Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai: There Should Be No Compromise on Girls' Education in Intra-Afghan Talks
New
Age Islam News Bureau
22
September 2020
• Taj
Bibi, An Afghan Woman Prays That Peace Will Save Her Fourth Husband
• Palestinian
Women Suffer Sexual Abuse in Israeli Prisons: Report
• 'If
Sikhs Can Wear Turban, Why Can't Muslims Wear Hijab'; Singapore Debates Ban on Islamic
Veil at Workplace
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/nobel-peace-prize-laureate-malala/d/122917
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Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai: There Should Be No Compromise on Girls' Education in Intra-Afghan Talks
September
21, 2020
Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
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Nobel
Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai says that "there should be no
compromise" on the right to education for Afghan girls in ongoing peace
negotiations between the government and Taliban militants.
In an
exclusive interview with RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal on September 21, Yousafzai said
that "peace is precious" for the Afghan people after suffering
through four decades of war, losing their family members, homes, and
livelihoods.
Malala,
who was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her campaign supporting the
education of girls, stressed that women's freedoms and human rights should not
be undermined in any peace process.
"We
all hope that peace comes to this world so that our people have their own
normal life. But it is very necessary that [the government and the Taliban]
have to listen to the voices of civil society and women and there should be no
compromise on girls' education and human rights because peace can't be restored
without human rights," said Malala, who was shot in the head by a
Pakistani Taliban gunman when she was on her way to school in the Swat Valley.
Women's
rights is one of the thorniest issues in the long-delayed, U.S.-brokered peace
talks that began in Doha on September 12.
During
its brief administration in Afghanistan, the Taliban banned women from going to
school and working outside their homes, while also brutally enforcing a strict
dress code.
Many
Afghan activists fear that women's rights could be a casualty of peace
negotiations despite recent pledges by Taliban officials that they will respect
women's rights under Islamic law.
Millions
of Afghan girls have gone to school and women enjoy the right to work and
participate in politics since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001.
https://gandhara.rferl.org/a/malala-urges-no-compromise-on-girls-education-in-afghan-peace-talks/30850428.html
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Asma
Arian Wife Of Qatar’s Detained Sheikh Talal Makes Desperate Plea To UNHRC For
Her Husband’s Release
September
21, 2020
Asma
Arian, here with her four children, has made an 11th-hour effort to get her husband,
Qatari Sheikh Talal Al Thani, released from prison. (Courtesy of Asma Arian)
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LONDON:
The wife of a Qatari royal languishing in a Doha prison made a desperate appeal
to the UN Human Rights Council Monday for her husband’s release.
Sheikh
Talal bin Abdul Al-Thani, a grandson of the former emir Sheikh Ahmad bin Ali
Al-Thani, has been in prison for seven years.
His
wife, Asma Arian, says he has been tortured and ill-treated by the Qatari
authorities and denied medical care as his health deteriorates.
She
delivered a statement to the Geneva-based council on a report by the Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention on Qatar, which it visited last year.
“He’s
been arbitrarily detained in Qatar for over seven years — years of suffering
for our children and me, and torture and despair for him,” Arian, who lives in
Germany with her four children, said.
“He’s
in incommunicado detention and suffers from severe medical conditions he
developed in prison.
“My
husband needs urgent medical care and a lawyer he chooses freely.”
Arian
says her husband was detained in 2013 after he requested his inheritance from
the government. She said Sheikh Talal was duped into signing security checks
that it said would underwrite commercial projects through which he would be paid.
“Their
projects proved fictitious, designed to trap my husband in fabricated charges
of defaulting on his debts,” she said.
He
was given a 22 year prison sentence without a proper trial.
The
UN working group’s report explicitly criticized Doha for imprisoning large
numbers of people for defaulting on debt and the use of “guarantee cheques” to
secure loans.
“We
call on Qatar to abide by the recommendations of the working group and release
my husband immediately, and respect his rights while he’s in detention,” Arian
said.
The
report made a series of recommendations for Qatar, including raising the
minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 and abolishing the system of male
guardianship over women.
Sheikh
Talal’s plight has been linked to the decades of infighting within the Qatari
royal family.
His
grandfather, who reigned from 1960 until 1972, was deposed by his cousin Sheikh
Khalifa bin Hamad, grandfather of Qatar’s current emir, Sheikh Tamim.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1738021/middle-east
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Taj
Bibi, An Afghan Woman Prays That Peace Will Save Her Fourth Husband
September
22, 2020
Taj
Bibi 33, holds a photo of her husband next to the military uniforms and
pictures of her former husbands who were killed battling the Taliban, at her
home in Asad Abad, Kunar province, Afghanistan September 20, 2020.
Image
Credit: Reuters
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Kabul/Jalalabad:
Heavily pregnant Taj Bibi prays for her fourth husband as the Afghan soldier
sets off to battle the Taliban, hoping his fate won’t be the same as that of his
three brothers, her first three husbands, all killed fighting the militants.
