MPs have recommended criminalising clients of sex workers, saying 80% of prostitutes are victims of slavery and trafficking France is to consider making it illegal to pay for sex, in a rethink of prostitution laws. A cross-party commission of French MPs have recommended criminalising all clients of sex workers, meaning anyone who buys sex from any kind of prostitute would face prison and a fine. If a law is introduced, France would join only a handful of European countries where clients of sex workers face prison. In 1999 Sweden became the first, followed by Norway and Iceland. The Socialist Danielle Bousquet and Guy Geoffroy of Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP said clients must understand that any visit to a prostitute encouraged slavery and trafficking – which 80% of the estimated 20,000 sex-workers in France were victims of. Roselyne Bachelot, the social affairs minister, favours criminalising clients. She told the commission inquiry: “There is no such thing as freely chosen and consenting prostitution. The sale of sexual acts means women’s bodies are made available for men, independently of the wishes of those women.” Proposals for a law could be drawn up this month but it would not be debated in parliament before 2012. In France prostitution is not illegal, but activities around it are. Brothels, once the subject of artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, were outlawed in 1946. Pimping is illegal, as is paying for sex from a minor. In 2003 a controversial law against soliciting was introduced by Sarkozy, then interior minister, making it illegal to stand in a public place known for prostitution dressed in revealing clothes. Sex-workers’ groups in France have long campaigned for legal status and rights. The French actor, Philippe Caubère, famous for playing Molière, is open about regularly paying sex-workers €200 for sex. He said the government was playing politics in the runup to next year’s presidential election. “First it was immigrants, now it’s prostitutes. This is plain populism and shows a disdain for individual liberties,” he said. He told Le Parisien the government was not doing enough under existing laws to help exploited and trafficked women. “As for the other women, leave them alone. They take care of men who mostly live in sexual misery and terrible solitude. They are remarkable women.” Mouvement du Nid, a French group campaigning to end prostitution, published a study in 2004 which found 41% of male clients of sex workers said they were married and 57% were fathers. The French justice minister, Michel Mercier, supports criminalising clients, but the interior minister, Claude Guéant, said it would be difficult to make buying sex a crime when prostitution itself was not illegal. France Europe Prostitution Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
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Coastal highway between two cities blocked by women and children demonstrating against government crackdown Hundreds of Syrian women have marched along the country’s main coastal highway to demand the release men seized from their hometown, human rights activists said. Security forces, including secret police, stormed the town of Baida, going into houses and arresting hundreds of men after locals joined anti-government protests, according to the activists. Video showed a large crowd, most of them women, marching along the road leading to Turkey as they chanted: “We want the men of Baida.” Women demonstrated in support in the nearby Mediterranean city of Banias, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said 350 men were arrested in Baida. An activist on Twitter put the number at 800 and said she would release the names of 111 of those detained soon. A human rights lawyer in contact with people in the town told Reuters that security forces had arrested 200 residents in Baida, killing two people. “They brought in a television crew and forced the men they arrested to shout ‘We sacrifice our blood and our soul for you, Bashar’,” the lawyer said. “Syria is the Arab police state par excellence . But the regime still watches international reaction, and as soon as it senses that it has weakened, it turns more bloody.” Tensions have been raised in the mostly Sunni Muslim country ruled by minority Alawites – an offshoot sect of Shia Islam – since protests against President Bashar al-Assad began. The Damascus Declaration, Syria’s main rights group, says the death toll from the demonstrations, now in their fourth week, has reached 200. Assad has responded to the demonstrations with a combination of some concessions – offered to conservative Muslims and Kurds – and force. Assad’s government has described the protests as part of a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife, blaming unspecified armed groups and “infiltrators” for the violence, and denying a report by Human Rights Watch that security forces have prevented ambulances and medical supplies from reaching besieged areas . Montaha al-Atrash, board member of the Syrian human rights group Sawasieh, said: “As soon as an area like Baida stands up, they attack it and put out the usual film reel of members of the security forces who died defending stability and order.” Activists said Baida was targeted because