#MeToo wave in Morocco over 'sex for grades' scandal

France24 – AFP, 23 January 2022 

Nadia, a university student and a victim of sexual blackmail, attends a conference
on the subject of sexual aggression, in the western Moroccan city of Casablanca,
on January 20, 2022 FADEL SENNA AFP

Rabat (AFP) – Female Moroccan university students have broken their silence about professors demanding sexual favours in return for good grades, a scandal that has shaken the higher eduction system. 

Testimonies have flooded social media in the style of the #MeToo movement, encouraged by activists in the conservative North African nation where victims of sexual violence often keep quiet. 

"I was expelled from university a year ago under the pretext that I had cheated on an exam," said 24-year-old student Nadia, who declined to give her full name. 

"The truth is that I had just refused to submit to sexual blackmail from one of my professors." 

The Hassan I University in Settat, near Casablanca, where she was eventually re-admitted, is now embroiled in a scandal involving five professors. 

One was sentenced to a two-year prison term this month for demanding sexual favours for good grades, in the first such verdict, while four others are due to face court Monday. 

"My case was not an isolated one," said Nadia. "Other girls suffered similar things but no one wanted to listen to us." 

In recent years, several similar cases were reported by local media, but failed to elicit official action. 

But then a social media campaign shifted the conversation, raising awareness of the magnitude of the problem. 

'Wave of testimonies'

The turning point came when screen shots were published online, said to be of messages in which professors demanded sexual favours from female students. 

Members of a women's rights association, give a press conference about the
subject of sexual aggression against women in universities FADEL SENNA AFP

"I had not considered making a complaint, but after the scandal broke, I filed a civil suit," Nadia said. 

"My move is also a way of encouraging other victims to denounce these acts." 

One association that helped bring some of the scandals to light was "7achak" -- an expression in local dialect used to excuse oneself before broaching a taboo topic. 

The movement launched an Instagram page calling on women victims of harassment to share their stories. 

"As soon as the appeal was launched, we received a wave of testimonies," the association's founder Sarah Benmoussa told AFP. "Those accompanied with evidence were published." 

More accusations against university lecturers began to emerge online. 

"I am speaking to you to stop the sexual harassment and the rotten and unacceptable acts of a monster disguised as an instructor," wrote a former student of the National School of Business and Management in Oujda. 

Other victims also shared their experiences involving that professor, resulting in his suspension. 

Some officials at the business school, deemed "complicit", were also dismissed, the higher education ministry said last month. 

'Zero tolerance'

In Tangiers, an instructor at a school of translation was convicted and sentenced to jail in early January over sexual harassment, lawyer Aicha Guellaa told AFP. 

According to her, "nearly 70 complaints" were also filed at the Abdelmalek Essaadi University of Tetouan, but have so far failed to provoke a response from the university administration. 

The reports of sexual harassment in academia sparked an uproar among activists, online and in the local media across Morocco. 

They prompted Higher Education Minister Abdelatif Miraoui to pledge "zero tolerance" for sexual harassment. 

As the number of testimonies grew, several universities launched toll-free hotlines and set up teams to follow up on cases of sexual violence. 

"It's crucial to support the victims and to help them gain access to the judicial system," said human rights defender Karima Nadir of the "Outlaws" group. 

In 2018, after years of fierce debate, a law entered into force, imposing for the first time prison sentences for "harassment, assault, sexual exploitation or abuse". 

"Laws exist," Nadir said, "but few benefit from them."

DRCongo vows to protect Nobel laureate Mukwege after death threats

Yahoo = AFP, Alain WANDIMOYI, 22 August 2020

DR Congo vows to protect Nobel laureate Mukwege after death threats

Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his work against sexual violence in war

The government vowed Saturday to protect Nobel peace laureate Denis Mukwege and investigate death threats against him after he called for an international court to try crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

DR Congo's president Felix Tshisekedi pledged that the interior, security and justice ministers and others would "take all measures necessary to ensure Dr Mukwege's security" and "open investigations", the cabinet said in a report, without giving detail.

Mukwege, a Congolese gynaecologist who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his work against sexual violence in war, and his relatives have been the target of "intimidation, hateful messages and death threats," it said.

