title: Erich Mielke

text: Following West Germany's Federal Minister for All-German Questions Jakob Kaiser's admonition in a late night broadcast to East Germans to shy away from provocations, RIAS, starting with its 11 pm news broadcast, and from then on in hourly intermissions, repeated the workers' demand to continue the strike the next day, calling specifically for all East Berliners to participate in a demo at 7am on the 17th at Strausberger Platz.


title: Erich Mielke

text: The following day, 17 June 1953, more that 100,000 protesters took to the streets of East Berlin. More than 400,000 protesters also took to the streets in other cities and towns throughout the German Democratic Republic. Everywhere, the demands were the same: free elections by secret ballot.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Outside of Berlin, the main centres of the protests included the industrial region around Halle, Merseburg, and Bitterfeld, as well as middle-size towns like Jena, Görlitz, and Brandenburg. No more than 25,000 people participated in strikes and demonstrations in Leipzig, but there were 32,000 in Magdeburg, 43,000 in Dresden, 53,000 in Potsdam – and in Halle, a figure close to 100,000.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In West Berlin, the American radio station RIAS and several other West German stations reported on the protests and on plans for a general strike. As East Germans listened to the broadcasts, 267,000 workers at State-owned plants in 304 cities and towns joined the general strike. In 24 towns, outraged East Germans stormed the Stasi's prisons and freed between 2,000 and 3,000 political prisoners.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In response to orders, the Soviet Occupation Forces, the Stasi and the Kasernierte Volkspolizei went on the attack. Bloody street battles ensued and hundreds of policemen defected to the side of the protesters. Both police and Stasi stations were overrun and some government offices were sacked. The Party leadership retreated into a fortified compound in the Pankow district of East Berlin.


title: Erich Mielke

text: At noon, the Soviet authorities terminated all tram and metro traffic into the Eastern sector and all but closed the sector borders to West Berlin to prevent more demonstrators from reaching the city centre. An hour later, they declared martial law in East Berlin.


title: Erich Mielke

text: The repression took place outside East Berlin police HQ – where Soviet tanks opened fire on "the insurgents".


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to John Koehler, "... by late afternoon, Soviet tanks accompanied by Infantry and MVD troops had rolled into East Berlin and other cities in the Soviet Zone. This made the people even angrier. At Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, which bordered on the American Sector, irate protesters ignored machine gun fire and the menacing barrels of tank guns. They ripped cobblestones from the streets and hurled them at the tanks."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Fighting between the Red Army (and later GDR police) and the demonstrators persisted into the afternoon and night. In some cases, the tanks and the soldiers fired directly into the crowds.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Overnight, the Soviets (and the Stasi) started to arrest hundreds of people. Ultimately, up to 10,000 people were detained and at least 20, probably as many as 40, people were executed, including Red Army soldiers who refused to obey orders. With the SED leadership effectively paralysed at the Soviet headquarters in Karlshorst, control of the city passed to the Soviets.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In honor of the uprising, West Germany established 17 June as a national holiday, called Day of German Unity. The extension of the "Unter den Linden" boulevard to the west of the Brandenburg Gate, formerly called "Charlottenburger Chaussee", was also renamed "Straße des 17. Juni" ("17 June Street") in honor of the uprising.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to John Koehler, "Provisional prison camps were set up to hold the thousands of Stasi victims. Nearly 1,500 persons were sentenced in secret trials to long prison terms. On 24 June, Mielke issued a terse announcement that one Stasi officer, nineteen demonstrators, and two bystanders had been killed during the uprising. He did not say how many were victims of official lynching. The numbers of the wounded were given as 191 policemen, 126 demonstrators, and 61 bystanders."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Also according to Koehler, "Calm returned to the streets of the Soviet Zone, yet escapes to the West continued at a high rate. Of the 331,390 who fled in 1953, 8,000 were members of the Kasernierte Volkspolizei, the barracked people's police units, which were actually the secret cadre of the future East German Army. Also among the escapees were 2,718 members and candidates of the SED, the ruling Party."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Alarmed by the uprising, Lavrenty Beria, the First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, personally travelled from Moscow to East Berlin. He conferred with Stasi Minister Wilhelm Zaisser and with Mielke, his deputy, both of whom he had known since the early 1930s. During both conversations, Beria demanded to know why the Stasi had failed to recognize the extreme discontent of the population and inform the Party leadership, which could then have prevented the uprising by taking extremely repressive measures in advance. Both Zaisser and Mielke answered Beria's questions circumspectly, and were accordingly left in their posts.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In response to the uprising, Beria decided to replace several hundred MVD officers, including Major General Ivan Fadeykin, the MVD resident of East Germany. The Stasi, according to John Koehler, "generally remained untouched except for the arrests and dismissals, for dereliction of duty, of a handful of officers in the provinces. One high-ranking Stasi officer shot himself."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Following Beria's return to Moscow, however, he was arrested on 26 June 1953, in a coup d'état led by Nikita Khrushchev and Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Beria was tried on charges of 357 counts of rape and high treason. He was sentenced to death and shot by Red Army Colonel-General Pavel Batitsky on 23 December 1953.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In an interview to "Neues Deutschland", the official party newspaper of East Germany, on 30 June 1953, the Party's Minister of Justice, Max Fechner, declared that, "illegal arrests," had been made and that being a member of a strike committee or suspicion of being a ringleader was not in itself grounds for arrest and conviction.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Meanwhile, when the East German Politburo met on 8 July, it seemed that Ulbricht would be deposed as Party General Secretary. Zaisser conceded that the whole Politburo was responsible for the "accelerated construction of socialism" and of the subsequent fallout. But he also added that to leave Ulbricht as Premier, "would be opposed catastrophic for the New Course".


title: Erich Mielke

text: By the end of the meeting, only two Politburo members still supported Ulbricht's leadership: Free German Youth League chief Erich Honecker and Party Control Commission Chairman Hermann Matern. Ulbricht only managed to forestall a decision then and there with a promise to make a statement at the forthcoming 15th SED CC Plenum, scheduled for later that month.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Meanwhile, Mielke informed a Party commission looking for scapegoats that his boss, Stasi Minister Wilhelm Zaisser, was calling for secret negotiations with West Germany and that, "he believed the Soviet Union would abandon the DDR."


title: Erich Mielke

text: By late July, Ulbricht was completely certain that he had the support of the new Soviet First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev. Therefore, he expelled his main opponents, Zaisser, Hernstadt and Ackermann, from the Politburo, and thus strengthened his position further.


title: Erich Mielke

text: SED Minister of Justice Max Fechner was personally arrested by Mielke and replaced by Hilde Benjamin, who was known to East German citizens as "Red Hilde", "The Red Freisler," and as, "The Red Guillotine," for her role as a judge in the SED's show trials.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Fechner was convicted of being, "an enemy of the Party and the State," and served three years in Bautzen Prison.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Wilhelm Zaisser was replaced as head of the Stasi by Ernst Wollweber and Mielke remained on staff as his deputy.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Mielke headed the Stasi from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. There was, under the East German system, no provision for parliamentary oversight. However, starting in 1971 Mielke was required to provide a detailed intelligence briefing to party secretary Erich Honecker each Tuesday, directly following the weekly Politburo meeting. (Before 1971, under Walter Ulbricht, Mielke was not involved in routine intelligence briefings to the leadership which, instead, were provided directly to Ulbricht by Intelligence Chief Markus Wolf.)


title: Erich Mielke

text: During his tenure, Mielke enforced "political and personal discipline reminiscent of the early French Foreign Legion". New recruits were required to take a solemn oath pledging "to fight alongside the state security organs of all socialist countries against all enemies of socialism" on pain of "the severest punishment under the Republic's laws and the contempt of the workers." Recruits were also required to sign a security pledge vowing never to make unauthorized visits to any "capitalist countries" and to report on any members of their families who did so.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Violations of the oath resulted in expulsion from the Stasi and blacklisting from all but the most menial jobs. Serious violations were tried before secret tribunals and led an estimated 200 Stasi agents to be shot. Another 100 were hanged. Colonel Rainer Wiegand once said, "There was only one way to leave the MfS without being haunted for the rest of your life. You either retired or you died."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Under Erich Mielke's leadership, the Stasi employed 85,000 full-time domestic spies and 170,000 civilian informants () (IMs). East Germans coined a term to describe the Stasi's pervasive surveillance of the population: "All-Covered" (). For this reason, Anna Funder has referred to East Germany as, "the most perfected surveillance state of all time."


