Canadian Poetess Rupi Kaur Rejects Biden's Diwali Invitation Over Israel Support, Says 'Govt's Actions Dehumanize People'
New Age
Islam News Bureau
07 November
·
Canadian Poetess Rupi Kaur
Rejects Biden's Diwali Invitation Over Israel Support, Says 'Govt's Actions
Dehumanize People'
·
Narges Mohammadi, Jailed
Iranian Nobel Laureate Goes on Hunger Strike
·
Arab American Candidates Set to
Challenge Member of Congress Ilhan Omar in Minnesota
·
Rashida Tlaib Defends Pro-Palestinian
Video as Rift Among Michigan Democrats Widens Over War
·
Beauty Mogul Huda Kattan to
Donate $1m To Humanitarian Organisations in Gaza
·
Saudi Arabia Showcases
Achievements of Muslim Women in Development
·
Female Soldier Killed in
Stabbing Attack in Occupied al-Quds
·
Zarghona Nouri Dedicates Asian
Taekwondo Bronze to Herat Earthquake Victims
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/canadian-poetess-rupi-biden-israel/d/131062
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Canadian Poetess Rupi Kaur Rejects
Biden's Diwali Invitation Over Israel Support, Says 'Govt's Actions Dehumanize
People'
Canadian
Poetess Rupi Kaur
-----
07 Nov 2023
Canadian poet Rupi Kaur has turned down
an invitation from the Biden administration for a Diwali event. Rupi said that
she declined the invitation from the US government as it continues to support
Israel during its bombardment of Gaza.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the
poet wrote, “I received an invite from the Biden administration for a Diwali
event being held by the VP on November 8. I decline any invitation from an
institution that supports the collective punishment of a trapped civilian
population—50% of whom are children.
“I implore my South Asian community to
hold this administration accountable. As a Sikh woman, I will not allow my
likeness to be used in whitewashing this administration’s actions," Rupi
Kaur said in an official statement.
The statement read, "I refuse any
invitation from an institution that supports the collective punishment of a
trapped civilian population — 50% of whom are children."
“When a government's actions dehumanize
people anywhere in the world, it is our moral imperative to call for justice.
Stand with the world and demand a humanitarian ceasefire," she added.
All you need to know about the
Israel-Gaza war
As the Israel-Hamas war entered Day
32nd, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country would
take overall security responsibility for the Gaza Strip for an indefinite
period after its war with Hamas, AFP reported.
The Prime Minister said that Israel may
consider "tactical little pauses" in the fighting in Gaza to
facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid or allow hostages held by Hamas
militants to leave.
Netanyahu expressed these views during a
US television ABC News interview when asked about the future governance of Gaza
after the conflict ends.
The Israeli army physically separated
northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory and launched airstrikes
on it on Monday. This action was part of their preparations for anticipated
ground battles with Hamas militants in Gaza's largest city.
The Palestinian death toll, according to
the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, has exceeded 10,000. This
figure does not differentiate between fighters and civilians. Additionally,
around 1,400 Israelis have lost their lives, with the majority being civilians
who were killed during the incursion by Hamas on October 7 which marked the
beginning of the war.
Source: livemint.com
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/meghan-markle-planning-to-make-a-comeback-with-acting-or-tell-all-book-report-11699322841947.html
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Narges Mohammadi, Jailed Iranian Nobel
Laureate Goes on Hunger Strike
Iranian
human rights activist Narges Mohammadi attends a meeting on women's rights in
Tehran, Aug. 27, 2007.Vahid Salemi—AP
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November 7, 2023
DUBAI: Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace
Prize winner Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike on Monday in protest
against what she said was the jail’s failure to give her access to medical
care, the activist HRANA news agency reported.
The women’s rights advocate won the
award on Oct 6 in a rebuke to Tehran’s theocratic leaders, who accused the
Nobel committee of meddling and politicizing the issue of human rights.
HRANA said authorities had not let the
51-year-old go to hospital for heart and lung treatment last week because she
had refused to wear a mandatory head scarf for the visit. Iran’s judiciary did
not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
“Mohammadi has gone on a hunger strike
to protest against the authorities’ failure to address her demands, including
their refusal to transfer her to a specialist hospital, HRANA reported. “This
deprivation continues under the order of the prison authorities,” it added.
On Oct 29 and 30, Narges Mohammadi and a
group of women held in Iran’s Evin prison protested against the refusal by
prison authorities to send her to hospital for treatment, according to a
statement by Narges’ family sent to Reuters.
