Iraqi Boxer Bushra Hajjar Aim Sucker Punch At Gender Taboos
New
Age Islam News Bureau
06
January 2022
• Eight
Young Women Make Up Arab's First Girls Wrestling Team: History In The Making
• Babies
Among Nearly 100 Hostages Freed In Northern Nigeria
• Women’s
Doctored Photos Online: Journalist Sends Legal Notice To Tech Giants Github,
Twitter
• 'May
be in Touch With Militants': Intel Unsure of Latest Location of Kerala Women Who
Left India to Join ISIS
• Won’t
Accept Raise In Marriage Age For Women: Telangana Waqf Board
• UAE:
Police Rescue Four Women Lost In Mountain Due To Darkness
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iraqi-boxer-bushra-hajjar-/d/126106
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Iraqi
Boxer Bushra Hajjar Aim Sucker Punch At Gender Taboos
Bushra
al-Hajjar, a 35-year-old Iraqi boxing instructor, is pictured during a training
session at the Islamic University in Najaf.
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January
6, 2022
NAJAF
(Iraq): Iraqi boxer Bushra Hajjar jumps into the ring, gloves raised to eye
level, and strikes at her sparring partner. Her bigger struggle, though, is to
deliver a blow against social expectations.
In
Iraq’s Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf, the sight of a women’s boxing hall is
unusual but, like others here, the 35-year-old instructor is fighting deeply
ingrained taboos.
“At
home, I have a full training room with mats and a punching bag,” says the
mother of two, who also practises karate. Hajjar won gold in the 70kg-class at
a boxing tournament in Baghdad in December.
“My
family and friends are very supportive, they’re very happy with the level I’ve
reached,” she adds, a blue headscarf pulled tightly over her hair.
Twice
a week, she trains at a private university in Najaf, 100km south of the
capital, where she also teaches sports.
In
overwhelmingly conservative Iraq, and particularly in Najaf, Bushra
acknowledges her adventure has raised eyebrows.
“We’ve
come across many difficulties,” she says. “We’re a conservative society that
has difficulty accepting these kinds of things.”
She
recalls the protests when training facilities first opened for women, but says
“today, there are many halls”.
‘Macho
society’
Boxing
student Ola Mustafa, 16, taking a break from her punching bag, tells AFP: “We
live in a macho society that opposes success for women.”
However,
she has the support not only of her trainer but also of her parents and
brother, signalling that social change is afoot.
“People
are gradually beginning to accept it. If more girls try it out, society will
automatically come to accept it.”
Iraqi
boxing federation president Ali Taklif acknowledges that Iraqi women engaging
in the sport is a “recent phenomenon”, but says it is gaining ground.
“There
is a lot of demand from females wanting to join,” he says, adding that Iraq now
has some 20 women’s boxing clubs.
More
than 100 female boxers competed in a tournament last month, in all categories,
he adds.
But
“like other sports (in Iraq), the discipline suffers from a lack of
infrastructure, training facilities and equipment”.
From
dads to daughters
Iraq
had a proud tradition of women in sports, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.
Whether in basketball, volleyball or cycling, women’s teams regularly took part
in regional tournaments.
But
sanctions, decades of conflict, and a hardening of conservative social values
brought this era to a close, with only the autonomous Kurdistan region in
northern Iraq largely spared.
There
has been a timid reversal in recent years, with women taking up a range of
sports, also including kickboxing.
For
Hajer Ghazi, who at age 13 won a silver medal last month, boxing runs in the
family. Her father, a veteran professional boxer, encourages his children to
follow in his footsteps. Both her sisters and older brother Ali are also
boxers.
“Our
father supports us more than the state does,” says Ali in their hometown of
Amarah in southwestern Iraq.
Her
father, Hassanein Ghazi, a 55-year-old truck driver who won several medals in
his heyday, insists: “Women have the right to play sports, it’s only normal.”
He
recognises certain “sensitivities” remain, linked to traditional tribal values.
For example, “when their coach wants them to run, he takes them to the outskirts
of town”, away from too many onlookers.
Source:
Free Malaysia Today
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Eight
Young Women Make Up Arab's First Girls Wrestling Team: History In The Making
Members
of Arab High School’s first girls wrestling team are, from left, front: Reagan
Golden, Ema “Smalls” Ivey and Madilyn Rodgers; back: Niya Turner, Maggie
Whitaker, Sarah Roe, Autumn Boutwell and Freedom Harper.
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Jan
5, 2022
Arab
High School’s wrestling program, which dates back to the 1970s, has quite the
illustrious history.
There
are the eight state championships, tied for fourth most in Alabama, plus three
more dual meet state titles. Included in the eight traditional state
championships were six straight (2013-18) under coach Michael Pruitt – the
second-best run in state history.
