Hamas Releases First Video Of Hostage: French-Israeli Woman Was Abducted From A Party
New Age
Islam News Bureau
17 October 2023
·
Hamas
Releases First Video Of Hostage: French-Israeli Woman Was Abducted From A Party
·
Hasina
Safi, Afghanistan Last Women’s Minister: World Has Abandoned Afghanistan
·
Delhi High
Court: Why Can't Unmarried Women Go For Surrogacy?
·
SC refuses
to tweak Special Marriage Act to legalise same-sex unions, says Parliament will
decide
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/hamas-french-israeli-hostage/d/130917
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Hamas Releases First Video Of Hostage: French-Israeli
Woman Was Abducted From A Party
Video grabs.
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Oct 17, 2023
Hamas has released a video of a woman
French-Israeli hostage on their Telegram channel, the first released video of
about 200 hostages abducted by the group to Gaza in last two weeks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was in a cabinet meeting when the video was released and updated, his
office said on Monday in a statement.
The hostage was identified as Mia Shem,
21. In the video, Shem, speaking in Hebrew, said she had got medical attention
in Gaza and undergone a hand surgery.
She said, "I returned early
Saturday (October 7) morning from Sderot (in southern Israel). I was at a
party. I was seriously injured in my hand. I underwent a three-hour surgery on
my hand at the hospital (in Gaza). They are taking care of me, giving me
medicine, and everything is fine. I only ask them to bring me home as soon as
possible to my parents, to my siblings."
On October 7, Hamas launched a heavy
onslaught on Israeli towns adjacent to the Gaza Strip, firing thousands of
rockets. Breaching the land border with Israel, Hamas militants opened fire at
the residents and captured some of them, prompting Israel to launch retaliatory
strikes on Gaza, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Israeli military on Monday updated
in a statement that at least 199 hostages were held in Gaza, while Hamas
claimed that there are 200 to 250 Israeli captives in Gaza.
Source: tribuneindia.com
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/hamas-releases-first-video-of-hostage-french-israeli-woman-was-abducted-from-a-party-554069
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Hasina Safi, Afghanistan last women’s minister: World has abandoned Afghanistan
Hasina Safi,
Former Acting Minister Of Women Affairs, Islamic Republic Of Afghanistan
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By Tommy Greene
Published On 16 Oct 2023
16 Oct 2023
Belfast, Northern Ireland – The
international community’s response to Afghanistan’s ongoing humanitarian crisis
is “confused” and requires a wholesale rethink, according to Hasina Safi, the
former and last minister for women’s affairs in Afghanistan.
Now a leading women’s rights advocate,
Safi told Al Jazeera in a recent interview in Belfast that many in the war-torn
country now ruled by the Taliban feel “abandoned” and “forgotten”.
After the Taliban retook power in 2021,
Safi’s ministry was replaced by the ministry of “guidance and preaching”.
There has been a failure, Safi said, to
follow up a series of pledges made amid the withdrawal of US and UK troops from
the territory in late August 2021 with concrete, “practical” responses.
Safi spoke to Al Jazeera at the recent
One Young World summit, which brought thousands of young people from more than
190 countries to Belfast.
“Outside Afghanistan, the situation is
very confused,” she said.
“The international community do not know
what to do. There are conferences, there are events, there are various kinds of
programmes. But there is no practical result which can really help the
disappointment inside Afghanistan for those who are at risk and deprived,” said
Safi.
She alleged that a number of decrees
issued by the Taliban authorities, which are still not officially recognised by
any international government, are considered to be violating international
human rights principles.
“The situation is very disappointing. Day
by day, instead of introducing mechanisms or coordination in finding ways of
supporting people, there are decrees, there are directives – one after the
other,” she said. “Sometimes these are about the clothes they wear, sometimes
it’s about make-up, sometimes about their mobility outside.”
Safi also told Al Jazeera that Afghans
feel they have been abandoned, as their plight slips down the global news
agenda.
“I will not say there is just a ‘sense
of abandonment’ – there is abandonment. Period.
“Afghanistan is part of the global human
community. It is a country of strategic significance and when the outside world
abandons Afghanistan it is abandoning a part of itself.”
She said there is an urgent need to
increase aid efforts in Afghanistan, where nearly 50 percent were thought to be
living under the poverty line a year before Western forces withdrew from the
territory.
“Ensuring higher and higher-secondary
education of girls and women is another key priority,” she said.
“And a strategic revisit of the support
of the international community to the people of Afghanistan is required. This
should be based on the real needs of its people.
“There should be a consolidated report
of all the initiatives happening in the last two years – covering [perspectives
and experiences] within Afghanistan, the diaspora, the international community
– which puts their strategic vision on the table.”
Source: aljazeera.com
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/16/world-has-abandoned-afghanistan-says-countrys-last-womens-minister
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Delhi high court: Why can't unmarried
women go for surrogacy?
Oct 17, 2023
NEW DELHI: Terming it
"discrimination", Delhi high court asked the Centre on Monday to
explain why a single, unmarried woman was legally barred from opting for a
surrogacy procedure to become a parent.
The court was hearing a plea filed by a
44-year-old unmarried woman who wished to have "a genetically related
offspring via surrogacy" but needed donor eggs. She cited medical opinion
that using her gamete could lead to medical complications for the child,
including Down Syndrome.
The petitioner also challenged the
regulation that requires a single woman who lost her spouse or was divorced to
use her eggs for a surrogacy procedure.
Referring to the definition of an
"intending woman" under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, the
bench of Chief Justice S C Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula questioned the
rationale behind associating the marital status of a woman with her eligibility
to opt for surrogacy.
T Singhdev, appearing for the National
Medical Commission, said he would examine the intricacies of the law and get
back to the court.
