Tag Archives: anti-rape protests in Uttar Pradesh

Women march against government inaction on rape in Uttar Pradesh, India

Anti-rape protest Uttar Pradesh June 5 2014

This is another photo of the anti-rape protest in Uttar Pradesh, India where mostly women stormed government offices demanding justice for the victims. Most people don’t know that until the women’s movement of the 1960s-70s (which was international in scope), all sexual crimes, including rape & child sexual assault, were considered secrets & were seldom reported, let alone prosecuted.

It is a giant political step forward when women emerge into the public streets & begin to dominate public discourse on violent crimes against women.

Our hats off to these sisters in India who are showing women around the world how to stand up to the violence of social hatred facilitated by governmental indifference & outright collusion.

(Photographer not identified; from revolution-news.com)

Anti-rape protests in Uttar Pradesh, India

Uttar Pradesh rape protest Jun3 5 2014

Following the rape & hanging murder of two lower-caste teenage girls in Uttar Pradesh, India, several new rapes were reported in other villages of the same state. In one case, a young girl was gang-raped & thrown in a ditch; in another case a young woman was gang-raped & killed when the rapists poured acid down her throat. The crimes are absolutely ghoulish because social hatred toward women of the oppressed castes is so profound & so malignant.

It isn’t easy to unravel the complexities of caste & class, of ethnicity & gender but that is the monumental political task imposed on millions in India & elsewhere. After the series of rapes, hundreds of mostly women protesters showed up at the offices of the state chief minister of Uttar Pradesh–not only because two policemen were arrested in connection with the hanging murders but because police have obstructed justice every step of the way by protecting upper-caste perpetrators.

Indian police used extreme force against the protesters; videos show them drowning the protesters with water cannons which are extremely dangerous assault weapons. On the part of the women protesters, defending themselves wasn’t a ladylike affair. They responded just exactly the way women around the world have to in order to put an end to crescendoing violence against women.

Our fullest solidarity with their struggle for justice.

(Photographer of protest in Uttar Pradesh not identified; from revolution-news.com)