Hijab-Wearing Female Football Players Protest Hijab Ban In France
New
Age Islam News Bureau
29
January 2022
• French
Region Cancels Its Subsidy To Art Festival Over Mural Of Woman Wearing Hijab
• Syrian
Women Open Laurel Soap Making Workshop In Idlib
• First
Professional Fashion Society Launched In Saudi Arabia
• The
Afghan Women Making Athens Their New Home Access To The Comments
• German
Woman Allegedly Took 6Years Old Daughter to Watch ISIS Stoning in Syria
• CHR
Slams Bangsamoro Body For Move Vs Anti-Child Marriage Law
• Video
Of Women’s Surgeries By OT Attendant In Sialkot Sparks Outrage
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/hijab-female-football-france/d/126265
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Hijab-Wearing
Female Football Players Protest Hijab Ban In France
A
group of hijab-wearing football players gathered in Paris's Luxembourg Garden
to protest a recent decision which bans them from wearing their scarves in
sports competitions.
-----
January
29, 2022
A
group of hijab-wearing football players gathered in Paris's Luxembourg Garden
on Wednesday to protest a recent decision which bans them from wearing their
scarves in sports competitions.
"The
purpose of this non-violent action, organised by the Alliance Citoyenne
(Citizen Alliance) group, is to protest against the amendment that was voted by
160 senators, which aims to prohibit the wearing of religious symbols within
sports federations, therefore during official competitions," said Founé
Diawara, co-president of the collective Les Hijabeuses, an offshoot of the
Citizen Alliance group.
"What
bothers us is that some women are being left out, including thousands of women
today who wear the veil and who practice soccer. And once again, they exclude
us, whereas the fundamental values of football and sport are to unite and to
come together," Diawara added.
Last
week, French senators voted to ban the wearing of religious symbols during
events and competitions organised by sports federations.
"We
don't see why we should remove it. There is no reason, there is nothing in the
law that says that the veil is not in cohesion with the values of sport and
with sport. So I don't see why we would be forced to remove it, there is really
nothing that would justify that," she went on.
The
French Football Federation claims it's defending the principle of laicity in
sport and has received the support of the French Senate.
"This
is something personal and intimate and there is no right, there is nobody who
can ask us to remove it."
Source:
ABNA24
https://en.abna24.com/news//female-football-players-protest-hijab-ban-in-france_1223618.html
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French
Region Cancels Its Subsidy To Art Festival Over Mural Of Woman Wearing Hijab
France
has long been criticised for discriminatory policies against Muslims, with the
spotlight on women wearing hijabs. (Reuters)
----
Yusuf
Özcan
29.01.2022
PARIS
The
French region of Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes suspended subsidies for a street-art
festival in Grenoble because of a mural of a woman wearing a hijab.
The
region said in a statement that the mural was "provocative" and
"unacceptable."
It
argued that it only benefits extremists, fueling violence and hatred and said
subsidies planned for the "Street art fest Grenoble Alpes" was
canceled.
Media
reports said the mural was drawn eight months ago and a decision was made to
cancel the subsidy although the mural had nothing to do with the festival.
Festival
director Jerome Catz said the reason for the cancelation of €10,000 ($11,149)
in financial support for the festival is political and it happened before the
presidential election that will be held in April.
Catz
said that the artist who drew the mural wanted to draw attention to the fact
that some people are discriminated against because of their religion.
After
the suspension, it was learned that the mural was defaced with black paint.
On
the right side of the mural where there was a yellow star with
"Muslim" written on the woman’s chest, is now black.
Source:
Anadolu Agency
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Syrian
women open laurel soap making workshop in Idlib
Khaled
al-Khateb
January
2, 2022
ALEPPO
— The Syrian war, which has been going on for almost 10 years, forced a large
number of Syrian women to lead their families after the detention or death of
their husbands. The absence of the traditional family provider prompted many
women to learn jobs that were previously limited to men.
Idlib
governorate, which is under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in northwestern
Syria, has turned into a destination for those opposing the Syrian regime,
especially women, whose number rose due the displacement waves caused by the
regime.
The
new and harsh life forced women in Idlib to enter the labor market. While some
found work in kindergartens and humanitarian organizations, those who did not
hold any academic degrees were forced to work in agriculture for a daily wage.
Others learned a profession to make ends meet.
In
Maarat Misrin, a town just north of Idlib city, family breadwinners among women
came up with the idea of opening a soap-making workshop in early 2021. The idea
turned into an important project that involved 20 women and that bears the name
of Olfar Soap making company.
