violence

The rantings of an angry white farmer

Sophie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:39:39 +0200

Ben Freeth after the attack. Image from Justice for Agriculture (JAG).

While Mugabe's thugs continue to terrorise Zimbabwe, the abduction and brutal beating of a white farmer has reignited another of the country's long-standing polemics - what to do with the country's wealthy white settlers.

After talking to the press about conditions in the run-up to the election, Ben Freeth, along with his elderly parents-in-law, was kidnapped from his farm in south-east Harare by around 20 militias on Sunday evening (29 June). The three were then taken to a "political camp" where they were beaten and intimidated by around 50 of Mugabe's clan, Freeth said. He is currently undergoing surgery for head injuries.

Attacks on white farmers in Zimbabwe have been commonplace since Mugabe's instruction to redistribute land in 2000. But during the recent wave of violence that swept the country in the run up to the run-off last Friday, a growing number of settlers have been targeted.

Vote for Mugabe, or don’t vote at all

Sophie — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:17:45 +0200

An empty polling station in Bulawayo on Friday morning. Posted by Sokwanele 27 June 08.

Zimbabweans are voting today in what's being labelled a "one-man election". Despite opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulling out of the competition on Sunday, President Robert Mugabe pushed ahead with the run-off between the two men. The opposition has accused Mugabe's ZANU-PF party of using violence to scare people into voting for Mugabe. One of our Observers went to the polls; another dared to stay at home. Here are their accounts of the day's events, told anonymously.

Stop dreaming, Mugabe's here to stay

Sophie — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:54:24 +0200

A campaign poster for Mugabe's party

Hopes for a fair election are over in Zimbabwe after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of Friday's planned run-off on Sunday. But while expectations have been quashed, repressive government violence and spiralling food prices seem to be unstoppable.

After months of waiting, the Zimbabwean people will not get a run-off election between opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and dictatorial leader Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai pulled out of the race on Sunday and is in hiding in the capital's Dutch embassy. Yesterday, the UN Security Council said that a free and fair election would be "impossible". Over 70 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters are presumed dead and more than 3,000 people have been hospitalised, along with sky-rocketing food prices and inflation heading towards 120% percent week on week (according to the country's daily The Herald).

Left to die in the middle of the road

Ségolène — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:43:11 +0200

A 78-year-old man, struck down by a hit-and-run driver, was left lying in the middle of the road for over a minute as pedestrians walked by and cars veered round him.

Angel Torres was hit by a vehicle in a car chase in Hartford, Connecticut, on 30 May. He has been paralysed from the neck down and remains in a critical condition in hospital. Last week, the City of Hartford Police released a video of the incident in hope of finding the offenders. The surveillance footage has astounded the blogosphere. Not because of the crime itself, but of the reaction - or lack of - from pedestrians and passing cars. Although the police logged four 911 calls in the first minute, it takes over a minute before anybody comes over to help him.

Released by the City of Hartford Police, 4 June 08.

Alleged communists massacred under the eyes of American soldiers

Sophie — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:57:53 +0200

Last month the US government declassified images of thought-to-be communist sympathisers being massacred by South Korean authorities between 1950 and 1951. Tackling a sensitive subject, the evidence throws more weight behind the argument that the US were partly to blame.

The Korean conflict acted as a trigger for the Cold War. The country, rescued from Japanese control following World War II, was divided in half and shared between two rival regimes - the communist-supported northern side and the "free world"-supported southern side. To separate the two halves, a line was drawn along the 38^th Parallel north (circle of latitude), creating North Korea and South Korea. In 1949, South Korea created the National Guidance League (NGL), which recruited, by force, all suspected extreme left-leaning activists, in order to control any potential north-side sympathisers. Quotas were quickly set up for all NGL places to be filled, and to keep them at full capacity police forced thousands of farmers, many of them illiterate, to join the NGL, even though they had no link with the far left. Experts estimate that up until the North Korean invasion, the NGL recruited around 350,000 members.

When the north stormed its southern counterpart, marking the start of the war in June 1950, the southern authorities panicked. Fearing an insurrection from these hundreds of thousands of supposed left-leaning thinkers, the South Korean government ordered that they be got rid of. The members were massacred.

