Routine Strip Searches of Women Prisoners Sparks Anger In Turkey
New
Age Islam News Bureau
26
December 2020
•
Nayla Tueini of Annahar: Media Personality of the Year at the 2020 Arab Media
Forum
•
Only 11 Per Cent of Women Have Access to Overall Financial Services in Pakistan
•
Pakistan President Seeks Contribution of Women In Overall Development
•
Rukhshana, One of Afghanistan’s First Female Singers, Dies at 80
•
Coronavirus: Egyptian actress Youssra tests positive for COVID-19
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/routine-strip-searches-women-prisoners/d/123891
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Routine
Strip Searches of Women Prisoners Sparks Anger in Turkey
December
25, 2020
Women take out a protest demonstration in Ankara
against the growth of violence and persecution against women and the inaction
of the authorities. (Reuters/File)
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ANKARA:
Claims that Turkish police routinely strip search women detainees have sparked
a war of words between the government and opposition MPs.
Pro-Kurdish
People’s Democratic Party MP Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu recently said that female
suspects and detainees had been subjected to humiliating strip searches by
police in provinces across Turkey.
Recently
a group of female prisoners in the Aegean province of Usak claimed they had
been forced to undress before being searched.
However,
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has denied the allegations and accused
Gergerlioglu of being a “terrorist.”
“The
person who casts such an aspersion on the Turkish police without proof is a
rascal, dishonorable and low. Gergerlioglu is a terrorist,” Soylu said.
But
Gergerlioglu, a member of parliamentary human rights investigation commission,
said that he was being attacked for revealing the truth.
“I
stand against sexual harassment of women, men and children,” he said.
The
MP’s allegations have been supported by thousands of prisoners who told
dissident media outlets about their experiences of systematic sexual violence
at the hands of police.
Among
the claims are that children of women detainees have had their diapers checked
for contraband items.
An
investigation was launched on Dec. 23 after women shared accounts on social
media of being strip searched.
Meanwhile,
Turkey’s prisons and detention authority has defended its controversial use of
strip searching — or what it calls a “detailed search” — at its jails, calling
it a “necessary” and “exceptional” practice to prevent the smuggling of
forbidden items into prisons.
Strip
searches are permitted under Turkish legislation if the detainee is believed to
be carrying weapons or knives.
According
to the Human Rights Association of Turkey, almost 170 women have been beaten in
the past year after refusing to be searched.
Mustafa
Yeneroglu, deputy chair of the DEVA Party, a breakaway from the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP), said that he has been following up similar claims
in recent months.
“The
interior minister makes baseless allegations, and defends silencing Turkish
people and subjecting them to ill-treatment. He even terrorizes the judiciary
as he sees the rule of law as a burden for the government,” he told Arab News.
Yeneroglu,
who was previously the chair of the parliamentary human rights committee, said
that the government should have investigated the allegations and “done whatever
is necessary if there is a crime.”
He
claimed that four women recently had been subjected to a strip search before
being admitted into a detention facility in Usak province.
“If
you brand these people terrorists, all such practices are being legitimized.
They only search the bodies of political prisoners, not those convicted of drug
dealing, for example” he said.
Some
women from conservative family backgrounds needed psychological support
afterwards, Yeneroglu claimed.
“They
couldn’t even confess this traumatic experience to their own families. They
cannot sue the authorities because they are also going through a terror
investigation,” he said.
Yeneroglu
described strip searches as “dehumanizing” and “a serious act of humiliation.”
“It
is a violation of human dignity and now has become common practice on political
prisoners,” he added.
The
hashtag “don’t stay silent to strip searches” remained among trending topics on
Twitter.
During
his weekly parliamentary group meeting on Dec. 22, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader
of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, also said that he believed
the claims were genuine.
A
dissident female journalist, Aslihan Gencay, could spend an additional year in
prison after objecting to a strip search when she was due to be transferred to
another facility. She was placed in solitary confinement for three days and now
faces a prison investigation.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1782816/middle-east
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Nayla
Tueini of Annahar: Media Personality of the Year at the 2020 Arab Media Forum
Tarek
Ali Ahmad
December
26, 2020
Nayla Tueni holds a blank edition of her newspaper
during a news conference in Beirut. (Reuters)
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LONDON:
In 2005 and at the young age of 23, Nayla Tueini’s whole world virtually turned
on its head. The young journalist was catapulted from undergoing a month-long
training program at French newspaper Le Figaro, to being prepped to take over
and lead one of the biggest Lebanese dailies, Annahar, after her father —
renowned editor and publisher Gebran Tueini — was killed in a car bombing in
the Mkalles suburb of Beirut.
