Afghan women protest against attacks on community
New Age
Islam News Bureau
04 December 2023
· Afghan women protest against attacks on community
· 'Muslim women voted for BJP', says Zafar Islam
· Muslim women leaders from US in Israel on solidarity mission
· CNN host Dana Bash questions Pramila Jayapal about 'squad' Democrat's silence on Hamas' rape of women
· Lack of Women Noted at Herat University Graduation
· Purkazi: A Muslim-majority Panchayat scripting a development story
· Protesters and civil Society, demand focus on Afghan women’s situation
· 96-year-old woman escaped October 7 massacre at Be’eri; grandson held in Gaza
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/israeli-jews-gaza-firepower-adequate/d/131251
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Afghan women protest against attacks on community
December 04, 2023
A Taliban fighter stands guard as Afghan
women shout slogans during a protest rally in Kabul. — AFP/File
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HERAT, Afghanistan: Dozens of Shiite women demonstrated in western Afghanistan on Sunday against attacks on the Muslim minority at the funeral of several members of their community killed days before.
The women shouted, “Death to the murderers” and “We need security” during the funeral in Herat city´s Jebrael area, Hussain Azimi, a member of the ulama, or council of religious scholars, told AFP.
They were among several hundred people gathered to mourn six victims of the attack in Herat on Friday.
Seven people were killed and one wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a rickshaw carrying two Shiite clerics, the Herat intelligence department said.
Locals said four women were among the dead and that both clerics were killed.
That followed the reported killings of three other Shiite clerics in the province in late November and October, attacks called “highly concerning” by UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett in a recent post on social media site X.
The interior ministry condemned Friday´s attack in a statement as a “terrorist incident”.
Shiites are a minority in Afghanistan and are drawn mostly from the Hazara community, a frequent target of attacks by militants from the Islamic State (IS) group, who consider them heretics.
Violence has reduced dramatically since the Taliban ended their insurgency after seizing power in August 2021, but several armed groups -- including the regional chapter of IS -- remain a threat.
Source: thenews.com.pk
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1134971-afghan-women-protest-against-attacks-on-community
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'Muslim women voted for BJP', says Zafar Islam
Dec 04 2023
New Delhi, Dec 4 (IANS): As the election
trends were pouring in, BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam said on Sunday the
magic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's guarantee was working in Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan and Muslim women had voted for the party.
Islam, while talking to IANS, said Muslim women have also voted for the BJP candidates in large numbers.
"There will be a hung Assembly in Telangana. AIMIM leader AsaduddinOwaisi is now out of the picture, as per election results trends," said Islam.
The BJP leader further said that the Congress leaders, who were giving false guarantees, suffered heavily against PM Modi's guarantee.
"The public has once again expressed trust in PM Modi's assurance. If derogatory language is used against PM Modi, the public will teach a lesson to the leaders who insult the Prime Minister," he said.
Islam said that Muslim women in Madhya Pradesh have also overwhelmingly voted for BJP.
"The result of the work done by PM Modi for Muslim women is now apparent, and Muslim women have enthusiastically supported the BJP," said Islam.
Source: daijiworld.com
https://www.daijiworld.com/index.php/news/newsDisplay?newsID=1145859
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Muslim women leaders from US in Israel on solidarity mission
December 04, 2023
(December 4, 2023 / JNS)
The American Muslim leaders meet in
Sderot with Meirav Barkai of Kibbutz Be'eri, whose 81-year-old mother and
20-year-old nephew were murdered in the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Photo by Yoav
Lin.
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OFAKIM, Israel—A reverential silence fell on the room as the four American-Muslim women bowed their heads in prayer on Friday for the victims of the Hamas attack on Israel.
Moments earlier, the interfaith crowd in the apartment in this western Negev city, which included Muslims, Jews, a white-turbaned Sikh, a mixed Israeli family and Mayor Yitzhak Danino, stood mesmerized as the Arabic words of supplication for the Israelis murdered in the massacre were intoned.
“The Muslim world was [mostly] silent about what happened on Oct. 7,” Bangladeshi-born Farhana Kohrshed, 51, who moved to Boston as a teenager, told the group. “We are here to denounce what Hamas has done to you.”