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to John Koehler, "...the Stasi's tentacles probed every aspect of life. Full-time officers were posted to all major industrial plants. Without exception, one tenant in every building was designated as a watchdog reporting to an area representative of the "Volkspolizei"...In turn, the police officer was the Stasi's man. If a relative or friend came to stay overnight, it was reported. Schools, universities and hospitals were infiltrated from top to bottom. German academe was shocked to learn that Heinrich Fink, professor of theology and vice-chancellor of East Berlin's Humboldt University, had been a Stasi informer since 1968. After Fink's Stasi connections came to light, he was summarily fired. Doctors, lawyers, journalists, writers, actors, and sports figures were co-opted by Stasi officers, as were waiters and hotel personnel. Tapping about 100,000 telephone lines in East Germany and West Berlin around the clock was the job of 2,000 officers... Churchmen, including high officials of both Protestant and Catholic denominations, were recruited en masse as secret informants. Their offices and confessionals were infested with eavesdropping devices. Even the director of Leipzig's famous Thomas Church choir, Hans-Joachim Rotzsch, was forced to resign when he was unmasked as a "Spitzel", the people's pejorative for a Stasi informant."


title: Erich Mielke

text: In an interview with journalist Anna Funder, an ex-Stasi officer recalled, "Most often, people we approached would inform for us. It was very rare that they would not. And even if they didn’t, we’d beat them so hard with sticks that they would think twice before not informing. However, sometimes we felt that we might need to know where their weak points were, just in case. For example, if we wanted a pastor, we'd find out if he'd had an affair, or had a drinking problem—things that we could use as leverage. Mostly though, people said yes."


title: Erich Mielke

text: On Mielke's orders, and with his full knowledge, Stasi officers also engaged in arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, brutal harassment of political dissidents, torture, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of citizens.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In a 1991 interview, Jewish Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said, "The Stasi was much, much worse than the Gestapo, if you consider only the oppression of its own people. The Gestapo had 40,000 officials watching a country of 80 million, while the Stasi employed 102,000 to control only 17 million."


title: Erich Mielke

text: During Mielke's tenure, the Stasi's operations beyond East Germany were overseen by Markus Wolf and the "Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung" (MfS-HVA).


title: Erich Mielke

text: Mielke and Wolf provided money, training, and surveillance equipment to help build pro-Soviet secret police forces in Fidel Castro's Cuba, Baathist Syria, Sandinista-ruled Nicaragua, Mengistu Haile Mariam's Ethiopia, Idi Amin's Uganda, Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana, South Yemen. and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.


title: Erich Mielke

text: After the opening of Stasi archives, it was further revealed that West Germany was riddled with MfS-HVA moles. In what John Koehler has dubbed, "The Invisible Invasion", some West German citizens collaborated out of Marxist beliefs, but others were recruited through blackmail, bribery, career frustrations, or straight or gay sexual favors provided by Stasi operatives.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Another tactic was for Stasi military advisers assigned to African and Middle Eastern countries to request the arrest of West German tourists. Local police would then turn the prisoner over to the Stasi agent, who would offer the West German a choice between espionage or incarceration.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Senior politicians from the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Free Democratic Party of Germany, and the Christian Democratic Union were exposed and, when still alive, prosecuted.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Mielke and Wolf also seriously compromised West Germany's police departments, foreign and domestic intelligence services, diplomatic corps, military-industrial complex, and journalistic profession.


title: Erich Mielke

text: The most damaging American to spy for the Stasi was United States Army Sergeant James Hall III, who volunteered his services to Soviet and East German intelligence in November 1981.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Sergeant Hall sold the Stasi 13,088 pages of classified documents, including detailed information about Project Trojan, a worldwide electronic network with the ability to pinpoint armored vehicles, missiles and aircraft by recording their signal emissions during wartime and the complete National SIGINT Requirements List (NSRL), a 4258-page document about NSA operations at home and abroad.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In 1988, Sergeant Hall was tricked into confessing his espionage career to an undercover FBI Special Agent named Dmitri Droujinsky, a Russian-American, who was posing as Hall's new KGB handler. When news of Sergeant Hall's arrest became public, one Washington intelligence official called the breach, "the Army's Walker Case."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Beginning in 1960, Mielke and Wolf used false flag recruitment to secretly organize and finance Neo-Nazi organizations, which they then instructed to vandalize Jewish religious and cultural sites throughout West Germany. During the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann, Stasi agents sent letters to West German Neo-Nazis and Waffen-SS veterans, urging them to speak out and to raise money for Eichmann's defense attorney. This was done in order to lend credibility to Communist propaganda about the allegedly Fascist and neo-Nazi orientation of the Federal Republic of Germany.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to German historian Michael Wolffsohn, "There is no doubt that in the 1960s as now, there were Nazis who were unreconstructed, unchangeable and evil, but without the help of East Germany, these Nazis were incapable of a national, coordinated campaign. That was true of right-wing extremist criminals in the 1980s as well. The East German Communists used anything they could against West Germany, including the... fears by Western countries and Jews that a new Nazism could be growing in West Germany. There is... evidence that the East Germans continued to use Anti-Semitism as a tool against West Germany in the 1970s and perhaps right up until 1989."


title: Erich Mielke

text: In a 1991 interview with John Koehler, Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said of the Stasi, "They not only terrorized their own people worse than the Gestapo, but the government was the most Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israeli in the entire Eastern Bloc. They did nothing to help the West in tracking down Nazi criminals; they ignored all requests from West German judicial authorities for assistance. We have just discovered shelves of files on Nazis stretching over four miles. Now we also know how the Stasi used those files. They blackmailed Nazi criminals who fled abroad after the war into spying for them. What's more, the Stasi trained terrorists from all over the world."


title: Erich Mielke

text: During a 1979 visit to the GDR by senior PLO member Salah Khalaf, Mielke said, "We are paying great attention to the Palestine resistance and the other revolutionary forces fighting against the policies of the United States and against the provocations of the Israeli aggressor. Together with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, we will do everything to support this just battle."


title: Erich Mielke

text: With this in mind, Mielke ordered the Stasi to finance, arm, and train, "urban guerrillas," from numerous countries. According to former Stasi Colonel Rainer Wiegand, Mielke's ties to violent paramilitary groups were overseen by Markus Wolf and Department Three of the MfS-HVA. Members of the West German "Baader-Meinhoff Group", the Chilean "Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front", and "Umkhonto we Sizwe", the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress, were brought to East Germany for training in the use of military hardware, insurgent tactics, and, "the leadership role of the Party." Similar treatment was meted out to Palestinians from the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine", "Abu Nidal", and "Black September".


title: Erich Mielke

text: Other Stasi agents worked as military advisers to Soviet-backed African guerrilla organizations and the governments they later formed. They included the Namibian "SWAPO" and the Angolan "MPLA" during the South African Border War, the "FRELIMO" during the Mozambican War of Independence and civil war, and Robert Mugabe's "ZANLA" during the Rhodesian Bush War.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Colonel Wiegand revealed that Mielke and Wolf provided bodyguards from the Stasi's counter-terrorism division for Venezuelan-born PLO terrorist Carlos the Jackal and "Black September" leader Abu Daoud during their visits to the GDR. Col. Wiegand had been sickened by the 1972 Munich massacre and was horrified that the GDR would treat the man who ordered it as an honored guest. When he protested, Wiegand was told that Abu Daoud was, "a friend of our country, a high-ranking political functionary," and that there was no proof that he was a terrorist.


title: Erich Mielke

text: During the 1980s, Wiegand secretly blackmailed a Libyan diplomat into spying on his colleagues. Wiegand's informant told him that the La Belle bombing and other terrorist attacks against American and West German citizens were being planned at the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin. When Wiegand showed him a detailed report, Mielke informed the SED's Politburo, which ordered the Colonel to continue surveillance but not interfere with the plans of the Libyans.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to John Koehler, "Murder, kidnapping, extortion, bank robbery, and arson were felonies under the East German criminal code. However, if these offenses were committed under the banner of the 'anti-imperialist struggle,' the communist system would look the other way. Moreover, it had assigned the Stasi to make sure that terrorists were properly trained for murder and sowing mayhem. There was no limits to the East German regime's involvement with terrorism, so long as it could be ideologically justified."


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to John Koehler, "Increasingly concerned over the growing popular opposition, Stasi Minister Mielke early in 1989 ordered the creation of a special elite unit for crushing disturbances. Its personnel were carefully selected members of the counterespionage and counterterrorism directorate. They were equipped with special batons similar to electric cattle prods but much more powerful. In a secret speech to top-ranking Stasi officers on 29 June, Mielke warned that, 'hostile opposing forces and groups have already achieved a measure of power and are using all methods to achieve a change in the balance of power. Former Stasi Colonel Rainer Wiegand told me he was horrified when Mielke compared the situation with that of China two months earlier. Chinese students in Beijing had begun massive protests in April and in May, during a student demonstration in Tiananmen Square, security troops had opened fire on them killing hundreds. 'Mielke said our situation was comparable and we had to be ready to counter it with all means and methods,' Wiegand recalled. 'Mielke said that the Chinese leadership had succeeded in smothering the protests before the situation got out of hand.'"


title: Erich Mielke

text: Despite Mielke's attempts to suppress them, East Germany's protesters grew more emboldened with every arrest.


title: Erich Mielke

text: As the fortieth anniversary of the GDR approached, Mielke ordered, "We must stop the internal enemy. At the least hint of a disturbance of the celebration, isolate and arrest them."


title: Erich Mielke

text: One former Stasi Major recalled, "We mixed inconspicuously with the demonstrators, accompanied by our IMs. Hundreds of us stood at the sides of the street in order to stop any activity before it got started. We barely got any sleep toward the end. Never did I sense that the people were afraid of the MfS. The Stasi was more afraid of the people than the people were of them."