Clashes
between Afghan government forces and Taliban insurgents have not died down
despite peace talks in Qatar that have raised hopes for an end to Afghanistan’s
seemingly endless cycle of war.
At
least 60 members of the Afghan security forces were killed in the past week
across the country. Bibi, watching her husband, Aminullah, set off for a
three-month stint on the front line, has a simple plea: she hopes the men in
power don’t make her a widow for a fourth time. “I can’t afford to see my five
children being orphaned again,” said Bibi, 33, who lives in the Sadeqabad area
of mountainous Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan.
Bibi
was 18 when she got married for the first time, to Aminullah’s oldest brother,
who was a soldier. Life was good, Bibi says, until her husband was killed in a
battle with the Taliban. Within months, she married his younger brother, also a
soldier.
It is
common in ethnic Pashtun society for widows to marry their brothers-in-law
because of a belief that a widow should not marry outside the family.
But
even before she came to terms with her new life, a pregnant Bibi had to
identify the bloody body of her second husband, who was killed defending a
check-point from a Taliban attack.
‘Blame
myself’
After
90 days of mourning, she agreed to her father-in-law’s request that she marry
his third son, a police officer. He was killed in a clash with the Taliban in
2017.
That
same year, Bibi married Aminullah, the fourth brother, who accepted his
three-time widowed sister-in-law as his wife along with her children.
“Sometimes
I blame the Taliban, sometimes I blame the Afghan government, sometimes I blame
the foreign forces but mostly I blame myself for all this pain,” Bibi said over
the telephone. Bibi is a devout Muslim and prays five times a day. “Islam
teaches us not to kill anyone, but here in our land we just kill anyone and
everyone,” she said.
“I
don’t know if Allah understands my pain and loss.” She says she begs Aminullah
to quit the army but he promises he’ll be back from his tours of duty. She also
prays that peace will save him. “My life depends on seeing my husband alive,”
she said.
Bibi
spends much of her time sewing clothes for her children, and cares for them and
an extended family of 15 people on Aminullah’s monthly income of $300, and
pension allowances for her dead husbands.
She
said people die once but after losing three husbands, she felt like she’d
already died three times.
“Maybe
I’m just unlucky.”
https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/afghan-woman-prays-that-peace-will-save-her-fourth-husband-1.74038266
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Palestinian
women suffer sexual abuse in Israeli prisons: Report
21
September 2020
A
group of Palestinian women have reported sexual abuse, including exposition to
extreme body searches, by Israeli prison officials and interrogators at
detention centers across the occupied territories.
Dena
Karmi, 41, a Palestinian woman, who spent 16 months in an Israeli prison, told
Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency on Monday that she was subjected to
sexual harassment for two days at the interrogation facility run by the
regime's internal security agency, known as ISA, at Shikma Prison in Ashkelon.
“When
I refused to take my clothes off, the jailer attacked me. She tore my pants to
shreds and subjected me to embarrassing searches,” she said while describing
her first moments at the detention center.
Karmi
added, “It was very humiliating and horrific particularly, when the
interrogator was behaving promiscuously and trying to provoke me. The male
interrogator would usually get closer to me during interrogation sessions at
night, and even showed his inappropriate photos in swimming trunks.”
The
Palestinian woman went on to say that the interrogator used to come close
breathing on her face, when her hands were cuffed behind. The officers even
sought to molest her and used foul language.
The
interrogator even accused Karmi of having sexual relationship with other
Israeli intelligence officers, who had interrogated her earlier.
Karmi
was arrested in July 2018 from her house in the occupied city of al-Khalil in
West Bank and was sentenced to an imprisonment of 16 months. She was held for
allegedly participating in social activities linked to the Hamas resistance
movement with six other women.
Another
Palestinian prisoner, requesting anonymity, said she was subjected to sexual
harassment as she was being transferred from the occupied central West Bank
city of Ramallah to Jerusalem al-Quds.
“An
Israeli criminal sitting opposite to me in the prisoner transport vehicle
insulted me sexually. I was shocked and knocked at the metal cage repeatedly in
search of help. Nobody, however, responded to my appeals,” she said.
The
woman said no Israeli officer helped her or stopped the criminal from harassing
her.
Director
of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which advocates
the rights of Palestinian inmates, said the Israel's judicial system does not
take the complaints related to sexual harassment seriously.
“We
have documented and filed many complaints to the Israeli courts and the United
Nations. But there has been no satisfactory response up until now,” Sahar
Francis said.
More
than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in some 17 Israeli jails,
with dozens of them serving multiple life sentences.
Over
350 detainees, including women and minors, are under Israel’s administrative
detention, which is a form of imprisonment without trial or charge, allowing
authorities to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The duration
could be extended for an infinite number of times.