This has occurred while he has "pleaded for peace in the country's east, by proposing the establishment of an international criminal court for the DRC in order to try the serious crimes committed there against the civilian population," it said.

On July 26, in a message on his Twitter account, Mukwege wrote "these are the same ones who are still killing in the DRC", referring to a massacre in the east.

Civilians in Kipupu, a village in South Kivu on the Fizi heights overlooking Lake Tanganyika, came under attack on July 16, with the death toll ranging widely between 18 and 220.

"The macabre stories from Kipupu are in a straight line from the massacres that have hit the DRC since 1996," the peace prize winner said in a tweet.

The area has seen violence between the Banyamulenge community -- the descendants of ethnic Tutsi migrants who came from Rwanda -- and other local communities such as the Babembe for the past year.

In early 1996, the first Congo war erupted, led by a rebellion backed by regular troops from several neighbouring countries, particularly Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.

The second Congo war that took place from 1998 until 2003 involved a dozen armies from the region, 30 armed groups and two main rebellions: one in the east supported by Rwanda and another in the north backed by Uganda.

Doctor Mukwege, director of the Panzi hospital that cares for women raped in South Kivu, managed to survive an attack by assailants targeting his home in October 2012

Egypt Hotel Gang Rape Allegations Ignite New #MeToo Wave

Barrons – AFP, July 30, 2020

Protesters in 2013 hold up placards and shout slogans during a demonstration
against sexual harassment in Egypt's capital Cairo. Khaled DESOUKI

A gang rape allegation at a luxury hotel in Egypt stemming from a prominent social media account has triggered a new #MeToo wave in the deeply conservative country.

The alleged assault took place at the five-star Fairmont Nile City hotel in Cairo in 2014 where a group of six men drugged and raped a young woman, according to several social media accounts

Names and pictures of the figures accused, who hail from elite families, have circulated online, but AFP has been unable to verify their authenticity.

AFP spoke to a source close to the victim who corroborated details of the 2014 rapes posted online.

The victim was unwilling to comment publicly for fear of a backlash.

No official investigation has been launched so far, as tweets flood in under the hashtag #FairmontIncident.

Young Egyptian women posting testimonials of sexual misconduct earlier this month triggered a national outcry which led to the arrest of Ahmed Bassam Zaki, 22, a former student of some of Egypt's most elite schools and universities.

On July 4, authorities detained Zaki who confessed to assaulting at least six girls including one aged under 18 and blackmailing the victims, according to prosecutors.

Egypt's National Council for Women on Wednesday condemned retaliatory threats made against women exposing sexual misconduct.

The council "stands by every woman and girl exposed to any... threat by providing all necessary support", it said.

It also called on females "who might be subjected to harassment and/or threats to immediately report through the official reporting mechanisms".

Egypt's minister of international cooperation, Rania al-Mashat, for her part, posted a supportive message on Instagram: "To all the girls out there, we hear you".

The Fairmont Hotel has said it carried out an investigation of the graphic claims posted online.

"An internal investigation was undertaken by the hotel upon receipt of knowledge of the disturbing allegations," Yara ElDouky, Fairmont's communication director, told AFP.

"We can confirm that at no time were any reports of the incident filed to the hotel, nor to the hotel’s tourism police," she said.

"All personnel at the hotel are committed to assisting the relevant authorities and we will continue to offer our unfettered support," she added.

The allegations come as Egypt sentenced to jail several young female influencers on popular app TikTok on charges of violating public morals.

A 2013 study by UN Women found that 99% of women in Egypt had at some point in their lives been sexually harassed, either verbally or physically.

In Egypt, sexual predator case reignites #MeToo debate

Yahoo – AFP, Menna Zaki and Hager Harabech, July 16, 2020

A woman in Egypt checks an Instagram account for reporting allegations of
sexual harassment and misconduct (AFP Photo/Khaled DESOUKI)

Cairo (AFP) - Egypt has seen a strong resurgence of the #MeToo movement after dozens of women made shocking claims of sexual abuse and assault by a member of the country's wealthy elite.

Amid a campaign unprecedented in its intensity in the deeply conservative country, state and religious authorities have started to take a firmer stand.

The latest outpouring of anger, on the Instagram account "Assault Police", centres on allegations against Ahmed Bassam Zaki, a 22-year-old former student of some of Egypt's most elite schools and universities.