“It
was a big challenge because I was a young woman starting. I was in the middle
of people with 30, 40, 50 years’ experience, and they were saying, ‘Who is she?
She doesn’t know anything. She’s just a young girl … trying to have fun’,”
Nayla told Arab News.
Fifteen
years later, at 38, she has been chosen as Media Personality of the Year at the
2020 Arab Media Forum, held virtually from Dubai, for her strong and steady
leadership of Annahar through what has been described as Lebanon’s worst year
ever.
In
2020, the country experienced an unprecedented financial crisis, devaluation of
the local currency, the coronavirus pandemic, the Aug. 4 blast at the Port of
Beirut and ongoing political corruption.
The
blast shattered the newspaper’s glass-facade headquarters, which stands not 700
meters from the port.
“Having
30 injured people, blood around you, all the glass, everything … it was worse
than the war,” Nayla said. “It was a difficult year.”
Fresh
start
After
arduous work and training in journalism and newspaper management under her
grandfather Ghassan Tueini from 2005 until his death in 2012, Nayla took the
reins of Annahar with fresh, innovative ideas to inspire a publication
suffering in an industry in turmoil.
When
the alarm bells of the financial crisis began sounding in 2017, newspapers
across the country started shutting their printing presses, some even
shuttering their doors.
Nayla
was adamant to both keep the paper circulating and adapt to the rapid rise of
digital and social media, regardless of some of her colleagues’ criticisms.
“They
weren’t taking me seriously (with) what I was trying to do, and when I started
the online … and becoming 24 hours with live news, with putting lifestyle,
health, gossip … and to have more readers in a different way with videos, web
TV, social media,” the mother of three said.
“They’d
say, ‘No, we have a scoop, we have to keep it for tomorrow.’ And I just always
told them … ‘You can’t with all those changes. Social media users, bloggers, if
they have news they’ll post it as soon as they have it. They won’t wait for the
next day’,” she said, adding that the paper now also includes special issues,
editions and the newly launched Annahar Al-Arabi that caters to a pan-Arab
audience and was announced mere hours before the port blast.
Looking
back at her 15 years at the paper, Nayla humbly brings it all down to the
editors, reporters and photographers who have kept Annahar going.
“When
we have a success it’s not just for me, it’s for all the Annahar family,” she
said. “When they suffered with me, they really suffered. They were what kept
Annahar alive. They were what made Annahar keep going.”
Among
the special issues that came out was the Naharoki edition, the feminine
connotation of “Your Day” in Arabic, which featured an altered version of the
Lebanese national anthem across the front page that included the line “for the
women,” given that the original only has “for the men.”
During
the October 2019 nationwide protests against government corruption, “we had an
idea of doing Naharoki for women because the women were leading the revolution,
they were the frontlines, and we decided to salute the women in the national
anthem,” Nayla said.
Another
special issue came out in 2018. Annahar printed eight blank, white pages of its
newspaper, and had its website and social media accounts do the same, in
protest at the government-formation paralysis that had seen the country without
an official Cabinet for months.
“Just
to make a shock and to really express the anger we had, we had to put white
paper, not black, because we believe in a better tomorrow, we believe in better
days, we believe in everything, but we’re speechless in front of those
conditions,” Nayla said.
A
calling
Despite
the uphill task of trying to keep a newspaper afloat in an ailing economy, the
editor in chief asserts that she is a fighter.
“I
always try, even when I’m not feeling well, to be positive and optimistic.
Someone always sends me a message from above. I always get a sign that, ‘You
have to continue in the toughest of times. You have to fight’,” she said.
“To
lead this institution, and to follow what it was made to be from my father and
my grandfather and to make it what it is — this responsibility is in my hands.”
Ever
since Annahar started publishing in 1933, Nayla said, the paper and its team
have always had two role models: Her grandfather Ghassan and her father Gebran.