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to Koehler, "Despite the unrest, the regime celebrated its fortieth with a huge, pompous ceremony in Berlin on 7 October, while tens of thousands of outside the ornate building of the State Council. The People's Police cordons were utterly ineffectual. As Stasi Minister Erich Mielke drove up and was greeted by General Günter Kratsch, the counterintelligence chief, Mielke screamed at police: "Club those pigs into submission!" () The police ignored Mielke's ranting.


title: Erich Mielke

text: As more and more East Germans were arrested for protesting the 40th anniversary celebrations, many of them sang "The Internationale" in Vopo and Stasi custody to imply that they, rather than their captors, were the real working class and the real revolutionaries.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to Anna Funder, "There was a sea of red flags, a torchlight procession, and tanks. The old men on the podium wore light-grey suits studded with medals. Mikhail Gorbachev stood next to Honecker, but he looked uncomfortable among the much older Germans. He had come to tell them that it was over, to convince the leadership to adopt his reformist policies. He had spoken openly about the danger of not 'responding to reality.' He pointedly told the Politburo that, 'life punishes those who come too late.' Honecker and Mielke ignored him, just as they ignored the crowds when they chanted, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, help us!"


title: Erich Mielke

text: On 8 October 1989, Mielke and Honecker ordered the Stasi to implement "Plan X"—the SED's plan to arrest and indefinitely detain 85,939 East Germans during a state of emergency. According to John Koehler, Plan X had been in preparation since 1979 and was, "a carbon copy of how the Nazi concentration camps got their start after Hitler came to power in 1933."


title: Erich Mielke

text: By 1984, 23 sites had been selected for "isolation and internment camps." Those who were to be imprisoned in them ran into six categories; including anyone who had ever been under surveillance for anti-state activities, including all members of peace movements which were not under Stasi control.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to Anna Funder, "The plans contained exact provisions for the use of all available prisons and camps, and when those were full for the conversion of other buildings: Nazi detention centers, schools, hospitals, and factory holiday hostels. Every detail was foreseen, from where the doorbell was located on the house of each person to be arrested to the adequate supply of barbed wire and the rules of dress and etiquette in the camps..."


title: Erich Mielke

text: However, when Mielke sent the orders, codenamed "Shield" (), to each local Stasi precinct to begin the planned arrests, he was not obeyed. Terrified of an East German version of the mass lynchings of Hungarian secret police agents during the 1956 Revolution, Stasi agents throughout the GDR fortified their office-buildings and barricaded themselves inside.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Even as orders were going out to implement "Plan X", Mielke had already thrown his support behind the anti-Honecker faction in the SED's Politburo. Although he was of the same generation as Honecker and had matured in an environment where following orders was the rule, he was sober enough and politically savvy enough to realize this approach no longer worked. During a session on 10 October 1989, Mielke delivered a report attacking Honecker's desire to violently suppress the demonstrations rather than offer concessions.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In what Edward N. Peterson has called "a remarkable disclaimer of responsibility for the violence," Mielke declared that Honecker's orders to him "were built on false situation judgments." He added that Honecker's commands on 7 and 8 October "were false and undifferentiated condemnations of those who think differently. Despite this evaluation, there was never any instructions to use violence against persons. There is nothing in our basic principles to consider a demonstration as part of a possible counterrevolutionary coup."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Mielke also claimed that "the Party judged the situation falsely. We tried to tell them the true situation, but enough was not done." Mielke argued in favor of solving the demonstrations politically and giving "every DDR citizen the right to travel."


title: Erich Mielke

text: On 17 October 1989, Mielke and the rest of the GDR's Politburo met to follow Gorbachev's demand, voiced in August, for Honecker be removed as General Secretary of the SED and State Council chairman. Suspecting that Honecker's personal bodyguards might try to arrest the members of the Central Committee when they met to vote Honecker out in favour of Egon Krenz, Mielke saw to it that Stasi agents who were loyal to him were stationed near the meeting room. While deliberations were underway, Mielke told Honecker that "we simply cannot start shooting with tanks," and tried to impress upon Honecker that it was "the end".


title: Erich Mielke

text: After the vote to oust Honecker passed, Mielke "got nasty," and accused Honecker of corruption. Honecker responded that Mielke should not open his mouth so much. Mielke responded by putting the last nail into Honecker's coffin. He announced that the MfS had a file on the now-ousted leader. It contained proof of Honecker's corrupt business practices, sexual activities, and how, as a member of the underground Communist Party of Germany during the Nazi years, he had been arrested by the Gestapo and had named names.


title: Erich Mielke

text: To the shock of both the Politburo and the Stasi, Krenz's first televised addresses failed to win popular support. Despite his assurances that the SED was at last ready to embrace Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, Krenz's approval ratings remained extremely low.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Former Politburo member Günter Schabowski later recalled, "We made a palace revolution without offering a real alternative... We had not quickly and thoroughly enough whittled away from Stalin's methods."


title: Erich Mielke

text: On 7 November 1989, Mielke resigned, along with eleven out of eighteen members of the SED's Council of Ministers, in response to the increasing disintegration of the GDR.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Two days later, Schabowski announced on television that the east–west border was open without restriction.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to Anna Funder, there was panic at Stasi Headquarters in Berlin-Lichtenberg, "Stasi officers were instructed to destroy files, starting with the most incriminating–those naming westerners who spied for them, and those that concerned deaths. They shredded the files until the paper shredders overheated and shorted out. Among other shortages in the East, there was a shredder shortage, so they had to send agents out under cover to West Berlin to buy more. In Building 8 alone, the citizens' movement found over a hundred burnt out shredders. When they ran out of working shredders from the West and could not procure more they began using scissors to cut the documents by hand.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to William F. Buckley, Jr., "In the weeks after 9 November, Stasi offices were stormed in various cities around East Germany. Stasi commissars in three of those cities committed suicide. Others were thrown out of office windows by protesters. But not one was lynched or executed."


title: Erich Mielke

text: On 13 November 1989, Mielke was summoned to deliver a briefing about the protests to the GDR parliament, or "Volkskammer". Formerly a "rubber stamp parliament," the disintegration of the SED's power had allowed the "Volkskammer" to begin exercising real authority over the GDR. Therefore, Mielke, as the head of the Stasi (known as the "shield and sword of the [SED] party"), was summoned before the newly empowered parliament to justify his position in government.


title: Erich Mielke

text: As his speech was broadcast live, Mielke began by using overly bombastic, flag-waving language, saying "We have, comrades, dear assembly members, an extraordinarily high amount of contact with all working people" (). To his shock, the "Volkskammer" responded with boos, whistles, and catcalls.


title: Erich Mielke

text: His face grief-stricken and pale, Mielke then tried to defuse the situation, "Yes, we have such contact, let me tell you-let me tell you why. I am not afraid to stand here and to give you an unbiased answer" (). Mielke continued, speaking of the "triumph" of the socialist economy, continuing all the while to address the members of the Volkskammer as "Comrades" (). In response, Volkskammer member Dietmar Czok of the Christian Democratic Union, rose from his seat and raised his hand. The Volkskammer's president, Günther Maleuda, interrupted Mielke and urged Czok to speak.


title: Erich Mielke

text: With his voice dripping with contempt, Czok told Mielke, "As a point of order, I will not tell you this again. There are more people sitting in this Chamber than just your Comrades!" (). In response, many in the Volkskammer burst into applause, cheers, and shouts of "We are not your Comrades!" ()


title: Erich Mielke

text: Trying to appear magnanimous, Mielke responded, "This is a natural, Humanistic question! This is just a question of formality." (), leading to further shouts of displeasure from the members of the Volkskammer. In a last ditch effort, Mielke "raised his arms like an evangelist," and cried, "I love all – all Humanity! I really do! I set myself before you!" ()


title: Erich Mielke

text: Everyone in the room, including staunch SED members, burst out laughing. John Koehler later wrote, "Mielke was finished."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Mielke's address to the "Volkskammer" remains the most famous broadcast in the history of German television. Anna Funder has written, "When they think of Mielke, East Germans like to think of this."


title: Erich Mielke

text: On 17 November 1989, the "Volkskammer" renamed the MfS the "Amt für Nationale Sicherheit" (AfNS – Office for National Security). The following day, Mielke's tenure in office ended when the "Volkskammer" appointed "Generalleutnant" Wolfgang Schwanitz as the new director of the AfNS.


title: Erich Mielke

text: On 1 December 1989 the "Volkskammer" revoked the clause of the GDR constitution that declared the GDR to be a socialist state under the leadership of the SED, formally ending Communist rule in East Germany. Two days later, the SED announced that Mielke's party membership had been permanently revoked. Years later, he lamented, "Millions have died for nothing. Everything we fought for – it has all amounted to nothing." He also said, "If the party had given me the task, then there would perhaps still be a GDR today. On that you can rely."


title: Erich Mielke

text: On 7 December 1989, Erich Mielke was brutally beaten, arrested and thrown into solitary confinement for embezzlement of public funds in order to improve his hunting estate. He was charged with "Damaging the People's Economy" "(Schädigung der Volkswirtschaft"). On 7 January 1990, he was further charged with high treason and conspiring with Erich Honecker to bug the telephones and open the mail of every one of East Germany's citizens.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Meanwhile, the Federal Constitutional Court announced that Mielke had also been indicted for having ordered two terrorist attacks by the Baader-Meinhoff Group against United States military personnel who were stationed on West German soil. The first was the car bomb attack against the United States Air Force at Ramstein Air Base on 31 August 1981. The second was the attempted murder with an RPG-7 anti-tank rocket of United States Army General Frederick Kroesen, his wife, and the West German Federal Police (BKA) officer who was driving their armored Mercedes at Heidelberg on 15 September 1981.


title: Erich Mielke

text: After German reunification in October 1990, Mielke was also indicted for ordering the shootings of defectors at the Berlin Wall. He was also charged with misuse of office, breach of trust, and incitement to pervert the course of justice.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In February 1992, Mielke was put on trial for the 1931 first degree murders of Berlin Police Captains Anlauf and Lenck as well as the attempted murder of Senior Sergeant Willig. The evidence for Mielke's guilt was drawn from the original police files, the transcripts from the 1934 trial of his co-conspirators, and a handwritten memoir in which Mielke revealed that his role in, "the Bülowplatz Affair," had been his reason for fleeing to Moscow from the Weimar Republic in 1931. All had been found in Mielke's house safe during a police search in 1990. Mielke was believed to have kept the documents for the purpose of "blackmailing Honecker and other East German leaders." Former Associated Press reporter and White House Press Secretary John Koehler also testified that Mielke had boasted of his involvement in the Bülowplatz murders during a confrontation at Leipzig in 1965.