They have ranged from claims that he took part in a rape at the gym hall of a gated residential community to screen-grabs showing salacious messages and blackmail of women. Some alleged incidents involved girls as young as 14.

Police on July 4 arrested Zaki who, according to prosecutors, has confessed to assaulting at least six girls including one aged under 18 and to blackmailing the victims.

While Zaki is awaiting trial, his case has kicked off a wave of other complaints in a society where, United Nations surveys say, most women have experienced catcalling, pinching, groping or worse.

In this file photo from 2013 protesters hold up placards and shout slogans during
a demonstration against sexual harassment in Egypt's capital Cairo (AFP Photo/
Khaled DESOUKI)

"Women immediately jumped at the opportunity to vent and tell their stories," the Instagram page administrator told AFP, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.

"It is now bigger than Ahmed Bassam Zaki. We receive a dozen messages per minute from girls and women telling of personal incidents of harassment, abuse and rape, some dating back years."

Victim-blaming

Following Zaki's arrest, the campaign has swept up other well-known figures.

One of them is Mohamed Hashem, a writer and founder of a top publishing house, who was detained over harassment allegations but later released on bail.

The current momentum builds on earlier #MeToo waves in Egypt, the latest in January following a mob assault on two women in Mansoura, north of Cairo, on New Year's Eve.

The Zaki case highlights that sexual assault and harassment -- widely perceived to be more prevalent among the poorer classes -- pervades all levels of society.

Zaki is a former student of the prestigious American University in Cairo. He briefly went on to study in Barcelona but was expelled this month after a claim of online harassment by another student.

A protester at a 2013 rally in Cairo holds a placard pledging an 'uprising of 

women in the Arab world' (AFP Photo/Khaled DESOUKI)

"We are talking about Class A, the creme de la creme of society who enrol in universities and schools worth tens of thousands of pounds annually," said Fathy Farid of Aman, an initiative against gender-based violence.

Campaigners hope the case will help shift attitudes in Egypt, which only criminalised sexual harassment in 2014.

Women in Egypt are often reluctant to speak out about sexual harassment, fearing public shaming and being blamed for wearing "provocative" clothing.

'A safer place'

In stark contrast to the #MeToo revival, Egypt has also seen an ongoing campaign targeting female TikTok influencers accused of "indecency and immorality".

Among recent cases is that of a 17-year-old girl who was arrested after posting a TikTok video in which she said she had been gang raped by a group of young men.

These girls "suffer discrimination and bullying" and their arrests "are part of violence against women because they come from lower classes," said lawyer Intesar al-Saeed.

Campaigners hope to shift attitudes in Egypt, which only criminalised sexual 

harassment in 2014 (AFP Photo/Khaled DESOUKI)

The Instagram group administrator also reported "a lot of these messages" attacking the women, but added that "they are nothing compared to the messages of support".

As more online testimonies have kept pouring in, the National Council for Women said it had received at least 400 complaints and enquiries on sexual harassment and abuse.

The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has taken some action.

His cabinet has approved amendments, yet to be passed by parliament, to the criminal code that would grant the right of anonymity to victims of sexual assault.

And the prestigious religious institution Al Azhar released a strongly-worded statement lambasting harassment as "forbidden and deviant".

The Dar al-Iftar, in charge of issuing religious edicts, slammed those who blame women for wearing provocative clothing as "sick".

The Instagram activist said the goal is, "if we're not forced to shut down the account for any reason, to turn Assault Police into a platform for women to share their stories.

"We are optimistic about making this country a safer place for women."

Survivors tell of France's 'dirty war' in Cameroon independence

Yahoo – AFP, Reinnier KAZE, December 28, 2019

Survivor: Odile Mbouma says she saw dozens of people slaughtered by French
troops who were hunting for Cameroonian independence fighters (AFP Photo)

Ekité (Cameroon) (AFP) - It was a "dirty war" waged by French colonial troops but it never made headlines and even today goes untold in school history books.

The brutal conflict unfolded in Cameroon, which on January 1 marks its 60th anniversary of independence -- the first of 17 African countries that became free from their colonial masters in 1960.

Many decades on, those who witnessed the violence recall events that shaped countless lives in the central African country yet remain unchronicled today.

