MPP Sarah Jama asked to leave Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that is banned at Queen’s Park.
A judge in southern India has ruled a woman wore "provocative" clothing, effectively dismissing her sexual assault complaint, causing public outcry in the country, where violence against women and girls make frequent headlines.
The district court judge in Kerala state made the comments last week while granting anticipatory bail to a 74-year-old man accused of sexual harassment and assault, according to court documents. He had not been formally charged.
Photographs produced with the man's bail application show the woman wearing "sexual (sic) provocative" dresses, the court order said, adding that based on the court's first impression her complaint would "not ... stand" against the accused.
It was also "impossible to believe" the disabled man could "forcefully" pull the woman into his lap and "sexually press her breast," the court order said.
CNN reached out to the man's lawyer, but had not heard back at the time of publishing.
The news sparked outrage in India, where women face widespread discrimination and allegations of sexual assault often go underreported due to the lack of legal recourse and a notoriously slow legal system.
The chairperson of Delhi's Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, condemned the district judge and urged Kerala's High Court to take up the case.
"When will the mindset that blames victims of sexual abuse change?" she tweeted Wednesday.
V. P. Sanu, president of the Students' Federation of India, called the judge's comments "regressive." "The logic women invite sexual assault for their dress is both victim blaming & invoking rape-victim stereotypes," he wrote on Twitter Wednesday.
Sexual crimes against women are widespread in India, but brutal cases of rape and assault are often dealt with poorly under the country's justice system.
In 2017, a Delhi High Court judge said a man deserved "the benefit of the doubt" while acquitting him on rape charges, adding a "feeble 'no'" could still signal willingness on the part of an alleged victim.
In another case in January 2021, a Bombay High Court Judge found that a 39-year-old man was not guilty of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl as he had not removed her clothes, meaning there was no skin-on-skin contact.
"Considering the stringent nature of punishment provided for the offense, in the opinion of this court, stricter proof and serious allegations are required," the judge said.
Legal reforms and more severe penalties for rape were introduced following the brutal 2012 gang-rape of a medical student in Delhi -- including fast track courts to move rape cases through the justice system swiftly and an amended definition of rape to include anal and oral penetration.
But activists and lawyers say more should be done to protect women.
On Monday, 11 men jailed for life for the gang-rape of a pregnant Muslim woman during Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 were freed on remission, drawing condemnation from the victim's family, lawyers and politicians.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that is banned at Queen’s Park.
Two teenagers have been charged with second-degree murder in connection to an alleged homicide near the Halifax Shopping Centre earlier this week.
Bob Cole, a welcome voice for Canadian hockey fans for a half-century, has died at the age of 90. Cole died Wednesday night in St. John's, N.L., surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, told the CBC.
Here's what you need to know about why movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction was thrown out and what happens next.
When Gen-chan arrived at a zoo in Japan in 2017, no one questioned whether the then-five-year-old hippopotamus was a boy. Seven years later, zoo staff made a surprising discovery: Gen-chan, now 12, was female.
A rural Manitoba school trustee is facing calls to resign over comments he made about Indigenous people and residential schools earlier this week.
The B.C. Humanist Association has threatened legal action against the City of Vancouver for allowing prayers at council, following a similar warning issued earlier this month to a smaller community on Vancouver Island.
A London man has become the first person in Canada to receive a robotic assisted surgery on his spine. Dave Myeh suffered from debilitating, chronic back pain that led to sciatica in his right now and extreme pain in his lower back.
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.