Judicial Statistics: 90 Percent of Convicted For Fornication in Maldives Are Female
New Age Islam News Bureau
1 Oct 2012
• Lebanese Father Says Teen Daughter Kidnapped For Marriage
• Turkish Woman Kidnapped By Syrian Ex-Husband
• Kuwait Plans Aid for Sexagenarian Women, Students
• Daycare Centers a ‘Must,’ Say Saudi Career Women
• Hundreds Attend the Funeral of Girl Slain By a Housemaid
• Salesman Cleared Of Forcing Tourists into Sex Trade in Dubai
• Woman Gets 15 Years in Jail for Businessman’s Murder in Dubai
• My Husband Being Harassed Unnecessarily: Fasih Mahmood’s Wife
• Pak Court Adjourns Hearing In Girl’s Blasphemy Case
• Iranian Female Students Form A Human Chain to Protest against Anti-Islam Movie
• Couple Accused Of Torturing Daughter to Death in Dubai Become Parents Again Behind Bars
Afghanistan's top female boxer is knocking out prejudice
• Twins crowned Miss Lebanon, runner-up
• Egyptian Blind Girls Orchestra to Give Two Concerts in October
• Sindh CM Hands Over Rs 0.6m Cheque to Poor Woman
• Asma Jahangir’s Mother Passes Away
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
Photo: Hundreds Attend the Funeral of Girl Slain By a Housemaid
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Judicial Statistics: 90 Percent of Convicted For Fornication in Maldives Are Female
By Hawwa Lubna
October 1st, 2012
Almost 90 percent of the people found guilty of “Zina” – fornication – and sentenced to flogging in 2011 were female, according to new statistics published by the Department of Judicial Administration last week.
A total of 129 fornication cases were filed last year and 104 people sentenced, out of which 93 were female. This includes 10 underage girls (below 18), 79 women between age 18-40 and four women above 40 years.
Of the 11 males who were sentenced, only one was a minor, with the others aged between 25-40.
According to Maldivian law, a person found guilty of fornication is subjected to 100 lashes and sentenced to one year of house arrest or banishment while a minor’s flogging is postponed until she or he reaches 18.
It takes four witnesses or a confession to prove the offence in court based on Islamic Sharia. The Maldives’ legal system consists of elements of both common law and Sharia.
The Maldives made international headlines last month when a 16 year-old girl was sentenced to 100 lashes and eight months house arrest by Hulhudhufaaru Magistrate Court in Raa Atoll, for fornication.
The court also sentenced a 29 year-old man to 10 years imprisonment after finding him guilty of having sex with the girl.
Being a minor, the court stated that the girl’s sentence would be implemented when she turned 18.
Minivan News could not verify if all the people sentenced had been flogged at the time of the report’s release, although former Minister of Gender and Family Aneesa Ahmed said that the sentences were being carried out.
The Judicial Sector Statistics Report 2011 highlights the sheer scale of the long-known and unaddressed issues of gender bias in the justice system.
A 2004 UNICEF study titled “Gender issues in the Maldives Criminal Justice System” raised serious concerns over cases of ‘Zina’ – both consensual and non-consensual alike.
As rape was at the time and is still defined as “forced fornication”, as with any other fornication case, four witnesses or a confession is still required by the court to prove the crime.
“In these cases a woman’s accusations need to be verified by two men or four women, thus, rape and sexual violence remain impossible to prove in virtually all cases,” the 2004 study noted.
The prosecutor general’s office had earlier confirmed that as these two necessary elements are almost impossible to find, in all rape cases the suspects are charged with forced sexual misconduct, which carries a lesser punishment.
However if the victim is a minor, the PG says that such cases are tried under the 2009 Act on Stipulating Strict Punishment for Child Abusers.
This is the major reason why no rape cases were found in the new statistics revealed by the judiciary despite the high number of reported rape cases. It is also likely that rapes involving minors have fallen into the category of child abuse while others have been categorised under forced sexual misconduct.
However, its also noteworthy that out of the men charged with forced sexual misconduct in 2011, six walked free and only four were sentenced.
The 2004 study further added at the time the current law establishes a minimum age limit of 18 for a person to receive adult punishments, but one of the three exceptions is “if the woman has had a child.”
In practice, “the current law allows for a young woman under the age of 18, who has been a victim of sexual abuse and is consequently pregnant, to receive lashings in a public setting. The victim must then endure the pain and public humiliation of her situation, both the illegitimate pregnancy and the public lashings, which have significant ramifications for her subsequent life opportunities. The perpetrator, on the other hand, is likely to remain publicly unidentified.”