Mariam
Daeef, who lives in Maaret Misrin in Idlib countryside, is one of the women
working in the soap factory. She is a widowed mother to five children. She told
Al-Monitor, “None of us in the soap-making company have academic degrees that
would enable us to get jobs in education or any other sector. We needed a
project that suits our skills and allows us to cover the costs of living.”
The
project in Idlib seemed feasible, given that the main raw material is olive
oil. The Idlib governorate is known for producing this type of oil and the
making of soap. A large segment of the workers have extensive experience, which
they inherited from their ancestors.
Locally
made laurel soap is a basic commodity in every house in northwestern Syria. It
is used primarily for body and hair wash, and is a natural product that does
not harm the hair nor the skin. The women have successfully marketed the
product in the opposition areas in Idlib and the northern Aleppo countryside.
Fatima
Chahine, director of the soap-making company who resides in Maarrat Misrin,
told Al-Monitor, “Soap-making is considered a heritage, and anyone can do this
job and learn it quickly, once they have the necessary equipment.”
She
added, “We turned a rented house into a workshop where we make soap. It is a
handcraft that does not require great effort. As women, it was necessary for us
to choose a job that suits our physical capabilities as well as the customs and
traditions of the local community.”
Soap
is made in three stages, she explained. First, oil, water and sodium hydroxide
are cooked for an hour and a half. Next, laurel oil, water and salt are added
to the mixture and cooked again for an hour and a half in order to get rid of
the sodium hydroxide after it fulfills its role. Finally, there is the cooling,
cutting, packaging and selling.
The
20 women in the factory are mostly survivors from other governorates who were
released years ago from the prisons of the Syrian regime, she said. The women
are divided into two groups, each working a three-hour shift.
The
business hopes to expand, Chahine said, because "the current income is
barely enough to cover the living expenses of their families due to the high
prices and the difficulties in securing raw materials.” However, she did
not reveal how much they are paid per
month.
Hoda
Rayya, one of the workers, lives in Maarrat Misrin and is a former detainee in
the regime’s prisons. Her husband is dead and she provides for her family. She
told Al-Monitor, “Soap making is the profession that I chose and I started to
love. It all started when the opportunity presented itself. I received the
training for twenty days, and once the decision to open the factory was made, I
agreed and expressed readiness to join.”
Women's
initiatives are on the rise in the local community in northwestern Syria. A
group of women announced in April the opening of a mobile phone maintenance
center in Idlib, after a group of women received two months of training.
Source:
Al Monitor
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/01/syrian-women-open-laurel-soap-making-workshop-idlib
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First
professional fashion society launched in Saudi Arabia
HEBSHI
AL-SHAMMARI
January
29, 2022
RIYADH:
Saudi Arabia’s first fashion professional society was launched on Thursday.
Loai
Naseem, founder of the Lomar chain, is the chairman of the board of directors
of the society.
The
society is among the professional associations founded under the Ministry of
Culture’s nonprofit sector strategy, adopted in March 2021. The strategy aims
to build a diverse system of nonprofit organizations in the Kingdom’s cultural
sectors, including the formation of 16 professional societies in 13 cultural
sectors globally.
Naseem
told Arab News that the society aspires to lead the fashion sector in terms of
creativity, excellence and sustainability while also strengthening its
development role in the Saudi economy and reflecting the country’s cultural
identity locally and globally.
The
society’s goals include developing professional practice, improving the future
of employees through training, strengthening networks among practitioners and
supporting talent.
“The
most important thing, in my opinion, is to raise awareness of the cultural
importance and value of the sector,” Naseem said
Naseem,
who was named Saudi Arabia’s most influential entrepreneur by American Endeavor
in 2012, said that the society is looking forward to a variety of activities,
including “training, mentoring and empowering professionals and designers with
the goal of putting them on track.”
Among
the society’s anticipated positive impacts are an increased knowledge of
fashion in terms of quality, value, sustainability and significance, and
economic growth, including the possibility for the Kingdom to export “Made in
Saudi Arabia” products.
Source:
Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2014116/fashion
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The
Afghan women making Athens their new home Access to the comments
By
Julian GOMEZ
28/01/2022
I've
never been to Afghanistan, nor do I speak Dari or Pashto, the country's two
official languages. So when I actually find myself on a rainy January morning
in Athens at a centre for women Afghan refugees and migrants, the question I
ask myself, even if just for a moment, is: what am I doing here?
I had
pitched the story a few weeks before. I had read an article about how the Greek
capital had unexpectedly become a hub for Afghan women and their families
forced to flee Afghanistan following the Taliban's sudden return to power in
August 2021.
