Social Mores And Civil Liberties in Africa

Crisis erupting in Burkina Faso shows an example of simple problem taking out of context in Africa. Students and activists in Burkina Faso are escalating their ongoing protests about police brutality against a student that has taken 6 people’s lives in Koudougou. The local press refused to publish it. Burkina Faso has one know online newspaper and it may be biased toward the interest of the government. It all started in a private High School last December, in Koudougou. It appeared that there was an argument between a girl and a boy during a physics class. The boy is said to have slapped the girl. And she decided to teach him a lesson by getting her boyfriend who is policeman to deal with him. The boy was taken to the station, where he was brutally beaten and it's said to have died from the injuries few weeks later. Somehow, apparently before he died, a complaint was made to the prosecutor general regarding the mistreatment he received from the police, but nothing happened. In Ivory Coast, Hundreds took to the streets in defiance on International Women's Day to express their disgust at the regime of Gbagbo and over last week's fatal shooting of seven female demonstrators, four of whom have been reported dead. Mariam Bamba, 32, picked up a tree branch next to one of the blood stains on the pavement where the women were barraged by gunfire. "This leaf is all that they were carrying when they were killed," she said. These narratives bring a serious focus on the issue of social mores between the genders and civil liberties in Africa. Join TAV this Wednesday for this thought provoking discussion.