its residents participated in a demonstration in Banias last week in which protesters shouted: “The people want the overthrow of the regime” – the rallying cry of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions where the leaders were toppled. One activist said some residents of Baida had weapons and it appeared that an armed confrontation had erupted. But Sheikh Anas Airout, an imam in Banias, said Baida residents were largely unarmed. Protests against 48 years of autocratic Ba’ath Party rule erupted in the southern city of Deraa near the border with Jordan, and expanded to the suburbs of the capital Damascus, the north-east, the coast and areas in between. But attempts to spread the protests to Damascus proper or to Syria’s second city have failed so far. Syria Middle East Protest Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk
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President said suspects admitted attack which killed 12 commuters and injured 150 Police in Belarus have arrested two people accused of organising the bombing in a Minsk metro station on Monday which killed 12 commuters and injured up to 150. President Alexander Lukashenko said the suspects were held on Tuesday evening in what he described as a “brilliant operation” by police officers and the KGB. “The main thing is that we know who carried out this attack, and how,” he said. “It’s not clear yet why, but that will soon become known.” No details of the alleged attackers were given, but identikit photographs of two suspects issued earlier showed a fair-haired Slavic-looking man and another with darker features wearing a woollen hat. Both appeared to be under 30. The bomb, placed under a bench on the platform at Oktyabrskaya station in the centre of the capital, exploded just before 6pm on Monday. Bloodied survivors staggered outside as thick smoke filled the metro. Security sources told news agencies that surveillance cameras recorded a man putting a bag under the bench, ascending the escalator and then reaching under his coat to detonate the explosives. The man was identified in earlier footage, in which he regularly left the metro at a different station. Officers who staked out the station exit station identified the man and followed him to his home, where he was arrested by police special forces. Lukashenko said the detainees admitted the attack, and two other bombings, one in the city of Vitebsk in 2005 and another in a Minsk park in 2008, both of which injured about 50 people. Lukashenko, an autocrat who has been in office since 1994, signalled that Belarus’s beleaguered liberal opposition could be made a scapegoat for the attack when he said ” the fifth column ” should be questioned. “Bring in everyone and interrogate them, pay no attention to democracy or the groans and howls of the foreign martyrs,” he ordered security bosses. “We must not relax our efforts. The mop-up operation must be total.” Belarus Alexander Lukashenko Global terrorism Europe Tom Parfitt guardian.co.uk
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Able Seaman Ryan Donovan appears at Winchester crown court accused of murdering officer on nuclear submarine A Royal Navy sailor has been remanded in custody at Winchester crown court accused of the murder of a colleague and the attempted murders of three other crew on board a nuclear submarine. Able Seaman Ryan Samuel Donovan, 22, of Dartford, Kent, was charged with murdering Lieutenant Commander Ian Molyneux, 36, who was fatally shot on HMS Astute at Southampton last Friday. He has also been charged with the attempted murders of Petty Officer Christopher Brown, 36, Chief Petty Officer David McCoy, 37, and Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hodge, 45. Judge Keith Cutler adjourned the case for a plea and case management hearing on 10 June. A hearing at Southampton magistrates court on Monday was told by Nick Hawkins, chief prosecutor for Hampshire Crown Prosecution Service, that the director of service prosecutions had agreed to hand over jurisdiction of the case to the civilian courts. Hawkins said the allegation against Donovan was that he fired an SA80 rifle six times, aiming at the four named victims, killing Molyneux. Molyneux’s widow, Gillian, described the father of four from Wigan as “utterly devoted to his family”. She added: “Everything he did was for us. He was very proud to be an officer in the Royal Navy submarine service.” The shootings took place as local dignitaries, including the city council’s mayor, chief executive and leader, were being given a tour of the submarine while it was berthed at Eastern Docks, on a five-day official visit to the Hampshire city. Astute was cleared to leave Southampton on Monday to return to its base at Faslane, Scotland. Military Crime guardian.co.uk