The
244.5 points the 2015 Arab team recorded in winning the state title is the
second-highest total ever. There have been more than 30 individual state
champions.
And
don’t forget the run of 117 straight dual meet victories recorded by Arab
between 2013-18, the second most in state history.
Now,
a group of eight determined young women are out to make a little history
themselves. They make up Arab High School’s first girls wrestling team.
Boys
coach Kyle Routon is also coaching the girls. He explained that girls high
school wrestling currently is an unsanctioned sport in Alabama.
Teams
held a state tournament last season and will again this season, and next school
year, girls wrestling will be an AHSAA-sanctioned sport, according to Routon.
That
means all eight of Arab’s girls will have the opportunity to win an official
AHSAA team and/or individual championship next season as this year’s team is
very heavy to youth.
Madilyn
Rodgers and Freedom Harper are juniors. Maggie Whitaker and Autumn Boutwell are
sophomores. Sarah Roe is a freshmen. And Reagan Golden, Ema “Smalls” Ivey and
Niya Turner are seventh graders.
All
had interesting motives for taking on such a challenge – not the least of which
was being a part of school history.
“As
soon as I found out (Arab) was starting a girls wrestling team, I joined,” said
Turner, who has wrestled in youth leagues since she was in the fourth grade.
Her dad, Jacob Helton, also wrestled.
Boutwell
came out for the team because Roe asked her to do so. The two have become
pretty close in recent years, and Roe wanted to share the experience with a
friend.
She’s
the younger sister of defending state champion Caleb Roe. Her other brother,
Josh, is also highly ranked in the state.
“I
always saw my brothers doing it and always wanted to try it,” Sarah Roe said.
“Autumn and I have been friends for a while and I thought it would be fun to do
something like this with a friend.”
Boutwell
added: “I thought it would be cool to be a part of the first girls team to
wrestle at Arab.”
All
the girls said the sport is harder than they thought it would be – and they
thought it would be pretty difficult.
“I
played soccer but it’s nothing like this,” Boutwell said.
Sarah
Roe said even though she followed her brothers, she had no idea what she was
getting into.
“I
didn’t know because I didn’t see them practice,” she said. “I expected it to be
hard but maybe not this hard. You’ve got to be in really good shape to do
this.”
Whitaker
echoed that sentiment.
“It
takes so much conditioning,” she said. “You’ve got to be in shape, a different
kind of shape.
“It’s
so hard, many people can’t do it. But it’s so worth it.”
The
team originally had 13 members but that number eventually dwindled to eight.
The motivation for some to stick it out was the hope of earning a college
scholarship one day.
If
you stick with it, you’re guaranteed a scholarship,” Turner said. “There are so
few women wrestlers.”
Whitaker
also mentioned scholarship money but she has another motive.
“It
is a boy sport and I want to go for a state championship in a boys sport to
prove girls can do it, too,” she said.
Rodgers
is an interesting story. Her brother, Christian Eaton, came out for wrestling
late in his high school days. Harper was a Mat Cat and was going to do so again
this season – until assistant coach Klay Cranford told her one day to come to
practice.
“He
wanted me to see if I’d like to ry it – and I absolutely love it,” she said.
Harper
also is an interesting story. Her brother, Levi Harper, wrestled for Arab years
ago and played a role in his sister’s decision to try wrestling.
“He
and I wrestled around quite a bit when we were younger and I wanted to follow
in his footsteps and maybe rekindle what we had growing up,” Freedom said.
Levi
is 27 now and “probably my biggest supporter,” she said.
“Everyone
else in my family laughed when they heard I was going out,” she added. “He went
out and got me a pair of shoes to wrestle in.”
• The
Arab girls finished runner-up at their own invitational last week. Whitaker won
her weight division. Rodgers and Turner won silver medals and Boutwell finished
third.
Roe
and Golden each finished fourth and Ivey and Harper both finished sixth.
In
the JV boys division, Jaxon Ivey and Caden Hilyer won their weight classes.
Source:
The Arab Tribune
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Babies
among nearly 100 hostages freed in northern Nigeria
January
05, 2022
ABUJA,
Nigeria: Nearly 100 hostages, m women and children, have been rescued more than
two months after they were abducted by armed groups in northwest Nigeria,
police said Tuesday.
Among
the 97 freed hostages are 19 babies and more than a dozen children, according
to Ayuba Elkana, police chief in Zamfara state.
Mostly
barefooted, weary and in worn-out clothes, the ex-captives trickled out of the buses
that took them to Gusau, capital of Zamfara state. Women with
malnourished-looking babies strapped to their backs trailed behind.
Coming
a few days after 21 schoolchildren were freed by security forces, the rescue
brought a sigh of relief in Nigeria where armed groups have killed thousands
and kidnapped many residents and travelers in exchange for ransoms.
