XPost: 24hoursupport.helpdesk, alt.politics.scorched-earth, uk.politics.misc   
   XPost: uk.legal, alt.politics.uk   
   From: burfordTjustice@tues.uk   
      
   1,500 Acid Attacks Hit London Since 2011   
      
   Acid attacks are occurring with alarming frequency in London, with nearly   
   1,500 recorded since 2011, British media reports.   
      
   A third of the attacks alone were committed in 2016, which itself was up 250   
   percent from the previous year. The attacks are notoriously used occasionally   
   in the Islamic world by angry suitors seeking revenge on women who rebuff   
   marriage proposals, or    
   commit other “shameful” acts. Charities consulted by British media said 80   
   percent of all acid attack victims globally are women.   
      
   London, however, has the opposite trend. Nearly 80 percent of acid attack   
   victims in the city are men.   
      
   “Looking at the data in general, there is a fairly large probability that a   
   high percentage of the incidents are male-on-male attacks and most likely to   
   be gang-related,” Jaf Shah, the executive director of the support group Acid   
   Survivors Trust    
   International (ASTI), told the Guardian.   
      
      
   “There does seem to be an increase in reporting of acid violence in Europe   
   and the U.S.,” Shah continued to the Guardian. A London-based estate agent   
   confronted two gang members outside his shop in November 2016 before they took   
   out a squirt bottle    
   full of acid and significantly wounded his face. As the attack was unfolding,   
   the victim was told not to fight back because his attackers “have more   
   bottles.” The story may indicate how London gangs weaponize the acid in lieu   
   of other weapons that    
   are heavily restricted in the city of London.   
      
   “Acid is used as an extreme mark of dominance. It’s letting the individual   
   know I haven’t killed you, but it’s almost worse than that, it’s a mark   
   – on your face. It’s a sinister legacy,” one former UK gang member told   
   the Mirror.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)