Ghassan
was a “calm person who’d think, who was a philosopher, who believed in Lebanon
and the Arab countries and would defend the Lebanese and Arab projects,” she
said.
“Then
you had Gebran who was full of passion and full of revolution and believed in
the freedom of journalism and freedom of speech. For him, Lebanon was more than
his love — he gave his life for Lebanon. And he knew he was going to give his
life to Lebanon for this freedom and for this journalism, and for Lebanon to be
free from any interference.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1782986/media
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Only
11 Per Cent of Women Have Access to Overall Financial Services in Pakistan
By
Shahzad Paracha
Dec
26, 2020
ISLAMABAD:
Around only 11 per cent of women have access to overall financial services in
Pakistan.
A
World Bank report states that women make up the majority of this unbanked
population, where only 11 per cent of women have access to overall financial
services, as compared to 21 per cent of men.
Around
100 million Pakistani adults do not have access to formal financial services,
hinting at their use of conventional means for their financial management.
The
report raises concerns on the matter since women are traditionally responsible
for domestic affairs in Pakistani households and their economic empowerment is
central to an empowered family.
In
addition, as more and more women are entering the workforce and taking up
important positions in the professional field, their financial management needs
have increased manifold.
An
overview of popular financial services in the country shows that the majority
of these services are designed according to male usability, focusing on their
specific needs, while females largely remain an excluded segment
Tapping
on this issue, Hysab Kytab, a leading personal financial management
application, conducted a digital experiment with the support of the Karandaaz
Pakistan to promote the uptake of digital financial services among women and
highlight the gaps left by financial service providers in targeting the female
segment.
Karandaaz
Pakistan promotes access to finance for micro, small and medium-sized
businesses through a commercially directed investment platform, and financial
inclusion for individuals by employing technology-enabled solutions.
After
carrying out extensive secondary researches and elaborate analysis of the needs
of female users, Hysab Kytab experimented with its own UI by modifying the interface
content, illustrations, and overall feel of the application, that also catered
to female users’ needs along with its male users, and traced the impact of
these modifications on service uptake by female users.
The
results reflected stark differences in the before and after phase, with a rise
in conversion rate by 10 per cent and a drop in user acquisition cost by 40 per
cent. With such simple changes in the interface, the application was able to
garner more female users.
It
was also noted that these modifications did not affect the rate of male users
since the changes were basically gender-neutral and inclusive, responding to
the needs and preferences of both genders. Thus, it was found out that by
taking the needs and preferences of female users into account and integrating
them into their course of action, service providers can accelerate the uptake
by female users remarkably and contribute in including the largely-excluded
segment.
Where
this inclusion is beneficial for social prosperity, it is also highly important
for the greater economic welfare, where businesses can extend their services to
the other 50 per cent and generate increased revenues from them.
By
entering the untapped and underserved market through the introduction of
specific products and services that relate to the specific needs of this
segment, financial technology companies have an opportunity to increase their
business exponentially. Therefore, providing services to female customers
ultimately achieves the complementary goal of helping providers by expanding
their customer base, and helping consumers by enabling them to use financial
services to improve their lives and invest in the community.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/12/26/only-11-per-cent-of-women-have-access-to-overall-financial-services/
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Pakistan
President Seeks Contribution Of Women In Overall Development
24
Dec 2020
ISLAMABAD:
President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday emphasized the importance of contribution
of women in the overall development of the country.
Speaking
at a webinar on national initiatives to address gender based discrepancies and
for the promotion of legal, economic and social empowerment of women, he said
that women could not be empowered without their economic empowerment.
He
said women needed to be encouraged in their economic activities, and called for
social protection of the women. The constitution of Pakistan fully guaranteed
rights of the women, he added.
The
event featured a working session on issues confronting women, including property
rights, legal, media, and other sectors, which later presented their
recommendations for onward consideration by the government.
He
said being a gender neutral, the country’s constitution also guaranteed women
rights and even provided special provisions; however the implementation of the
relevant laws was far more important.
Highlighting
the issues confronting women such as insecurity at police stations, delayed
disposal of divorce cases, hesitance to register harassment or rape cases, and
domestic violence, the president said such sittings would provide a timeline
for relief to the women.
Dr
Alvi told the gathering that almost 40 percent pregnancies took place owing to
non-availability of contraceptives which must also be thought of while devising
the policies.