Most
of the women were reported to be judges, lawyers, journalists or civil right
activists. Different aid programmes had helped with their evacuation and
continue to cover their housing and basic needs in Athens.
Together
with our fixer Eleni Korovila, I contacted the Melissa Network, one of several
local centres that help Afghan women and their families. In addition to being a
place for the women to meet, Melissa - meaning "Beehive" in Greek -
also offers a range of support services, including legal advice, tuition,
councelling and community networking.
As
soon as I arrive, I'm taken into a living room with some pastry and mandarines
on a huge table. Different women are eager to share with me their stories of
loss. Loss of family and friends. Loss of jobs, wages, independence and
self-esteem. All were forced into hiding. All still remain in shock. I spend
the day listening to them.
Hasina,
a former judge, tells me about how the Taliban released the same criminals she
had sentenced and put in jail.
She
explains to me that they were now looking for revenge. "I could not go
outdoors", she tells me. "They could kill me, or my children, or
kidnap them."
Homa
Ahmadi, a former member of parliament, was forced into hiding for five weeks.
She says no country should recognise the Taliban until "they form an
inclusive government and guarantee children's rights, the freedom of women and
their right to work."
Nilofar,
26, fled Afghanistan with her two children - the youngest is just 8-months-old.
She has a bachelor degree in law and political science and worked as a
journalist in Afghanistan.
"At
first we had to fight with our fathers and brothers for the right to decide on
how we dress, for example veils and scarves. Over the last 20 years we
succeeded.
"Then,
with the return of the Taliban, we lost everything. I had dreams for my
children and for the people. All that vanished in one night."
Fariba
- not her real name - was a judge, but she avoids discussing the past; for her
it is far too painful. She prefers to show me one of the few belongings she
brought with her from Afghanistan: a traditional dress.
"This
dress is representative of all Afghan women. Every country has its own symbols.
In Afghanistan, after the language and the flag, the only thing that represents
Afghan women to the rest of the world is this [traditional] dress." she
says.
Plans
for the future
For
most of the women, Greece is just a transit country. Some have already received
asylum offers from Canada and Spain. Others would like to go to Germany.
Nadina
Christopoulou, the director and co-founder of the Melissa Network tells me:
"The idea behind this was to be able to provide a safe space [in Greece]
for them to pick up the thread of the work they have been doing for so long in
Afghanistan, and to start thinking again about the potential of what they can
do. To also avoid the fragmentation that the diaspora entails."
I point
out that many of these woman are former politicians, journalists and judges and
that many people might consider them to be an elite compared to most women
living in Afghanistan.
But
Nadina says: "I would not see it as an elite. The way we selected these
women is because of their roles and their active social and political
engagements and activism that created eventually the high-risk situations in
which they were caught. Even now, they try to find ways to be of help and
support and to remain actively engaged," she says.
I ask
her for some examples.
Replying,
she says: "Almost a week after they arrived, they were speaking at the
Athens Democracy Forum, talking about how intense it was for them to speak
about the collapse of democracy in Afghanistan that they themselves had helped
and worked so hard to build - in the country that gave birth to the idea of
democracy."
Asylum
struggle
Around
100 of the women have applied to stay in Greece. Their claims are currently
under investigation and processed. I cannot avoid thinking, however, about the
hundreds of other Afghan asylum seekers scattered in camps around Greece who
wont get the same chances.
In
recent months the country has stepped up security and surveillance along its
maritime and land borders with Turkey, the main entry route into Greece for
most Afghan refugee and migrants.
The
Greek government has a dual approach, the country's General Secretary for
Migration Policy tells me. I meet him inside the courtyard of the headquarters
of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum.
"In
the past two, two and a half years, Greece has followed a strict but, in our
view, fair migration policy. In the sense that we may have tightened the rules
within the framework of the EU directives and regulations, but this does not mean
that as a country, Greece, has forgotten its humanitarian approach."
All
Afghan women I met in Athens tell me it is now time for them to move on.
I
meet Khatera Saeedi and her two children in one of the public gardens in the
centre of Athens. Khatera shows them the animals of a small zoo and then the
three stop in a nearby pond where ducks and swans wait to be fed.
A
civil-society activist and journalist, in Afghanistan Khatera worked for an
international organisation. She fled with her two children and also with her
mum, herself a human-rights activist who was persecuted by the Taliban.
Discussing
her plans for the future, Khatera says: "I will go to Canada, I will
strengthen my education, my experience, my knowledge, and I will go back to
Afghanistan stronger than before. And I will work for the people."