The Judicial report 2011 says that 10 females were convicted for “giving birth outside a wedlock”, including a minor – a criminal offense which explicitly is directed at women and carries a sentence of maximum one to two years house arrest.
http://minivannews.com/politics/judicial-statistics-show-90-percent-of-those-convicted-for-fornication-are-female-44605
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Lebanese father says teen daughter kidnapped for marriage
October 01, 2012
BEIRUT: A Lebanese father says his teenage daughter has been kidnapped for the purpose of marriage, security sources told The Daily Star Monday.
In a complaint to police, Mohammad Assaf accusing Ibrahim Ali Meqdad, of kidnapping his daughter, 16, outside the family’s house in the Beirut neighborhood of Jnah.
The reason the kidnapper abducted the minor might be to marry her, the sources said.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Oct-01/189758-lebanese-father-says-teen-daughter-kidnapped-for-marriage.ashx#ixzz282t7VHGN
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Turkish Woman Kidnapped By Syrian Ex-Husband
October 01, 2012
BEIRUT: A Turkish man claimed his daughter was kidnapped by her Syrian ex-husband in the Beirut neighborhood of Bir Hassan, security sources told The Daily Star Monday.
The father told police that Syrian man Youssef Shiho, the ex-husband of his 26-year-old daughter, came to his house along with his brother Ahmad and beat him and his son with sharp objects. The two then fired several gunshots at the house and kidnapped his daughter, as well as his son.
The son was released at 4 a.m.in the neighborhood of Sabra.
Preliminary investigation suggested that Youssef had kidnapped the daughter with the intention to remarry her.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Oct-01/189762-turkish-woman-kidnapped-by-syrian-ex-husband.ashx#ixzz282tDF0SS
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Kuwait Plans Aid for Sexagenarian Women, Students
By Habib Toumi
September 27, 2012
Manama: Sexagenarian Kuwaiti women will be given social assistance under a new scheme by the state to provide help.
“Kuwaiti women who reach the age of 60 will be offered social assistance on the condition that they do not have a steady income or a pension or possess a real estate,” Muneera Al Fadhli, the assistant undersecretary for social development, said.
Sexagenarian Kuwaiti women will be one of two categories to be added to the list that benefits from the scheme promoted by the social and labour affairs ministry.
“The second category is the students who pursue higher studies abroad at their own expenses. They will be entitled to financial assistance if they are studying at a university or college accredited by the Kuwaiti education ministry and do not have an income,” she said.
A student must be studying for a university degree and be less than 30 years old,
“He must have been married for at least one month with a Kuwaiti woman or at least one year with a non-Kuwaiti woman to be eligible for the financial assistance,” the official said, quoted by local Arabic daily Al Rai on Thursday.
The assistance scheme has been forwarded to the cabinet and a decision for its implementation is expected in October, Al Fadhli said.
Kuwait has launched several official programmes to help people in need both at home and abroad.
Full report at:
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/kuwait/kuwait-plans-aid-for-sexagenarian-women-students-1.1081679
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Daycare centers a ‘must,’ say Saudi career women
SARAH ABDULLAH
Monday 1 October 2012
Following Wednesday’s decapitation of a 4 year-old girl in Yanbu by an Indonesian maid, a campaign was launched requesting the Ministry of Education to establish daycare centers in private and public schools. Others believe that daycare centers should be part of all businesses where women work full-time.
“What happened last week shows that we can no longer trust maids to babysit our children,” said Amal Saleh, a mother of two and manager at an advertising firm in Jeddah.
She added that after hearing what had happened to the young girl, she immediately petitioned the managing director and CEO of the company she works for to allow for a daycare center at the women’s section. She called on all working women to do the same.
“I think that if all working women petition the companies they work for and ask for day care centers, it will change the society for good,” she said.
Full report at:
http://www.arabnews.com/daycare-centers-%E2%80%98must%E2%80%99-say-saudi-career-women
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Hundreds Attend the Funeral of Girl Slain By a Housemaid
30 September 2012
JEDDAH: Hundreds of citizens participated in the burial of Tala Al-Shehri and paid condolences to the parents of the girl who was allegedly slain by a housemaid on Wednesday in Yanbu. The funeral prayer was performed on Friday at Omar bin Abdul-Aziz Mosque.
The maid confessed to murdering the girl in preliminary police investigations.
The deceased was buried in a Geem 16 area’s graveyard. Madinah Gov. Prince Abdul-Aziz bin Majed attended the funeral and visited the grieving family after Maghreb prayer. The governor sat with the deceased’s father and expressed his willingness to assist the family with what they need.