"My life was overturned," Odile Mbouma, 72, said in the southwestern town of Ekite.

On the night of December 30, 1956, French troops arrived in the town and slaughtered dozens of people, perhaps as many as a hundred, she said.

"We were sitting under a tree when we suddenly heard the crackle of gunfire," she said. "It was everyone for themselves."

Taking to her heels, the seven-year-old found herself jumping over bodies. "They were everywhere."

The troops were looking for independence fighters -- members of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), a nationalist movement established in 1948 that faced repression first by the French and later by Cameroonian soldiers.

French authorities labelled the UPC "communist" and cracked down from 1955, driving the movement underground, though its charismatic founder Ruben Um Nyobe preached non-violence.

Benoit Bassemel was aged seven when his father was 

killed in the December 31 1956 massacre (AFP Photo)

Buried in cement

In September 1958, Um Nyobe -- nicknamed Mpodol (for "he who brings the word" in the Bassa language) -- was killed by French troops.

"His body was dragged around and displayed so that everybody (saw the corpse) of a man who was considered immortal," said Louis Marie Mang, UPC activist in Eseka, where Um Nyobe is buried in a Protestant graveyard.

"To prevent traditional rites from being held, he was put in a block of cement and buried (without) a coffin."

The conflict continued long beyond independence, for repression of the nationalists continued under Cameroon's first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, who also banned public references to the UPC and to Um Nyobe.

The violence "passed unnoticed, wiped from memories," according to Thomas Deltombe, Manuel Domergue and Jacob Tatsitsa, authors of "La guerre du Cameroun" ("Cameroon's War"), published in 2016.

They estimate that between 1955 and 1964, tens of thousands of people, including civilians as well as UPC members, were killed.

In Ekite, a wreath of flowers lies on the soil of a scrubland field at the end of a dirt track. "The Nation will remember your sacrifice," says a memorial notice.

Louis Marie Mang, a UPC activist, stands before the tomb of anti-colonialist leader 

Ruben Um Nyobe (AFP Photo)

"This is one of the mass graves where the nationalists were buried," said Jean-Louis Kell, a UPC militant.

A second ditch was apparent a dozen metres (yards) away, and "a third was discovered not long ago," said Benoit Bassemel. He was seven during the French massacre and has tears in his eyes when he tells how his father was murdered.

'Free like the others'

UPC nationalists believe that the independence granted on January 1, 1960 was not what they fought for.

They view the country's two post-independence presidents, Ahidjo and Paul Biya, who has been in office since 1982, as working hand-in-hand with France.

"We wanted to be free like the other countries. We no longer wanted white people to subjugate us," said 80-year-old Mathieu Njassep, in his tiny family apartment in Petit Paris, a poor district of Douala, the economic capital.

In 1960, aged 21, Njassep joined the Cameroon National Liberation Army (ALNK), the UPC's armed wing.

After two years of fighting, he was appointed secretary to Ernest Ouandie, a leading figure in the movement. He was sentenced to death but escaped the firing squad, unlike Ouandie, who was executed in 1971.

A farewell to arms: Former independence fighter Mathieu Njassep (AFP Photo)

"We had almost nothing to wage a war with," Njassep said.

"We carried out ambushes" with machetes, sticks and homemade guns. "If we had had enough weapons, we would have beaten them."

At the time, the ALNK had established its headquarters in the village of Bandenkop, on the land of the main western tribal group, the Bamileke. Fighting was fierce between the nationalists and the French army.

In the rugged valley from which ALNK commanders led operations, there is no sign of human life today and the only sound is that of a bubbling stream.

"This whole zone was regularly bombed" by the French air force, said Michel Eclador Pekoua, a former UPC official.

Pekoua and other nationalists say French planes dropped napalm. France has neither confirmed nor denied the use of the notorious incendiary weapon.

Decapitations

On a road 30 kilometres (19 miles) to the north, in Bafoussam, a roundabout is known as the "crossroads of the guerrillas," for it was where the decapitated heads of nationalists were placed on show, said Theophile Nono, head of a historical association, Memoire 60.

The regime's methods "ranged from the arrest and arbitrary imprisonment of any Cameroonian suspected of 'rebellion' to systematic torture, with extrajudicial summary executions," Nono said.

