Austrian Constitutional Court Overturns Headscarf Ban in Schools, Calls It Discriminatory
New
Age Islam News Bureau
12
December 2020
• Sahar Tabar, Iranian Teenager Who Posted Distorted Pictures of Herself Is Jailed For 10 Years
•
Iran Security Forces Arrest Two Female Iranian Arab Civil Activists, Fatima
Tamimi and Maryam Ameri: Rights Group
•
Libyan Women Seek Greater Participation in Peace Talks
•
Jordanian Woman Techpreneur Scoops UN Business Award
•
Female-Run Police Hotline Aims To Encourage Pakistani Women To Report Abuse
•
First Turkish Women’s Rally Marked On Its 101st Anniversary
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
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Austrian
Constitutional Court Overturns Headscarf Ban in Schools, Calls It
Discriminatory
11
Dec 2020
The court ruled that it went against the state’s
duty to treat all religions equally and the principle that singling any one
community requires justification
------
Austria’s
Constitutional Court has ruled that a law banning girls aged up to 10 from
wearing headscarves in schools was discriminatory, overturning the measure
introduced by the ruling conservatives while allied with the far right.
The
legislation did not specify that the ban referred to headscarves, instead
forbidding the wearing of “religious clothing that is associated with a
covering of the head”.
But
the court found on Friday that it was clearly aimed at Muslim headscarves.
That
went against the state’s duty to treat officially recognised religions equally,
and the principle that singling out any one of them requires special
justification, it ruled.
“The
selective ban … applies exclusively to Muslim schoolgirls and thereby separates
them in a discriminatory manner from other pupils,” court President Christoph
Grabenwarter said.
“There
is a risk that [the law] could make it harder for Muslim girls to gain access
to education, and it could lead to their social exclusion,” he added.
The
IGGOe, the body officially recognised as representing the country’s Muslim
communities, welcomed the judgement and said the court had ended “the populist
politics of bans”.
IGGOe
President Umit Vural said in a statement: “We don’t condone disparaging
attitudes towards women who decide against the headscarf … and we also cannot
agree with the curtailing of the religious freedom of those Muslim women who
understand the headscarf to be a integral part of their lived religious
practice.”
In
2018, it was estimated that about 4.2 percent of people in Austria were
Muslims.
Far-right
demand
Conservative
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has consistently taken a hard line on immigration,
and his stance overlaps significantly with that of the far-right Freedom Party
(FPO), which says Islam has no place in the Austrian society.
Kurz
formed a coalition with the FPO in 2017 that collapsed last year after the
far-right party’s then-leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, was caught in a video
sting offering to fix state contracts.
Kurz
is now in government with the left-wing Greens, but their coalition agreement
includes many policies introduced during his alliance with the FPO, including a
plan to extend the headscarf ban up to the age of 14.
Education
Minister Heinz Fassmann said the ministry would “take note of the judgement and
look into its arguments”.
“I
regret that girls will not have the opportunity to make their way through the
education system free from compulsion,” he added.
The
current government programme says children should grow up “with as little
coercion as possible”, for which it gives wearing a headscarf as the only
example.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/11/austrian-constitutional-court-overturns-headscarf-ban-in-schools
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Sahar
Tabar, Iranian Teenager Who Posted Distorted Pictures of Herself Is Jailed For
10 Years
Patrick
Wintour
11
Dec 2020
An image grab from footage obtained from Iranian
State TV IRIB on October 24, 2019 shows a reproduction of pictures posted by
Iranian Intagrammer Sahar Tabar of herself before (C) and after. (AFP/HO/IRIB)
-----
An
Iranian woman who posted heavily distorted images of herself online has been
sentenced to 10 years in jail, her lawyer has said, a year after she was
arrested over her social media activities.
Sahar
Tabar, 19, whose real name is Fatemeh Khishvand, came to prominence after
posting images of herself with a gaunt, zombie-like face. At one point she had
486,000 followers on Instagram.
She
was charged with corruption of young people and disrespect for the Islamic
Republic. In spring she pleaded for release from detention, saying she had
contracted Covid-19.
At
one point Tabar called on the actor Angelina Jolie, whom she resembled in some
of her photos, to campaign for her release, saying: “The Islamic Republic has a
history of tormenting women. We need to be united against this gender
apartheid.”
The
charges against Tabar first included blasphemy, inciting violence, gaining
income through inappropriate means and encouraging youths to corruption. She
said she had been cleared of two of the four charges against her, but did not
want to comment further because she was still hoping for a pardon.