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Ivory Coast president says Laurent Gbagbo is being held at villa pending charges on ‘national and international level’ Ivory Coast’s president, Alassane Ouattara, has said the former leader Laurent Gbagbo will face charges “on a national and international level”. Gbagbo has been moved out of the Golf hotel, where he was taken after his capture on Monday . Ouattara said he would be kept in a villa and his rights as a former head of state would be respected. “Gbagbo is in a residence under surveillance somewhere in Ivory Coast,” Ouattara said. His justice minister was preparing for a possible prosecution of Gbagbo, but Ouattara gave no further details. “There will be charges [against Gbagbo] on a national level and an international level,” he said. Ouattara will settle into the presidential palace in the coming days, he said, and a swearing-in ceremony will take place at a later date. Gbagbo refused to cede power after losing an election in November, leading to a four-month standoff. More than 1 million people fled their homes amid the fighting, and the civilian death toll surpassed 1,500. New footage has emerged showing pro-Ouattara fighters storming Gbagbo’s residence. Fighters are seen walking through the front gate carrying firearms. Many are dressed in camouflage and wearing helmets, and some are crouched in shooting position. After orders from a commander, fighters enter the residence, shoot at the lock on an orange door and push inside. The footage, shot by a pro-Ouattara fighter, shows Gbagbo being given a camouflage flak jacket before he and his wife are escorted to a car. Gbagbo was then handed over to UN peacekeepers and taken to Ouattara’s Abidjan headquarters. The French defence minister, Gerard Longuet, said France would reduce its military force in the Ivory Coast from 1,700 to 980 troops as soon as possible. Longuet said French forces took a secondary role to Ouattara’s forces and the UN in capturing Gbagbo. The French will not make any decision on an eventual pullout until at least June, he said, because the future of the French force would depend on the UN’s decision in June on whether to renew the mandate for its force. “Patrols of Ivorian and French gendarmes will circulate in Abidjan to show that there is a state of law that is being put in place,” Longuet told a parliamentary hearing. He said the head of the Ivorian gendarme service, the director of police, the chief of staff of the armed forces and the chief of staff of the army had all offered their services to Ouattara. Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Ouattara Ivory Coast guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Credit: Michael Sears Railroad CEO charged with campaign law violations to Gov. Scott Walker. Check this out. One of Gov. Scott Walker’s big time CEO donor types got caught funneling a ton of cash illegally to his campaign. Wisconsin voters must be getting very, very tired of all this garbage coming from Walker and his peeps. Railroad CEO charged with campaign law violations: A major donor to Gov. Scott Walker was charged Monday with funneling more than $60,000 in illegal campaign contributions through his railroad employees over five years. William Gardner, president and chief executive officer of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad Co., has agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts – one for exceeding the campaign contribution limits and a second for giving company and personal funds to associates so they could make political donations, mainly to Walker but to others as well. Individuals can give no more than $10,000 to gubernatorial candidates. As part of a separate settlement, the railroad paid a civil forfeiture of $166,900 – the largest ever imposed by state election officials. Seven employees will each pay $250 forfeitures as well. Under Gardner’s criminal plea deal , prosecutors ask that Gardner be sentenced to two years’ probation. “Because he was cooperative and accepted responsibility at the outset – providing much of the evidence against himself – we are not recommending jail time,” said Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, who investigates election and campaign matters. Although Milwaukee prosecutors handled the case, the charges were filed in Washington County, where Gardner lives. Each of the two felony counts carries a maximum penalty of 3 1/2 years of combined prison and extended supervision and a $10,000 fine. Gardner issued a statement Monday acknowledging his mistakes. In that written statement, the 63-year-old railroad executive said he didn’t initially realize that what he and others were doing was improper. The criminal complaint says Gardner took several steps to conceal the scheme and that the illegal contributions came to light only when his ex-girlfriend alerted state officials… read on By Hook or By Crook must be Walker’s motto. There’s a lot of sneaky stuff going down in Wisconsin these days ever since Scott Walker came to town. Here’s a take from The Daily Page: The amount given by Gardner and his workers ended up totaling around $53,800, with almost $50,000 of that going to the Friends of Scott Walker. Gardner had been encouraging his employees to personally donate to the campaign, then reimbursed them via company funds – a big no-no in both state and federal law, as it violates the maximum contributions allowed by a business and the rights of employees not to be told who to support by an employer. The Walker campaign returned most of that money in May of 2010, once the case was made public, but according to the GAB some $20,000 remains unaccounted for. I attended the GAB press conference about the investigation and indictments yesterday – you can read my full write-up of it here .
