All The World News You Need To Know This Week 🌏

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Myanmar’s government has freed more than 2,200 people it detained in anti-coup protests, including journalists and protesters who have been held for months.

• Myanmar has seen mass demonstrations against the military coup on Feb. 1, when the military seized power, detained the country’s elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and members of her party, and imposed a year-long state of emergency.
• As of July 1, a total of 6,462 people, including celebrities and journalists, have been detained, according to non-profit the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. More than 885 people have been killed, and 5,195 people remain in detention.
• A military spokesperson told outlet The Irrawaddy a total of 2,296 were released, adding they took part in protests but not in leading roles and “didn’t participate in violent acts.”
• The release come following condemnation from Western countries over the coup and ongoing international pressure on the military to free political prisoners. Human rights organizations, however, said the releases have simply been intended to appease the international community.

Also happening around the world

• 🇨🇦 Another 751 unmarked graves have been found at a former indigenous boarding school in Canada to assimilate indigenous children.

Valérie Bacot, a woman in France who was raped and abused for decades by her stepfather who later turned into her husband, has been freed.

• Bacot was 12 when her stepfather, Daniel Polette, began raping her. She had his child when she was 17 and he installed her in an apartment, before she gave birth to three more children. A few years later, he forced her into prostitution and made her have sex with clients in the back of his car.
• She killed him on March 13, 2016 with a gun he had hidden in the car after she was raped by a client. Bacot said she knew she had to act after he asked her about her daughter’s sex life.
• After the verdict of her release, Bacot’s lawyers said they have taken legal action against the state of France for failing to investigate the case; Bacot’s children told the court they had reported their father to the police twice but no action was taken.
• Domestic violence is a rampant problem is France; a woman is killed in France by her partner or former partner every three days, according to government figures in 2019.

Other Women You Should Know About

• 🇸🇦 Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah, two prominent Saudi women’s rights activists have been released after three years in prison. The women had fought for an end to the kingdom’s restrictions on women, including the guardianship system and the ban on women driving.
• 🇬🇮 Women in Gibraltar who fought for the right to legal abortion saw the country vote in a referendum to loosen one of the strictest bans on abortion in Europe to allow terminations within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Spain approved a draft bill on Tuesday Jun. 29 that will allow anyone over the age of 14 to change their legal gender without a medical diagnosis or hormone therapy.

• Under the law, both the current requirement for hormone therapy and psychological diagnosis will no longer be mandatory for people over 14 to switch gender in official documents. Instead, they only have to fill out a form at the registry office.
• Those who are aged 12 and over will be allowed to change their gender. However, teenagers aged between 12 and 14 will require court approval, and those between 14 to 16 will require parental consent.
• If passed, the bill would also ban LGBTQ conversion therapy.

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