Iranian
state TV broadcast her confession in late October last year. Her expressions of
remorse drew a great deal of sympathy. The report described Tabar as “a victim
with an abnormal personality and mental state” who sought “vulgarity” on social
media.
Medical
records also suggested that she had a mental illness, with a history of visits
to psychiatric hospitals, making the 10-year sentence even less explicable. Her
lawyers had asked for her to be bailed, and pointed to her age at the time she
committed the alleged offences.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/iranian-teenager-jailed-10-years-distorted-pictures-instagram-sahar-tabar
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Iran
Security Forces Arrest Two Female Iranian Arab Civil Activists, Fatima Tamimi
and Maryam Ameri: Rights Group
Yaghoub
Fazeli
11
December 2020
Iranian regime forces arrest three female Ahwazi
activists, while regime loyalists online issue death threats
------
Security
forces in southwest Iran arrested two Iranian Arab civil activists on Wednesday
on unknown charges, a rights group reported.
Security
forces arrested Fatima Tamimi and Maryam Ameri in their hometown in Mahshahr, a
city in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, the Human Rights Activists News Agency
(HRANA), a news site run by a collective of Iranian human rights advocates,
reported.
The
reasons for the two activists’ arrest and their current whereabouts remain
unclear, HRANA said.
Tamimi,
39 and mother of two, is also a filmmaker who has produced several short
documentaries on poverty, addiction, unemployment, and the social issues of
Arabs in Iran.
Tamimi
and Ameri reportedly recorded traditional Arabic stories, lullabies and songs
from different villages in Khuzestan province as part of an oral history
project.
Iranian
authorities are intolerant of ethnic cultural activism and often arrest Arab
civil and cultural activists on separatism charges.
Arabs
in Iran, known as Ahwazi Arabs, are an ethnic minority based in Khuzestan.
Despite being Iran’s main oil-producing region, Khuzestan is one of the
country’s least developed regions.
Activists
from the region say the indigenous Ahwazi Arab population are deprived of
decent living standards and civil rights and face discrimination due to their
Arab identity and heritage.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/12/11/Iran-security-forces-arrest-two-female-Iranian-Arab-civil-activists-Rights-group-
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Libyan
Women Seek Greater Participation in Peace Talks
By
Nisan Ahmado
December
11, 2020
Libyan
women played an influential role in the country's popular protests that led to
the downfall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime in October 2011.
Nine
years later, as Libya's warring parties discuss a road map to end a civil war
and hold elections, female activists say the role of women is being
ignored.
Hajer
Sharief, a co-founder of Together We Build It, an organization promoting peace
and security in Libya, said that Libyan women were expecting the U.N.-led peace
talks in November to consider gender balance among negotiators.
"We
have a negotiation over a whole country on behalf of a whole nation, and the
political process should reflect the demographics and the society. Any group
that will negotiate on behalf of the society and will make decisions for it
must reflect the components of the society it represents," Sharief told
VOA.
She
said that women in Libya since the 2011 unrest have been vulnerable to
violence, while the political divisions in the country failed to establish a
formal mechanism to allow women and young people to partake in the
decision-making. Despite the barriers, she said, women have been assuming their
positions in the peace-making efforts through advocating and participating in
meetings whenever they learn about them.
Since
the 2011 unrest, Libya has been divided into the Tripoli administration in the
east of the country, known as the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord
(GNA), and the Tobruk administration in the west of the country, supported by
the Libyan National Army (LNA) under General Khalifa Haftar. Both sides have
been fighting since April 2019 when Haftar, backed by the United Arab Emirates
and Egypt, launched an offensive to seize the capital, Tripoli, from
Turkey-backed GNA.
Representatives
of the two sides took a major step toward peace when they met November 9 at the
Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) in neighboring Tunisia and signed a
cease-fire agreement. The 18-month process agreement aims to reunite
institutions and hold a general election at the end.
Reshaping
power
The
LPDF negotiators consisted of 75 Libyans, with 17 women members. After the
first in-person session of talks, the female participants called for greater
involvement of women in leadership positions and executive authority to
eliminate gender-based discrimination.
"The
formation of the government must be based on efficiency, merit, a fair
representation of political and geographical diversity, the participation of
cultural components, and a true representation of youth, which should not be
less than 20% in leadership positions," the women said in a
statement.