A statue of Ruben Um Nyobe has been erected in Eseka to commemorate 

his part in Cameroon's independence (AFP Photo)

For many years the conflict mostly remained taboo in Cameroon. It was in the 1990s, when the authorities came under mounting pressure for democratic change, that people began to raise the historic past.

Biya, in a speech in 2010, paid tribute to "people who dreamed of (independence), fought to obtain it and sacrificed their lives for it... Our people should be eternally grateful to them."

After years of French silence, then president Francois Hollande in 2015 became his country's first head of state to speak of "a repression" of Cameroonian nationalists leading to "tragic episodes".

For many survivors, this is not enough.

"France must accept its responsibility," Nono said.

"It must undertake to compensate victims of the dirty war, which has been carefully concealed by both the French side and the Cameroonian side."

Sudan, rebels, agree plan to end conflict in Darfur

Yahoo – AFP, December 28, 2019

There is fresh hope for peace after Sudan's transitional government, led by Prime
Minister Abdalla Hamdok, made peace in these areas a priority (AFP Photo/
ASHRAF SHAZLY)

Juba (AFP) - The Sudanese government and nine rebel groups on Saturday signed an agreement on a roadmap towards ending the bloody conflict in the Darfur region.

The deal outlines different issues the parties will need to negotiate during the latest round of talks in Juba.

"We believe this is an important step," said Ahmed Mohamed, the chief negotiator on Darfur matters from the Sudan Revolutionary Front or SRF, a coalition of nine rebel groups involved in talks with the Sudanese government.

"This step no doubt will help the process to achieve a lasting peace in Darfur and also it will enable the transitional process in Sudan to move smoothly without hindrances," Mohamed told AFP.

Among the issues they agreed need to be tackled are the root causes of the conflict, the return of refugees and internally displaced people, power sharing and the integration of rebel forces into the national army.

The deal also states that the Sudanese government will address land issues, such as the destruction of property during the conflict.

Khartoum has been negotiating with different rebel groups in the capital of South Sudan for two weeks, in the latest round of efforts to end conflicts in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

Rebels in these areas fought bloody campaigns against marginalisation by Khartoum under ousted president Omar al-Bashir.

The Darfur fighting broke out in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Bashir's Arab-dominated government.

Human rights groups say Khartoum targeted suspected pro-rebel ethnic groups with a scorched earth policy, raping, killing, looting and burning villages.

Bashir, who is behind bars for corruption and awaiting trial on other charges, is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for his role in the conflict that left around 300,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced, according to the United Nations.

However, there is fresh hope for peace after Sudan's transitional government, led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, made peace in these areas a priority.

"We failed to achieve a lasting peace for Darfur simply because the previous government was not ready to take strategic decisions to resolve the conflict in Darfur," said Mohamed who has been involved in previous failed peace talks.

General Samsedine Kabashi, the top Sudanese government representative at the talks said: "We are committed to ending all the problems in Darfur and ensuring that we restore peace and stability not only in Darfur but across all parts of the country."

The peace process began in August and mediators aim to reach a final deal by February 2020.

Two Algeria ex-PMs get heavy jail terms in graft trial

Yahoo – AFP, December 10, 2019

There was tight security outside the Algiers courthouse for the reading of the
verdicts against former prime ministers Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal
and other leading political and business figures (AFP Photo/RYAD KRAMDI)

Algiers (AFP) - An Algerian court sentenced two former prime ministers to long jail terms Tuesday in the first of a string of high-profile corruption trials launched after longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned in the face of mass protests in April.

Ahmed Ouyahia was sentenced to 15 years and Abdelmalek Sellal to 12, the state-run APS news agency reported.

It was the first time since Algeria's independence from France in 1962 that former prime ministers had been put on trial.

The state prosecutor had sought 20-year prison sentences for the two ex-premiers.

In all, 19 defendants were tried on charges ranging from money laundering to abuse of office and granting undue privileges in the vehicle assembly industry.

The nascent Algerian automotive sector got its start in 2014, via partnerships between foreign groups and large Algerian corporations, often owned by businessmen linked to Bouteflika's entourage.

One former industry minister, Abdeslam Bouchouareb, who is on the run abroad, was sentenced in absentia to 20 years.

