Bangladesh SC Lawyer Sara Hossain, Pakistani Law Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali and Rights Activist Viviana Krsticevic from Argentina to Probe Iran Protests Crackdown: UN
New Age Islam News Bureau
21 December 2022
• Kenyan Muslim Women Ordered To Wear Hijab In Public
Or Find Another Country To Live
• Women-Only Taxi Service to Be Launched Soon In
Karachi, Says Sindh Information Minister
• Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan Demands Reform In
Family Law, Legal Protection
• Al-Hilal Post Big Win in Women’s Futsal Opener at
Saudi Games 2022
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
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Bangladesh SC Lawyer Sara Hossain, Pakistani Law
Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali and Rights Activist Viviana Krsticevic from
Argentina to Probe Iran Protests Crackdown: UN
20 December, 2022
The United Nations on Tuesday named three women to
lead a rights investigation into Iran’s violent crackdown on women-led protests
that have rocked the Islamic Republic for more than three months.
Bangladesh Supreme Court lawyer Sara Hossain,
Pakistani law professor Shaheen Sardar Ali and rights activist Viviana
Krsticevic from Argentina will be the independent members of the fact-finding
mission, UN Human Rights Council head Federico Villegas announced.
Hossain, a long-time human rights activist, will chair
the investigation, the council presidency added.
Iran is highly unlikely to allow the trio to enter the
country and carry out their mission, with Tehran fiercely opposing the creation
of the international investigation that 47 rights council members voted for
last month.
The three women will document the Iranian authorities’
repression of the protests and potential human rights violations with a view to
possible legal action against officials in Iran or elsewhere.
Mass demonstrations, unprecedented since the 1979
Islamic revolution, have swept across the country since September after the
death in custody of Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, leading to violent and
sometimes deadly clashes with security forces.
The 22-year-old had been arrested by Iran’s notorious
morality police for allegedly flouting strict rules on correctly wearing the
Islamic headscarf, triggering nationwide unrest in favor of women’s rights.
The authorities have executed some protesters and
condemned others to capital punishment for involvement in what they describe as
riots encouraged by arch-foes Israel and the United States.
Human rights organizations say legal procedures have
been rushed and confessions obtained under torture.
The United Nations estimates that around 14,000 people
have been arrested since mid-September, while Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights
says 469 protesters have been killed.
Source: Al Arabiya
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Kenyan Muslim Women Ordered To Wear Hijab In Public Or
Find Another Country To Live
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December 20, 2022
Kenya's Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has
warned Kenyan Muslim women who do not wear a hijab or scarf to find another
country to live.
The CS was speaking at Jamia Mosque Committee on
Monday during a cheque presentation ceremony to the Kenya Red Cross in an
effort to address the country’s drought situation.
He warned that those who do not adhere to it should
find another country to live in.
“It is a must for any Muslim woman in Kenya to wear a
hijab or scarf. If they do not want, then to look for another country to go
to,” he said.
This is not the first time that the Defence CS has
called for women to wear hijabs or scarfs.
In 2019, he said that the Ministry of Education should
take disciplinary action against school heads forcing Muslim girls to remove
hijabs.
He claimed that Muslim girls faced discrimination
because of the religious dressing and asked the then Education CS George Magoha
to issue a directive to protect them.
According to Duale, the hijab is a highly valued dress
code among Muslims.
Many Muslim women in Kenya already wear the hijab but
some, particularly in urban areas, just wear a simple covering over their hair.
The Quran, Islam's holy book, tells Muslims - men and
women - to dress modestly.
Male modesty has been interpreted to be covering the
area from the navel to the knee.
For women it is generally seen as covering everything
except their face, hands and feet when in the presence of men, they are not
related or married to.
However, there has been much debate within Islam as to
whether this goes far enough. This has led to a distinction between the Hijab
(literally "covering up" in Arabic) and the niqab (meaning "full
veil").
The hijab is typically a scarf that covers the hair
and neck, whereas the niqab is a veil for the face that leaves the area around
the eyes clear.
It is worn with an accompanying headscarf or an abaya,
a full-length robe, and sometimes with a separate transparent eye veil.
Source: Monitor
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Women-Only Taxi Service To Be Launched Soon In
Karachi, Says Sindh Information Minister
December 21, 2022
KARACHI: The Sindh government is going to launch a
women-only cab service in Karachi as part of its transport modernisation plan
that include introduction of electric taxis.
Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon, who
also holds the portfolio of transport, while sharing the briefs of the plan on
Tuesday said that the electric taxi service would be launched soon in Karachi
by the Sindh Mass Transit Authority.
“It’s agreed in principle in a meeting held on Tuesday
that the taxi service will be launched in two phases with a fleet of blue and
pink taxis, respectively” he said, adding: “The pink taxi will be reserved for
women only.”
The minister explained that in the first phase a
women-only taxi service, pink taxi, will be launched and “lady captain” would
be recruited to drive the vehicles.
“The fare would be between Rs200 and Rs500. Proper
monitoring system including cameras will be installed in the taxis for safety
of the passengers,” he said.
“The Peoples Bus Service has been quite successful in
Karachi, Larkana and Hyderabad. By the end of this month, it will also be
launched in Sukkur,” he said.
He said that the first electric bus service would also
be launched soon in Karachi and negotiations on the agreement with operators
were in final phase.
Source: Dawn
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Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan Demands Reform In
Family Law, Legal Protection
Dec 21, 2022
Mumbai The Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), an
organisation working for equal citizenship rights for Muslim women in India, on
Tuesday released a report ‘Status of women in polygamous marriages and need for
legal protection’.
The study, conducted across 11 states in India,
surveyed the status of wives whose husbands are in polygamous marriages. The
survey also focused on mental health of the women.
In a press conference on Tuesday, co-founders Zakia
Soman and Dr Noorjehan Niaz demanded a comprehensive reform in Muslim family
law and said that Muslim women have been denied legal protection in matters of
family law in India.
The report that was made with questionnaires
administered to 289 women and 50 case studies, highlighted that an overwhelming
number of women said that they felt a sense of betrayal, loss of dignity and
loss of self-respect when the husband married other women despite her being the
wife.
Zakia Soman, co-founder of BMMA said, “It was
difficult to get the women to talk since they were already going through lot of
financial troubles or mental trauma and they did not want to relive their
experiences. We spoke to 289 women who are in a marriage as either first wife
or second wife to understand their emotional, social and financial condition.
They shared with us details about their emotional state, economic status, their
life condition and other aspects of being one of the two or more wives.”
The survey highlights severe mental health issues that
plague women. Of the 289, 50% of the women said that they were depressed most
of the time. 84% felt that polygamy should be outlawed and 73% even said that
the husband who takes a second wife should be punished.
The survey also highlights that 45% of the husbands
threatened their first wife with divorce if she resented his second marriage.
Two women who were victims of domestic violence, one
who was the third wife and other who was the sixth wife of a man from Mumbai,
shared their ordeals and challenges faced by them after they were abandoned by
their husbands.
The organisation said that India has ratified the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW) treaty of the United Nations and Article 16 of the CEDAW says that the
state must take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against
women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations.
Another piece of data in the survey is that in 49%
cases where the woman happens to be in a polygamous union, the parents have
selected the spouse. In 45% cases the age of the husband at the time of the 1st
marriage is between 21 and 26 years and in 38% of the cases the age of the
husband at the time of the second marriage is between 21 and 26 years. With
only 9% of the husbands having studied between graduation and post-graduation,
it can be concluded that the educational level of husbands in such unions is
also quite low.
On December 12, Supreme Court of India issued notices
to the centre and Law Commission of India on a public interest litigation filed
by BMMA requesting abolition on practices of polygamy and other practices like
Mut’a marriages, Misyar marriages and Nikah-halala as they violate fundamental
rights of the Muslim women in India under articles 14, 15, 21 and 25 of the
Constitution.
Source: Hindustan Time
Al-Hilal post big win in women’s futsal opener at
Saudi Games 2022
Al-Hilal enjoyed a comfortable 17-4 victory over
Al-Hmmah Club in the opening match of the women’s futsal competition at the
Saudi Games 2022 in Riyadh on Tuesday.
Later, Al-Yamamah comprehensively defeated Eastern
Flames 12-0. In the final match of the day, Al-Nassr’s recorded a 25-0 win over
Al-Taraji.
There will be more matches in the women’s futsal
competition on Wednesday and Thursday, ahead of the official opening ceremony
for the Games in Riyadh on Friday.
Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2187896/sport
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