Women
activists say a fair inclusion of different groups across society ensures the
concerns of everyone are addressed toward a more democratic Libya. More active
involvement of women, they say, will help the country take a major step in reshaping
its institutions.
"The
most important thing is the definition of power in Libya," said Sharief of
Together We Build It, adding that Libyans have different visions of how their
country should be in the future. Those visions, she said, are further
complicated by the involvement of foreign powers that seek to maintain their
influence, often at the expense of social reforms such as women's rights.
Attacking
vocal women
Before
the civil war, Libyan women did not have legal protection, as certain
provisions in law regarding marriage, child custody and divorce discriminated
against women.
The
Arab Spring raised aspirations for change as women activists took a leading
role in popular protests. The hope dwindled quickly after the uprising, however,
as Libya's new leaders began publicly supporting polygamy, domestic violence
against women increased, and a string of assassinations and kidnapping for
ransom targeted female activists.
"If
the ongoing conflict creates security vacuums in the rest of the country that
Salafi jihadist militants can exploit, the impact on women's rights and
security in those locales could be devastating," warned a report published
by the Atlantic Council in 2019. The Salafi is a movement of Sunni Islam that
emphasizes a return to the principles of the founders of Islam as the only
correct understanding of the religion, but they usually are associated with
extreme practices.
According
to the National Commission for Human Rights-Libya (NCHR), women activists are
increasingly under pressure because of a series of kidnappings, enforced
disappearances and assassination attempts by militants.
NCHR's
head of women affairs, Zahia Faraj-Ali, told VOA the level of violence against
female activists likely will increase in the coming months as they continue to
raise their voices in pursuit of further participation in the executive
authority.
"I
faced a hate campaign in my work, and got harassing and death threats,"
Faraj-Ali said, adding that "no woman is safe today. It's a lawless state,
and any woman could be gunned down or kidnapped any moment and no one will be
held accountable."
Last
month, an outspoken female lawyer, Hanan Al-Barassi, was shot dead in Benghazi
by masked gunmen after she threatened to expose abuses and corruption by an
armed group on a Facebook livestream. Al-Barassi has previously accused
Haftar's relatives of abuse of power and corruption.
No
one has yet claimed responsibility for the assassination, but some activists
blame armed groups in Benghazi.
Al-Barassi's
death is one of several high-profile attacks, including the 2019 kidnapping of
lawmaker Seham Sergewa and the 2014 assassination of human rights lawyer Salwa
Bughaighis.
Faraj-Ali
said that the masculine culture, the absence of laws that protect women and the
spread of arms are the biggest challenges Libyan women face. She charged that
the first step to improving the situation for women is through their engagement
in Libya's peace-building process.
"The
importance of having women in leadership roles is that women would collaborate
to create a safe network and spaces for their peers, especially when we are
still struggling to implement U.N. Resolutions 1325 and 2467," she
said.
In
2000, the U.N. adopted Resolution 1325, emphasizing the important role of women
in conflict resolution, peace building and post-conflict reconstruction. In
2019, the U.N. adopted Resolution 2467 to strengthen justice and
accountability, and calling for a survivor-centered approach in the prevention
and response to conflict-related sexual violence.
https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/libyan-women-seek-greater-participation-peace-talks
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Jordanian
woman techpreneur scoops UN business award
11
December 2020
Ten
finalists in the UNCTAD Empretec Women in Business Awards demonstrate how
resilience, sustainability, circularity and inclusiveness are critical success
factors in their ventures.
Code
is a base language that will help us build our future. Afnan Kamel Ali, a
Jordanian tech entrepreneur, recognized this fact early on in her electrical
engineering career and more than a decade ago when she has the vision to start
the Eureka Tech Academy.
Fast
forward 10 years later and the academy is a reality that has trained more than
5,000 Arab youth.
Eureka
Tech Academy helps prepare children from six to 16 years step-by-step to be
innovators and engineers, and then to commercialize their ideas, with a special
focus on Artificial Intelligence, the internet of things, and robotics.
Her
long-term vision is to train one million children in the region by 2023.
Her
tireless work has won her recognition through the Arab region and, this
week, globally as she accepted the 7th
UNCTAD Empretec Women in Business Award via an online ceremony held on December
10.
She
is one of ten finalists that competed for the coveted entrepreneurship award
issues once every two years. They come from UNCTAD’s vast Empretec programme
network spanning 40 countries.
Empretec
is an entrepreneurship capacity-building programme that uses a special
behavioral approach to building and facilitating entrepreneurial skills.
