Injustices Occur All Around the World

"Arrests after woman beaten, set ablaze in Afghanistan"

By Greg Botelho and Masoud Popalzai 

Source: CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/20/asia/afghanistan-woman-killed/index.html

On Thusday, April 19^th, 2015, an Afghan woman was brutally abused and burned alive in Kabul. She was dragged onto a roof and hit with a stick, while many angry, screaming men surrounded her and started beating her. A video was released, showing the woman’s face covered in blood, before she is pushed to the floor and beaten with rocks, boards, and kicked multiple times. In the last part of the video, it shows her being engulfed in flames. It is not known for sure whether or not she was alive during the time she was put on fire. The reasoning behind this horrific and inhumane act was due to the assumption that she had burned the Quran. CNN says they have not seen any proof that she had done such a thing; Afghanistan’s Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs found no evidence either.

Nahid, a 45 year old woman, was a witness to what happened. She said she heard a group of women and the victim yelling at each other, which got the attention of men nearby. Police tried to keep everything under control and closed the gates to keep them out, but it did not work, as the men jumped the fence and started beating the woman. The physical abuse ended once one of the men poured fuel on the woman and lit her on fire. After they burned her, they threw her corpse away in the Kabul River.

On Saturday, 11 men were arrested in connection to the death of the woman, but the investigation is still ongoing. The President spoke up and assured that his government is meant to protect and safeguard all Islamic values, including prohibitions of burning the Quran, if that is even what the woman did. But he continued on to say that judging this was the job of the nation’s security and legal system and not the job of citizens. "No individual is allowed to make oneself a judge and use violence to punish others in degrading manners," the President said. "Launching personal trials and choosing who to punish stands in clear contradiction to Sharia and Islamic justice."

Gender Roles are Simply Made Up

What is the impact of gender roles that society creates and enforces?

       According to the dictionary, the definition of the word ‘gender’ is the state of being male or female. But in my opinion, the word ‘gender’ should not be a permanent way to differentiate people from one another. The definition of the words ‘gender role’ put together is the public image of being male or female that a person presents to others.But again, this image of being male or female is not the same image throughout the entire human population. The way a person wants to present themselves to others should solely consist of their own opinion of what that gender does. In reality though, it is not that easy. Society unfortunately contributes to this image and what the ‘right’ image should be among each gender. It is a known fact that most people do not like the idea of ‘different’, therefore they set expectations on everything; even the way each gender should act. This does not only apply to gender roles, but also to people who might be confused with their gender in the first place. Unfortunately for people who are confused with their gender, gender roles, or sexuality, they are frowned upon by society. Although there are many people, including myself, who do not go by most of what society does or thinks, the whole idea of ‘society’ is very contradictory.  It is contradictory because we as a people make up society, so we as a people can change the mentality of society. We can change the impact of things that society creates and enforces if we just open our minds up a little. It is okay for a man to be a nurse or a woman to be a doctor; it is okay for a man to wear a wig or nail polish or for a woman to have short hair and never wear dresses; it is okay for a man or woman to stray away from society’s “perfect image” because it is okay to be different and have your own “perfect image”. 

Orphaned Baby Girl

'Baby found alive hours after car overturns in river'

By Vivian Kuo and Joe Sutton

Source: CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/08/us/utah-baby-alive-submerged-car/index.html

On Saturday, March 7, 2015, a man was out at a Utah river in hopes of some great fishing, but instead found an upside-down car with a baby girl trapped inside. The four door car was founded upside-down in the water. Rescuers arrived and tipped the car onto its side, finding the 18-month-old girl strapped in her car seat, alive, and her mother dead in the front seat. Her mother, Lynn Jennifer Groesbeck, died at 25 years old. The baby was taken to a Salt Lake City hospital, where she was in critical condition. According to a resident nearby, he had heard a loud crash the night before around 10:30 but saw nothing unusual when he stepped outside (1). If that noise of the crash was the car going into the river, that means the baby survived in the cold water, upside-down for 14 hours. The police are not sure yet as to what happened for the car to end up in the river, but took the car in for examination to check for break failures or malfunctions. Members of the mother’s family said that she had left Salem, Utah and was supposed to be on her way home in Springfield, which was about 9 more miles away. The baby’s condition is still unclear, but it was confirmed that she had not been submerged into the cold water during this tragic incident and did not get hypothermia, but three police officers and four firefighters were treated at a hospital for hypothermia.