Pranksters sentenced to apologise on YouTube

Sophie — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:52:44 +0200

Two Florida teenagers who threw a drink in a drive-thru worker's face have been forced by a judge to post an apology on YouTube. But will the punishment work?

The 15 and 16-year-olds drove up to a Taco Bell fast-food restaurant last summer and threw a cold drink onto their drive-thru waitress. They then posted a video of the assault on YouTube, which became a massive hit online, adding to a collection of similar clips. Last October they were charged for battery and criminal mischief, and sentenced to 100 hours of community service and a fine of $30 (€20) each. But the judge also asked them to post an apology on YouTube, which they did, along with a reconstruction of the event. While their original video received millions of hits, the apology has so far only been watched 24,000, in over a month. Our Observer assesses the new-fangled punishment.

It's best not to wave at the camera just after a massacre

Sophie — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:43:02 +0200

Yesterday we published a post about a street massacre in Tokyo. Shocked Japanese web users have been poring over news reports recorded just after the tragedy, and they've noticed something that upsets them even more.

Even when the news is tragic, nothing stops people from crowding behind a TV reporter and waving at the cameras to say "hello" to their friends and family watching at home. It's not the smartest thing to do at the scene of a massacre, but you probably wouldn't expect the reaction these unfortunate fools have received either...

Screenshots of the culprits' faces have been taken from the videos and published on the enormous Japanese discussion forum 2-channel, attracting an angry mob of justice-seekers. These cyber "wanted" posters have even been included in a film which has been seen over 3000,000 times in 24 hours.

According to James from Japan Probe, numerous messages posted on YouTube or chat forums have called for the "stupid and uncivilised" perpetrators to be punished. The blogger does also say that some web users from the country have recognised that the online manhunt is an "over-reaction".

Could it happen to you?

Ségolène — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:49:10 +0200

This rather violent breakdown is not an isolated case. According to recent stats from the EU, three to four percent of the continent's workforce has either witnessed or experienced a violent attack at work. Here, a stress-at-work specialist and somebody with first-hand crisis experience comment on the video.

UPDATE (11.06 - 3.20pm) : We weren't sure where this video came from (which is what we mentioned at the start of the post). Someone commented on the post that it had been talked about by the Russian press and somebody else told us that it was fake. So we asked one of our Observers for Russia, Ostap Karmodi, to check. He found out that it's a promotion for Russian director Timur Bekmambetov's latest movie, "Wanted". So it is in fact a video with a commercial goal rather than a real video. Thanks to people who commented on the post and to our Observer Ostap.

Video dated 23 May 08 and posted on Break http://www.break.com/. The authenticity of the video hasn't been verified. There are plenty of similar documents on YouTube.

Seven massacred in Tokyo - are the Japanese prone to ultra-violence?

Sophie — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:46:19 +0200

Japan saw the ghastly murder of seven people yesterday when a man drove his two-tonne-lorry into crossing pedestrians and then went on a stabbing spree in Akihabara, Tokyo. Our Observer in the country questions whether the Japanese are prone to such gruesome massacres, and why.

The 25-year-old factory worker, Tomohiro Kato, told police, that he was "tired of life" according to Japanese press. He was pegged as a video-game and comic book addict, and a visitor to restaurants where the waitresses dress up as French maids. He apparently posted messages on internet forums about the imminent "disaster in Akihabara", saying that he would crash his vehicle into people and get out a knife. Of the 17 people he stabbed or hit, seven died.

"Black on black racism at the height of stupidity"

Sophie — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:31:00 +0200

An anti-xenophobia protest in Johannesburg yesterday. Photo: Christo Doherty.

Forty-two people have been killed since the outbreak of violent clashes between native South Africans and Zimbabwean refugees in Johannesburg.

The violence began at the beginning of last week when mobs of South African youths started attacking foreign migrants, many of whom are Zimbabweans who have fled their country because of a brutal crackdown following elections at the end of March. The aggression towards the refugees is thought to be a reaction to rising food prices and high unemployment rates among the poor working classes, who blame Zimbabweans for taking their jobs. Since the beginning of the chaos, 42 people have been killed, 400 arrested and 16,000 displaced. Yesterday, President Thabo Mbeki called on troops to halt the attacks.