Ms.
Ali said she was honored and humbled by the award. “Starting a new project does
not necessarily need a business plan but having an unshakable belief of the
‘why’ behind this project is a must,” she said.
“I
believed that change had to start in our education system, which lacked
technology training, and so that’s where I started with a dream to help
children become inventors because that’s what I wanted to be when I was a
child,” she said. Now her technology training curriculum has been endorsed by
the Jordanian government.
Ms.
Ali was awarded an executive MBA course on the digital economy at IMD Business
School in Lausanne, Switzerland, a scholarship sponsored by the school. She was
joined by three other winners in special award categories.
A
time for entrepreneurial resilience
UNCTAD’s
Empretec programme, which has trained thousands of entrepreneurs over the past
30 years, is one of the feathers in the UN trade and development body’s cap.
Its Women in Business Awards was established in 2008 and awards its prize every
two years.
The
awards make a significant impact on the lives of past winners who became role
models and empower other women to take up the entrepreneurship challenge.
This
year, appropriately, the theme for the awards was resilience. Opening the
awards, UNCTAD’s Deputy Secretary-General, Isabelle Durant, warned that the
COVID-19 crisis could reverse the limited gains made on gender equality and
exacerbate the feminization of poverty.
She
called for concerted efforts to mitigate the negative effects of the crisis on
women through mainstreaming women’s empowerment in all policies. The awards, in
part, do this.
Both
Ms. Ali and the other winners embody the philosophy of resilience, said UNCTAD
Investment Director, James Zhan.
“The
coronavirus pandemic has triggered a recession with a particularly strong
negative impact on women entrepreneurs given their overrepresentation in key
sectors affected by lockdowns, such as retail trade, hotels and restaurants and
education,” he said.
Pre-pandemic
gender inequalities such as limited access to finance, technology, markets,
networks and social protection have been exacerbated during the crisis with
women entrepreneurs suffering more with increased care burdens during
lockdowns.
“It
is more important than ever to recognize women entrepreneurs who are resilient
in the face of shocks and committed to their business cause,” Mr. Zhan added.
Meet
the special award winners
Two
of the three special award categories were won by Latin American “Empretecos”.
Paula Itatí de la Vega Sánchez and her company Bioita from Argentina were
selected by award sponsor, the One Creation Cooperative, in the circular
economy category.
Ms.
Sánchez manufactures cutlery and plates out of sugarcane and employs
disadvantaged people in her community. Accepting the award, she called on
entrepreneurs to unite in the face of adversities, transform our environment in
a positive way, and inspire the next generation.
Ana
María Villavicencio Flores from Ecuador, and her company Finca Agroturistica
Don Antonio, also farm, was selected by award sponsor Lavazza as the winner in
the sustainable agriculture category.
She
has implemented an agro-ecological approach free of chemicals at her farm and
inspires her guests to take environmental action.
Julian
Nyamahunge Omalla or 'Mama Cheers' is chief executive of Uganda's favorite
juice maker, Delight Ltd. She employs over 1000 people and exports to the likes
of Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Sudan.
She
has mobilized and engaged hundreds of vulnerable female farmers ensuring that
each woman would have at least one acre of fruit orchard intercropped with
short-term seasonal crops for income and sustainability.
Ms.
Omalla was selected by Inclusive Business Action Network in the inclusive
business category.
The
other finalists include Brazil’s Agda Óliver, Colombia’s Sandra Milena Sánchez
Valenzuela, Malaysia’s Sandra Anne Ghouse, India’s Kayan Motashaw, Romania’s
Nicoleta Hrițcu, and Tanzania’s Hadija Jabiri.
More
than 30 nominations were submitted by Empretec centers from 13 countries in
early 2020 covering developing countries and economies in transition.
The
top 10 finalists were shortlisted by an experienced executive board and then
evaluated to identify the winner for their innovation, leadership, and impact
on their communities by a panel of leading experts in the field of business,
entrepreneurship, and public policy.
Special
awards were sponsored by Lavazza, ONE CREATION Cooperative, IMD Business School
and Inclusive Business Action Network.
In
addition, other sponsors got behind the Empretec finalists. The members of
Entrepreneurs’ Organization committed mentorship services to all finalists,
while Grenoble Ecole de Management extended consultancy services to three
finalists.