Police
said the hostages were “rescued unconditionally” Monday in joint security
operations targeting the camps of armed groups that have been terrorizing
remote communities across the northwest and center of Africa’s most populous
country.
They
had been abducted from their homes and along highways in remote communities in
Zamfara and neighboring Sokoto state.
The
hostages had slept on the ground in abandoned forest reserves that serve as
hideouts for the gunmen. The first batch of 68 “were in captivity for over
three months and they include 33 male adults, seven male children, three female
children and 25 women including pregnant/nursing mothers respectively,” police
chief Elkana said.
Another
set of 29 victims were also rescued “unconditionally” in Kunchin Kalgo forest
in the Tsafe local government area of Zamfara, police said.
It is
not clear if ransoms were paid for the releases as is usually the case in many
remote communities in Nigeria’s troubled north. Authorities have said their
freedom was the result of military operations including airstrikes.
The
large bands of assailants are mostly young men from the Fulani ethnic group,
who had traditionally worked as nomadic cattle herders and are caught up in a
decades-long conflict with Hausa farming communities over access to water and
grazing land.
Source:
Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1998406/world
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Women’s
doctored photos online: Journalist sends legal notice to tech giants GitHub,
Twitter
January
6, 2022
Days
after the Delhi Police lodged a case in connection with photos of Muslim women
being misused on a website, a Delhi-based journalist has sent a legal notice to
tech companies Twitter and GitHub seeking details of people who created the
website and shared her doctored photos alongside objectionable comments.
The
website hosted by US-based open-source platform GitHub had published photos of
more than a hundred Muslim women with lewd and vulgar remarks. The screenshots
of these photos with the caption ‘Deal of the Day’ was shared largely on
Twitter.
Last
Saturday, the journalist filed a complaint with the Delhi Police and a case of
sexual harassment and promoting enmity between groups was registered.
The
cyber cell of Delhi Police has sent a request to GitHub through Mutual Legal
Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to help in the investigation.
In
the notice sent to GitHub and Twitter offices in the US and India, the woman’s
lawyer has asked the companies to help them with the identification of the
accused persons who created and uploaded photos on the website. The complainant
also demanded that all such “offensive” posts must be removed from GitHub and
Twitter and the companies must take preventive measures.
“Bulli
Bai (the website) and the subsequent tweets are deeply disturbing as they
demean and insult women in general and Muslim women in particular. These are
inherently violent, threatening and are designed to intimidate my Client, and
others. Such abusive statements on social media, regardless of format or
intricacies of technology, cannot be tolerated and neither can the platforms
run by you, Notices, be used in such an illegal manner by bigoted and
misogynistic sections of society,” reads the notice drafted by the lawyer.
The
complainant has asked the companies to provide details of users who created the
website, names of all users who accessed the website and users who posted tweets
and retweets supporting the website.
“There
must be mechanisms in the form of monitoring, automatic or human, that can stop
websites/ portals/ apps like “Bulli Bai” or the earlier “Sulli Deals” at their
very inception, as being violative of human dignity and of Indian and
International laws,” reads the notice.
The
companies have seven days to produce a response failing which the complainant
said they will take further legal action.
Meanwhile,
the Mumbai police on Wednesday made the third arrest in the matter based on an
FIR registered in Mumbai
Source:
Indian Express
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'May
be in Touch With Militants': Intel Unsure of Latest Location of Kerala Women
Who Left India to Join ISIS
JANUARY
06, 2022
Intelligence
agencies tracking movements of women from Kerala who had left the country with
the intention of joining the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in
Afghanistan may not be sure about their current whereabouts after they moved
out of jails in the Taliban country and there is a possibility that they may
have been residing in West Asia, according to sources.
Sources
also told News18 that the women, who ended up in Afghan jails and reportedly
released after the Taliban siege last year, could still be in touch with some
IS militants. Officials, however, are tighter-lipped about it.
The
scenario has come to the fore after the Supreme Court asked the central
government on Monday to look into the plea of a Kerala-based man for the
extradition of his daughter who left the country to join IS and his minor
grand-daughter’s detention in Afghanistan. She later surrendered after her
husband was killed in a cross-firing with security forces in Afghanistan.
Sonia
Sebastian alias Ayisha, who converted to Islam, was seen in a video shot by
Strat News Global in 2020 where she said she went to Syria to join ISIS and
lived under the Islamic rule but was met with “disappointment”. The NIA had
registered her status as ‘absconding’ and Interpol had issued a red corner
notice against her in 2017.
Samsiya
Kuriya and Reffeala were among other women who also appeared in the 2020 video.
They said they wanted to come back to India as what they expected in Syria
under ISIS was “different”.
According
to NIA officials, Sonia Sebastian got married to Abdul Rashid Abdulla in 2011
who is the main accused in the case. He facilitated everything on behalf of
ISIS. In the 2020 video, she said she did not want to associate herself with
ISIS again and wanted to return to India.