title: Erich Mielke

text: During his trial, Mielke appeared increasingly senile, admitting his identity but otherwise remaining silent, taking naps, and showing little interest in the proceedings. In a widely publicized incident, Mielke appeared to mistake the presiding judge for a prison barber. When a journalist for "Der Spiegel" attempted to interview him in Plötzensee Prison, Mielke responded, "I want to go back to my bed" (). Opinion was divided whether Mielke was suffering from senile dementia or was pretending in order to evade prosecution.


title: Erich Mielke

text: After twenty months of one-and-a-half-hour daily sessions, Erich Mielke was convicted on two counts of murder and one of attempted murder. On 26 October 1993, a panel of three judges and two jurors sentenced him to six years' imprisonment. At his sentencing, Mielke started to cry. In pronouncing sentence, Judge Theodor Seidel, told Mielke that he "will go down in history as one of the most fearsome dictators and police ministers of the 20th century."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Mielke was then put on trial for ordering the shootings of East Germans who were trying to defect to the West. In November 1994, the presiding judge adjourned the proceedings, ruling that Mielke was not mentally competent to stand trial.


title: Erich Mielke

text: During his incarceration, at JVA Moabit corrections officers supplied Mielke with a red telephone like the one in his office at Stasi Headquarters. Although it was not connected to the outside world, Mielke enjoyed having imaginary conversations with non-existent Stasi agents. His other favorite pastime was watching game shows on television.


title: Erich Mielke

text: In 1995, parole officers and Mielke's attorneys argued that he was "totally confused" and obtained his release. At 87 years of age, Erich Mielke was Germany's oldest prison inmate and had been incarcerated for 1,904 days. Days before his release, the Public Prosecutor of Berlin announced that he was "not interested in chasing an 87-year-old man anymore" and that all further prosecution of Mielke had been indefinitely suspended.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to Koehler, "[Mielke's] bank account, which held more than 300,000 Marks (about US$187,500), was confiscated. Before his arrest in 1989, the most feared man in East Germany had lived in a luxurious home with access to an indoor pool. In addition, he owned a palatial hunting villa, complete with a movie theater, trophy room, 60 servants, and a 60 square kilometers hunting preserve. After he was released from prison Mielke was obliged to move into a two-room, 55-square-meter flat. Like all Stasi pensioners, he would henceforth have to live on 802 marks (about US$512) a month."


title: Erich Mielke

text: Erich Mielke died on 21 May 2000, aged 92, in a Berlin nursing home. After being cremated at the crematorium in Meissen, an urn containing Mielke's ashes was buried in an unmarked grave at the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in Berlin. An estimated 100 people reportedly attended the funeral. Erich Mielke's grave is outside the memorial section established at the entrance in 1951 by East German leaders for communist heroes. Within hours of his funeral, the flowers and wreaths left at Mielke's grave were ripped to shreds by persons unknown.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Writing in 2003, Australian journalist Anna Funder declared, "The name Mielke has now come to mean 'Stasi.' Victims are dubiously honored to find his signature in their files: on plans for someone to be observed 'with all possible methods', on commands for arrest, for kidnapping, instructions to judges for sentencing, orders for 'liquidation'. The honor is dubious because... he signed so many."


title: Erich Mielke

text: In 2012, the museum at the former Stasi headquarters opened Mielke's office as a permanent exhibit. Soon after, "The Guardian" correspondent Tam Eastley visited the exhibit and numerous sites in Berlin connected to Mielke's life, times, and legacy. When she visited Mielke's grave, Eastley found that it had become a shrine for adherents of "Ostalgie".


title: Erich Mielke

text: Erich Mielke was a fitness enthusiast, a non-smoker, and drank very little. He was a keen hunter and owned a large area of ground where he would hunt animals with other East German and visiting Soviet officials.


title: Erich Mielke

text: During the late 1940s, when Mielke was working as security chief of the DWK, he began a relationship with Gertrud Mueller, a seamstress. On 18 December 1948, shortly after the birth of their son Frank Mielke, Erich and Gertrud married in a civil ceremony.


title: Erich Mielke

text: According to the newspaper "Bild", the Mielkes adopted an orphaned girl named Ingrid, who was born in 1950. Like her adopted brother Frank, Ingrid Mielke attended the Wilhelm Pieck School. She ultimately became a captain in the Stasi and married a Stasi Lieutenant named Norbert Knappe. As of 1999, the Knappes had both refused to grant an interview to "Bild" reporters.


title: Erich Mielke

text: Mielke received a large number of awards and commemorative medals from organisations within the German Democratic Republic and from allied states. A more complete list is available (in German) at .


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: The Serbia men's national basketball team () represents Serbia in international basketball competition and is controlled by the Basketball Federation of Serbia. Serbia is currently ranked sixth in the FIBA World Rankings.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: From 1992 to 2003, the national team played under the name of FR Yugoslavia and from 2003 to 2006, under the name of Serbia and Montenegro in international tournaments. Following the Montenegrin declaration of independence in 2006, Basketball Federation of Serbia retained the place of Basketball Federation of Serbia and Montenegro as a FIBA member. Therefore, all the results and medals from this period are succeeded by the Serbia national team.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: With the start of Yugoslav Wars in 1991, and subsequent breakup of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslavia national team was disbanded. The team consisted of players selected from the population of over 23 million people, and the basketball infrastructure was evenly distributed among the six states which formed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: In 1992, FR Yugoslavia was established as the federation of the two remaining Yugoslav republics, Serbia and Montenegro. The newly established country had less than half the population of the former country. The Basketball Federation of FR Yugoslavia became the governing body of basketball for the new country. After the adoption of UNSCR 757, the national team was suspended from participating in international tournaments. Due to these sanctions and ongoing war, the national team was prevented from participating at the 1992 Summer Olympics, EuroBasket 1993 and 1994 FIBA World Cup.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Without much sponsorship for the war-impoverished country, the national team made its comeback to the international scene at the EuroBasket 1995 in Greece, where it won the gold medal; after defeating Lithuania in the final. At the 1996 Summer Olympics, the team lost 69–95 to the United States in the gold-medal game. After the defeat, the national team would go on to claim the gold medal in their next two international competitions, EuroBasket 1997 and the 1998 FIBA World Cup; while winning the bronze medal at EuroBasket 1999 and reclaiming gold once again at the EuroBasket 2001.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: One of the most notable wins for the Yugoslavia national team came in the quarter-finals of the 2002 FIBA World Cup, where the host nation of the tournament, the United States was eliminated 81–78. The significance of the win was tremendous for the Serbian people in general, as the public in Serbia perceived the United States political leadership responsible for the breakup of Yugoslavia, and destruction of the country's infrastructure; as well as civil victims during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Thereafter, the Yugoslavia national team went on to win the competition, by defeating New Zealand in the semi-finals and Argentina in the final 84–77 in OT to win the gold medal.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: In 2002, FR Yugoslavia consisted of the states of Serbia and Montenegro. The merged nations came to a new agreement regarding continued co-operation, which, among other changes, promised the end of the name Yugoslavia. On 4 February 2003, the federal assembly of Yugoslavia created a loose state union—the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. The following years were underwhelming as the national team failed to make the podium at international tournaments, after decades of winning medals.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: At the EuroBasket 2003, the team came in sixth place, but due to their world champion status, were automatically qualified for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Entering 2004, the national team participated in the less important Diamond Ball tournament, prior to the 2004 Olympic Games where they won the gold medal. Although the team was unable to carry over the momemtum heading into the Olympics, and were eliminated in the group stage with a (1–4) record, finishing in 11th place.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: After two consecutive tournament disappointments, hopes of getting back on the podium returned for the EuroBasket 2005 where Serbia and Montenegro was the host nation. Heading into the tournament, Željko Obradović was brought back for a second stint as head coach of the national team. However, they were eliminated in the play-off stage by France 74–71, and finished in ninth place. After the tournament, Obradović stepped down, and blamed a bad atmosphere among the team's star players for the failure. The team then participated at the 2006 FIBA World Cup on a wild card, due to the results in the past on the initiative by FIBA prominent administrator Borislav Stanković. Although the national team of Serbia and Montenegro came up short once again, with another ninth place finish.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: On 21 May 2006, Montenegrins voted in an independence referendum, with 55.5% supporting independence. The subsequent Montenegrin proclamation of independence in June 2006 and the Serbian proclamation of independence on 5 June ended the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and thus the last remaining vestiges of the former Yugoslavia.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Following the dissolution of the state union of Serbia and Montenegro, the national team participated at the EuroBasket 2007. There, the team finished the competition failing to make it out of the group stage after three close losses. The result failed to qualify the team for the 2008 Summer Olympics, which was their first time missing the Olympic tournament after missing it in 1992 due to suspension.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: In December 2007, the legendary Dušan Ivković hinted that he would take the helm as head coach of the national team.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Under Ivković's coaching, a new generation of players led by Nenad Krstić and Miloš Teodosić returned some of the old glory by taking the silver medal at Eurobasket 2009. At the 2010 FIBA World Cup, after narrowly defeating Croatia in the Round of 16, Miloš Teodosić hit a deep three-point shot to upset the favourites of the tournament Spain in the quarter-finals. Entering the semis, Serbia would come up short, after a controversial referee's error to the tournament's host Turkey 83–82. With the youngest team in the competition, Serbia eventually finished in fourth place after losing to Lithuania 99–88 in the bronze-medal game.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: At the EuroBasket 2011, the team failed to reach the semi-finals, finishing the tournament in eighth place; thus failing to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics. At the EuroBasket 2013, the team was once again eliminated in the quarter-finals and finished in seventh place.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Following the EuroBasket 2013, Ivković stepped away from the position, and Serbian basketball hall of famer Aleksandar Đorđević stepped into his place.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Đorđević led the team to the silver medal at the 2014 FIBA World Cup, where they lost in the final to the United States. At the EuroBasket 2015, Serbia finished in fourth place, with their only tournament loses coming in the semi-finals to Lithuania and in the bronze-medal game to France.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: After winning the 2016 Olympic Qualifying Tournament held in Belgrade, the national team won the silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, losing in the final to the United States.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: With the absence of team captains Miloš Teodosić, and Nikola Jokić, rising star Bogdan Bogdanović emerged as team leader at the EuroBasket 2017. The national team went on to earn their third silver medal in four years, after falling to a Goran Dragić-led Slovenia 93–85 in the final.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Facing a different qualification system introduced by FIBA for the 2019 FIBA World Cup, the national team was forced to play without their key players in nearly all of their qualification matches. However, they narrowly secured the last spot for the World Cup in their second round qualification group. Prior the World Cup, Serbia was dubbed as one of the favourites to win the tournament; but was eventually defeated in the quarter-finals by Argentina. With the team relegated to the classification phase, they would pick up wins against the United States and Czech Republic to finish in fifth place. After the tournament, head coach Đorđević announced his decision to leave the position after six years.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Under new head coach Igor Kokoškov, Serbia failed to qualify to the 2020 Summer Olympics after losing in the final game of the Qualifying Tournament to Italy before home crowd. At the EuroBasket 2022, led by legendary head coach Svetislav Pešić, after winning all five group matches, Italy upset Serbia in Round of 16 with 94–86 and Serbia finished in ninth place.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: Since 1992, the national team was managed by a total of eight different head coaches. Dušan Ivković, Željko Obradović, and Svetislav Pešić are the only coaches with more than one spell.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: These tables include player statistics on Olympic games, FIBA World Cup and FIBA Eurobasket matches since 1995.


