The Maguindanao Massacre

Major trigger warnings.


This is "old news" I suppose; truthfully I haven't had the strength to post about it until now. I kept getting too upset and not being about to write.

On the island of Mindanao in the Philippines on November 23rd last year, in the approaching Maguindanao provincial election (part of the national elections in the Philippines), vice mayor of Buluan town Esmael Mangudadatu was attempting to file a certificate of candidacy. Mangudadatu was politically challenging mayor of Datu Unsay, Andal Ampatuan Jr., running for governor and patriarch of the powerful Ampatuan family. After death threats from the Ampatuan family, Mangudadatu organised a convey of female family members, lawyers, aides and journalists to file the certificate for him, believing the women would not be harmed and that the strong media presence would be an added protection.

57 members of Mangudadatu's convey were butchered, murdered and buried in mass graves after an ambush by 100 armed men.

Of the 57 massacred, 22 Filipina women suffered brutal rapes and sexual torture before their murders. Some had their genitals slashed and bullets fired into their private parts. Mangudadatu's wife, three sisters, female cousin and aunt, died in this way. Two female human rights defenders, Attorney Concepcion “Connie” Brizuela and Attorney Cynthia Oquendo, were among the victims, as well journalists and one woman whose car was mistaken as part of the convoy.

From Filipinaimages.com:

The massacre of 57 people in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao goes beyond a rido or clan war. The sheer scope of barbarity, the brazenness of the murders betrays the perpetrators’ belief in being beyond the reach of the law. Women, lawyers and journalists – no one escaped the butchers’ wrath. Fifty-seven people killed in broad daylight. The murderers had planned the deed, down to the mass burial of victims. That is the mark of the untouchable.

"Untouchable"? Oh, we'll see about that, murderers. I might just be an angry little Filipino-Australian woman on her computer, while you might be an evil monster with a thousand faces and thousands of arms and legs, used to brutalising women like they're extensions of your enemies in your clan wars, supported by firearms, rich families and a culture where you enjoy raw power. I might just be getting started in this world, while you've been festering and growing and terrorising for generations. But I will find a way to fight you.

Starting with raising awareness outside of your world, where you can't silence me or those I love.

Show your indignation and protest by signing an online petition on Strike against Impunity, Strike for Peace and Democracy.

I condemn the brutality of the Maguindanao Massacre. I will NOT let this pass. I want the whole the world to know, especially the Arroyo government that we will not stop until justice is delivered to the victims of the Ampatuan Massacre (otherwise known as Maguindanao massacre) . I grieve for all the women, journalists and other innocent victims who suffered extreme violence and the brutal slaying.

I will make sure you did not die in vain. We should not let allow this to happen again and we cannot allow this climate of impunity to reign.

For more information read the Filipina Images coverage here.

What the FUCK?!

Trigger warnings.

A Sydney jury has cast doubts during a sexual assault trial, claiming the victim's skinny jeans could not have been removed easily unless there was some "sort of collaboration".

What the unholy FUCK?!

I wear skinny jeans. I'm an Australian size six, and last I checked I weighed 40 kilograms. Since my jeans are the cheap stretchy kind you buy from factory outlets for $25, let me tell YOU, you disgusting misogynist pieces of shit jury-duty arsehole rape apologists, it is extraordinarily easy for me to take my jeans on and off. They SLIP on and off.

But according to you ignorant scumbuckets, I'm virtually unrapeable when wearing them. OH MY GOD, you guys, why didn't women think of this before? All this time we've struggled for hours trying to get into our skinny jeans ('cos all women, like the SIZE SIX rape victim, are such FATTY-FAT-FATS and couldn't POSSIBLY get skinny jeans on and off without lying on the bed, shaking our love handles around, wriggling, twisting, jumping, getting out a chisel, entering the pin code...) we never ONCE considered the possibility of skinny jeans as magical rape-preventors! GEE. WOW.

Maybe instead of donating time and resources to sexual assault prevention on a local, national and international scale, we should instead issue every woman everywhere with SKINNY JEANS. They're just like a RAPE VACCINATION!

And how could poor defenceless men with their poor man-brains EVER figure out something so profoundly difficult like how to undo somebody's jeans and take them off? CLEARLY, when skinny jeans are involved, THERE IS COLLABORATION. Case solved!

What other items of clothing could magically help ward off rape, I wonder? Those wet look leggings that are all the rage this winter? They're much more of a pain in the arse to wriggle into and out of than skinny jeans. Or what about those jeans with buttons lining the fly instead of a zipper? Talk about FIDDLY. Or how about tricky bling-type belts? "Why, the victim was wearing that chainy-belt-with-multiple-buckles-thing; how exactly did the defendant get it off without some sort of COLLABORATION? I hear there were even DOUBLE-KNOTS involved!"

And I love that the obnoxious tone of the jury is just OOZING from those notes to the judge: "[please explain] how exactly Nick took off her jeans... I doubt those kind of jeans can be removed without any sort of collaboration." Emphasis mine. Because can't you just imagine some sceptical rape apologist sneering, "How, exactly?" EXACTLY the kind of person we want on a serving on a sexual assault trial.

This "jury" and the defence counsel that ran with this shit? A fucking joke. Some people will do anything, ANY-FUCKING-THING, to blame rape victims, anything to undermine them, I swear to God. When you're grasping at straws trying to argue that a size six 42-kilogram woman could easily prevent a bigger, stronger man yanking her clothes off with brute force by virtue of her tight jeans... TRY HARDER, you slimy pathetic excuses for vertebrates.