Full report at:
http://www.arabnews.com/hundreds-attend-funeral-slain-yanbu-girl
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Salesman Cleared Of Forcing Tourists into Sex Trade in Dubai
By Bassam Za’za’, Legal and Court Correspondent
September 30, 2012
Three women claimed suspect used social networks to trick them into visiting Dubai
Dubai: A salesman has been absolved of forcing three women into prostitution after luring them into Dubai with false promises on social networking sites.
Citing lack of corroborated evidence, the Dubai Court of First Instance acquitted the 38-year-old Syrian salesman, M.M, of sexually exploiting the women, two of whom were from Colombia and one from the Dominican Republic.
The salesman had earlier pleaded not guilty and denied the women’s’ allegations that he had tricked them into coming to Dubai by claiming over the internet that he wanted to marry them.
Full report at:
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/crime/salesman-cleared-of-forcing-tourists-into-sex-trade-1.1083026
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Woman Gets 15 Years in Jail for Businessman’s Murder in Dubai
Court refuses woman’s claim of self-defence after victim stabbed 12 times in stomach
By Bassam Za’za’, Legal
September 30, 2012
Dubai: A woman has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for killing a man whom she claimed pestered her to have sex with him and whom she had financial disputes with.
The Dubai Court of First Instance found the 30-year-old Pakistani woman, A.G., guilty of killing fellow countryman, businessman, I.J., and stealing his two mobile phones following a commercial dispute between the two.
The judges regarded her innocent plea (before the court and prosecutors) as an attempt to escape from justice.
Full report at:
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/crime/woman-gets-15-years-in-jail-for-businessman-s-murder-1.1082832
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My husband being harassed unnecessarily: Fasih Mahmood’s wife
Sep 30 2012
New Delhi : Saudi Arabia's refusal to deport terror suspect Fasih Mahmood might have miffed Indian authorities but it has given fresh hope to the Bihar engineer's wife who sees it as proof that there is no evidence against her husband.
Nikhat Parveen, the wife of the Darbhanga man who was picked up by Saudi police in May, says she came to know through reports in the media that the Saudi government has asked India to furnish more evidence to prove Fasih's alleged role in terror strikes.
Referring to the recent Supreme Court observation in which a bench said that security agencies must ensure that no innocent person from the minority community is labelled a terrorist, Nikhat appealed to the Indian government to take a fresh look into the case.
"Why doesn't the Indian government look more carefully into the activities of the Intelligence agencies and make sure they do not mess up things like they have done in this case," she asked.
Full report at:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/my-husband-being-harassed-unnecessarily-fasih-mahmood-s-wife/1009987/
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Pak court adjourns hearing in girl’s blasphemy case
October 01, 2012
A Pakistani court on Monday adjourned a hearing for two weeks in the blasphemy case against a teenage Christian girl, her lawyer said.
Islamabad High Court postponed the proceedings until October 17 to study her petition to dismiss the charges for lack of evidence.
Lawyer Fazalur Rehman Niazi told DPA that he had asked the court for more time to prepare the defence.
The girl, thought to be about 14 years of age but suffering from learning disabilities, was accused of burning pages of the Koran.
But police told a lower court last month that investigators had found no evidence against her since being accused by one of her neighbours.
Police later arrested the accuser, local imam Khalid Jadoon Chishti, of deliberately tearing pages out of a copy of the Koran and planting them along with ashes in the girl’s bag.
She was arrested on August 16 after a group of Muslims surrounded her house in a slum neighbourhood of Islamabad.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/pak-court-adjourns-hearing-in-girls-blasphemy-case/article3954322.ece
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Iranian female students form a human chain to protest against anti-Islam movie
Sep 30, 2012
Iranian students condemn the sacrilegious movie, insulting Islam’s prophet. Thousands of Iranian school girls form a human chain around Azadi Square in Tehran to voice their anger over the video made in the U.S which insults Prophet Mohammad.
The students told us why they’d decided to participate in this protest.
The 12-minute trailer of a supposed 2-hour film titled “Innocence of Muslims” was uploaded on You-tube on the 12th of July. Muslims throughout the world have been protesting against the video since.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/30/264305/anti-islam-movie-youtube-innocence-of-moslems-prophet-insult-human-chain/
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Couple Accused Of Torturing Daughter to Death In Dubai Become Parents Again Behind Bars
By TAHIRA YAQOOB
October 01, 2012
A man accused of killing his eight-year-old daughter with his lover after torturing her and her sister with hot irons and stun guns has just become a father again.