Not your usual tour group
The extraordinary delegation of Muslim women leaders traveled, in extraordinary times, through war-torn southern Israel this weekend, braving renewed Hamas rocket attacks as the cease-fire collapsed and taking cover outside as the projectiles struck nearby.
The group, which was organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, first made its way to the abandoned city of Sderot, which at its nearest is less than a mile from the Gaza Strip.
They hunkered down under a playground as rockets struck while they viewed damaged homes and heard the story of 81-year-old GeulaBaher. When the Hamas terrorists broke into her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, she told her husband and nephew to hide. The terrorists then fatally stabbed her in her living room.
About 10% of the Gaza border kibbutz’s 1,100 residents were murdered on Oct. 7.
Be’eri had been on their itinerary, but with the end of the ceasefire and the renewal of the war, it was closed to all non-military personnel on Friday.
Next, they traveled to Ofakim, which lost 52 residents in the attack. They visited the bullet-ridden home of Rachel Edri, the grandmother who outsmarted the Hamas terrorists who had taken her and her husband hostage.
They then met the Elfasi family. The mother, Tali, a 40-year-old Moroccan Muslim woman, and her husband, David, a 56-year-old Moroccan Jew, have six children and have lived in the city for the last two decades. They do not have a safe room, and so sheltered with an ultra-Orthodox Jewish upstairs neighbor during the Hamas attack.
The visitors then headed to a meeting with leaders in the Bedouin city of Rahat, who spoke about some of the 19 members of their community who were among the 1,200 persons murdered on Oct. 7.
At each stop, the women repeatedly embraced the victims’ families, offering them strength.
The real Israel
“This is the real Israel that you never hear about on the news,” said Anila Ali, 56, president and CEO of the American Muslim and Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council. “This is the Israel nobody knows about,” she told JNS during the tour.
Ali was born in Pakistan where, she said, she was taught to “hate and fear,” and moved to the U.S. as a young mother after several years in Saudi Arabia showed her a different version of Islam. She recently made headlines—and received death threats from California, where she used to live—for her speech at last month’s massive March for Israel in Washington, D.C., which ended with the Hebrew words “Am Yisrael Chai,” “the Nation of Israel Lives.”
“As Muslim Americans we are in a unique position to show others a mirror,” she said. “The evil is [among] us who do not allow our children to live in peace and want perpetual war.”
The war that began nearly two months ago is not about Israelis and Palestinians but about good and evil, Ali said.
‘Israel is fighting for the world’
“Universally we are taught that Israel is the oppressor and that the Palestinians have lost their homeland,” said Soraya M. Deen, 60, from Los Angeles, who was born in Sri Lanka and came to the U.S. as a young adult. “It’s like an oath to support the Palestinians, and people don’t even differentiate between Hamas and Palestinians. Many lines are blurred.”
She said that the muted reaction of the Muslims in the world and their failure to acknowledge Hamas’s brutality on Oct. 7 as well as concern about the growing antisemitism in the U.S. prompted her to come on the five-day trip.
“Evil prevails when good people do nothing,” Deen said. “I feel Israel is fighting for the whole world.”
Source: jns.org
https://www.jns.org/
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CNN host Dana Bash questions Pramila Jayapal about 'squad' Democrat's silence on Hamas' rape of women
Dec 04, 2023
Tuhin Das Mahapatra
On CNN’s State of the Union, host Dana Bash asked Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal why she and other progressive women have been silent on the issue of Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli women during the October 7 massacre.
Jayapal, who represents Washington state and is part of the ‘Squad,’ claimed that she had condemned Hamas’ atrocities against women before, but then shifted the focus to Israel’s actions.
Bash said, “I want to talk to you about sexual violence, which is something that hasn’t gotten enough attention globally. Hamas used rape, brutal rape, sexual violence against Israeli women as a weapon of war. I’ve seen a lot of progressive women, who usually defend women’s rights and speak out against rape as a weapon of war, but they’re silent on what happened on October 7. And what might be happening to the hostages in Gaza right now. Why is that?”
‘We have to remember Israel is a democracy’
Jayapal replied, “I don’t think that’s true. I think we always talk about the impact of war on women in particular,’ and said that she had specifically spoken out against Hamas’ crimes.”