PS: Fuck Politeness has a much more impressive post on this case without all the name-calling here.

Edit 3/5/10: The man has been aquitted thanks to those fuckers. In other news, my vigilante training intensifies.

It was an ACCIDENT!

Leigh Robinson, 61, who shot his girlfriend in the back of the head after she fled his car and headed for a neighbour's house, says it was an accident and he just wanted to talk to her.

...he was showing her how to use his shotgun before she suddenly ran away from him for no apparent reason.

Why, that's completely plausible! What better place for shooting lessons than one's car in the middle of Frankston? She must have run to make him a sandwich because of all that hard work wielding a firearm (they're HEAVY!), but unfortunately she failed to determine what KIND of sandwich he wanted! Seeing as Robinson had threatened her with a gun a week before, it's clear she wasn't learning her lesson about the sandwiches!

And in a sterling display of the quality of his character, Robinson refers to the murder victim with such endearing and respectful terms:

He chased after her, he said, in an attempt "to talk to the silly bitch".

Hence, when a neighbour opened the door to her cries for help, THAT's when he SHOT HER IN THE HEAD.

Accidentally.

Like how a Justice of the Supreme Court might "accidentally" sentence you to life in prison, scum. Whoops!

Justice for LaVena Johnson

From the ColorOfChange.org Take Action petition:

Overwhelming evidence shows that LaVena Johnson was raped and murdered while serving in Iraq. Yet the US Army refuses to investigate and insists LaVena's death was a suicide.

LaVena Johnson was 19 years old, serving in Iraq as a private in the Army, when she was raped, murdered, and her body was burned--by someone from her own military base. Despite overwhelming physical evidence, the Army called it a suicide and closed the case.[1]

For three years, LaVena's parents have been fighting for answers. At almost every turn, they've been met with closed doors or lies. But together we can help achieve justice for LaVena and other families who have suffered similar tragedies.[2]

1. "The cover-up of a soldier's death?" LavenaJohnson.com, March 6, 2007

2. "Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?" CommonDreams.org, April 28, 2008

This story simultaneously horrifies me, terrifies me, and makes me so angry that I do that thing where I hold my breath because there’s a lump in my throat that feels like a furious rage-filled hour-long scream is going to come exploding out any second.

A nineteen-year-old girl was found dead inside a burning tent with a gunshot wound to the head, acid burns on her genitals (probably inflicted to prevent DNA identification of a rapist), debris on her clothing suggesting she had been forcibly dragged from one location to another, blunt force trauma to the face (two front teeth knocked out and a busted lip), with a blood trail outside her tent.

And the Army rules it a SUICIDE?

Even after this fucking mother-load of evidence of a struggle? Even after residue tests confirm LaVena may not have handled the weapon that killed her, nor would she have been able to shoot herself with her dominant hand judging by the trajectory of the gunshot wound? Even after her healthy psychological history?

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the misogyny and corruption that runs rampant through sexual assaults against women in the military. The US Department of Defence stats claim that one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted by men in the military.

Makes you wonder what the hell they’re doing to civilian women in the countries they occupy, doesn’t it?

And what about male-on-male sexual assault in the military? Next to zero chance of that being reported or of perpetrators being brought to justice.

I’m so angry. I can’t even breathe. If this was my daughter somebody would be getting cut up right now.

"I am not guilty. I am innocent."

Security footage from Melbourne's Southern Cross Station taken before Xue abandoned his daughter.

Nai Yin Xue, of the Xue family murder and abandonment notoriety (also known as the ‘Pumpkin’ case here in Oz) says he’s innocent.

Sure you are. That’s why your wife was found naked in the boot of your car strangled with one of your own neckties and why you abandoned your three-year-old daughter at a train station in a completely different country before going into hiding in the U.S, then denying everything once you got caught, deported and made to stand trial. Clearly the actions of an innocent man.

The nerve of you. No amount of jail-time or media haranguing or hate mail will ever make up for the terror and torture you put your wife through, the pain you have caused your daughter that is now her lifetime legacy, the grief of an entire family and friends. You aren’t fit to utter the word ‘innocent’, scum.

Anyway, you just martyred the guy.

WTF?

Do pro "life" extremists honestly not see their own hypocrisy and evil when GUNNING PEOPLE DOWN? In a fucking CHURCH, no less?

I can't believe Dr. Tiller even continued his work after 1985, after his abortion clinic was bombed. I would never have the courage to continue anything in the face of violence and terrorism and hatred, faceless people threatening my family, after bullets in both arms and angry vigils outside my home. I would have packed up, or given in, or gone insane, or changed my identity entirely. I would never have just kept going. But Tiller did for decades.

I do not see how committing horrific crimes can solve anything or be remotely helpful to any serious cause. For the record, most major pro-life organisations have condemned the murder of Dr. Tiller, rightfully saying that violence, terrorism and murder are quite obviously contrary to their goals of protecting the right to life. Some have done so in a pretty backhanded manner though.

"George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder. Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches."

Randall Terry of Operation Rescue

What exactly is your "most effective rhetoric and actions" if you are concerned that a cold-blooded murder will compromise them? I am really, really disturbed by that statement. Why, after this heinous highly-publicised crime, would you keep perpetuating hate-filled propaganda and practically excuse the murder of a man with friends and family by basically saying, "Yeah, he's dead, too bad he's going to Hell, but he was a murderer 'yknow, great work guys we must continue to 'expose' these people!"

As for you, Scott Phillip Roeder, you perverse, sadistic, pathetic coward of a human being. You value life then shoot it in the face once it's out of the womb, is that how it works?

Murderer.