Sonia
Sebastian is the second most important accused in FIR No.534/2016 of Kasargod
police station. The case was later transferred to the NIA in August 2016 and is
pertinent to the activities of 14 youngsters from the Kasaragod district who
along with their families left India between May and July 2016 and joined the
ISIS/Daesh.
She
has been charged with various sections including 120 B, 125 IPC , Section 57 of
Kerala Police Act & sections 13,38 and 39 of the UA(P) Act,1967.
According
to the NIA, she along with other accused have been charged with criminal
conspiracy, commission of unlawful activities, membership and support to
proscribed terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by a
youth in Kasargod.
Although
the NIA has filed a charge sheet, and a conviction has been done, the case is
still under further investigation.
“In
pursuance to the criminal conspiracy hatched with fugitive ISIS/ Daish activist
accused Abdul Rashid Abdulla besides Ashfak Majeed and others, accused Nashidul
Hamzafar had exited India on October 3, 2017 and travelled to Muscat, Oman
before travelling to Iran and had further reached Kabul, Afghanistan, where he
was detained by Afghan Security Agencies during October 2017 for illegally
entering the country and attempting to join his associates, in ISIS/ Daish,” the
NIA said.
Source:
News18
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Won’t
accept raise in marriage age for women: Telangana Waqf Board
5th
January 2022
Hyderabad:
As the Centre proposes to raise the marriageable age for women to 21 years from
18 years, Telangana Wakf Board chairman Mohammed Saleem has said that the board
has accepted the decision on Triple Talaq, but will not accept this.
Speaking
with ANI on Tuesday, Saleem said that Qazis of Telangana had conducted a meeting
and have come to a conclusion that raising the marriageable age for women to 21
years is “impossible”.
“As
written in Islam, both boys and girls should be married off as soon as they
mature. Earlier, the age of 18 years was made mandatory; we followed and
accepted that, but now 21 years is not acceptable,” he said.
He
also appealed to the public of Telangana to not panic “because the bill has
just reached the sub-committee and will have to pass a long procedure
thereafter.”
“Even
after that, there is two years time. We will take this matter to the Chief
Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and raise the voice Parliament to stop the bill,”
he added.
He
further added that the change in marriageable age will “spoil the life of
children”. “They are asking to marry children at the age of 21; they get
matured in class 10.”
Saleem
then appealed to all Qazi’s in the country to go with the Wakf Board members
and to present a memorandum to the Chief Ministers of their respective states.
He
further said that the board also appeals to the Chief Ministers of all states
to help in stopping the bill.
“Parents
are relieved once the girl child is married. We have accepted Triple Talaq, but
we cannot accept this,” Saleem said while adding that the bill is completely
wrong and the board condemns it.
A
delegation of Waqf Board, Hazath section along with Qazis will meet Telangana
CM and present a memorandum soon.
The
parliamentary panel, headed by BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahastrabuddhe, to
which the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill that seeks to raise
the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 has been referred to, will
start its deliberations soon.
The
31-member Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth
and Sports has lone woman Rajya Sabha MP from All India Trinamool Congress
(AITMC) Sushmita Dev.
A
meeting has been scheduled on January 5 of the Parliamentary standing committee
on ‘Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports’ to hear the views of
Secretary, Ministry of Culture on the subject
“Reforms
in the Education of Performing and Fine Arts” and to decide the future course
of action of the Committee.”
Source:
Siasat Daily
https://www.siasat.com/wont-accept-raise-in-marriage-age-for-women-telangana-wakf-board-2253237/
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UAE:
Police rescue four women lost in mountain due to darkness
5 Jan
2022
by
Afkar Ali Ahmed
Four
women had to be rescued from the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah after they had
gotten lost while hiking in Naqab Valley.
Abu
Dhabi Police Airlift Man Critically Injured In Car Crash To Hospit...
Three
Emirati women and an Arab resident, aged 25 and 37 years, lost their way in the
rugged area on Tuesday evening due to low visibility.
Ras
Al Khaimah police sprung into action after the Operations Room received a
report at about 7:15pm.
Brigadier
General Mohammed Abdullah Al Zaabi, Director of the Civil Defense Department in
Ras Al Khaimah, explained that the team received a call from a young woman
stating that she and her three friends were lost in the Naqab Valley while on a
hiking trail.
A
specialised search team moved from Digdaga Center and began combing the area on
foot for the four women.
The
search and rescue operation continued for two hours until they were found in
good health.
Brigadier
General Al Zaabi called on mountain hikers to be careful and advised them not
to trek when it’s getting dark for their safety.
The
hikers risk falling or getting injured due to poor light, especially in the
rugged mountainous areas.
Source:
Khaleej Times
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/uae-police-rescue-four-women-lost-in-mountain-due-to-darkness
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