The
detention takes place on orders from a military commander and on the basis of
what the Israeli regime describes as ‘secret’ evidence.
Some
prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/09/21/634700/Palestinian-women-suffer-sexual-abuse-in-Israeli-prisons--Report
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'If
Sikhs can wear turban, why can't Muslims wear hijab'; Singapore debates ban on
Islamic veil at workplace
Sep
21, 2020
Every
day before she starts her shift at a government hospital in Singapore, Farah
removes her hijab -- the Islamic veil she has worn since a teenager.
Although
minority Muslim women can freely wear the hijab in most settings in Singapore,
some professions bar the headscarf – and a recent case has triggered fresh
debate on diversity and discrimination in the workplace.
Now
Farah has joined a growing number of Muslims – who account for about 15 per
cent of Singapore's four million resident population – calling for the ban to
end, with an online petition gathering more than 50,000 signatures.
"They
told me I can't work here if I wear the tudung," said Farah, using the
local Malay term for hijab, as she recounts her job interview two years ago for
a physiotherapist position.
"I
felt a sense of helplessness, it's unfair. Why has the tudung become a barrier
for us to look for jobs?" asked the 27-year-old, who used a pseudonym for
fear of reprisals at work.
She
accepted the job eventually but has to remove her headscarf whenever she is at
work.
Farah's
case is not an oddity.
There
was outcry last month when a woman was asked to remove her hijab to work as a
promoter at a local department store.
Halimah
Yacob, the country's first female president who herself wears the hijab, said
there is "no place" for discrimination when asked her view of the
case.
The
store reversed its policy, but many took to social media pointing out
restrictions remain on wearing the hijab for some civil servants, including
policewomen and nurses.
LIVELIHOOD
The
debate surrounding the hijab is not new in Singapore, a modern city-state which
takes pride in its multicultural and multiracial background. The country is
predominantly ethnic Chinese, many of whom follow Buddhism or Christianity.
In
2013, then Muslim affairs minister Yaacob Ibrahim said wearing a hijab at the
workplace would be "very problematic" for some professions that
require a uniform.
The
following year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the hijab issue was about
"what sort of society do we want to build in Singapore", according to
local media reports.
Singapore's
police force and the health ministry did not respond to repeated requests
seeking comment.
Referring
to the department store case, Singapore's president said discrimination in the
workplace was "disturbing" as it deprives a person from earning a
living.
"People
should be assessed solely on their merits and their ability to do a job and
nothing else," Halimah wrote on her Facebook, which attracted more than
500 comments.
"During
this COVID-19 period when concerns over jobs and livelihoods are greater,
incidents of discrimination exacerbate anxieties and people feel threatened,"
she added.
DIVIDED
The
hijab has been a divisive issue for Muslims worldwide.
Many
Muslim women cover their heads in public as a sign of modesty, although others
see it as a sign of female oppression and in the Middle East women face jail
for eschewing it.
In
Indonesia's conservative Aceh province, women without a headscarf have been
censured. In Malaysia, Islamic authorities have probed a book about Muslim
women who refuse to wear the hijab.
But
women's rights campaigners in Singapore say they want Muslim women to have
freedom of choice.
Such
restrictions have hindered women's job prospects, especially when the
coronavirus pandemic has pushed Singapore into recession and companies are
laying off, they say.
"Women
should be able to practise their religion freely without having to choose
between having a job or to practise their religion," said Filzah
Sumartono, a writer who helps run Beyond the Hijab, a website focused on
Singapore Muslim women.
"This
issue in Singapore is only being faced by Muslim women, it's a strong
discriminatory policy against Muslim women," she told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
IDENTITY
Others
urge consistency, noting that the turban - headgear worn by Sikh men - is
allowed at work in Singapore.
"Why
the double standard," asked Nur, a Muslim law student who signed the
petition posted online in June. She requested not to use her full name to
protect her privacy.
The
22-year-old said her mother and sister, who work as a nurse and in a private
security company respectively, are both banned from wearing a headscarf at
work.
She
called on officials to explain the restrictions, saying countries such as
Britain or Australia have changed tack, with disposable hijabs for nurses to
address any hygiene concerns.
"I
accept that racial harmony is very fragile, but it's not just acknowledging
these differences exist and live with them.
It's
much more than that," said Nur, a co-founder of Lepak Conversations, an
online group.
"It's
about knowing these differences exist, accepting them and embracing these
differences."
Filzah
of the Beyond the Hijab group said the restrictions can make it more difficult
for women to enter the workforce.
"Some
women don't feel comfortable removing a part of their identity just to be able
to earn money," she said.
"Having
to put this very difficult choice on Muslim women is unfair and unjust."
Reuters
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/if-sikhs-can-wear-turban-why-cant-muslims-wear-hijab-singapore-debates-ban-on-islamic-veil-at-workplace-144462
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