Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- en:ecrit:articles-en [2025/03/12 07:57] – [Key Oscar moments, from Zoe Saldaña's emotional win and 'Oz' opening to Kieran Culkin's baby wish] natasha
+++ en:ecrit:articles-en [2025/03/12 07:58] (current) – [Trump signs order designating English as the official language of the US] natasha
@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 {{ :en:ecrit:newspaper_held.jpg?nolink&400 |}}
-===== Trump signs order designating English as the official language of the US =====
+===== International Women's Day protests demand equal rights and an end to discrimination, sexual violence =====
 ----
-{{:en:ecrit:ap25058636745273.jpg?270 |}}
+{{:en:ecrit:ap25067480946823.jpg?300 |}}
-By MICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press
+By MEHMET GUZEL and ANDREW WILKS Associated Press
-President Donald Trump signed on Saturday an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.
+ISTANBUL (AP) — Women took to the streets of cities across Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere to mark International Women's Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence.
-The order allows government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in language other than English.
+On the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women's groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine. The colorful protest was overseen by a large police presence, including officers in riot gear and a water cannon truck.
-It rescinds a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organizations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.
+The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 2025 the Year of the Family. Protesters pushed back against the idea of women's role being confined to marriage and motherhood, carrying banners reading "Family will not bind us to life" and "We will not be sacrificed to the family."
-"Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society," according to the order.
+Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women's rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women.
-"In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream," the order also states. "Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society."
+Erdogan in 2021 withdrew Turkey from a European treaty, dubbed the Istanbul Convention, that protects women from domestic violence. Turkish rights group We Will Stop Femicides Platform says that 394 women were killed by men in 2024.
-More than 30 states have already passed laws designating English as their official language, according to U.S. English, a group that advocates for making English the official language in the United States.
+"There is bullying at work, pressure from husbands and fathers at home and pressure from patriarchal society. We demand that this pressure be reduced even further," Yaz Gulgun, 52, said.
-For decades, lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to designate English as the official language of the U.S., but those efforts have not succeeded.
+**Women across Europe and Africa march against discrimination**
-Within hours of Trump's inauguration last month, the new administration took down the Spanish language version of the official White House website.
+In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues in which they don't get the same treatment as men.
-Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion and frustration at the change. The White House said at the time it was committed to bringing the Spanish language version of the website back online. As of Saturday, it was still not restored.
+In Poland, activists opened a center across from the parliament building in Warsaw where women can go to have abortions with pills, either alone or with other women.
-The White House did not immediately respond to a message about whether that would happen.
+Opening the center on International Women's Day across from the legislature was a symbolic challenge to authorities in the traditionally Roman Catholic nation, which has one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws.
-Trump shut down the Spanish version of the website during his first term. It was restored when President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021.
+From Athens to Madrid, Paris, Munich, Zurich and Belgrade and in many more cities across the continent, women marched to demand an end to treatment as second-class citizens in society, politics, family and at work.
+In Madrid, protesters held up big hand-drawn pictures depicting Gisele Pélicot, the woman who was drugged by her now ex-husband in France over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious. Pélicot has become a symbol for women all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence.
+Thousands of women marched in the capital Skopje and several other cities in North Macedonia to raise their voices for economic, political and social equality for women.
+Organizers said only about 28% of women in the country own property and in rural areas only 5%, mostly widows, have property in their name. Only 18 out of 100 women surveyed in rural areas responded that their parents divided family property equally between the brother and sister. "The rest were gender discriminated against within their family," they said.
+In Nigeria's capital, Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium, dancing and signing and celebrating their womanhood. Many were dressed in purple — the traditional color of the women's liberation movement.
+In Russia, the women's day celebrations had a more official tone, with honor guard soldiers presenting yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in St. Petersburg.
+**German president warns of backlash against progress already made**
+In Berlin, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made.
+"Globally, we are seeing populist parties trying to create the impression that equality is something like a fixed idea of progressive forces," he said. He gave an example of " large tech companies that have long prided themselves on their modernity and are now, at the behest of a new American administration, setting up diversity programs and raving about a new 'masculine energy' in companies and society."
+**Marchers in South America denounce femicides**
+In South America, some of the marches were organized by groups protesting the killings of women known as femicides.
+Hundreds of women in Ecuador marched through the streets of Quito to steady drumbeats and held signs that opposed violence and the "patriarchal system."
+"Justice for our daughters!" some demonstrators yelled in support of women slain in recent years.
+In Bolivia, thousands of women began marching late Friday, with some scrawling graffiti on the walls of courthouses demanding that their rights be respected and denouncing impunity in femicides, with less than half of those cases reaching a sentencing.
+Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report from Berlin.
 ===== How a canoe helped turn Hawaiian culture into a source of pride and even influenced Hollywood =====