Global Women Demand Democracy, Gender Equality In New Syria
New Age Islam News Bureau
29Jan2025
· Global Women Demand Democracy, Gender Equality In New Syria
· CAIR-NY Welcomes Passage Of Recognition Of World Hijab Day In New York State
· Delhi Court Orders FIR Against Journalist Rana Ayyub For ‘Anti-India’ Social Media Posts
· Afghanistan Women Cricketers Reunite For A Match After 3 Years In Exile Due To Taliban Ban
· “Even That Red Line, the Petersberg Agreement of 2001, No Longer Exists”: Ms. Çalışkan, Rights Activist In Afghanistan
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/global-women-democracy-equality-syria/d/134469
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Global women demand democracy, gender equality in new Syria
28/01/2025
“Now is the time to strengthen the democratic forces in the Middle East, like the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), and to stand with the women fighting for freedom, peace, and democracy in Syria!” declared over 650 women leaders, activists, and organisations from around 40 countries in an open letter addressed to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and other global leaders on Tuesday.
The letter, issued on the heels of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall on 8 December, demands international action to build a democratic Syria with women at the forefront of decision-making.
The signatories highlight the devastation of the Syrian civil war, which lasted more than 13 years, and the atrocities committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) and through “invasion attacks by the Turkish state in violation of international law”. They emphasise that the reconstruction of Syria must prioritise women’s involvement in shaping politics and all spheres of life in a self-determined way.
“Syria’s women are determined to work towards shaping the peace process, for a democratic society, and for truth and justice,” the letter states. It calls for the recognition of the AANES, a self-governing region established in 2012 that has become a model for women’s liberation, grassroots democracy, and ecological sustainability.
The letter underlines the pivotal role women have played in defending their communities, particularly through the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), which, alongside the YPG and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), fought to liberate numerous cities from the Islamic State. The multi-ethnic and multi-religious coexistence fostered in North and East Syria is presented as a blueprint for rebuilding Syria.
The Syrian Women’s Council, a coalition of women from diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds, issued a declaration on 22 December, outlining 13 goals to ensure women’s decisive participation in Syria’s political processes. The open letter supports these goals, insisting that the voices of women and all sectors of Syrian society must be heard in shaping the country’s democratic future.
Signatories also issue a strong warning against supporting jihadist groups or continuing arms sales to Turkey, which they accuse of intensifying violence and oppression in the region. “We call for an immediate halt to arms deliveries and political concessions to Turkey,” they wrote, urging strengthened diplomatic relations with AANES and other democratic forces in Syria.
The letter concludes with a call to action: “We call on the international community and all political actors to officially recognise the AANES, to directly support the civil organisations there, and to establish long-term cooperation.” It emphasises that standing with Syria’s women is key to creating a peaceful, democratic, and sustainable future for the region.
Among the signatories are parliamentarians, human rights activists, and representatives from grassroots organisations worldwide, demonstrating a broad coalition of support for women-led change in Syria. The letter is a rallying cry for global leaders to act decisively to ensure that the reconstruction of Syria is inclusive and rooted in democratic values.
Source: medyanews.net
https://medyanews.net/global-women-demand-democracy-gender-equality-in-new-syria/
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CAIR-NY Welcomes Passage of Recognition of World Hijab Day in New York State
January 28, 2025
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY), a chapter of the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed the passage of Resolution No. 88 by the New York State Senate, recognizing February 1, 2025, as World Hijab Day.
World Hijab Day, in its 12th year, is a platform to promote understanding, dismantle stereotypes, and celebrate the empowerment of women who choose to wear the hijab. The theme for World Hijab Day 2025, #HijabisUnsilenced, celebrates the resilience of hijabis around the globe who courageously challenge stereotypes while embracing their identities with pride and determination.
“This resolution reflects New York’s celebration of cultural and religious diversity. World Hijab Day is an important opportunity to amplify the voices of hijab-wearing women and to combat the prejudice and discrimination they often face. We are deeply grateful to Senator Roxanne J. Persaud for her advocacy and support of this resolution.”
She urged communities to participate in World Hijab Day initiatives, which aim to foster understanding and promote solidarity with women who wear the hijab as an expression of their faith and identity.