title: Serbia men's national basketball team

text: This is a list of people who have won two or more medals, who represented FR Yugoslavia / Serbia and Montenegro or Serbia since 1995.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: "Girlfriend" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne. The song was written by Lavigne and Dr. Luke; the latter is also the producer. "Girlfriend" was released as the lead single from her third studio album, "The Best Damn Thing" (2007) on February 27, 2007 by Columbia and RCA Records. Lyrically, the song revolves around its protagonist having a crush on someone who is in a relationship, proclaiming she should be his girlfriend. The song has been noted to have similarities to Toni Basil's 1982 single "Mickey", and The Rubinoos' 1979 single "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend". The songwriters of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" sued Lavigne and Dr. Luke for copyright infringement; the suit was later settled.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: "Girlfriend" received generally positive reviews from music critics, who complimented its catchiness. The song was a worldwide success, peaking at the top spot of the charts in eight countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and was Lavigne's first number-one song in the United States, reaching the top on "Billboard" Hot 100 and "Billboard" Top 40 Mainstream. It additionally charted in the top ten of most other countries. The song's accompanying music video, directed by The Malloys, sees Lavigne portraying three alter-egos, with all of them fighting over the same guy. In June 2007, the song's official remix, featuring American rapper Lil Mama, was released. Lavigne performed the song a number of times, including at the 2007 MuchMusic Video Awards, the 2007 Teen Choice Awards, and the 2008 Juno Awards.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: The song's success made it a mainstay of pop music in the late 2000s. "Girlfriend" was certified multi-platinum in Australia and the United States. It was among the top-selling songs of 2007, with over 7.3 million worldwide sales. In 2008, the song became the most viewed video on YouTube, and was the first video on the site to reach 100 million views. "Rolling Stone" ranked the song number thirty-five on their "Top 100 Songs of 2007" list. Several versions of the song were released with the chorus sung in multiple languages. In 2010, the song was named the ninety-fourth most successful song on the Hot 100 in the 2000s decade. Allmusic highlighted the song as one of the most significant punk-pop songs of all time. The song also received several awards, including Most Addictive Track at the MTV Europe Music Awards, Song of the Year at Los Premios MTV Latinoamérica, Choice Music: Single at Teen Choice Awards, the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Song and was nominated for Single of the Year at the Juno Awards.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Following the release of her second studio album, "Under My Skin" (2004), Lavigne wanted to record more "fun and upbeat" music. "Girlfriend" was written by Lavigne and Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, with Dr. Luke also producing the track. The song was written while Lavigne was intoxicated, with Lavigne commenting that the chorus only took two minutes to write. Lavigne was initially hesitant to release "Girlfriend" as the lead single from "The Best Damn Thing", referring to the song's conception as "just a joke." The song was not based on a personal experience, with Lavigne opting to write about general topics to appeal to a wider audience. In December 2006, Lavigne announced the song as the lead single from her then-upcoming album:


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Hey guys! I keep getting asked about my record and what it is called [...] so I wanted to give u guys all the info directly [...] I'm calling the record The Best Dam Thing, and the first single is called "Girlfriend", the single comes out February and the record in April. I promise you guys will love this record, it is my favorite one!!! And I can't wait! It is really fast, fun, young, bratty, aggressive, confident, cocky in a playful way [...] all the good stuff.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: In an effort to appeal to non-English markets, Lavigne recorded the song's chorus in seven different languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, and Mandarin. Lavigne spent hours studying these different languages in order to ensure a correct pronunciation with her various deliveries. A Hindi version of the song was recorded twice, although it was scrapped due to issues with the diction and meter when converting the song's chorus from its Western rhythms to Hindi. "Girlfriend" is a moderately fast pop punk, and power pop song. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing, the song is written in the key of D major and is set in time signature of common time with a tempo of 164 beats per minute. Lavigne's vocal range spans two octaves, from A to D. Lyrically, the song is about wanting to steal someone's boyfriend. "PopMatters" compared the song with "Mickey" by Tony Basil.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: On July 2, 2007, the Rubinoos frontman Tommy Dunbar and songwriter James Gangwer filed a lawsuit for infringement of copyright against Lavigne, Dr. Luke, RCA Records, and Apple. Dunbar and Gangwer alleged that "Girlfriend" plagiarized the Rubinoos' 1979 single "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend". Lavigne denied these accusations and noted the common usage of the lyrics employed in both songs; she cited the Rolling Stones' "Get Off of My Cloud" and the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" as songs with similar lyrics. Dr. Luke claimed that neither he nor Lavigne had heard of the Rubinoos prior to the lawsuit and that he would be willing to take a polygraph if doing so would help to disprove Dunbar's claims. Lavigne's manager, Terry McBride, similarly refuted the allegations, referring to Dunbar and Gangwer's claims as baseless.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Both Dunbar and McBride consulted musicologists to prepare reports on the similarities and dissimilarities between the songs. Dunbar's musicologist reported that there was an "unusually high degree of similarity" between the songs while McBride's musicologist reported that they do not share any significant lyrical or melodic content. While McBride contended that the songs were dissimilar, he acknowledged that Lavigne would be willing to settle the case to avoid expensive legal proceedings. In January 2008, Dunbar and Gangwer's attorney, Nicholas Carlin, confirmed that a confidential settlement had been reached between the two parties, but refused to comment further. However, Dunbar and Gangwer later released a joint statement on January 15, 2008 in which they claimed to "completely exonerate" Lavigne and Dr. Luke from any wrongdoing. Following the settlement, Lavigne commented: "Well, [Dunbar and Gangwer] didn't win. But that happens all the time in the music business. I am not the first artist nor will I be the last to go through this."


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Christian Hoard of "Rolling Stone" called it a "hypercatchy, giant-sounding 'Hey Mickey' tribute", and commented that the song is one of the album's "monster pleasures". Chris Willman of "Entertainment Weekly" noted the popularity of the song, referring to Lavigne as an "alpha female out to steal a stud from a meek rival who’s 'like, so whatever'". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic highlighted the song as a 'track pick' in a review of the album, "The Best Damn Thing". He praised the album for opening with "Girlfriend", describing the song as a "bright bubblegum blast". Jon Pareles of "The New York Times" also highlighted "Girlfriend" as the best song off of "The Best Damn Thing", commenting that it used "cleverly manipulated echoes and attacks to sound as if Ms. Lavigne were charging in from all directions". Jody Rosen of "Slate" referred to "Girlfriend" as "brash and catchy", praising the song's "shout-along vocals, power chords, [and] hand claps amplified to sound like an army on the march".