Two other former industry ministers, Mahdjoub Bedda and Youcef Yousfi, were handed 10-year terms.

Businessman Ali Haddad, founder and CEO of private construction firm ETRHB and former head of Algeria's main employers' organisation, was sentenced to seven years.

Three businessmen who own vehicle assembly plants -- Ahmed Mazouz, Hassen Arbaoui and Mohamed Bairi -- were sentenced to seven years, six years and three years respectively.

The verdicts come just two days before Algeria is due to elect a president to replace Bouteflika in a vote bitterly opposed by the country's nine-month-old protest movement, which sees it as a regime ploy to cling to power.

While no opinion polls have been published, observers expect high levels of abstention, in keeping with previous elections in a political system seen by voters as rigid and unaccountable.

Triggered by MP's disgrace, Tunisia's #MeToo breaks taboos

France24 – AFP, 10 November 2019

Tunis (AFP) - Viral images of a Tunisian lawmaker allegedly masturbating outside a high school have sparked the country's own #MeToo moment, with sex abuse victims breaking taboos under the hashtag #EnaZeda.

Discussion of sexual harassment had previously been limited to a few edgy TV shows, but now thousands of women in the North African nation are sharing their experiences from lecherous remarks to paedophilia.

A video showing the moustachioed politician sitting in a car with his trousers dropped to his knees was shot last month by a student who shared it online alongside accusations of harassment.

The newly elected lawmaker denies inappropriate conduct and has said he was urinating due to a medical condition -- even threatening his accuser when pursued by prosecutors.

#EnaZeda -- Tunisian Arabic for #MeToo -- was inspired by the huge global movement that bloomed in 2017 in the wake of sexual assault allegations by multiple women against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

It has given some in Tunisia the confidence to confront their harassers face-to-face.

"Tonight, I have cried all the tears from my body. Tonight, I was harassed and nobody took the trouble to react," wrote one internet user Lina Kaboudi.

But "unlike all the other nights, I dared to respond to the perpetrator. I did not keep walking, pretending I had not heard.

"I stopped, and I held him to account".

Breaking taboos

Tunisia is considered a pioneer on women's rights in the Arab world and was the first predominantly Muslim country to abolish polygamy in 1956.

But the taboo on confronting sexual misconduct remains strong, especially within the family.

It is rare for victims to pursue formal complaints, despite sexual harassment in public places being punishable by a one-year prison term and a fine of 3,000 dinar (around 1,000 euros) since July 2017.

To catalogue the avalanche of testimony, Tunisian activists have set up private Facebook groups including one simply named #EnaZeda, which has more than 20,000 members.

Poignant accounts, some anonymous, are shared daily in the group -- ranging from rape and incest to inappropriate behaviour by teachers or celebrities and molestation on public transport.

Activists say they have been surprised by the volume and variety of the stories, and NGO Aswat Nissa (Voice of Women) says it has collected more than 70,000 testimonies.

"Then women, and sometimes men too, shared their stories, so now we are trying to organise workshops with psychologists."

Bouattour said she has received messages from parents who have "broken the family taboo by talking about sexual harassment with their children, after reading testimonies about paedophilia".

'Didn't lift a finger'

Traditional attitudes and apathy among some in power mean the nascent #EnaZeda initiative faces an uphill battle.

Kaboudi -- the woman who called out street harassment -- laments the passivity of the police, who "were a few feet away" and did not "lift a little finger" to help her when she was harassed.

She also despairs of witnesses who similarly "did nothing".

In an attempt to break the silence, in October the Centre for Research, Study, Documentation and Information on Women (Credif) launched an awareness campaign about sexual harassment on public transport.

Dubbed "the harasser #MaYerkebch (does not ride) with us", the initiative includes an app that uses a chat bot to speak to a harasser on behalf of a victim of witness and remind them of the law.

Najla Allani, director of Credif, told AFP the app states out loud the type of sexual misdemeanour and location, in a voice that speaks firmly in local dialect to "intimidate and scare the harasser".

"People dare not speak (themselves) out of fear, but with this voice app, they will be better able to react", Allani said.

An evaluation of the experimental initiative later this month will decide if it continues, so long as "the financial means allow it", she added.

