🌏 The Xinjiang Police Files Leak, Mexico Allows Girls Who Have Been Raped To Get Abortions Without Parental Consent And More

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Thousands of images and documents detailing China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority in internment camps have been leaked, exposing the human rights abuses committed by the Chinese government.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, in consortium with the BBC and other news outlets, released on Tuesday May 24 the Xinjiang Police Files, a series of more than 5,000 photographs, documents and speeches, mostly dated from 2017 to 2018, regarding the treatment of Uyghurs in China.

An anonymous hacker first passed the files to Dr. Adrian Zenz, a German professor researching Xinjiang internment camps and the Uyghur people.

Images released include mugshots of detained people beside police officers in full gear. A 15-year-old girl named Rahile Omer is the youngest identified detainee, while Anihan Hamit, 73, is the oldest.

Images have been verified to contain real people with the help of the international Uyghur community, which reported their missing relatives to media organizations.

Another set of images showed police using physical force to subdue detainees and carrying batons, demonstrating the harsh environments within the so-called “schools”.

Charges for Uyghurs’ detention ranged from “disturbing the social order” to listening to “illegal lectures” on phones, according to documents.

The Xinjiang police files also include documents with instructions for the officers surveilling internment camps, including a shoot-to-kill order for students trying to escape.

The documents also included Chinese President Xi Jinping’s proposal for a larger budget to build new centers due to the high number of detainees in the existing centers, as well as identified high-level CCP officials who were in agreement with the harsh treatment against the Uyghur minority.

Also Happening Around The World

🇬🇧 A report into British prime minister Boris Johnson’s lockdown-breaking parties has been published, revng a drunken and rowdyty culture in Johnson’s Downing Street while the rest of the UK was under a strict lockdown.

🇦🇫 Afghan male TV anchors are also covering their faces in solidarity with their women colleagues after the Taliban ordered all women TV presenters to cover their faces on air.

🇪🇹 Ethiopia is seeing a dramatic increase in child marriage across areas that have been affected by drought.

🇮🇳/🇧🇩 Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in parts of Bangladesh and India, leaving millions of people homeless and killing more than 50 people.

In a win for women’s and abortion rights activists, Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that all girls can get an abortion without parental consent in cases of rape.

Prior to the ruling on on Tuesday May. 24, only women and girls older than 12 years old could obtain an abortion in cases of rape.

Mexico has a high-rate of teen pregnancy, and many cases of sexual abuse happen in a family setting, according to Spanish news outlet El Pais.

The Supreme Court judge said he hopes the ruling will protect girls who suffer from sexual abuse from family or authorities.

Under the ruling, girls do not need to file a crime report about the rape and only has to swear that she was raped.

The court said all Mexican states and health facilities must now follow the ruling and provide adequate care for women seeking abortions.

Women’s rights groups in Mexico have been campaigning for the right to legal abortions for more than a decade, successfully pushing for its legalization in Mexico City in 2007 and decriminalization in Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Veracruz states.

In 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that criminalizing abortion is unconstitutional.

More Women You Should Know About

🇯🇵 13 Japanese women who sued a medical university for secretly making the entrance exam harder for women have won, with a court in Tokyo ordering the university pay compensation to the women for gender-based discrimination.

🇺🇦 Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, has opened up about the toll the war has taken on her family in a rare interview with president Volodymyr Zelensky.

🇵🇰 Two Pakistani-Spanish sisters have been allegedly murdered by their husbands, brother and uncle in a so-called “honor killing” on Friday May 20.

Meet Ivanka Siolkowsky, a Ukrainian-Canadian woman who has been painting flowers over bullet holes left over from the war in Ukraine’s Bucha.

Born in Canada, 39-year-old Siolkowsky – whose grandparents on both her father and mother’s side came from Ukraine – traveled to the Polish border and then to Ukraine to help after the war broke out.

It was in Bucha she met a man called Sasha, who had lost his son in the war and had his house bombed and burned to the ground, Siolkowsky told Almost.

“He told me he wanted to leave because there was no joy left in this city any more,” Siolkowsky said. “All he sees are bullet holes in his fence reminding him of his loss.”

She decided she wanted to erase the bullet holes for him and remind him of the joy that was, she said.

Sasha had told her his favorite flower was daffodils, so she started painting daffodils.

After she started, neighbors started approaching her while she was painting and asking her if she could paint their fences next.

Now Siolkowsky has painted five fences on the same block, and says that she hopes that the people of Bucha and other cities in Ukraine will begin painting their own fences.

“My goal was to paint one fence, and make one man smile,” she said. “Never did I think neighbors would then request it, nor did I think the whole world would soon see it.”

“Ukraine will overcome,” she added. “No matter how hard the Russians try, they can’t and won’t take away our culture.”

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