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: According to Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine, the song employs "a catchy, cheerleader stomp a la Tony Basil's 'Mickey'", although Lavigne's "attempts at sounding irreverent ... just wind up sounding juvenile". Laura Snapes of "The Guardian" also compared "Girlfriend" to "Mickey", referring to the song as a "deadpan cheerleader banger". Also from "The Guardian", Alex Macpherson labeled the song as "brilliantly addictive". Tim O'Neil of "PopMatters" felt that the chorus of the song "blatantly rips the hook from Toni Basil's 'Mickey'", although he also stated that the song has a "torturous propensity to get stuck in your head". Joan Anderman of "The Boston Globe" praised the catchy hook of "Girlfriend", commenting that "It sounds great -- fizzy and snotty and unbelievable catchy". MuchMusic attributed the success of the song to the mix of various genres, stating: "[Lavigne] can succeed in punk, rock and pop with her bubblegum anthem 'Girlfriend'". At the Juno Awards of 2008, "Girlfriend" garnered Lavigne a nomination in the Single of the Year category. The song also garnered Lavigne two wins at the 2008 Japan Gold Disc Awards in the Mastertone of the Year and Single Track of the Year (Mobile) categories. The song was ranked at number 35 on "Rolling Stone" list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007. "MTV Asia" ranked the song as the 77th top song of 2007, while MTV Latin America listed "Girlfriend" as the number one song of 2007. "Billboard" ranked the song as the twelfth best song of 2007.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Because of digital download sales in excess of 122,000, the song debuted at number five on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, becoming her fifth and last top ten hit. Afterwards it became Lavigne's first song to reach number one on the Hot 100, in the issue dated May 5, 2007; her previous highest peak on the chart was with 2002's "Complicated", which reached number two. It remained in the top ten for 18 weeks, which was two more than the year-end number-one single of 2007, Irreplaceable. It became the last number one hit on that chart by a Canadian female artist until 2012's "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen. In Canada, the song debuted at number 1. As of September 2015, "Girlfriend" has sold 3.8 million copies in the United States.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: In Japan, the song has been certified Million for more than 1,000,000 sales through ringtones and 3× Platinum for 750,000 sales. Thus, the song has sold more than 3,000,000 copies there making it the best-selling single by a western female artist of all time on Japan. "Girlfriend" debuted on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart at number three. The following week it reached number-one, and it remained at the top for six non-consecutive weeks, equalling Lavigne's previous number-one single on the ARIA Charts, "Complicated". After three weeks on the charts, it was certified gold by ARIA, then platinum after seven weeks for sales in excess of 70,000 copies. It was then certified double platinum, with sales in excess of 140,000. In 2008, it was certified quadruple platinum for sales of 280,000. On the UK Singles Chart, "Girlfriend" peaked at number two, surpassing "Complicated" as Lavigne's highest-peaking single on the chart. The song ended 2007 as the years 20th biggest-selling single in the UK and spent 28 weeks inside the chart and is Lavigne's biggest hit in the UK to date. It became the best selling song of 2007 worldwide with around five million copies outside the US. To date, "Girlfriend" has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: The music video was directed by The Malloys and filmed at Golf N' Stuff in Norwalk, California. They praised the video for "sounding different than most female artist at the time and for its very punk rock-pop feel, something she does better than anybody."


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: The music video features two girls both played by Lavigne: one with glasses and red hair, and one with a rebellious persona and black hair. The video begins inside a family fun entertainment center where the red-haired Lavigne and her boyfriend are walking together. The black-haired Lavigne sees her and shows her an intimidating disposition, to which the former ignores. As the couple walk away, the black-haired Lavigne begins to sing the song and tries her luck on the red-haired Lavigne's boyfriend. Featured in the video are scenes of black-haired Lavigne fighting over the man with the red-haired Lavigne and trying to outdo her repeatedly. Between the scenes we see Lavigne, now with pink-streaked blonde hair, singing with her band accompanying her at the back. The video also featured this Lavigne and her friends dancing in a restroom.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: After the starting scene, the video shows them at Li'l Indy, where they ride go-carts. Here, black-haired Lavigne is seen viciously bumping the car of the red-haired Lavigne, causing her to spin around and lose control. Next, the red-haired Lavigne and her boyfriend get inside a photo booth where black-haired Lavigne slips in and pulls the red-haired Lavigne out of the booth before the booth takes the pictures. Black-haired Lavigne's friends then block the red-haired Lavigne's way (by positioning themselves at the booth entrance) to give the black-haired Lavigne time in the booth.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: The couple are now seen sharing a churro stick together, where black-haired Lavigne sees them yet again, throws the churro stick away and kisses the red-haired girl's boyfriend, much to the latter's surprise and anger. It is nighttime when the couple decide to head over to a miniature golf course to while away some time playing, where the red-haired Lavigne cheerfully wins.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Unfortunately for her, the black-haired Lavigne and her friends happen to be present at the venue as well. As soon as she and her friends see them, black-haired Lavigne hits her in the head with a golf ball, resulting in the red-haired Lavigne splashing down into the water. Her boyfriend tries to grab her hand but misses, to black-haired Lavigne's amusement. Finally, the man, who eventually develops feelings for black-haired Lavigne, is seen waiting for her. As she comes toward him, they soon hold hands together, but red-haired Lavigne sees this and attempts to seize black-haired Lavigne. But black-haired Lavigne and the man manage to dodge her, and in her attempt to win back her boyfriend, she tumbles all the way down and lands in a portable toilet ahead, where she gives a look of desperation towards the camera, showing she has failed to do so, and signalling that black-haired Lavigne has finally won the man's affections. Blonde Lavigne then takes her new boyfriend into a bathroom stall and slightly opens the door after a moment and pumps her arm in victory.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Lavigne's boyfriend in the video is played by American model Bryan McMullin and dresses similarly to the "rocker" Lavigne in the video. The video features Lavigne's previous guitarist Evan Taubenfeld, and Lavigne's brother Matt on bass.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Lil Mama and Lavigne shot a video for the remix of "Girlfriend", which was directed by R. Malcolm Jones.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: On July 18, 2008, "Girlfriend" became the most viewed video at that time on YouTube and in August of that year, surpassed 100 million views, becoming the only YouTube video available at that time to reach that milestone (although CSS's "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex" had reached that milestone a couple months before, it has been removed from the website under accusations that the views had been fraudulent). The YouTube video of the song was accused of having an exaggerated number of views due to the use of a web link posted by AvrilBandaids, a fansite devoted to Lavigne. Clicking on the link would automatically reload the YouTube video of "Girlfriend" every fifteen seconds. Fans of Lavigne were encouraged to: "Keep this page open while you browse the internet, study for exams, or even sleep. For extra viewing power, open up two or more browser windows at this page!" However, the fansite later revealed that no "cheating" had taken place, and that the link had merely been a ruse to draw more attention to the video, thereby attracting additional views. It is expected that Lavigne's YouTube video views have earned in excess of US$2,000,000. In November 2009, RCA Records removed the video of the song from YouTube, by which time it had received around 130 million views. A new upload of the music video uploaded on October 3, 2009 is now officially hosted on Lavigne's official channel on YouTube, with over 570 million views and 3 million likes as of October 2021.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: The song is featured on the soundtrack to the video game "Burnout Dominator" in four different languages which includes Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin and English. The song is also featured in "Burnout Paradise" which only includes the English Version.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: The BBC Chart Show reported a sharp divide in reaction to the video. A criticism of the video was that it was damaging to Lavigne's claims to integrity by imitating younger girls' fashions and encouraging poaching of boyfriends from other girls.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: Lavigne performed the song on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on June 15, 2007. She also performed on "Saturday Night Live" on April 14, 2007.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: In September 2009, American punk rock band Zebrahead released "Girlfriend" as the first single off their album "Panty Raid", which was released on November 4, 2009 in Japan and 8 December in the rest of the world. It peaked in the Hot Modern Rock Tracks in the first week in the No. 84 position.


title: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

text: The music video of the song was released in 2009 and is a parody of the original "Girlfriend" video, with band members Ali playing the "Bad Avril" and Matty playing the good one.


title: Tri-tip

text: The tri-tip is a triangular cut of beef from the bottom sirloin subprimal cut, consisting of the tensor fasciae latae muscle. Untrimmed, the tri-tip weighs around 5 pounds. In the US, the tri-tip is taken from NAMP cut 185C.


title: Tri-tip

text: The precise origin of the name "tri-tip" for this cut of beef is unclear, with several sources claiming original usage of the term. This cut of beef has been referred to by a variety of names including "Newport steak”, "Santa Maria steak”, "triangle tip”, and "triangle steak”.


title: Tri-tip

text: The cut was known in the United States as early as 1915, called "the triangle part" of the loin butt. Rondo (Ron) Brough, a butcher for the U.S. Army during World War II working in Southern California, claimed that he created the "triangle tip" cut as a way to gain an extra portion of meat for the troops by reorienting nearby cuts and eliminating scrap. This practice caught on with Brough's Army colleagues and after the War, they began cutting and serving triangle tip throughout restaurants and butcher shops in California.


title: Tri-tip

text: Butcher and restaurateur Jack Ubaldi claimed to have originally named and marketed tri-tip under the name "Newport steak" in the 1950s.


title: Tri-tip

text: Triangle tip, cooked in wine, was served at Jack's Corsican Room in Long Beach in 1955. The cut was marketed under the name "tri-tip" as early as 1964, at Desert Provisions in Palm Springs.


title: Tri-tip

text: Larry Viegas, a butcher at a Santa Maria Safeway store in the late 1950s, claimed that the idea to cook this as a distinct cut of beef first occurred to his store manager, Bob Schutz, when an excess of hamburger existed in the store (into which this part of the animal were usually ground). Viegas says that Schultz took a piece of the unwanted meat, seasoned it with salt, pepper, and garlic salt, and placed it on a rotisserie for 45 minutes or an hour; the result was well-received, and Schultz began marketing the cut as "tri-tip."


title: Tri-tip

text: It became a local specialty in Santa Maria in the late 1950s. Today, it is seasoned with salt, pepper, fresh garlic, and other seasonings, grilled directly over red oak wood to medium-rare doneness. Alternative preparations include roasting whole on a rotisserie, smoking in a pit, roasting in an oven, grilling, or braising in a Dutch oven after searing on a grill. After cooking, the meat is normally sliced across the grain before serving.


title: Tri-tip

text: Sometimes labeled "Santa Maria steak," the roast is popular in the Central Valley regions and the Central Coast of California. Along with top sirloin, tri-tip is considered central to Santa Maria-style barbecue. In central California, the fat is left on the outside of the cut to enhance flavor when grilling, while butchers elsewhere trim the fat side for aesthetic purposes.


title: Tri-tip

text: Tri-tip is called "aiguillette baronne" in France and is left whole as a roast. In northern Germany, it is called "" or "Pastorenstück", in Austria "Hüferschwanz", and in southern Germany it is called the same name as the traditional and popular Bavarian and Austrian dish "Tafelspitz", which serves it boiled with horseradish. In Spain, it is often grilled whole and called the "rabillo de cadera".