Source: cair.com
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-ny-welcomes-passage-of-recognition-of-world-hijab-day-in-new-york-state/
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Delhi Court Orders FIR Against Journalist Rana Ayyub For ‘Anti-India’ Social Media Posts
January 28, 2025
Rana Ayyub
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A Delhi court has directed the registration of an FIR against journalist Rana Ayyub, following a complaint alleging that her social media posts “insulted Hindu deities” and “spread anti-India sentiment,” Live Law reported.
The complaint was filed by AmitaSachdeva, an advocate affiliated with Hindu right-wing groups. In his order dated January 25, Chief Judicial Magistrate Himanshu Raman Singh stated that prima facie, cognizable offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) appeared to be made out against Ayyub.
The court emphasized the seriousness of the allegations and deemed it necessary to initiate an investigation into the matter. The magistrate directed the Station House Officer (SHO) of South Delhi’s Cyber Police Station to convert the complaint into an FIR and carry out a detailed investigation. A compliance report was ordered to be submitted in court, with the next hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
In response to the court’s instructions, the Delhi Police registered FIR No. 0003/2025 on January 27, 2025, under Sections 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 295A (deliberate acts to outrage religious feelings), and 153A (promoting enmity between groups) of the IPC at the Cyber Police Station in South Delhi. This development was confirmed by the complainant in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The case stems from allegations that Ayyub’s online posts were inflammatory and offensive to religious sentiments. The court’s order underscores the need to examine the veracity of the claims through a formal investigation.
The matter has attracted attention due to Ayyub’s reputation as an award-winning journalist and the involvement of a lawyer associated with right-wing groups. — With Agencies Inputs
Source: muslimmirror.com
https://muslimmirror.com/delhi-court-orders-fir-against-journalist-rana-ayyub-for-anti-india-social-media-posts/
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Afghanistan women cricketers reunite for a match after 3 years in exile due to Taliban ban
JANUARY 29, 2025
Cricketer Firooza Amiri says her team will "represent millions of women in Afghanistan who are denied their rights” when the side reunites after more than three years for an exhibition game in Australia on Thursday.
An Afghanistan Women's XI will play a Cricket Without Borders XI in the match at Melbourne's Junction Oval. It will bring together 21 female players who were formerly contracted by the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) before the Taliban regime re-took control in August 2021.
Since fleeing Afghanistan, the women cricketers. banned from playing in their home country, have been based in Canberra and Melbourne and playing for various club teams in local competitions.
Amiri and NahidaSapan, who will captain the Afghanistan Women's XI, thanked the Australian government and Cricket Australia for their support in promoting women's sport.
“It's very special for all of us to get back together after three years, leaving everything and losing everything back home in Afghanistan and come together again," Amiri said this week.
Amiri was forced to flee her home country when the Taliban took control. She and her family first traveled to Pakistan and then were evacuated to Australia.
“I also want to express deepest gratitude for everyone who support us. Your support means the world to us,” Sapan said. “Together we are building not just a team. We are building a movement for change and improvement.
“This is a very historic moment for all of Afghan women. This match can open doors for Afghan women for education, sport and our future.” Sapan told the BBC in 2023 that her family received death threats from government officials after the Taliban re-took power. The threatening messages included: “If we find you, we will not let you live.” Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley praised the resilience of the players. He said it was a powerful moment when they were presented with their team shirts for the exhibition match.
“To see their playing shirts for the first time with their names and numbers on the back, you can see how much it means to them,” Hockley said. “I'm just inspired by their resilience, their love for the game.” Hockley said CA would continue to “advocate” for change at a global level through discussions with the International Cricket Council (ICC). He said Thursday's game represented an important first step.
“This match shines the light on the fact that in places around the world, not every woman and girl has the chance to play,” Hockley said. “We continue to advocate at the ICC and continue to engage with the ACB (Afghanistan Cricket Board).
“It's such a complex situation. It's bigger than cricket.” Under Taliban rule, the Afghanistan Cricket Board cannot field a national women's team because the country's laws forbid women from playing sport, studying and medical education, moves that have been criticized by world groups including the International Criminal Court.
Afghanistan is a full member of the ICC and a condition of that status should require it to have a women's side.
England and Australia are refusing to participate in direct series against Afghanistan in protest, but continue to play against it in ICC events, such as next month's Champions Trophy global event in Pakistan.
