatedly raped by two brothers from a neighboring family. The youngster, according to reports, was lured into the house by the brothers’ sister and viciously assaulted. While police initially detained the two, they were quickly released. Death threats [...]
Rumors that Fidel Castro is dead are again electrifying gossip circuits on the streets of Havana, at the favored hangouts of Cuban exiles along Miami’s Calle Ocho, and in some corners of the blogosphere. The Cuban President, who handed power “temporarily” to his brother Raúl more than a year ago, has not appeared in a new video or photograph in almost three months. But Fidel maintains a presence in print, regularly publishing lengthy disquisitions about wide ranging subjects. His most recent, an analysis of presidential politics in the United States, brought back memories of the last time I saw the [...]
French President Nicolas Sarkozy once made headlines with the remark, “If Turkey were Europe, we would know it.” In July, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso gave voice to similar European sentiments in a Greek newspaper interview: “Let’s be honest,” he said, “Turkey is not ready to become an EU member and the EU is not ready to accept Turkey as a member. Neither tomorrow, nor the next day.” Despite the overwhelmingly positive European response to Erdogan’s recent triumph at the polls, and calls to revamp Turkey’s political and economic reforms by European leaders, one fact remains clear: Turkey’s membership [...]
