One rape victim was asked by Paris police what she wore that day, and why she didn’t struggle more. Another woman was forced to fondle herself to demonstrate a sexual assault to a skeptical police officer.  They are among thousands of French women who have denounced in a new online campaign the shocking response of police officers victim-blaming them or mishandling their complaints as they reported sexual abuse. The hashtag #DoublePeine (#DoubleSentencing) was launched last month by Anna Toumazoff after she learned that a 19-year-old woman who filed a rape complaint in the southern city of Montpellier was asked by…

Germany’s interior minister said Sunday it was “legitimate” to protect borders, after several EU states asked Brussels to pay for barriers to prevent illegal migrants from entering the bloc. The call came earlier this month, as Poland proposed building a 350 million-euro ($410 million-) wall on its border with Belarus to keep migrants out. The EU accuses the Belarusian authorities of flying migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Minsk and then sending them into the bloc on foot in retaliation for sanctions imposed over a crackdown on the opposition. Asked whether Poland’s border wall was necessary, Germany’s Interior…

Uzbekistan votes in a presidential election on Sunday in which incumbent President Shavkat Mirziyoyev faces no genuine opposition and is almost certain to win a second term. Mirziyoyev’s predicted victory will allow him to deepen his largely successful reform campaign and likely lead to Uzbekistan opening up further to foreign trade and investment – while retaining a highly centralized political system. The 64-year-old leader has rebuilt the resource-rich country’s ties with both Russia and the West which had become strained under his predecessor Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s first post-independence president. Mirziyoyev has also reined in the powerful security services and oversaw…

Tens of thousands of supporters of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his right-wing government marched in Budapest on Saturday in a demonstration of unity behind the populist leader’s contentious policies that have led to challenges to his power both in Hungary and the European Union.  The rally was dubbed a “Peace March” and participants gathered along the western bank of the Danube River and departed across Liberty Bridge, winding through downtown Budapest toward the site of a rare public speech that Orban delivered to his supporters.  Orban painted a dark picture of what Hungarians could expect if he is…

Exhausted and trapped in a cold, “cruel” forest, Lebanese barber Ali Abd Alwareth said he regretted his weeklong bid to enter the European Union via the Belarus-Poland border.  “It’s miserable. Something that you don’t wish for your worst enemy. … A nightmare,” the soft-spoken 24-year-old with Crohn’s disease told AFP. Sitting cross-legged on a bed of pine needles and dead leaves near the border town of Kleszczele in eastern Poland, Abd Alwareth described being a ping-pong ball for the guards.  “I tried crossing like five, six times, and every time I got caught and deported back to the border” by…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday he had ordered the foreign ministry to declare 10 ambassadors from Western countries “persona non grata” for calling for the release of philanthropist Osman Kavala. Kavala has been in prison for four years, charged with financing nationwide protests in 2013 and with involvement in a failed coup in 2016. He denies the charges. In a joint statement on October 18, the ambassadors of Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand and the United States called for a just and speedy resolution to Kavala’s case, and for his “urgent release.”…

Forty-six countries and the European Union have adopted a legally binding mechanism under the so-called Aarhus Convention to protect environmental defenders who risk abuse and harm because of their activism. The Aarhus Convention was adopted in 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. It is the only global legally binding treaty linking environmental and human rights concerns.   However, U.N. officials say many of the rights guaranteed under the treaty are being violated.  In recent years, UNECE Executive Secretary Olga Algayerova says there have been many reports of these rights…

Russian and Chinese warships held their first joint patrols in the Western part of the Pacific Ocean on October 17-23, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Moscow and Beijing, which staged naval cooperation drills in the Sea of Japan earlier in October, have cultivated closer military and diplomatic ties in recent years at a time when their relations with the West have soured. The naval maneuvers have been closely watched by Japan which said earlier this week that a group of 10 vessels from China and Russia sailed through the Tsugaru Strait separating Japan’s main island and…

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrapped his trip to Europe Friday at the conclusion of the NATO defense ministerial in Brussels, with a focus on China and Afghanistan. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports. …