Rupert Lowe, a U.K. Member of Parliament representing the nationalist party Restore Britain, released his 219-page Rape Gang Inquiry report on June 16. The document contains detailed witness testimony from mostly women survivors in working-class, Muslim-dense areas who endured long-term sexual victimization by organized criminal gangs during their teenage years. Many details are described as nauseating.
Hostage Survivor Confronts UN Official
By coincidence, a late-June video clip circulating on X pairs well with the Lowe report's revelations. The clip shows Ilana Gritzewsky, an October 7 hostage survivor, confronting Reem Alsalem, the UN's Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, during a June hearing of the UN Human Rights Council. Alsalem's role ostensibly confers objectivity, but her reluctance to acknowledge Hamas's well-documented October 7 sexual crimes has drawn condemnation and calls for removal by Jewish leaders and women's rights groups.
After summarizing the gross sexual crimes that dominated her hostage tenure, Gritzewsky states, "And you, Special Rapporteur, chose silence and denial." As a tight-lipped Alsalem refuses to engage, Gritzewsky adds, "Please look at me. Do you believe us now? Will you apologize?" Alsalem responds with insolent silence, a flinty stare, and what appears to some viewers as a slight, irrepressible smirk.
Contrast in National Response
If sympathy for Jewish women under such circumstances is denied by the UN, then the world is invited to conclude that Alsalem has legitimate grounds for her dismissal, as there is no higher international court to rebuke her. However, Gritzewsky can take comfort in one important fact: although her abduction can be blamed on failures by Israel's security apparatus, once it happened, her fellow Israelis devoted every resource to publicizing hostages' plight, advocating for their redemption, and punishing the villains. The hostages' entire national community had their backs.
This is a lot more than U.K. rape gang victims can say. Accumulated reports have chronicled depraved acts beyond "mere" rape that emanate a whiff of October 7-level misogyny linked to race hatred: broken bottles shoved into vaginas, gasoline dousings, stabbings, forced abortions, and threats to family members for seeking help, targeted primarily at white British women and girls. Yet all too often, victims and their families were on their own. Some victims mentioned in the report endured multiple rapes every single day for years.
