{"id":6468,"date":"2013-07-31T02:07:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-31T09:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=6468"},"modified":"2022-07-31T04:00:01","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T11:00:01","slug":"haunts-what-exactly-is-the-womens-crime-democracy-autonomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=6468","title":{"rendered":"What exactly is the women\u2019s crime? Democracy? Autonomy?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Ingrid Turinawe<\/p><\/div>\n

In Kampala yesterday, Ingrid Turinawe and eleven other women activists were placed under `preventive arrest.\u2019<\/a> Preventive arrest means the person arrested hasn\u2019t actually done anything wrong \u2026 but might. What was the imminent danger posed by Turinawe and her sisters? Some would say a petition, others might say illegally approaching Parliament, and still others would say, democracy. Yet again, Ingrid Turinawe has been arrested for wanting to take that long walk to democracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The story, in a nutshell, is this. A hundred or so Forum for Democratic Change women activists gathered at the FDC headquarters. They wanted to write and present a petition to Parliament protesting new, higher taxes on water and kerosene. Water and kerosene are women\u2019s issues, in Uganda as everywhere else in the world. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s the whole present and imminent danger. A women\u2019s petition to Parliament. The police heard of the meeting, surrounded the building, forced their way, selected and arrested 12 of the women, including Ingrid Turinawe, head of the FDC Women\u2019s League, and Anna Adeke Ebaju, Makerere University Guild President.<\/p>\n

As of this morning, five of the women are still being held.<\/p>\n

What exactly is the women\u2019s crime that is being prevented? Democracy? Autonomy?<\/p>\n

The same question is being asked in Harare, where, on the cusp of today\u2019s elections, dozens of women were rounded up and charged with prostitution. The women\u2019s initial `crime\u2019 was ostensibly `loitering\u2019, which simply means being a woman on the street. This time, the manly cleansing of the public spaces was dubbed \u201cOperation Zvanyanya.\u201d Operation It\u2019s Too Much.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too much \u2026 what?<\/p>\n

Zimbabwean feminist activist Judith Chiyangwa<\/a> went to the places where the women had been arrested and she found loads of men, hanging out on the streets, selling, chatting, being. They weren\u2019t arrested.<\/p>\n

Too much \u2026 what? Too many women in one room in Kampala? Too many individual women on the streets in Harare? Too many women being women, demanding and creating oppositional, autonomous, independent, and even democratic women\u2019s spaces?<\/p>\n

(Photo Credit: Pearl Posts<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Kampala yesterday, Ingrid Turinawe and eleven other women activists were placed under `preventive arrest.\u2019 Preventive arrest means the person arrested hasn\u2019t actually done anything wrong \u2026 but might. What was the imminent danger posed by Turinawe and her sisters? Some would say a petition, others might say illegally approaching Parliament, and still others would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[114,556,1439,2882,5129,5058],"class_list":["post-6468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-dan-moshenberg","tag-haunts","tag-ingrid-turinawe","tag-judith-chiyangwa","tag-uganda","tag-zimbabwe","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6468"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26384,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6468\/revisions\/26384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}