Lastly,
the event master of ceremony, Bisila Bokoko sponsored several in-kind awards
and committed to facilitating mentorship for all finalists. The awards are a
satellite event of UNCTAD’s flagship World Investment Forum.
https://unctad.org/news/jordanian-woman-techpreneur-scoops-un-business-award
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Female-run
police hotline aims to encourage Pakistani women to report abuse
December
11, 2020
RAWALPINDI:
Police in Pakistan have set up a new female-operated hotline to encourage women
to report cases of abuse.
Officers
in the city of Rawalpindi are hoping the recently launched service will help to
streamline the reporting of abuse and give more women the confidence to come
forward with complaints.
Rawalpindi
Police have registered 320 reports of abuse filed by women since the beginning
of the year, though activists claim the figure is only a fraction of the actual
number of cases in the city, which has a population of more than 2.2 million.
“A
number of times we have come across situations where women have suffered and
they would not report it because of the fact that they have to go to a police
station,” Rawalpindi Police chief deputy inspector, Gen. Ahsan Younas, told
Arab News.
He
said an “institutional bias” in harassment cases had discouraged women from
reporting abuse, especially to male officers, but the new hotline would
eliminate the need to go to a police station to file a report and would also
protect victims’ identities.
The
initiative is the brainchild of Assistant Superintendent of Police Amna Baig
who noticed a surge in the reporting of abuse cases when she was posted to the
Waris Shah district.
She
said: “The reason there was a surge in reports of harassment was that I was on
the receiving end of the report as opposed to a male officer.
“Women
were saying they had these complaints for a long time but did not feel
comfortable speaking to anyone but a fellow woman.”
Now
stationed in Rawalpindi, Baig decided to establish the hotline and added that
one suspect had already been arrested through it.
Callers
are directed to a sub-inspector who hears the complaint, offers help from a
team of female police officers, and launches criminal proceedings.
“They
respond quickly, and within five minutes your sub-inspector has taken all the
information, addresses, and numbers, and from there we try our best to make
sure that the response time is not more than half-an-hour.
“We
want the women of our city to know that from the moment they call to the moment
we can close the case, we are with you,” Baig said.
Maria
Tahir, a lawyer who has worked on harassment cases, said the hotline was likely
to encourage more women to report abuse because they would have a “safe
environment to go to.” However, she added that there was a need to change a “culture”
which failed to accept that harassment was a serious problem.
Younas
said: “At times we do receive complaints, but they are not followed through, or
the reporter is unfortunately forced to compromise.
“But
now we will be following through on each complaint to make it clear that in the
case of any violation perpetrators should be ready to face the music.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1775766/world
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First
Turkish women’s rally marked on its 101st anniversary
December
10 2020
The
101st anniversary of the first women’s rally in Turkey has been celebrated in
the Black Sea province of Kastamonu, marking the event held on Dec. 10, 1919
when women raised their voices against the invasion of Anatolia by foreign
occupiers.
The
events, which are celebrated with great enthusiasm every year in the city, were
held with a limited number of people this year as part of COVID-19 measures.
Ayten
Kızıltan, the chairperson of Kastamonu Dec. 10 Women’s Platform Association,
stated that, within the scope of the rallies in 1919, Turkish women sent a
telegram to the first ladies of the world and asked them to stop the occupation
and leave their country.
Noting
that a telegram was also sent to the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Indian
administration, Kızıltan said that they celebrate the struggle for freedom and
democracy shown by Turkish women on Dec. 10 every year.
An
online painting exhibition was prepared in cooperation with Kastamonu
University and subsequently the governor and the mayor of the province were
visited with a limited number of people.
Noting
that this year’s events were partially somber due to the current pandemic
conditions, Kızıltan gave the good news that more magnificent celebrations will
be held next year.
Latife
Ergün, an official from the association of “university women,” also stressed
that 101 years ago, women residents of Kastamonu used to follow the
developments in the world closely and held a huge rally in the city at that
time to protest the occupation of the country.
“In
a telegram sent by women from Kastamonu to the then French first lady,
bilateral relations between France and Turkey from the past to the present were
discussed,” Ergün noted, adding that Wilson Principles were mentioned in
another telegram they sent to the United States.
“It
is noteworthy that the women from Kastamonu use an extremely diplomatic
language in the telegrams they sent, and how well they know the world culture,”
Ergün said.
Ferhan
Çelen, an NGO official from the province, stated that the events, which started
with the participation of approximately 15,000 people in 1994, have continued
with the same enthusiasm for 26 years.
https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/first-turkish-womens-rally-marked-on-its-101st-anniversary-160740
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