Women beaten, raped, tortured, murdered, at the hands of men with notions

Ah, Saturdays. You gotta love ’em. But last Saturday was a bit different. Last Saturday was a momentous day.

Last Saturday reminded us about what can happen when some men get a notion in their heads.

Last Saturday, Rebecca Cheptegei, 33, an Olympic runner and a sergeant in the Ugandan army, was buried in her family’s village with full military honours, including a gun salute that befitted her rank.

Rebecca died after being set on fire by her former boyfriend three weeks after her final race in the Paris Olympics.

According to the police, she and her boyfriend had argued over a piece of land Rebecca had bought in neighbouring Kenya. The boyfriend got a notion in his head. He doused her with petrol and set her ablaze.

Female athletes in Kenya reportedly run a high risk of violence from the men drawn to their prize money. Men who get notions.

Last Saturday was also a momentous day in France. There were protests in Paris, Marseilles. and elsewhere over what has been described as the country’s worst mass rape case.

France is in turmoil over the horrendous litany of abuse allegedly visited on grandmother Gisele Pelicot, now in her early 70s, who requested that details of the trial be made public because she is determined that “shame changes sides”.

At some point in their marriage, it seems, Gisele’s husband of 50 years (now her ex-husband) got a notion in his head. It is alleged that for 10 long years, Dominique Pelicot routinely stirred a mix of prescription medication into his wife’s food and invited men via an online chat room to sexually assault her at home in Provence while she lay unconscious.

Over time, Gisele began to fear – wrongly, as it turned out - that the regular blackouts and memory lapses she was experiencing were being caused by Alzheimer’s.

More than 50 men aged from their twenties to pensioners in their 70s now stand accused of raping this elderly woman in what has been described as an unholy trinity of voyeurism, drugs and secret surveillance. It’s believed another 30 or more alleged rapists have not been identified.

A bunch of real, upstanding members of society these, according to the reports, which say the group includes a journalist, a prison officer, a soldier, a fireman, a civil servant. Even a former police officer. As somebody put it, the accused are Everyman.

Many of those accused of raping a drugged, unconscious old woman – without, it has been reported, even affording her the protection of a condom - have chosen to wear masks in the courtroom where they are standing trial on charges of aggravated rape. They face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

Last Thursday, the trial had to be suspended after the ex-husband - who has admitted the charges against him - was taken ill on the day he was to be cross-examined. The judge warned the hearing might have to be postponed if Pelicot remains unable to give and hear evidence.

Here’s another, different Saturday, to remember. Saturday, March 21, 2015. On that day, the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs in Afghanistan very belatedly declared that 27-year-old Farkhunda Malikzada, a young teacher studying Islamic Law, had not, in fact, burned a copy of the Koran.

Two days earlier, on Thursday, March 19, 2015, Farkhunda had stopped at a shrine in the centre of Kabul to pray. She had argued with the caretaker about the selling of charms – little scraps of paper bearing verses from the Koran – which she believed were superstitious.

The man began shouting that she’d burned the Koran. Farkhunda strongly denied she had done so.

Lots of other men arrived. All, it seems, ravenously hungry for the scent of a woman’s blood.

Farkhunda was dragged out, pushed to the ground, and kicked.

Police arrived, and for a while managed to hold off an angry crowd.

A video – there are several on the internet if you look – shows Farkhunda sitting on the ground, covered in blood, deeply shocked, her veil and headscarf gone. One of her shoes has fallen off.

As the mob grows in strength, the police give up, back away, and look on as the young woman is beaten with sticks and run over by a car that then drags her for up to 300 metres.

Farkhunda is thrown onto the dry riverbed. Eventually her body is set on fire.

The subsequent investigation found no evidence that Farkhunda had burned the Koran.

Most of those men to be seen on the video were not, it has been reported, religious extremists. They were ordinary Afghans in jeans and t-shirts.

They were Everyman.

But they behaved like wolves.

A memorial now marks the place of Farkhunda’s death. Her coffin was carried only by women. She was declared a martyr. The street where she was murdered was named after her.

Eleven police officers were sentenced to a year in prison for their failure to defend her.

Eight civilians were given 16-year terms. Four death sentences were handed down. These were later quashed and replaced by prison sentences.

Yet now it’s 2024 and women cannot, by law, speak aloud in public in Afghanistan. They cannot show their faces in public. They are locked out of school. All because somewhere along the line, some men got notions in their heads. About women. And what we should do. About what we should not do.

And, in response, these men felt entitled to act whatever way they wanted, no matter how illegal or deviant their behaviour. Wouldn’t it give you pause for thought?

When you remember Aisling Murphy?

And all the many, many others; all the endless lists of girls and women battered, abused, raped, tortured, or murdered because some man got a notion in his head.