“She is willing to risk her life by not
wearing the ‘forced hijab’ even for medical treatment,” said the Nov 1
statement, written before Monday’s announcement of the Nobel laureate’s hunger
strike.
She is serving multiple sentences
amounting to about 12 years’ imprisonment on charges including spreading
propaganda against Iran.
Source: dawn.com
https://www.dawn.com/news/1787133/jailed-iranian-nobel-laureate-goes-on-hunger-strike
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Arab American candidates set to
challenge member of Congress Ilhan Omar in Minnesota
November 07, 2023
At least two Arab Americans candidates
intend to challenge Ilhan Omar, the three-time US representative for
Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, at next year’s elections.
One of them is fellow Democrat Sarah
Gad, 36, who plans to make a formal announcement of her candidacy this week.
She recovered from a serious road accident that left her addicted to
painkilling drugs, and subsequent run-ins with the law that resulted in jail
terms for drug abuse, to turn her life around and graduate from the University
of Chicago with a law degree and a vow to help those who face overwhelming
challenges in life.
The daughter of Muslim immigrants from
Egypt and a former resident of Illinois who recently moved to Minnesota, where
she practices law, Gad was involved in a severe car accident in 2012, while she
was a medical student. She was subsequently charged and convicted of felony
abuse of opioid drugs, which she had been using to counter severe pain
resulting from the accident. It took two years for her to break free from
addiction and start to put her life back together.
“My story, my history, really resonates
with people,” Gad told the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper recently. “It
allows me to connect with them on a deeper level and understand the day-to-day
issues that everyday constituents are facing.”
Gad served time in Cook County Jail,
Illinois, for drug convictions, an institution that is notorious for reports of
abuse and other controversies. She sued the prison, accusing guards of abuse,
won the case and, after overcoming addiction, used the settlement she received
to fund her studies at law school, from which she graduated in 2020.
Her story, combined with her political
ambitions, has attracted national attention and praise. Last month, she
appeared on Tamron Hall, a nationally syndicated US television talk show, and
described her battle to lift herself up and her desire to use her experiences
to help others.
She has already filed papers with the
Federal Election Commission as a prospective candidate for the Democratic
primary on Aug. 13, 2024, in the 5th District.
Standing again on the Republican ticket
will be Iraqi American Dalia Al-Aqidi, 55, a pro-Israel Muslim and former
journalist. If successful in the Republican primary, she would face off against
the chosen Democratic candidate in the congressional election on Nov. 5 next
year.
However, she faces an uphill battle. She
previously sought the Republican nomination for the 5th District in 2020 but
received only 4.7 percent of the primary vote, losing to Lacy Johnson who won
76.6 percent of the 11,992 ballots cast.
On her website, Al-Aqidi, who fled
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1988, has slammed Omar, who has often been the target
of pro-Israel activists, for supporting Arab, Muslim and Palestinian rights.
She wrote: “In Congress, she (Omar)
constantly forwards or sponsors legislation that attacks our allies while
remaining silent about America’s adversaries.
“The fact that she was removed from the
House Foreign Affairs Committee is further evidence of how untethered she is
from the center of American thinking. Her hateful rhetoric and noxious
antisemitism is toxic and serves only to gain attention for herself and
position her as a celebrity — she is not fighting for us, she is fighting for
herself.”
Omar comfortably defeated Johnson in the
congressional election on Nov. 3, 2020, winning 64.3 percent of the 398,263
votes cast. First elected in November 2018, she was the first Somali American
in the US Congress and the first woman of color to represent Minnesota, and one
of the first two Muslim women, with Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, elected to
Congress. The 5th District has a large Somali population and is overwhelmingly
Democratic.
In the November 2022 elections, Omar
defeated Republican Cicely Davis, who had strong backing from the pro-Israel
lobby, in a landslide victory with 74.3 percent of the 288,206 votes cast.
However she remains vulnerable in the Democratic primary contest. In the August
2022 primary she defeated rival Don Samuels by a razor-slim margin of just
2,466 votes, receiving 50.3 percent of the 114,567 votes cast.
She has been a consistent and vocal
critic of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the
war on Gaza in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, which she also
criticized.
In a message posted on social media
platform X shortly after the attacks, she wrote: “I condemn the horrific acts
we are seeing unfold today in Israel against children, women, the elderly, and
the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas. Such
senseless violence will only repeat the back-and-forth cycle we’ve seen, which
we cannot allow to continue.
“We need to call for deescalation and
ceasefire. I will keep advocating for peace and justice throughout the Middle
East.”