Continue reading …Nancy Pelosi really misses the days when there was little discernable difference between the two major parties. She told students at Tufts University that Republicans should “take back” their party – presumably to a posture that didn't place so much importance on quaint notions such as rule of law (” Are you serious? Are you serious? “) and fiscal solvency. Check out a longer excerpt from her speech after the break, and give us your thoughts in the comments. To my Republican friends: take back your party. So that it doesn’t matter so much who wins the election, because we have shared values about the education of our children, the growth of our economy, how we defend our country, our security and civil liberties, how we respect our seniors. Because there are so many things at risk right now — perhaps in another question I'll go into them, if you want. But the fact is that elections shouldn't matter as much as they do…But when it comes to a place where there doesn't seem to be shared values then that can be problematic for the country, as I think you can see right now. Oy. What can you say to that? Who has the heart to tell Pelosi that the vast majority of the country does not share her values?
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France would need to demonstrate terrorist threat overides women’s right to veil the face for religious reasons Why would any Muslim woman choose to go out wearing a burqa? Her ability to see the world around her will be restricted by the mesh covering her eyes. She cannot eat or drink in public. A niqab – the full-face veil – is presumably a little easier to manage. A woman may use one hand to hold it up and the other to feed herself, though enjoying an ice-cream in a windy street must be something of a challenge. But it does give the wearer one intangible advantage: although she can see me, I cannot see her. It tells the world that she is a practising Muslim, just as I might identify myself as a Jew by wearing a kippa in public. Even that minimal kind of religious head-covering has been illegal in French state schools for the past six years. And, since Monday, it has been against the law for people in France to cover their faces with a burqa, a niqab, a hood or a mask while in a public place. There are exceptions for sporting and cultural events as well as for health and safety – but not for tourists. Head-coverings remain lawful. Muslim women understandably feel stigmatised and scapegoated by the French law. One told the Guardian that it was designed to humiliate people. The French ban is the first in Europe, according to Reuters. In Belgium, the lower parliamentary chamber voted a year ago in favour of banning the full veil. However, the reform is on hold because of long-term political deadlock. Seven of Germany’s 16 states have banned teachers in state schools from wearing Islamic headscarves. And wearing Islamic veils or headscarves is officially prohibited at universities in Turkey, a country that is predominantly Muslim but constitutionally secular. In Britain, the government ruled out a burqa ban last year. Damian Green, the immigration minister, said that “telling people what they can and can’t wear, if they’re just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do”. That’s true, although there was a time when covering your face wasn’t very British either. One French activist said this week that she wanted to challenge the burqa ban at the European court of human rights. To do so she would have to provoke the authorities into arresting and prosecuting her. She would then need to be convicted and have her conviction upheld by the French appeal courts. What, then, might the Strasbourg court say? Article 9 of the human rights convention allows freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Freedom to manifest one’s religion is subject some limitations – but only to those regarded as necessary in a democratic society to protect the rights and freedoms of others. There is no suggestion that these women pose any kind of terrorist threat, requiring them to be photographed. It is difficult to argue that I have the right to see the faces of women walking past me in the street – even though my inability to do so may perhaps limit my freedom to live in a secular society. Delivering the FA Mann lecture last November, Lord Pannick QC said he would expect the human rights court to find that the French ban on face-coverings is in breach of article 9. “There is no public interest to weigh against the manifestation of religious beliefs,” Pannick said, “only the unease of the non-believer that women should wish so to conceal themselves from the public.” The human rights lawyer based his view on a ruling by the European court in February 2010. It was a victory for 127 members of a religious group who wear turbans and distinctive clothes inspired by those of the Islamic prophets. The Strasbourg court held that their conviction under anti-terrorism legislation for walking the streets while wearing religious clothing was a breach of their human rights. Each was awarded €10 compensation. The court emphasised that there was a distinction between wearing religious dress in public and wearing it in schools or other institutions where there might be good reason to insist on religious neutrality. Dressing in a turban, baggy trousers and a tunic may not be the same as covering all but one’s eyes. But the French ban on veils still seems short-sighted.oiuld Joshua Rozenberg is a freelance legal writer, commentator and broadcaster French burqa and niqab ban European court of human rights Human rights France Islam Religion Joshua Rozenberg guardian.co.uk