“But I think we have to remember Israel is a democracy. That’s why they’re a strong ally of ours,” Jayapal continued.
“And if they don’t comply with international humanitarian law, they’re putting themselves in a position that makes it harder for them to build allies, to keep public opinion with them, and frankly, morally, we can’t say that one war crime justifies another. That’s not what international humanitarian law says.”
Jayapal voted “present” on a House Resolution supporting Israel after the Hamas attacks in October.
She also had to apologize after calling the Israeli government “racist” and facing backlash.
Bash challenged Jayapal on her response and said, “With respect, I was just asking about the women, and you turned it back to Israel. I’m asking you about Hamas.”
‘Rape is horrific….it happens in war situations.’
Jayapal said, “I answered your question, Dana. I said it’s horrific, and I think that rape is horrific. Sexual assault is horrific. I think that it happens in war situations.”
“Terrorist organizations like Hamas are obviously using these as tools. But I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians. Fifteen thousand Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes, three-quarters of whom are women and children.”
Bash replied, “And it’s horrible. But you don’t see Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women.”
“I don’t want this to be the hierarchies of oppressions. This is not how we’re going to defeat terrorism,” Jayapal said.
Many progressive women’s rights groups around the world, including the leaders of the #MeToo movement and the UN Women group, have been criticized for not condemning Hamas’ mass rape loudly enough.
Last week, almost two months after the October 7 attack, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced that the UN would investigate Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli women.
Source: hindustantimes.com
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/cnn-host-dana-bash-questions-pramila-jayapal-about-squad-democrats-silence-on-hamas-rape-of-women-101701667211588.html
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Lack of Women Noted at Herat University Graduation
December 03, 2023
The graduation ceremony at Herat university was held without the presence of any female students.
The graduates meanwhile expressed concerns about lack of job opportunities in the country and called on the interim Afghan government to provide the youth with job opportunities.
“I hope the job opportunities will be provided to all of the students who graduated today,” said Mohammad Farakhi, a graduate.
“I call on the Islamic Emirate to resume female education,” said Mohammad EsaMomand, a graduate.
The ceremony was attended by the acting Minister of Higher Education, Nida Mohammad Nadim.
Speaking at the ceremony, Nadim stressed the improvement of universities’ standards.
Nadim indicated to the meeting of the opposition of the Islamic Emirate abroad, urging them to return to the country.
“They held a meeting in one or another country. Why? What do they want? What is the agenda of your meeting when you hold it in another country?” he said.
Meanwhile, the female students called on the Islamic Emirate to reopen their universities.
The students said that they are facing an uncertain situation.
“Just because I was a girl, I have been pushed back from everywhere but the boys were able to receive the reward of their years of struggle,” said WahidaDurrani, a student.
However, the interim government said that it has been making efforts to provide job opportunities for the graduates.
“Our officials are working day and night to create jobs for the youth who are graduating,” said HayatullahMahajarFarahi, deputy Minister of Information and Culture.
Nadim emphasized that all universities need to be provided with libraries and laboratories.
Source: tolonews.com
https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-186329
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Purkazi: A Muslim-majority Panchayat scripting a development story
Saquib Salim
Dec 04 2023
A few years back when the Arvind Kejriwal government installed CCTV cameras in the national capital it was publicised as a pathbreaking step to ensuring the security of the citizens. The AamAadmi Party claimed credit for this achievement. However, the least known fact is that around 150 km east of Delhi Purkazi, a small Nagar Panchayat in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, this feat had already been achieved.
Purkazi is a small town on the Muzaffarnagar-Haridwar highway with almost 80% Muslim population. Zaheer Farooqui, Chairman of the Nagar Panchayat installed I.P C.C.T.V (Internet Processing Closed Circuit Television) Cameras in the nooks and corners of the town way back in 2018. These cameras could read the number plates of vehicles and also helped catch criminals and were also installed at all the entries and exits of the town.
The exercise bore its first fruit when the Muzaffarnagar Police nabbed a person from Uttarakhand, who had raped a six-year-old Dalit girl near Purkazi. Tanvir Alam, a tailor from the town, says that Uttarakhand police examined the footage from the cameras to solve cases. Several women said that the cameras have made the town a safer place for them.
