As Sexual Violence Intensifies, India Considers Strengthening Its Penalties For Rape

Protester at Dec. 18 rally in New Dehli

A new law strengthening the penalty for rape passed the lower house of India’s Parliament recently, a bright point in India’s still troubled relationship with sexual assault and violence.

Should the legislation pass India’s upper house, it would provide an increase of the minimum prison sentence for gang-rape to twenty years, that can be extended to life in jail. It also adds the opportunity for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in cases of rape that result in death or leave the victim in a coma. Most promising of all, the revised law would make other sex-based crimes such voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women punishable under criminal law. “This is just a first step in a journey of 1,000 miles,” MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal, a woman MP a regional party, said before the vote.

The revised law originally was developed in response to the brutal gang rape of a young Indian woman — identified as Jyoti Signh Pandi — in December, which sparked mass protests throughout the country. Pandi later died from the massive injuries obtained, leading to her alleged assailants being charged with murder, rape, and kidnapping.

Recent actions taken to strengthen the punishment of these crimes does not lessen the long way that India still has to go when it comes to combating sexual violence. According to a recent report from a United Nations panel, in India “every 60 minutes two women are raped, and every six hours a young married woman is found beaten to death, burnt or driven to suicide.” The stigma that surrounds these crimes, however, leads to a severe underreporting of rape, particularly in the case of women in lower castes.

Tourists are also becoming more frequent targets of attacks, as evidenced in the case of a British woman on the same day the new rape law moved forward in Parliament. The woman was forced to leap through an open window in her hotel room to escape the advances of the hotel owner, fracturing both of her legs:

Police arrested the hotel owner in connection with the incident in Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal, one of India’s most cherished tourist attractions, [police officer Sushaunt] Gaur said. No charges have been filed.

The woman told the police that the hotel owner kept knocking on her door persistently and even tried to unlock the door after she refused his offer of a free massage.

A Swiss tourist was the vicitim of gang-rape just weeks ago in the Indian state Madhya Pradur while cycling with her husband. In that instance, the state’s Home Minister suggested that the tourist herself was at fault for not alerting the police of her travel plans. Another incident of gang rape was reported in the same state on Tuesday, in which two minors were assaulted at gunpoint in their family’s home.

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Congressman Considers Gabby Giffords A ‘Prop’ For Gun Regulations

Congressman Joe Heck (R-NV) on Tuesday agreed that he considers former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), who was a victim of an assassination attempt two years ago, a “prop” in the debate over gun regulations.

Jon Ralston of Ralston Reports, uncovered the audio of Heck, speaking with conservative radio talk show host Alan Stock, agreed that Giffords was nothing more than a “prop” at the State of the Union:

STOCK: At the end of the president’s State of the Union when he said have a vote for Gabby Giffords, have a vote for this and that. I found that to be nauseating and you know what else is nauseating too is putting Gabby Giffords up there, who can’t even clap her hands, as a figure of somebody being — having shot her. I think it’s a shameful act putting her up there as a prop. I’m sorry. I really do.

HECK: Yeah, no I agree. I think again in the cloud of emotion surrounding Connecticut those who are anti-gun want to use that to limit their Second Amendment rights.

Listen to it:

Giffords has made a remarkable recovery since she was shot through the head at a town hall in a parking lot in Tucson, AZ, two years ago. In fact, the experience has prompted Giffords, along with her husband Mark Kelly, to found an organization called Americans For Responsible Solutions, devoted to combating gun violence.

Heck’s office release this statement on the incident:

My statement was in reference to the idea of gun control grab coming out of Washington DC. Of course there is no way that I think that Gabby Giffords is a prop… Should I have come to her defense? You know, in a fast-moving interview, in retrospect, I should have said something but I didn’t. I was just looking to get past that and talk about gun control in general.

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Colorado Considers Banning Guns On College Campuses, Overruling State Supreme Court

A bill to ban guns on college campuses cleared Colorado’s House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and heads to the Education Committee Wednesday morning. The bill would add college campuses to the short list of exceptions to concealed carry permits. Permits currently let gun owners carry their weapons everywhere in the state besides K-12 schools and federal properties.

House Bill 1226 was crafted in response to a 2011 state Supreme Court ruling that forced the University of Colorado to allow guns on campus. Permit holders could still carry their guns on campus, but not in campus buildings, school sporting arenas, or at school-sponsored events.

After the Colorado Supreme Court ruling, the University of Colorado compromised by creating separate off-campus housing for students who wanted to carry their guns on campus. However, zero students opted to live in the college’s gun dorm. While the University of Colorado has had no complaints since their gun ban was overturned, there have been 20 shootings on college campuses in the US since the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007.

The state legislature is also considering a bill that would require gun owners to pay $10 for their own background check, which one Republican lawmaker argued is “a poll tax.” Another measure approved by the Judiciary Committee would ban high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than 15 rounds, like the kind used by James Holmes in the Aurora theater shooting.

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Arizona Considers Banning Non-English Government Mailings

The Arizona House is planning to take up an “English only” bill that would ban state agencies from mailing out information in any language other than English. HB 2283, cleared on Tuesday by the House Government Committee, purports to save money by only allowing non-English translations to be posted online.

Though voting materials are exempted, banning non-English mailings would essentially cut off Arizona’s substantial Spanish-speaking population from government services — particularly any Spanish speakers who receive any kind of service from the government, including Medicaid and Social Security. As of 2010, Arizona has the 8th largest population of limited English speakers, who comprise 9.9 percent of all Arizona residents. Rather than promote English language education, Arizona excluded these residents by making English the official state language in 2006.

This new bill’s sponsor, Rep. Steve Smith (R-AZ), has pushed several other radical anti-immigrant measures, most recently a bill requiring hospitals to check and report the immigration status of their patients. While he claims HB 2283 saves money by only printing documents in English, others anticipate costly lawsuits like the ones sparked by the state’s last attempt at English only legislation. In 1988, Arizona passed a constitutional amendment to require all official government business be conducted in English. The Supreme Court struck it down for violating state employees’ First Amendment rights. The 2006 measure passed muster because it only applies to official government business.

But Smith’s bill, by focusing on agencies’ abilities to disseminate information, could block non-English speakers’ access to government services and violate federal law:

“The bill as currently drafted is much broader than Rep. Smith suggests,” said attorney Ellen Katz with the William E. Morris Institute for Justice. “It violates Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act. Even in states that have an English-as-their-official-language policy, you still have to follow federal law.”

Title 6 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal funds. Katz said mailing out documents in English but not in other languages would violate that.

Even a fellow Republican, Rep. Doug Coleman, took issue with Smith’s proposal, noting that if the bill’s true purpose is to save money, all English publications should be restricted to websites as well.

English only laws exist in 16 states. Last year, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) unsuccessfully pushed a federal version of the English only law, the English Language Unity Act.

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