All Posts Tagged With: "Violence against women"
What students are talking about today (December 7th edition)
Worst-ever Gangnam parody, gun control & pub trouble
Spartan High School Style (YouTube)
1. “This Gangnam Style parody made by high school students in New Holland, Pennsylvania, is so terrible it’s destined to outlive the original music video,” writes The Albatross. That may be going a little far, but there’s a reason this kooky video has a million clicks already. It’s hilarious!
2. A “possible abduction” at York University on Wednesday turned out to be just a prank, say Toronto Police. The pranksters had said they saw a person forced into a van by two men near the Fine Arts building. “Police have investigated the incident and spoken with the people involved. It has been revealed it was a prank played between the people involved,” they write.
3. Quebec’s universities say they were blindsided by a cut of $124-million to be implemented during the current school year. This comes as universities scramble to make up for revenue lost after tuition hikes were cancelled in September by the new Parti Québecois government.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (December 7th edition)
Marking the Montreal Massacre
A coast-to-coast round-up of remembrance
Photo by Flabber DeGasky on Flickr
On this date in 1989, a young man named Marc Lepine rounded up women at the Ecole Polytechnique engineering school in Montreal and opened fire, killing 14 females and injuring 14 others before turning the gun on himself. In his suicide note, he blamed women for his problems.
Since 1991, Dec. 6 has been The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Across Quebec today, survivors of the shooting will gather with activists and ask the Quebec government to sue the Canadian government over Bill C-19, which will abolish the long-gun registry and—they say— allow more violence against women to occur.
Here are a few of the ways universities across the country are marking the sombre occasion.
Blinded UBC student’s attacker dies
Cause of death T.B.D.
A Bangladeshi newspaper reports that Hassan Syed, the who man allegedly beat, bit and blinded his wife, University of British Columbia (UBC) master’s student Rumana Manzur, has died. Golam Haider, deputy inspector general of prisons, told bdnews24.com that Syed had been brought to a hospital prison cell Nov. 23 because he was mentally unstable. He then suffered cardiac failure on Dec. 5. Asked about suicide as a potential cause, Haider said that an autopsy has not yet been completed. Manzur’s aunt told The Toronto Star that her niece is aware of the death, but unable to speak publicly about it. The UBC community reacted to the news of Manzur’s June attack by raising $58,000 in the first month after it, which helped bring the victim and her child to Vancouver. Surgeries in Canada to restore her sight were unsuccessful, but the fundraising hasn’t stopped. UBC’s Muslim Students’ Association raised a further $6,000 for Manzur at an Iftar during Ramadan.
Blinded student returns to Vancouver
Rumana Monzur will receive treatment at UBC
The University of British Columbia student who was blinded by her husband during an attack in Bangladesh will return to Canada on Tuesday. Rumana Monzur has been granted a temporary resident permit by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. Because she will not be studying again right away, a student permit was inappropriate, reports Postmedia News.
Women around the world have rallied around the master of political science student as a symbol of how women sometimes struggle to be allowed to study. UBC officials say they have raised more than $35,000 toward Monzur’s expenses while she lives with her father on campus and recovers from the June 5 attack. She will receive care from the school’s department of ophthalmology. It’s unclear whether her five-year-old child will come to Canada. The husband is in a Dhaka jail awaiting trial.