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Met confirms Paul Stretford was almost certainly targeted by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire Wayne Rooney’s agent, Paul Stretford, is poised to add his name to the list of public figures suing the News of the World after the Metropolitan police confirmed he was almost certainly targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the paper. Stretford, one of the UK’s most powerful and influential football agents, was shown documents on Monday by Scotland Yard, which indicates he was a person of interest to Mulcaire, the Guardian has learned. Copies of pages from Mulcaire’s notebooks contain Stretford’s mobile phone number and those of several associates and business partners. The notes also include dates which sources close to Stretford claim to correspond to the dates that stories about his clients were published by the News of the World. The documents were seized by police in a 2006 raid on Mulcaire’s home. Stretford is said by friends to be furious that he was targeted and is preparing to launch legal proceedings. Sources close to the agent point out that voicemail messages left on his phone during the period when Mulcaire was working for the paper more than five years ago were likely to include commercially sensitive information about transfer dealings, contract negotiations, sponsorship deals and a host of other business matters. Stretford, a former vacuum cleaner salesman, has masterminded the career of Rooney, his star client, negotiating his big-money move from Everton, the club he supported as a child, to Manchester United in 2004 and securing a string of lucrative sponsorship deals with companies including Nike and McDonald’s. The Sunday Times rich list last year estimated his wealth at £33m. Stretford is not the only football agent to be targeted by the News of the World. Sky Andrew, who represents former England defender Sol Campbell, is one of eight people suing the paper whose owner, News International, offered to settle last week . • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . James Robinson guardian.co.uk
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IMF report says vulnerability of banks threatens financial system Risks of a fresh banking crash have diminished over the past six months but the financial system remains fragile four years after the crisis that took the global economy to the brink of meltdown, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said. In its half-yearly Financial Stability Report, the Washington-based IMF said the sovereign debt problems affecting Europe and the vulnerability of banks posed key downside risks to stability and economic recovery. The IMF advised policymakers in member countries to address the legacy of high debt burdens in rich western economies, to develop a more robust financial system, and to guard against the overheating and build-up of financial imbalances in emerging nations. Low interest rates and quantitative easing had boosted the appetite for risk, the IMF said, warning that “easy monetary and liquidity conditions may be masking underlying vulnerabilities”. It added that rising expectations of higher interest rates in the face of growing inflationary pressures could result in funding risks for vulnerable sovereign states and banking systems. Since the last IMF meeting in October, Ireland and Portugal have joined Greece in requiring bailouts to see them through their financial difficulties. “Sovereign balance sheets remain under strain in many advanced economies, as illustrated by increased sovereign bond market volatility in some euro area countries over the past six months,” the report said. It said UK banks were exposed to weakness in the residential and commercial property markets, with household debt remaining high. “Banks face pressure on the asset side of their balance sheets because of concerns about the quality of bank exposures,” the IMF said. “This is particularly the case for exposures to real estate – either residential or commercial – in Ireland, Spain, the UK and the US.” IMF European debt crisis Financial crisis Global economy Economics Global recession Banking European banks Ireland bailout Portugal Greece Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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