All the cameras have loudspeakers installed with them to provide a central audio announcement system. The announcement system is used to tell people about government policies and alert them in emergencies.
While the cameras are providing security, a well-equipped gymnasium for women is creating awareness. The gym has come as a boon for Muslim women whose health and fitness have drastically improved. With government funds, Panchayat established a ladies’ gym in 2019. Everyone was skeptical of its success at a place where women were traditionally kept in purdah but today every day ShaheenUsmani, the trainer, comes to the gym wearing her burkha. Once she enters the place, she takes it off to begin training the women.
Usmani says, “I don’t know the reason behind it but the gym has improved the reproductive health of women in the town.” Today the gym boasts almost a hundred members.
At the other end of the town, Nadeem Tyagi tells me about the success of the men's gym, which was opened by the Panchayat in the second leg. Tyagi says, “Before this gym came up, the youth indulged in drugs. The gym has given them a place to redirect their energies constructively.”
The young villagers preparing to join the Army and police are taking help from the gym with a nominal fee of Rs. 200. The gym is free for the poor.
A common perception is that Muslims do not take an interest in the establishment and maintenance of gaushala (cow-shelter). When the government released funds for the establishment of gaushala several Panchayats did not use those funds, while many others established small gaushala.
This Muslim town used the funds to establish, what is claimed to be, the first double-storeyed government-owned gaushala in the country.
The gaushala has separate sections for calves, pregnant cows, injured cows, and old cows. It has a solar panel for electricity and a fodder-cutting machine. A veterinary doctor visits the gaushala daily for a health checkup. The dung is used to produce manure which is further sold to raise revenue for the maintenance of the gaushala.
When several heritage buildings in urban areas are in want of proper maintenance citizens of Purkazi have developed Suliwala Bagh (garden of the gallows) into a pilgrimage. The site is witness to the hanging of Indian revolutionaries during the First War of National Independence of 1857. Every year thousands of people gather at this place on 15 August and 26 January for unfurling one of the largest Tiranga Yatra in any Nagar Panchayat.
Purkazi Nagar Panchayat is judiciously exploiting the government funds for an all-around development which can be a model for many other towns.
Source: awazthevoice.in
https://www.awazthevoice.in/society-news/purkazi-a-muslim-majority-panchayat-scripting-a-development-story-25552.html
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Protesters and civil Society, demand focus on Afghan women’s situation
Fidel Rahmati
December 3, 2023
Several civil activists have joined the International Amnesty Organization’s campaign to support Afghan women. They aim to ensure that the global community and organizations working to defend human rights and promote equality do not overlook the situation of women in Afghanistan.
The International Amnesty Organization’s campaign to support Afghan women has garnered the support of numerous civil activists. Together, they are urging the global community and organizations dedicated to defending human rights and promoting gender equality not to overlook the plight of women in Afghanistan. Their collective efforts aim to shine a spotlight on the urgent need for attention and action to address the situation of Afghan women and ensure their rights and equality are upheld.
More than 10 civil activists and human rights defenders have presented their recommendations to the International Amnesty Organization. In the latest development, NilofarAyoubi, a women’s rights activist, emphasized the global community’s need to invest in the education and empowerment of Afghan women and girls to pave the way for a more equitable and just society.
Parwaneh Ebrahim Khel, one of the former female protesters and detainees under the previous, was among the first to join this campaign. Amnesty International quoted her as suggesting the creation of global platforms for Afghan women protesters to share their harrowing stories.
Continuing this campaign, VizhmaTukhi, another human rights activist, stressed that depriving girls of education in the name of religion is a “great injustice.”
It’s worth noting that following the resurgence of the Taliban administration, Afghan women and girls have faced extensive restrictions. The deprivation of girls’ education and the ban on women working in government and non-government offices are the consequences of the restrictive orders imposed by the Taliban on women’s lives.
Meanwhile, ShahgulRezai, a former member of the Afghan parliament, told Amnesty International that Afghan women have lost all their two-decade-long achievements in one fell swoop and are now left under challenging circumstances.
Human rights defender Omar Haideri has also joined Amnesty International’s campaign, emphasizing that the plight of Afghan women is not a new issue and that collective efforts must be made to change the lives of women in the country.