The petitioner's lawyer had told the
court that his client was unable to get married early in her life and so wanted
to become a biological mother through surrogacy, given her age. The woman's
brother has consented to donate gametes so that the child is "genetically
connected", the court was informed.
"What has come as an embargo to the
petitioner are the provisions of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, which
prohibits the petitioner from having a child by way of surrogacy," the
petition states.
The petition argues that the
restrictions on single, unmarried women "are highly irrational, unlawful,
discriminatory and violative of the fundamental rights of the petitioner under
articles 14 (right to equality) and 21 (right to life) of the
Constitution".
The court scheduled the next hearing for
October 31 after asking the woman's counsel to cross the first legal threshold
- of showing medical proof that her eggs can't be used because that might
compromise the fetus.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/hc-why-cant-unmarried-women-go-for-surrogacy/articleshow/104478009.cms
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SC refuses to tweak Special Marriage Act
to legalise same-sex unions, says Parliament will decide
BHADRA SINHA
17 October, 2023
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday
refused to tweak the Special Marriage Act (SMA) to legalise same-sex marriage.
It further refused to strike down Section 4 of the law to allow a
non-heterosexual couple to marry under the law.
A five-judge bench led by Chief Justice
of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud agreed with the Centre’s view that tinkering
with the law could have a cascading effect on other laws. The other members of
the bench were justices S.K. Kaul, Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli and P.S.
Narasimha.
Four opinions were authored by the
bench. While CJI Chandrachud, Justices Kaul and Narasimha penned down their
individual views, Justice Bhat wrote for himself and Justice Kohli.
The bench was unanimous in its ruling on
not modifying or reading into the SMA to allow same-sex marriages in India. The
judges, however, differed on whether the SMA was enacted with the sole
objective for heterosexual marriages only.
The CJI and Justice Kaul said it wasn’t.
But Justices Bhat, Kohli and Narasimha disagreed with this opinion, saying a
gender-neutral interpretation of the SMA may not be equitable at times and can
result in women being exposed to vulnerabilities in an unintended manner.
“If Section 4 is to be read in a
gender-neutral manner, the interplay of other provisions will lead to anomalous
results, rendering the Special Marriage Act unworkable,” stated the majority
opinion.
But at the same time, the judges
concurred that there cannot be an unqualified right to marry, which is to be
treated as a fundamental right. However, they agreed that the right to choose a
partner and cohabit was one.
By a 3:2 ruling, the bench turned down
the petitioners’ claim to have a civil union. Both the CJI and Justice Kaul
held the right to have a civil union flows from Part 3 of the Constitution.
However, the majority view held otherwise to hold that such a union can only be
done through a legislation.
All the judges advised the central
government to act in terms of its proposal and set-up a high-powered committee
headed by the cabinet secretary to address the raft of concerns of same-sex
couples, including ration cards, pension, gratuity and succession.
There was a unanimous ruling on
transgenders’ right to marry under the existing law.
With regard to adoption rules that were
also under challenge, the CJI and Justice Kaul struck it down to permit
adoption by queer couples. Justices Bhat, Kohli and Narasimha differed on this
account, but added their decision should not be interpreted to say that queer
couples are not fit to be parents.
Tuesday’s ruling comes four days before Justice Bhat’s
retirement and five months after the Constitution bench had reserved verdict on
a batch of petitions demanding legal recognition of same-sex marriages
The hearing on the petitions went on for
10 days before it concluded on 11 May and was reserved for judgment.
Previous arguments
Extensive arguments were advanced from
both sides — petitioners who asked for legal recognition of marriage between
same-sex couples and the government that vehemently opposed the plea, arguing
the legislative policy of the country has “consciously validated a union
between a biological man and woman”.
While the petitioners stressed the
equality right of the LGBTQIA+ for legal validation of same-sex marriages, the
government challenged the petitions on the grounds of jurisdiction.
The central government has maintained
that the petitioners’ request to grant legal validity to same-sex unions under
the Special Marriage Act can only be looked into by Parliament and that the
right to marry is not a fundamental right.
During the hearings, it had agreed to
constitute an inter-ministerial committee, headed by the cabinet secretary, to
examine the “administrative steps” that could be taken to ensure certain
benefits for same-sex couples.
These benefits would remain even in the
absence of a legal recognition of their marriage, Solicitor General Tushar
Mehta had assured the bench, while urging the judges to refrain from issuing
any declaration.
A judicial pronouncement, Mehta had
warned, would have an uncontrollable and unforeseen fallout. Hence, he urged
the bench not to use discretion to declare any right.
“Any alteration or substitution of words
in SMA, as was suggested by the petitioners, would impact a string of
provisions in other statutes, apart from impacting personal laws,” he had
argued.
Though the bench had categorically ruled
out delving into the aspects of personal laws, Mehta said that tweaking the SMA
would have a bearing on personal legislation as well.
The 10-day-hearing delved into the
possible directions the court could issue, such as making the Special Marriage
Act gender-neutral by tweaking certain words, issuing a declaration to affirm
same-sex unions, while asking the government to grant this right through a
legislative exercise, or granting constitutional status to right to marry and
pass specific directions to implement this declaration.
While the hearing was on, the central
government sought the views of the states on the subject. According to its
report, Rajasthan, Assam and Andhra Pradesh opposed such unions, saying it was
within the legislature’s domain to make laws, based on public opinions across
religious faiths. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur and Sikkim sought more
time to formulate their views.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
Source: theprint.in
https://theprint.in/judiciary/sc-refuses-to-legalise-same-sex-marriage-in-32-ruling-says-parliament-will-decide/1806795/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/hamas-french-israeli-hostage/d/130917