title: Tri-tip

text: This cut of beef can be sliced into steaks, grilled in its entirety, or used in chili con carne. To grill or roast the tri-tip, heat the pan on high until it is very hot. For best results, the tri-tip should be seared and roasted, putting the fat side down in the pan. The roast can then be put in the oven and cooked for about 10 minutes per pound until the internal temperature is 127°F for medium-rare.


title: Most favoured nation

text: In international economic relations and international politics, most favoured nation (MFN) is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country which is the recipient of this treatment must nominally receive equal trade advantages as the "most favoured nation" by the country granting such treatment (trade advantages include low tariffs or high import quotas). In effect, a country that has been accorded MFN status may not be treated less advantageously than any other country with MFN status by the promising country.


title: Most favoured nation

text: There is a debate in legal circles whether MFN clauses in bilateral investment treaties include only substantive rules or also procedural protections. The members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agree to accord MFN status to each other. Exceptions allow for preferential treatment of developing countries, regional free trade areas and customs unions. Together with the principle of national treatment, MFN is one of the cornerstones of WTO trade law.


title: Most favoured nation

text: "Most favoured nation" relationships extend "reciprocal" bilateral relationships following both the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and WTO norms of reciprocity and non-discrimination. In bilateral reciprocal relationships a particular privilege granted by one party only extends to other parties who reciprocate that privilege, while in a multilateral reciprocal relationship the same privilege would be extended to the group that negotiated a particular privilege. The "non-discriminatory" component of GATT/WTO applies a "reciprocally" negotiated privilege to all members of GATT/WTO without respect to their status in negotiating the privilege.


title: Most favoured nation

text: Most favoured nation status is given to an international trade partner to ensure non-discriminatory trade between all partner countries of the WTO. A country which provides MFN status to another country has to provide concessions, privileges, and immunity in trade agreements. It is the first clause in the GATT.


title: Most favoured nation

text: Under rules of WTO, a member country is not allowed to discriminate between trade partners and if a special status is granted to one trade partner, the country is required to extend it to all members of WTO. In a nutshell, MFN is a non-discriminatory trade policy as it ensures equal trading among all WTO member nations rather than exclusive trading privileges.


title: Most favoured nation

text: The earliest form of the most favoured nation status can be found as early as the 11th century. Today's concept of the most favoured nation status starts to appear in the 18th century, when the division of conditional and unconditional most favoured nation status also began. In the early days of international trade, "most favoured nation" status was usually used on a dual-party, state-to-state basis. A nation could enter into a "most favoured nation" treaty with another nation. In the Treaty of Madrid (1667), Spain granted England "most favoured nation" trading status. With the Jay Treaty in 1794, the US also granted the same to Britain.


title: Most favoured nation

text: After World War II, tariff and trade agreements were negotiated simultaneously by all interested parties through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which ultimately resulted in the World Trade Organization in 1995. The WTO requires members to grant one another "most favoured nation" status. A "most favoured nation" clause is also included in most bilateral investment treaties concluded between capital exporting and capital importing countries after World War II.


title: Most favoured nation

text: As MFN clauses promote non-discrimination among countries, they also tend to promote the objective of free trade in general.


title: Most favoured nation

text: GATT members recognized in principle that the "most favoured nation" rule should be relaxed to accommodate the needs of developing countries, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (established in 1964) has sought to extend preferential treatment to the exports of the developing countries.


title: Most favoured nation

text: Another exception to the "most favoured nation" principle has been posed by regional trade blocs such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which have lowered or eliminated tariffs among the members while maintaining tariff walls between member nations and the rest of the world. Trade agreements usually allow for exceptions to allow for regional economic integration.


title: Most favoured nation

text: WTO rules allow any country to revoke the MFN status that it had previously accorded to another: in particular, Article 21 (National Security) allows it to do so without further explanation.


title: Most favoured nation

text: In February 2019, following the 2019 Pulwama attack that killed over 40 CRPF personnel, India withdrew the MFN status that it had accorded to Pakistan.


title: Most favoured nation

text: In March 2022, in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the G7 countries resolved jointly to withdraw 'most favoured nation' status from Russia and to impose punitive tariffs. In a statement, the group declared that "Russia cannot grossly violate international law and expect to benefit from being part of the international economic order".


title: Most favoured nation

text: In the 1990s, continued "most favored nation" status for the People's Republic of China by the United States created controversy in the USA because of its sales of sensitive military technology and China's serious and continuous persecution of human rights. China's MFN status was made permanent on December 27, 2001. All of the former Soviet states, including Russia, were granted MFN status in 1996. On a bilateral level, however, the United States could not grant MFN status to some members of the former Soviet Union, including the Russian Federation, because of the Jackson–Vanik amendment. This presented an obstacle to those countries' accession to the WTO. At the urging of Vice President Joe Biden, the Jackson–Vanik amendment (which attempts to punish human rights violations without hampering trade) ceased to apply to the Russian Federation and Moldova with Magnitsky Act on December 14, 2012.


title: Most favoured nation

text: In 1998, the "most favoured nation status" in the United States has been renamed "permanent normal trade relations" (NTR) as all but a handful of countries had this status already. The country gives preferential treatment to some of its trading partners without this status. This is based on the U.S. Supreme Court interpretation of MFN principle as a mere prohibition to enact discriminatory legislation concerning duties on goods of like character imported from an MFN partner. The court ruled that MFN does not constrain the U.S. from giving out special privileges to other countries.


title: Most favoured nation

text: The ideas behind MFN policies can first be seen in US foreign policy during the opening of Japan in the mid to late 1850s, when they were included as a clause in the Commercial Treaty of 1858, which signalled the opening of the Japanese market.


title: Most favoured nation

text: Since 1998, the term normal trade relations (NTR) has replaced most favoured nation in all U.S. statutes. This change was included in section 5003 of the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-206). However, Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-618) established conditions on U.S. MFN/NTR tariff treatment to certain non-market economies, one of which is certain freedom-of-emigration requirements (better known as the Jackson–Vanik amendment). The act authorizes the president to waive a country's full compliance with Jackson–Vanik under specified conditions, and this must be renewed by June 3 of each year. Once the president does so, the waiver is automatic unless Congress passes (and avoids or overturns a presidential veto of) a disapproval resolution.


title: Most favoured nation

text: MFN/NTR status for China, a non-market economy, which had been originally suspended in 1951, was restored in 1980 and was continued in effect through subsequent annual Presidential extensions. Following the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989, however, the annual renewal of China's MFN status became a source of considerable debate in the Congress; and legislation was introduced to terminate China's MFN/NTR status or to impose additional conditions relating to improvements in China's actions on various trade and non-trade issues. Agricultural interests generally opposed attempts to block MFN/NTR renewal for China, contending that several billion dollars annually in current and future U.S. agricultural exports could be jeopardized if that country retaliated. In China's case, Congress agreed to permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status in , President Clinton signed into law on October 10, 2000. PNTR paved the way for China's accession to the WTO in December 2001; it provides U.S. exporters of agricultural products the opportunity to benefit from China's WTO agreements to reduce trade barriers and open its agricultural markets.


title: Most favoured nation

text: As per the obligation under their World Trade Organization (WTO) treaties of accession, the member countries of WTO automatically extend most favoured nation (MFN) status to each other unless otherwise specified in the agreement or schedule notified to the WTO by that member country. Pursuant to that provision, India has extended MFN status for goods to most member countries of WTO.


title: Most favoured nation

text: Within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are members of the WTO and all excepting Pakistan have extended MFN status to India, which had extended MFN status to all SAARC countries. In 2019, India revoked its MFN status towards Pakistan. So far as exception to MFN status (if any) is concerned, each member country has indicated the same services in its schedule of services commitments, as notified to the WTO.


title: Most favoured nation

text: A most favoured nation clause (also called a most favoured customer clause or most favoured licensee clause<nowiki>) is a contract provision in which a seller (or licensor) agrees to give the buyer (or licensee) the best terms it makes available to any other buyer (or licensee). In some contexts, the use of such clauses may become commonplace, such as when online ebook retailers contract with publishers for the supply of e-books.</nowiki> Use of such clauses, in some contexts, may provoke concerns about anticompetitive influences and antitrust violations, while in other contexts, the influence may be viewed as procompetitive.


title: Most favoured nation

text: One example where most favoured nation clauses may appear is in institutional investment advisory contracts, where if a certain number of conditions are met, one client may be entitled to the lowest fee offered to other clients with a substantially identical investment strategy and the same or lower level of assets under management.


title: Most favoured nation

text: The most favoured nation clause can also be included in an agreement between a state and a company or an investor. This involves the provision of special privileges and advantages although the state cannot use contractual mechanisms to avoid its MFN treatment obligations with other countries. Unlike the relationship among states where a nation accorded an MFN status cannot be treated less advantageously than another, the host nation does not breach MFN treatment if it provides different privileges to different investors. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development clarified this when it stated that "a host country cannot be obliged to enter into an individual investment contract" and that "freedom of contract prevails over the MFN standard." This general principle, however, is not absolute.


title: Most favoured nation

text: The current EU competition law position is that MFN clauses will infringe Article 101(i) if in the individual circumstances of the case result in an appreciable adverse effect on competition in the European Union. This is likely to happen when the parties to the agreement have substantial market power.


title: Most favoured nation

text: It is recognised by EU courts and regulators that such clauses are widely used in a number of industries including most topically with online travel agents. However the regulatory tide in the EU appears to be turning against the use of these clauses. In a number of recent EU cases in the UK and Germany, MFNs have been condemned when used by companies with significant market power.