England cricket captain Jos Buttler said last week that his side should not boycott a match against the Afghanistan men's team when they are scheduled to play in the Champions Trophy on Feb. 26 in Lahore. South Africa's sport minister, however, has urged the Proteas to boycott their match against Afghanistan in the same tournament.
Asked why Australia was prepared to play a men's game against Afghanistan in an ICC event, but not in a bilateral series, Hockley said CA was “duty-bound” to play all its scheduled fixtures at ICC events.
“We're really trying to do everything we can in our power to make a difference,” Hockley said. “We've played Afghanistan in other ICC events. You have to draw a line somewhere and I think we've made our stance pretty clear.” Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan from Afghanistan's men's national cricket team have posted support of women's education on social media after the Taliban closed training institutes for nursing and midwives.
Hockley said he hoped Thursday's match, the format for which was not announced, would become an annual one and that it would “promote lots of conversations." “You need moments like this to prompt real change. The first piece is awareness,” Hockley said. “Hopefully this game just raises awareness. I think it's a real beacon of hope.”
Source: moneycontrol.com
https://www.moneycontrol.com/sports/cricket/afghanistan-s-female-cricketers-reunite-for-a-match-after-3-years-in-exile-due-to-taliban-ban-article-12922661.html
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“Even That Red Line, the Petersberg Agreement of 2001, No Longer Exists”: Ms. Çalışkan, Rights Activist In Afghanistan
29.01.2025
Ms. Çalışkan, you have advocated for women’s rights for many years and lived in Afghanistan in 2010. What was your experience of the situation there?
At that time, the Petersberg Agreement of 2001 was in force, which structured the political transition after the fall of the first Taliban regime. There were positive developments for women’s rights and schools for girls were reopened. These successes encouraged us feminists to throw ourselves into our work. Unfortunately, history is repeating itself and another generation of Afghan women is now facing a Taliban regime – and once again organising underground schools for girls.
How did the women’s-rights movement use that period of new freedoms?
Under pressure from the United Nations (UN), the first democratic government of Afghanistan had to ratify many international agreements, including CEDAW, the UN women’s-rights convention. At least 25 % of seats in Parliament now had to be filled by women. Civil-society organisations (NGOs) launched clever campaigns in order to ensure that women’s issues were brought into politics. For example, my colleagues at medicamondiale Afghanistan brought candidates a list of demands that they wanted them to include in their political agendas. In return, the women’s-rights activists promised the candidates hundreds of votes from their respective clans. This idea was later adopted with great enthusiasm by medicamondiale colleagues in Kosovo. It allowed them to skilfully use the prevailing clan structure to promote women’s rights. I first encountered this approach in my own Muslim migrant worker family. Whenever possible, we used social and religious beliefs to fight for our own rights and freedoms.
A lot changed in Afghanistan during that time. What, specifically, were women’s-rights activists able to achieve?
Legislation to protect women from violence and discrimination has been promoted. These initiatives were supported by influential Afghan and international feminists who often worked for large institutions like the UN, the European Union (EU) and national delegations. They built strong alliances. The combined pressure from Afghan and international women’s-rights activists led to the passage of a law to fight violence against women in 2009, for example. There were other successes relating to healthcare. Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate is the second highest in the world. When I started working for medicamondiale in 2003, I was impressed by the Afghan women doctors and former Taliban opponents who went back to Afghanistan with us after the fall of the regime to offer their expertise in hospitals. They taught medical personnel how to recognise gender-specific trauma. Later they built a system to document human-rights violations in women hospital patients. I used this data to create political pressure and sent it to the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women. And still these projects achieved much more than was recorded in the evaluations.
What exactly do you mean? What else did the international projects achieve?
Working together for women’s rights changed us all: I saw how strong women can be in the most terrible situations and how skilfully they negotiate when faced with hardliners in ministries, families, the military and prisons. They only needed solidarity and support from the outside to exercise their power. The everyday lives of my Afghan colleagues changed too. Thanks to their work for Afghan and international non-governmental organisations, for the UN or the Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), they earned their own money and could contribute to household decisions. They drove cars on their own and went on business trips; some studied alongside their work. When their spouses travelled for work, they could sleep at home instead of having to stay with their mothers-in-law. It was difficult for some of our women lawyers to defend clients in court who had been arrested, along with their children, for supposedly committing adultery. The society considered the accused, as well as their defenders, bad people. But attitudes were changing.