Alleged killers Hamad Saoud al Sherawi, 29, and his mistress Al Anood al Ameri, 27, have become parents while behind bars in Dubai as they wait to hear if they will get the death sentence for ending Wadeema's life and leaving her sister Mira with a permanent disability.
At a trial hearing today, Judge Maher Salameh was told Al Ameri was in hospital as she had just given birth to a baby boy named Saoud after his father. 'That's good,' he said.
It is not known whether Al Sherawi has seen his newborn son or whether Al Ameri will be allowed to keep her son with her.
Full report at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210816/Couple-accused-torturing-daughter-8-death-hot-irons-stun-guns-parents-prison.html#ixzz281xWKkjt
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Afghanistan's top female boxer is knocking out prejudice
By Helen Roberts, Friday magazine
September 27, 2012
She’s only 18 and has already received death threats, but Afghan female boxer Sadaf Rahimi is determined to fight her way to the top – for herself and the women of her country. She tells Helen Roberts why
Female boxer Sadaf Rahimi risks her life every time she steps into the ring, but it’s never her opponent she’s afraid of. The 18-year-old is Afghanistan’s only national-level female fighter and practises at the Ghazi Stadium in Kabul – where the old Taliban regime used to stage public executions.
Full report at:
http://gulfnews.com/life-style/people/afghanistan-s-top-female-boxer-is-knocking-out-prejudice-1.1081673
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Twins Crowned Miss Lebanon, Runner-Up
October 01, 2012
BEIRUT: Twins Rina and Romy Chibany were crowned Miss Lebanon 2012 and runner-up Saturday evening, in a ceremony held at the Platea arena, north of Beirut. The 21-year-old sisters, from Zahle in the Bekaa, were among 16 contestants from across Lebanon who took part in the competition, which included contests in the swimwear and gowns categories, and it was the first time that twins had entered the contest.
Rina was handed over the crown by last year’s winner, Yara Khoury-Mikhael, and has now guaranteed her place in the Miss Universe contest, to be held in Las Vegas on Dec. 19.
Speaking to Elnashara news website moments after she was crowned, Rina said, “I’m very happy to have won. I promise to restore the pride of this position, in deeds, not in words.”
Also, she added, that she’d “have been much happier if my sister had won,” but vowed to cooperate with Romy throughout her reign.
Full report at:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Oct-01/189701-twins-crowned-miss-lebanon-runner-up.ashx#ixzz281KUnmhM
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Egyptian blind girls orchestra to give two concerts in October
Sunday 30 Sep 2012
Al-Nour Wal Amal, a blind girls orchestra, will give two upcoming concerts on Friday 5 October and Sunday 7 October
On Friday, 5 October, Al-Nour Wal Amal Orchestra will perform at St Josef Church for Franciscan Padres and Sunday, 7 October, at the Lycée Français du Caire.
The orchestra was created by Istiklal Radi, the first director of Al-Nour Wal Amal Association. The late Samha Khouli, former president of the Academy of Arts and former dean of the Cairo Conservatory, provided the association with an academic basis for the creation of professional musicians.
Full report at:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/33/54282/Arts--Culture/Music/Egyptian-blind-girls-orchestra-to-give-two-concert.aspx
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Sindh CM Hands Over Rs 0.6m Cheque to Poor Woman
October 01, 2012
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has handed over a cheque of Rs 0.6 million to a poor woman Samina Afzaal for treatment of her handicapped child Danish.
According to an official statement here on Saturday, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf had sanctioned this special grant.
The chief minister also assured the woman of more finance assistance, if needed.
He offered a government job to the family. Samina Afzaal requested the chief minister for financial assistance from the government for her daughter studying in ninth class. She said that it was very difficult for her (mother) to manage daily expenses of the family along with educational expenses of her daughter.
Shah assured her that the government would bear all the expenses of her daughter’s education.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012\09\30\story_30-9-2012_pg12_6
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Asma Jahangir’s Mother Passes Away
October 01, 2012
LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: Sabiha Jilani – the mother of former Supreme Court Bar Association president, Asma Jahangir, and human rights activist Hina Jilani – passed away on Sunday. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf expressed grief and sorrow over Sabiha Jilani’s demise. In his condolence message to Asma and Hina, the president said the death of one’s mother was a great personal loss. “My thoughts and prayers are with you and the bereaved family,” he said. The PM expressed his heartfelt condolences and sympathies with members of the bereaved family. He prayed to God to shower countless blessings upon the departed soul and give strength to the bereaved family to bear this loss with equanimity. PML-N President Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif also expressed grief and sorrow over Sabiha’s demise in their separate condolence massages to Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012\10\01\story_1-10-2012_pg7_4
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