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India rape verdict to be given July 25
India rape verdict to be given July 25 (AP) / 11 July 2013 An Indian juvenile court will hand down a verdict later this month in the fatal December gang rape of a young woman on a New Delhi bus, a defence lawyer said Thursday. The verdict would be the first handed down in the rape case, which led to furious street protests in India and sparked major reforms to the nation’s antiquated sexual assault laws. Lawyer Rajesh Tiwari told reporters outside the court that his client would learn his fate July 25. The defendant was 17 at the time of the attack and is being tried as a minor on charges including murder and rape. He faces a maximum sentence of three years at a reform centre. Court rules forbid the publication of his name even though he has since turned 18. The defendant was one of six people accused of tricking a young woman and her male companion into boarding an off-duty bus Dec. 16. Police say the men then raped and brutalized the woman and savagely beat the man before dumping them on the roadside. The woman died from her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital. Four of the other defendants are being tried in a special fast-track court in New Delhi and face the death penalty. The sixth accused was found dead in his jail cell in March. The attack set off furious protests across India about the treatment of women in the country and led to a swift overhaul of sexual assault laws. Continue reading
Nearly six million die from smoking every year: WHO
Nearly six million die from smoking every year: WHO (AFP) / 11 July 2013 Despite public health campaigns, smoking remains the leading avoidable cause of death worldwide, killing almost six million people a year, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. If current trends hold, the number of deaths blamed on tobacco use will rise to eight million a year in 2030, the WHO said in a briefing unveiled at a conference in Panama. About 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths forecast for 2030 are expected in low- and middle-income countries, the report added. “If we do not close ranks and ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, adolescents and young adults will continue to be lured into tobacco consumption by an ever-more aggressive tobacco industry,” said WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. “Every country has the responsibility to protect its population from tobacco-related illness, disability and death.” Among the dead this year, five million were tobacco users or former users, while more than 600,000 died from second-hand smoke, according to the WHO. Tobacco use is believed to have caused the deaths of 100 million people in the 20 th century. Barring dramatic change, the tally for this century could soar to one billion people, the WHO warned. “We know that only complete bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship are effective,” Dr. Douglas Bettcher, the Director of the WHO’s Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases department, told the Panama conference. “Countries that introduced complete bans together with other tobacco control measures have been able to cut tobacco use significantly within only a few years,” he said. The report noted that 2.3 billion people from 92 countries benefit from some form of smoking restrictions, more than double the number who did five years ago. However, that figure still represents just a third of the world’s population, it said. Continue reading
First Delhi gang-rape verdict deferred: prosecutor
First Delhi gang-rape verdict deferred: prosecutor (AFP) / 11 July 2013 A New Delhi court trying a teenager over a fatal gang-rape last December that shocked India deferred on Thursday announcing the first verdict in the case, lawyers said. A juveniles’ court has finished hearing the case of the youngest suspect, aged 17 at the time of the assault on a moving bus, and had been widely expected to announce a verdict on Thursday. “The court has completed the hearing. The order has been deferred to 25th of July,” public prosecutor Madhav Khurana told reporters who had massed outside the court. The crime, which saw the 23-year-old student victim die of internal injuries inflicted during the attack, generated widespread anger about endemic sex crime in India to the boil. Several weeks of sometimes violent protests pushed parliament to pass a new law toughening sentences for rapists, while a round of public soul-searching sought answers to the rising tide of violence against women. The victim’s family had called for him to be tried as an adult, alongside five men initially arrested over the assault on December 16 who face the death penalty. The trial of the adult suspects — one of whom died while in jail from a suspected suicide in March — continues in a separate court but is expected to wrap up in the next few months. The parents of the victim, whom AFP is also not naming in accordance with Indian law, were present inside the small juveniles’ court on Thursday. “We hope we get justice on July 25th,” said the mother, who has previously called for all suspects to be hanged, before entering the court. Reporters were not allowed inside the courtroom. The juvenile suspect, a runaway who reportedly left home aged 11, can be sent to a correctional facility for a maximum three-year term, which will take into account the time he has already spent in custody. The teenager, the youngest of six children according to his mother, was employed to clean the bus allegedly used for the attack and often slept rough or inside the vehicle, reports say. He has denied any involvement in the crime. The maximum sentence of three years’ detention is likely to cause further anger in India where the suspects, some of whom have been beaten up in jail, are public hate figures. Amid pressure to put the juvenile on trial in an adult court, officials conducted an investigation to determine his age and concluded he was 17. A government panel set up after the Delhi gang-rape to recommend changes to sex crime laws rejected calls to lower the age at which people can be tried as adults from 18 to 16. The panel’s report in January said India’s justice system continued to “breed more criminals including juveniles in our prison and reformatory system by ghettoing them in juvenile homes”. The report, overseen by a retired Supreme Court judge, added that it was “completely dissatisfied with the operation of children’s institutions.” Shahbaz Khan, from the “Haq: Centre for Child Rights”, told AFP that there were “no proper care plans” for institutionalised children which undermined the intention of rehabilitating wrong-doers. Ranjana Kumari, a women’s rights activist from the Centre for Social Research, said police and the courts were still too slow to respond to the victims of sex crime. “What we got was a good piece of legislation and an increase in the number of women with the confidence to report crimes against them. But so what? That’s not good enough,” she said. Kumari said the teenager’s likely punishment was too lenient, and he should have been tried as an adult. “This is a very gruesome crime and he was almost an adult at the time it was committed,” she said. Continue reading