It remains to be seen how big a contribution #EnaZeda will make to Tunisia's battle against sexual harassment, but one thing is sure -- the shroud of silence is no longer so suffocating.

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Congolese 'Terminator' warlord gets 30-year ICC sentence

Yahoo – AFP, Danny KEMP, November 7, 2019

Ntaganda was sentenced on a litany of crimes including directing massacres of
civilians in Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile, mineral-rich Ituri region in 2002
and 2003 (AFP Photo/EVA PLEVIER)

The Hague (AFP) - A Congolese rebel chief nicknamed the "Terminator" received a 30-year jail term from the International Criminal Court on Thursday for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the longest ever sentence given out by the tribunal.

Bosco Ntaganda was convicted in July of offences including murder, sexual slavery and using child soldiers in a mineral-rich region of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early 2000s.

Most of the charges against Rwandan-born Ntaganda, 46, related to a series of gruesome massacres of villagers carried out by his fighters.

"Murder was committed on a large scale," presiding judge Robert Flemr said, adding that the Hague-based court had taken the "particular cruelty" of some of Ntaganda's actions into account.

"The overall sentence imposed on you shall therefore be 30 years of imprisonment."

Judges gave him the maximum possible sentence in terms of the number of years but said that "despite their gravity" his crimes did not warrant a full-life prison term.

Ntaganda, dressed in a blue suit and shirt and wearing a red tie, showed no emotion as the sentence was passed in the high-security courtroom.

An ICC spokesman confirmed it was the heaviest ever sentence handed down to date by the court, which was set up in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes.

Ntaganda has already appealed against his conviction earlier this year on 13 counts of war crimes and five of crimes against humanity -- which saw him become the first to be convicted by the ICC of sexual enslavement.

He now has 30 days to appeal against the sentence.

'Held to account'

Human Rights Watch welcomed the prison term.

"Bosco Ntaganda's 30-year sentence sends a strong message that even people considered untouchable may one day be held to account," said Ida Sawyer, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division.

"While his victims’ pain cannot be erased, they can take some comfort in seeing justice prevail."

A refugee from the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, Ntaganda emerged as a ruthless driver of ethnic Tutsi revolts that subsequently convulsed neighbouring DRC.

Judges said Ntaganda was a "key leader" of the Union of Congolese Patriots rebel group and its military wing, the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC), in the DRC's volatile Ituri region in 2002 and 2003.

More than 60,000 people have been killed since the violence erupted in Ituri, according to rights groups, as militias battle each other for control of mineral resources.

The court heard fearful villagers dubbed him "Terminator", after the film featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a merciless robotic killer, during two bloody operations by Ntaganda's soldiers against civilians in rival villages in 2002 and 2003.

Fighters loyal to him carried out atrocities such as a massacre in a banana field behind a village in which at least 49 people including children and babies were disembowelled or had their heads smashed in.

No mitigating factors

Ntaganda received a series of sentences ranging from eight to 30 years, with ICC rules saying that the overall prison term must reflect the highest individual sentence.

He got 30 years for murder and attempted murder, with judges saying he was directly guilty of the murder of Catholic priest and indirectly responsible for many others by directing the military offensives. He also received a 30-year sentence for persecution.

Ntaganda further received 28 years for the "systematic" rape of "women, girls and men" including girls aged nine and 11; a sentence 14 years for the sex slavery of child soldiers recruited by his group; and 12 years for the sexual enslavement of civilian children.

Judges said they found no mitigating factors, despite defence arguments that he was himself a victim of the Rwandan genocide.

Ntaganda -- known for his pencil moustache and a penchant for fine dining -- said during his trial that he was "soldier not a criminal" and that the "Terminator" nickname did not apply to him.

After the Ituri conflict, Ntaganda was integrated into the Congolese army and was a general from 2007 to 2012, but then became a founding member of the M23 rebel group in a new uprising against the government.

In 2013 Ntaganda became the first ever suspect to surrender to the court, after walking into the US embassy in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

The six years Ntaganda has already served in custody will be deducted from his sentence, the ICC said.

Ntaganda's former FPLC commander Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years in jail in 2012.

The conviction was seen as a boost for the ICC after several high-profile suspects walked free. The court has also been criticised for mainly trying African suspects.