Source: arabnews.com
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2404511/world
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Rashida Tlaib defends pro-Palestinian
video as rift among Michigan Democrats widens over war
November 07, 2023
LANSING, Michigan: US Rep. Rashida Tlaib
of Michigan has received widespread criticism for a video she posted over the
weekend that was deemed offensive to the Jewish community by some, but she said
her critics should focus less on the words she used than on saving civilian
lives in the Middle East.
“My colleagues are much more focused on
silencing me — the only Palestinian American voice in Congress — than they are
on ending the horrific attacks on civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank
right now,” Tlaib said in a statement sent Monday to The Associated Press.
“Instead of attacking me and distorting my words, they should listen to their
constituents and call for a cease-fire to save innocent lives.”
She was responding to calls from
national and Michigan Democrats asking her to take down a video posted Friday,
which includes a clip of demonstrators chanting “from the river to the sea.”
Tlaib also said in the video “we will remember in 2024” before text appears
stating: “Joe Biden supported the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
It’s the latest example of a public rift
dividing Democrats in Michigan, which is home to one of the nation’s largest
Arab American communities.
The Anti-Defamation League and other
Jewish groups have criticized the “from the river to the sea,” chant as a call
to dismantle the state of Israel. Many Palestinian activists say they are not
calling for the destruction of Israel, but for freedom of movement and equal
rights and protections for Palestinians throughout the land.
Democrat Elissa Slotkin, the lone Jewish
member of Michigan’s congressional delegation, said on social media that the
phrase promotes “division and violence,” and is “counterproductive to promoting
peace.”
“If I knew that a phrase I’d used had
hurt any of my constituents, I would apologize and retract it, no matter its
origin,” Slotkin said. “I’d ask the same from you.”
Other Michigan Democrats, including
Attorney General Dana Nessel and Michigan Senate President Pro Tempore Jeremy
Moss, joined in criticizing Tlaib and calling for her to apologize. Nessel said
that while she has defended Tlaib in the past, her use of the phrase “is so
hurtful to so many.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said during
a Sunday appearance on CNN that while he considers Tlaib a friend, “slogans
like ‘the river to the sea,’ if that means the destruction of Israel, that’s
not going to work.”
Tlaib said on social media late Friday
that the “from the river to the sea” phrase is “an aspirational call for
freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or
hate.”
The back and forth between Democrats in
Michigan is the most recent example of a widening divide over the Israel-Hamas
war. Michigan is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the
nation, which Tlaib partially represents, but her Detroit-area district also
includes a thriving Jewish community.
Tlaib, whose grandmother currently lives
in the West Bank, has been called out since the war began by some who say she
didn’t do enough to condemn the Hamas attack. An effort to censure Tlaib was
dismissed with broad bipartisan support last week as both parties raised
concerns about violating First Amendment rights.
Two US House Republicans, including Rep.
Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, introduced another motion to censure Tlaib
on Monday.
source: arabnews.com
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2404456/world
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Beauty Mogul Huda Kattanto Donate $1m To
Humanitarian Organisations in Gaza
07 Nov, 2023
Beauty mogul Huda Kattan, known for her
namesake Huda Beauty makeup line, has announced that her company will be
donating $1 million to relief efforts in Gaza.
“It’s been A MONTH of immense suffering
in Gaza, and unfortunately things are getting worse,” Kattan wrote in an
Instagram post.
“It is important that we always stand on
the side of the oppressed and use our platforms to shed light on any injustice.
We cannot stand by and pretend like this is not happening. Our Huda Beauty
brands, including Huda Beauty, Kayali and WISHFUL, will be donating $1 million
to humanitarian organisations in Gaza.”
She thanked people who have bought her
products and said it is because of them that she is able to make the donation.
“So thank you for your support. Together, we can bring change.”
Kattan, an Iraqi-American based in
Dubai, has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause and gained
widespread praise for her outspoken support. One notable incident was when an
Israeli fan of her products commented on page, scolding her for her support of
Palestine and threatening that no Israelis would buy from her again. Kattan’s
response was quite simple and to the point — “I don’t want blood money.”
She also made several calls for donations
and urged people not to stop posting and talking about Palestine on their
platforms.
The siege of Gaza has entered its 32nd
day and the death toll has crossed the 10,000-mark. Protests are being held
around the world calling for a ceasefire and for more humanitarian aid to be
allowed to enter Gaza.
Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty also recently
announced that it would be donating to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and
Israeli Magen David Adom.
Source: dawn.com
https://images.dawn.com/news/1192096/huda-beauty-to-donate-1m-to-humanitarian-organisations-in-gaza
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Saudi Arabia Showcases Achievements of
Muslim Women in Development
7 November 2023
Under the generous auspices of Custodian
of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia is hosting a
three-day International Conference on “Women in Islam: Status and Empowerment.”