Later,
the representatives of respective working groups presented their
recommendations on rights of women in media, their access to education, health,
legal rights, and economic empowerment.
Following
the recommendations, the president, in his concluding remarks, said all the
proposals would be forwarded to the ministries concerned for their point-wise
response along with the financial implication of the suggested measures.
He
called for a wider discussion in media on women rights and awareness among them
about the measures being taken for their facilitation.
Endorsing
the pre-dominant campaign about harassment of women on social media, the
president said though the men were also the victim of the tendency but the
bigger damage was to the women.
He
urged the political parties for their non-partisan reaction in such case.
He
also agreed to the demand for women-specific facilities such as daycare
centres, washrooms at workplaces, and called for a survey of offices in this
regard.
Calling
women the lowest risk in debt market, the president called for safe transport,
workplace, women courts, and their security at police station.
Speaking
on the occasion, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz said
protection of women’s rights was utmost necessary as they made 50 percent of
Pakistan’s population.
He
emphasized on highlighting social issues through literature, drama, and
culture.
The
event was attended by Law Minister Farogh Nasim, Human Rights Minister Shireen
Mazari, Educations Minister Shafqat Mahmood, Information Minister Shibli Faraz,
Special Assistant Sania Nishtar, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on
Health Dr Faisal Sultan, and others.
https://www.brecorder.com/news/40044231/president-seeks-contribution-of-women-in-overall-development
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Rukhshana,
One of Afghanistan’s First Female Singers, Dies at 80
By
Mohammad Haroon Alim
25
Dec 2020
Afghan
prominent singer Hamida Aseel, famous as Rukshana, died on December 20th in the
United States of America.
Rukshana
was the daughter of Aseel Khan Waziri, a general in the Afghan army.
She
gained her popularity as a singer in the 1960s and 1970s in Afghanistan and was
being credited for being the first among female singers to join the Afghan
music industry after Mermon Parwin.
At
the height of her popularity, she was exhibited in posters that were widely
distributed in Kabul, and her photos also appeared on the covers and magazines
of that era.
She
reached a larger segment of Afghan society as she could sing in both National
languages of Afghanistan (Dari and Pashto).
Rakhshaneh
immigrated to the United States from Afghanistan following the political
upheavals before 1360 (Solar Hijri Year), she has two children.
Rukhshana
became isolated after emigrating and did not continue her musical career.
Her
death was confirmed by the admired Shahwali Taranasaz’s (Songwriter, Composer)
family in a Facebook post, this family was close to Rukhshana.
She
died at the age of 80 in Semi Valley in California.
https://www.khaama.com/rukhshana-one-of-afghanistans-first-female-singers-dies-at-80-778877/
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Coronavirus:
Egyptian actress Youssra tests positive for COVID-19
25
December 2020
Legendary
Egyptian actress Youssra confirmed in a Facebook post on Friday that she has
tested positive for coronavirus, one week after attending an awards ceremony.
“My
sincere thanks to all my friends inside and outside Egypt and to the generous
fans for [asking about me] after confirming that I got infected with [the]
coronavirus,” she said on her official page.
Yossra
also thanked the Ministry of Health and the medical teams who are caring for
her.
“No
words are enough to give these people what they deserve for their great effort
in facing this virus, may God bless you all and cure all patients,” the actress
added to the post.
There
was no confirmation on her condition or how she contracted the virus, however,
on Thursday, the Egyptian star shared photos of herself holding an award on stage
with a caption: “Throwback to Dear Guest Magazine Best Actress Award.”
The
awards ceremony, hosted by Dear Guest Magazine, was held on December 18 at the
Dusit Thani hotel in Cairo. Other Arab a-List stars were in attendance,
including Nelli Kareem, Yousef al-Sharif, Joumana Murad and Ilham Shaheen.
Videos
and photos from the event show attendees sitting at dinner tables in a hall
with no masks or social distancing.
In
July, Famed Egyptian actress Ragaa al-Geddawy died at the age of 81 after
contracting COVID-19.
In
total, nearly 127,000 infections and 7,000 deaths have been confirmed in Egypt
as of December 23, since the start of the pandemic, according to Reuters.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/12/25/Coronavirus-Coronavirus-Egyptian-actress-Youssra-tests-positive-for-COVID-19-
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