And then international troops withdrew from Afghanistan.
The air went out of women’s lungs on 15 August 2021, the day they were banished once again to hearth and home. Today, when I look back on 20 years of international presence in Afghanistan, I see an international breach of trust with the Afghans. The Enquete Commission’s final report on Germany’s mission in Afghanistan called progress on women’s rights and the establishment of a civil society “partial successes” while declaring the entire Afghanistan mission a failure.
Since the Taliban took power in 2021, women’s rights have once again been massively restricted. How are women there nevertheless trying to create freedoms for themselves or protest the situation today?
Nowadays activists are risking their lives to defend themselves against the misogynistic laws of the Taliban. Given the fact that women have been banished from public life and the workforce, it’s good that we now have social media. There women can share demands, provide information about human-rights violations and mobilise support from abroad. Online platforms offer a certain amount of protection. They make it possible, despite access restrictions, to draw international attention to events in Afghanistan and document them in order to someday bring perpetrators before national courts and the International Court of Justice. Women are also defending themselves against the ignorance of western decision-makers, who were mobilising the military and defending human, women’s and girl’s rights just a few years ago, but now are silent and looking the other way. During the government negotiations with the Taliban in Doha[EV1] , education for girls was the only red line the western negotiators, including the Germans, drew. And now even that red line no longer exists.
How are aid organisations and activists reacting to this situation?
In December 2024, the Taliban’s latest attempt to restrict the activities of NGOs became public. The UN Security Council discovered that the efforts of more and more Afghan women humanitarian aid workers were being hampered. Yet their work is key for survival in the current humanitarian crisis. The one silver lining is the division within the Taliban regarding the interpretation of Islam. Some reject schooling for girls after age 12 and insist that they stay home, marry and become housewives and mothers. Others would actually let them study, though separately from men. Both groups are basing their views on Islam. Latching onto these contradictions is the only opportunity right now for international aid organisations and local activists to negotiate rights for women and girls.
What needs to happen in order for civil society to be able to continue this work?
For years we have needed more money for feminist movements, more women UN peacekeepers, women and BIPOC diplomats and a serious effort to reduce poverty as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We need more gender mainstreaming and representation of women in the security sector, including in UN peacekeeping missions and the European Union’s military and civilian missions. We need penalties for sexualised violence in such missions and a refugee law that protects women and children from gender-based violence. People have been aware of the problem for some time, but institutions have been unwilling to change, and reforms have also faced patriarchal-nationalistic backlash in many countries. The consequences of not fully implementing these goals can be seen in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in Iran.
After the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022, thousands took to the streets in Iran. From a German perspective, what should have happened differently?
Despite its professedly feminist foreign policy, the German government has let down Iran’s courageous civil society. Germany has said nothing in response to the current wave of executions. The main argument for realpolitik is always economic and security interests – in this case, the much sought-after regional stability. It cannot be achieved, however, while at the same time condoning massive human-rights violations. By providing economic and military support, western countries are giving these governments enormous power over global events and ultimately contributing to instability and armed conflicts, as can be seen in Iran, Syria, Turkey, Israel or Russia.
Let’s take a look into the future. In 2025, the Beijing Declaration, which promotes equal rights for men and women, will turn 30; UN Resolution 1325, on women, peace and security, will turn 25. How can we use this anniversary year to promote women’s rights?
Particularly in times of anti-democratic policies, we must loudly and clearly demand the political will and the necessary funds for sustainable development, positive peace and gender and climate justice. We have to confront decision-makers with the fact that neither current funding levels nor the condition of the world are adequately supporting women. But we can only overcome polycrises with women’s help.
SelminÇalışkan is a human-rights expert, strategy consultant and executive coach. Previously, she was the Director of Institutional Relations at the Berlin office of the Open Society Foundations, as well as the Secretary General for Amnesty International Germany. She has also worked for medicamondiale and the Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), including in Afghanistan.
Source: dandc.eu
https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/afghanistan-taliban-are-systematically-banishing-women-public-sphere-while-world-looks
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/global-women-democracy-equality-syria/d/134469