There were two news stories recently that I found very encouraging.
The first was the Panama Papers. The Panama papers is this massive leak about the offshore holdings of the filthy rich. While having offshore accounts isn’t illegal in and of itself, it usually smacks of something nefarious and maybe it should be illegal. It has implicated everyone from the Prime Minister of Iceland to Lionel Messi.
What I find encouraging is it was leaked at all. It was probably leaked by someone little. Similar to Edward Snowden who was just a data monkey but had access to everything the NSA did. The time has come to hold the 1%’s feet to the fire. The second part of the Panama papers that I love is that people are beginning to be held accountable. The Prime Minister of Iceland was forced to resign after massive protests.
God I love Icelanders.
The second story that gives me hope is the Brandon University requires victims of sexual assault to sign gag order. Not so much to the story but what happened afterwards. So as the CBC reports,
The contract, which Brandon University confirms is authentic, spells out that the signer cannot have contact with the other person involved in an incident and that they are not to discuss what happened with anyone else other than a counsellor.
Students are threatened with suspension or expulsion if they breach those conditions, according to a copy of the document obtained by CBC News.
Which as you can imagine re-victimizes women who have been assaulted by forcing them to remain silent. We Believe Survivors posted a copy of the contract here, which the university acknowledges as legitimate. One has to question whether it is the student’s well-being the school cares about or their own reputation.
Anyway the encouraging thing is a day later the University admits the gag order is a mistake, and has said it will rectify the situation. Yay for progress! Now if we could only get people to stop raping all together then we’d be all set.