Launched on Monday, the conference was
attended by heads of state, ministers, and officials from member countries of
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Organized by the OIC, the conference
aims to highlight the accomplishments of Muslim women, emphasize their role and
contributions to development, counter misconceptions and fallacies that
undermine women’s rights in Islam, and reaffirm that Islamic teachings have
consistently upheld women’s rights.
In opening the conference, Saudi Foreign
Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan stressed the vital role of Saudi women as
essential partners in the Kingdom’s journey of progress and development.
He noted that the Kingdom has enacted a
series of legislation and decisions derived from Islamic law to enhance women’s
participation in economic and social development, protect their rights, and
eliminate discrimination in education, employment, and wages.
As a result of these comprehensive
reforms, the women’s workforce participation rate has risen from 19.3% to 37%
since 2016. Additionally, their representation in leadership positions has
increased from 17% to 39%.
Prince Faisal commended the OIC’s
efforts in empowering women and its establishment of a specialized organization
led by Saudi women to promote women’s development.
He highlighted the various and
compounded challenges faced by women in conflict and war zones, including
violence, poverty, fear, marginalization, and the absence of healthcare and
education for their children.
Prince Faisal emphasized the need for
concerted efforts to support these vulnerable and disadvantaged groups,
particularly against the backdrop of the difficult circumstances endured by
Palestinian women in Gaza due to ongoing Israeli violations of international
law and humanitarian principles, in the face of international silence and
inaction.
Source: english.aawsat.com
https://english.aawsat.com/gulf/4652961-saudi-donations-gaza-exceed-100-million
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Female soldier killed in stabbing attack
in occupied al-Quds
[07/November/2023]
OCCUPIED AL-QUDS November 07. 2023
(Saba) - The Zionist enemy media said the death of the female soldier in the
Border Guard, who was injured in the stabbing attack that was carried out on
Monday morning in occupied al-Quds.
The enemy media previously reported that
two serious injuries occurred in a double operation, which included stabbing
and shooting, near the Zionist police station at Bab al-Sahira in the Old City
of occupied al-Quds.
The enemy media reported that the
outcome of the operation was that a female soldier in the border guards was
seriously injured, in addition to the injury of a soldier.
Following the operation, the Zionist
enemy forces in occupied al-Quds were mobilized and closed the doors of al-Aqsa
Mosque.
Source: saba.ye
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3278590.htm
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Zarghona Nouri dedicates Asian Taekwondo
Bronze to Herat earthquake victims
Fidel Rahmati
November 6, 2023
Zarghona Nouri, a Taekwondo athlete in
the 49-kilogram weight category from Afghanistan, won a bronze medal after
securing two victories in the Asian Games, and she dedicated her medal to the
earthquake victims in Herat.
On Friday, she won a bronze medal by
defeating opponents from Pakistan and Indonesia in Taekwondo. She shared that
she started her Taekwondo journey thirteen years ago with a coach from South
Korea and has since competed in many international and world-level tournaments.
Zarghona emphasizes that, like many
other girls in Afghanistan, she is striving for her goals in the face of
inequalities and injustices, even in the foreign land of migration. She
believes that being an immigrant in a foreign country brings a sense of “statelessness”
and displacement, and it is only through the freedoms available there that she
can pursue her dreams.
Zarghona says that she feels anxious all
the time due to the rising deportations of Afghan migrants from Pakistan. She
also mentions that Afghan migrants face less welcoming conditions compared to
migrants from other countries.
This Taekwondo athlete, who considers
the future of Afghanistan and its girls as “uncertain and unknown,” urges other
girls not to give up on their goals, to fight against all odds and
inequalities, and to be a source of pride for Afghanistan. She dedicated her
medal from these competitions to the earthquake victims in Herat. She aspired
to participate in the World Championships and raise the Afghan tricolour flag
with a gold medal.
She acknowledges that no Afghan girl can
compete internationally now, but with determination, she wants to represent
Afghanistan in international competitions.
It’s worth noting that in the Asian
Games Taekwondo competition, 315 Taekwondo athletes from 23 countries
participated. Despite limitations, Afghan sportswomen have secured various
medals in various competitions. Earlier, Shafiqiqa Mohammadi, from Afghanistan,
also won a bronze medal in the World Martial Arts Championships.
Source: khaama.com
https://www.khaama.com/zarghona-nouri-dedicates-asian-taekwondo-bronze-to-herat-earthquake-victims/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/canadian-poetess-rupi-biden-israel/d/131062