title: Most favoured nation

text: Startups with most favoured nation (MFN) clause in agreements with their investors are called most favoured nation startups. The clause intends to protect the first investors, so the later investors do not get better terms than them. This device is promoted by American early stage accelerator, Y Combinator.


title: Victim blaming

text: Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them. There is historical and current prejudice against the victims of domestic violence and sex crimes, such as the greater tendency to blame victims of rape than victims of robbery if victims and perpetrators knew each other prior to the commission of the crime.


title: Victim blaming

text: Psychologist William Ryan coined the phrase "blaming the victim" in his 1971 book of that title. In the book, Ryan described victim blaming as an ideology used to justify racism and social injustice against black people in the United States. Ryan wrote the book to refute Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 work "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" (usually simply referred to as the Moynihan Report).


title: Victim blaming

text: Moynihan had concluded that three centuries of oppression of black people, and in particular with what he calls the uniquely cruel structure of American slavery as opposed to its Latin American counterparts, had created a long series of chaotic disruptions within the black family structure which, at the time of the report, manifested itself in high rates of unwed births, absent fathers, and single mother households in black families. Moynihan then correlated these familial outcomes, which he considered undesirable, to the relatively poorer rates of employment, educational achievement, and financial success found among the black population. The black family structure is also being affected by media through the children. The Black family is usually portrayed as gang affiliated, a single-parent or very violent. Aggression and violent behavior in children has been linked to television programming. Moynihan advocated the implementation of government programs designed to strengthen the black nuclear family.


title: Victim blaming

text: Ryan objected that Moynihan then located the proximate cause of the plight of black Americans in the prevalence of a family structure in which the father was often sporadically, if at all, present, and the mother was often dependent on government aid to feed, clothe, and provide medical care for her children. Ryan's critique cast the Moynihan theories as attempts to divert responsibility for poverty from social structural factors to the behaviors and cultural patterns of the poor.


title: Victim blaming

text: Although Ryan popularized the phrase, other scholars had identified the phenomenon of victim blaming.


title: Victim blaming

text: In 1947 Theodor W. Adorno defined what would be later called "blaming the victim," as "one of the most sinister features of the Fascist character".


title: Victim blaming

text: Shortly thereafter Adorno and three other professors at the University of California, Berkeley formulated their influential and highly debated "F-scale" (F for fascist), published in "The Authoritarian Personality" (1950), which included among the fascist traits of the scale the "contempt for everything discriminated against or weak." A typical expression of victim blaming is the "asking for it" idiom, e.g. "she was asking for it" said of a victim of violence or sexual assault.


title: Victim blaming

text: Secondary victimization is the re-traumatization of the (including but not limited to: sexual assault, abuse, surgical battery, medical malpractice, or rape) victim through the responses of individuals and institutions. Types of secondary victimization include victim blaming, disbelieving the victim's story, minimizing the severity of the attack, and inappropriate post-assault treatment by medical personnel or other organizations. Secondary victimization is especially common in cases of drug-facilitated, acquaintance, military sexual trauma and statutory rape.


title: Victim blaming

text: Sexual assault victims experience stigmatization based on rape myths. A female rape victim is especially stigmatized in patrilineal cultures with strong customs and taboos regarding sex and sexuality. For example, a society may view a female rape victim (especially one who was previously a virgin) as "damaged". Victims in these cultures may suffer isolation, physical and psychological abuse, slut-shaming, public humiliation rituals, be disowned by friends and family, be prohibited from marrying, be divorced if already married, or even be killed. However, even in many developed countries, including some sectors of United States society, misogyny remains culturally ingrained.


title: Victim blaming

text: One example of a sexist allegation against female victims of sexual assault is that "wearing provocative clothing stimulates sexual aggression in men" who believe that women wearing body-revealing clothes are "actively trying to seduce" a sexual partner. Such accusations against victims stem from the assumption that sexually revealing clothing conveys consent for sexual actions, irrespective of willful verbal consent. Research has yet to prove that attire is a significant causal factor in determining who is assaulted.


title: Victim blaming

text: Victim blaming is also exemplified when a victim of sexual assault is found at fault for "performing actions which reduce their ability to resist or refuse consent", such as consuming alcohol. Victim advocacy groups and medical professionals are educating young adults on the definition of consent, and the importance of refraining from victim blaming. Most institutions have adopted the concept of affirmative consent and that refraining from sexual activity while under the influence is the safest choice.


title: Victim blaming

text: In efforts to discredit alleged sexual assault victims in court, a defense attorney may "delve into an accuser's personal history", a common practice that also has the purposeful effect of making the victim so uncomfortable they choose not to proceed. This attack on character, especially one pointing out promiscuity, makes the argument that women who lead "high risk" lifestyles (promiscuity, drug use) are not real victims of rape.


title: Victim blaming

text: Findings on Rape Myth Acceptance have supported feminist claims that sexism is at the root of female rape victim blaming.


title: Victim blaming

text: A 2009 study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence of male victims of sexual assault concludes that male rape victim blaming is usually done so because of social constructs of masculinity. Some effects of these kind of rape cases include a loss of masculinity, confusion about their sexual orientation, and a sense of failure in behaving as men should.


title: Victim blaming

text: Victims of an unwanted sexual encounter usually develop psychological problems such as depression or sexual violence specific PTSD known as rape trauma syndrome.


title: Victim blaming

text: An ideal victim is one who is afforded the status of victimhood due to unavoidable circumstances that put the individual at a disadvantage. One can apply this theory to any crime including and especially sexual assault. Nils Christie, a Norwegian criminology professor, has been theorizing about the concept of the ideal victim since the 1980s. In his research he gives two examples, one of an old woman who is attacked on her way home from visiting her family and the other of a man who is attacked at a bar by someone he knew. He describes the old woman as an ideal victim because she could not avoid being in the location that she was, she did not know her attacker, and she could not fight off her attacker. The man, however, could have avoided being at a bar, knew his attacker, and should have been able to fight off his attacker, being younger and a man.


title: Victim blaming

text: When applying the ideal victim theory to sexual assault victims, often judicial proceedings define an ideal victim as one who resists their attacker and exercises caution in risky situations, despite law reforms to extinguish these fallacious requirements. When victims are not ideal they are at risk for being blamed for their attack because they are not considered real victims of rape. Because they do not fit the criteria being laid out in the rape law, they cannot be considered real victims and thereby their attacker will not be prosecuted.


title: Victim blaming

text: A victim who is not considered an ideal, or real victim, is one who leads a "high risk" lifestyle, partaking in drugs or alcohol, or is perceived as promiscuous. A victim who intimately knows their attacker is also not considered an ideal victim. An example of a sexual assault victim who is not ideal is a prostitute because they lead a high risk lifestyle. The perception is that these behaviors discount the credibility of a sexual assault victim's claim or that the behaviors and associations create the mistaken assumption of consent. Some of or all of the blame of the assault is then placed on these victims, and so they are not worthy of having their case presented in court. These perceptions persist in court rulings despite a shift in laws favoring affirmative consent- meaning that the participants in a sexual activity give a verbal affirmation rather than one participant who neither answers negatively nor positively. In other words, affirmative consent is yes means yes, no means no and no verbal answer also means no.


title: Victim blaming

text: In addition to an ideal victim, there must be an ideal perpetrator for a crime to be considered ideal. The ideal attacker does not know their victim and is a completely non-sympathetic figure- one who is considered sub-human, an individual lacking morals. An attacker that knows their victim is not considered an ideal attacker, nor is someone who seems morally ordinary. Cases of intimate partner violence are not considered ideal because the victim knows their attacker. Husbands and wives are not ideal victims or perpetrators because they are intimately familiar with each other.


title: Victim blaming

text: The problems with simplistically treating victims and offenders as ideal is highlighted in crimes involving battered woman syndrome.


title: Victim blaming

text: Many different cultures across the globe have formulated different degrees of victim blaming for different scenarios such as rape, hate crimes, and domestic abuse. Victim blaming is common around the world, especially in cultures where it is socially acceptable and advised to treat certain groups of people as lesser. For example, in Somalia victims of sexual abuse consistently endure social ostracization and harassment. One specific example is the kidnapping and rape of 14-year old Fatima: when the police arrived, both Fatima and her rapist were arrested. While they did not detain the offender for long, the officers held Fatima captive for a month and a prison guard continually raped her during that time.


title: Victim blaming

text: In February 2016, the organisations International Alert and UNICEF published a study revealing that girls and women released from captivity by Nigeria's insurgency group Boko Haram often face rejection by their communities and families. Their children born of sexual violence faced even more discrimination.


title: Victim blaming

text: Acid attacks on South Asian women, when people throw acid on women in an attempt to punish them for their perceived wrongdoings, are another example of victim-blaming. For instance, in New Delhi in 2005, a group of men threw acid on a 16-year-old girl because they believed she provoked the advances of a man. In Chinese culture, victim blaming is often associated with the crime of rape, as women are expected to resist rape using physical force. Thus, if rape occurs, it is considered to be at least partly the woman's fault and her virtue is inevitably called into question.


title: Victim blaming

text: In Western culture victim blaming has been largely recognized as a problematic way to view a situation, however this does not exempt Westerners from being guilty of the action. A recent example of Western victim blaming would be a civil trial held in 2013 where the Los Angeles School District blamed a 14-year-old girl for the sexual abuse she endured from her middle school teacher. The District's lawyer argued that the minor was responsible for the prevention of the abuse, putting the entire fault on the victim and exempting the perpetrator of any responsibility. Despite his efforts to convince the court that the victim must be blamed, the ruling stated that no minor student that has been sexually assaulted by his or her teacher is responsible for the prevention of that sexual assault.