Gallup research indicates that Afghan women’s satisfaction with their lives has reached its lowest point. According to the study, 83% of women describe their lives as equivalent to “suffering.”
Amnesty International has repeatedly
condemned the Taliban administration’s oppressive orders, including the ban on
education and work, as cruel and has called on the interim government to
rescind these orders. However, the Taliban has consistently asserted that
women’s rights in Afghanistan will be preserved within the framework of Islamic
laws.
Source: khaama.com
https://www.khaama.com/protesters-and-civil-society-demand-focus-on-afghan-womens-situation/
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96-year-old woman escaped October 7 massacre at Be’eri; grandson held in Gaza
Dec 04, 2023
Though she doesn’t remember the whole story, 96-year-old Aviva Sela managed to escape unscathed from Hamas’s grisly massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7.
In an interview aired Sunday, Sela recounted parts of her story. Though time and her aging mind have erased many of the details, her family has pieced together the story from survivor testimonies and footage, taken from CCTV on the kibbutz and bodycam and smartphone footage shot by slain and captured Hamas terrorists.
Sela’s daughter and former son-in-law, Orit and Rafi Svirsky, were murdered in the Hamas assault. Her grandson Itay Svirsky, 38, is being held captive in Gaza.
Itay was visiting his grandmother in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, when some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing over 240 hostages of all ages under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities.
In Be’eri alone, terrorists killed over 100 people and took many hostages.
“I remember that some Arabs came to the house, and they said that this was their house now, and I said, ‘tfadlu (welcome in Arabic), come visit.’ I thought that maybe we could have a conversation with them,” the 96-year-old told Channel 12. “But they were next to my porch, that much I know. But what happened after that… I don’t remember.”
As far as Sela’s family can understand, her Filipina caregiver Grace Cabrera, who was murdered in the attack, managed to bring Sela into the safe room and shut the door when rocket sirens began to sound early that Saturday morning. Cabrera updated the family via WhatsApp, at one point sending a photo of herself and Sela smiling on the bed in the safe room.
“For hours she held the handle of the door closed to try and prevent the terrorists from coming in,” Sela’s daughter OsnatSela Weinberg told the Makor Rishon newspaper in October.
Neighbors later told Sela’s daughters that the Hamas terrorists took over her house. “Your lawn was their situation room, Mom,” Sela Weinberg recounted to her mother in the Channel 12 report. “It was filled with weapons; it was their operations center.”
All the while, Sela, by all accounts, was lying on a swing on her porch, with a plate of fruit that Cabrera had apparently prepared for her.
The Channel 12 report said that the terrorists gathered residents from the kibbutz to their base at Sela’s house, some of them injured, and some who would later be dragged back to Gaza as hostages.
One survivor, a neighbor who was seriously injured in the attack and brought to the yard, said that Sela’s calm reassurance saved her life. “Mom spoke to her constantly, so that she didn’t lose consciousness,” said Sela Weinberg. “[The neighbor] said that her son was vomiting from smoke inhalation, and [Sela] told him, ‘It’s okay, everything’s okay.'”
Sela has a vague recollection of walking out of Be’eri. “I decided I was leaving the kibbutz.” And off she went, slowly, with her walker, toward the kibbutz parking lot, without her glasses or her hearing aids. She remembers that it was deadly quiet, though according to the Channel 12 report there were fierce battles raging with terrorists at that time.
“Luckily there was someone driving out to Tel Aviv, and I joined him,” Sela told Channel 12. “On the way I called my daughter [Sela Weinberg].”
Interviewed on the back porch of her daughter’s house in KochavYa’ir, in the center of the country, Sela knows she won’t be returning to Kibbutz Be’eri any time soon. Now, she’s focused on getting her grandson released from Gaza.
For the first time since October 7, she headed out from KochavYair to the so-called Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, to join the call for the release of the remaining 130 abductees still believed held in Gaza. One hundred and five civilian hostages were released in late November in a temporary truce with Hamas.
“Maybe he’ll get lucky,” Sela said in the Channel 12 interview.
Source: timesofisrael.com
https://www.timesofisrael.com/96-year-old-woman-escaped-october-7-massacre-at-beeri-grandson-held-in-gaza/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/israeli-jews-gaza-firepower-adequate/d/131251