Source:
Euro News
https://www.euronews.com/2022/01/28/the-afghan-women-making-athens-their-new-home
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German
Woman Allegedly Took 6Years Old Daughter to Watch ISIS Stoning in Syria
28
January, 2022
A
German who allegedly took her young daughter to watch a woman being stoned
while in ISIS-held territory in Syria has been charged with membership in the
extremist group and other offenses, federal prosecutors said Friday.
The
woman, identified only as Romiena S. in keeping with German privacy laws, was
arrested at Frankfurt airport when she arrived on Oct. 7 among a group of women
and children repatriated from a camp in northeastern Syria where suspected ISIS
members were held.
She
was charged at a court in the northern town of Celle with membership in a
foreign terrorist organization, recruiting members for the group, a crime
against humanity, the abduction of a minor, violating her duties of care and
education, and approving of crimes, prosecutors said in a statement, The
Associated Press reported.
The
suspect traveled to Syria in late 2014 along with a 16-year-old girl she had
persuaded to join her, prosecutors said. They said she took her 4-year-old
daughter, against the wishes of the child’s father.
In
Syria, she married several ISIS members, according to prosecutors. She brought
up her daughter and two sons born in Syria in line with ISIS ideology, taking
the girl — then age 6 — to the stoning of a woman and showing her execution
videos, they said.
She
also is accused of exploiting a Yazidi woman enslaved by the extremist group
for a few days in 2016, ordering her to do household duties at the home of a
slave trader in Raqqa and guarding her as she went into town.
The
suspect also posted messages on Twitter supporting extremist attacks in Nice,
France, and Wuerzburg, Germany, in 2016, prosecutors said.
Source:
Aawsat
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CHR
slams Bangsamoro body for move vs anti-child marriage law
January
29, 2022
The
Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on Friday said it was “very disappointed and
deeply concerned” about reports that members of the Bangsamoro Transition
Authority (BTA) have passed a resolution urging President Rodrigo Duterte to
veto a recently passed law banning child marriages.
In a
statement, the commission said it was “alarmed that these members have
unilaterally claimed that the Bangsamoro community does not support the law and
that some members have claimed that child marriage is embedded in the Muslim
culture.
The
CHR, which is also the country’s gender ombudsman, was referring to the
landmark Republic Act No. 11596, which finally bans marrying off any individual
before he or she is 18 years old, a practice often seen in indigenous and
Muslim communities in the country. The law was signed by President Duterte on
Dec. 10, 2021, and released by Malacañang on Jan. 6.
Both
local and international groups see its passage as long overdue and a major
milestone in protecting the welfare and rights of children, especially since
the Philippines is a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights
of the Child.
‘Very
hard to change’
But a
day after a copy of RA 11596 was released earlier this month, the BTA, the
interim governing body of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao
(BARMM), had passed a resolution appealing to the President to stop the
implementation of the law.
BARMM
Labor and Employment Minister Romeo Sema earlier maintained that getting
married at an early age among Filipino Muslim men and women was part of their
culture that “is very hard to change.”
Another
Muslim leader in Maguindanao province, Anwar Emblawa, also said that Islam
allows women to get married after they reached the stage of puberty.
The
commission urged the BTA members to “listen to their women and girls” and to
“adopt a view of Sharia that is not opposed to the protection of women and
girls’ rights.”
It
also asked the BTA to reach out to women’s organizations and leaders to thresh
out their concerns and to ensure “continuing dialogue so that the gains of this
law will be fully realized.”
‘Further
from the truth’
The
CHR also reminded the body that the law went through rigorous deliberations and
consultations with religious leaders and communities, especially with women and
girls in Muslim and indigenous communities. Many representatives from their
communities have already attested to the urgency of the law, it added.
“The
claim then that this law lacks support from the Bangsamoro community couldn’t
be further from the truth. They can only come from individuals who refuse to
acknowledge and discount the critical participation of women and girls and who
continue to cling to harmful practices even as they violate basic human rights,”
the commission said.
Source:
News Info
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1546734/chr-slams-bangsamoro-body-for-move-vs-antichild-marriage-law
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Video
of women’s surgeries by OT attendant in Sialkot sparks outrage
January
29, 2022
NAROWAL:
A video of an operating theatre (OT) attendant performing surgeries on women in
the absence of any surgeon at a major health facility in Sialkot has gone
viral.
The
abysmal state of healthcare at Daska’s Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) hospital drew
condemnation on the social media, with calls for stern action against the
officials concerned.
District
Health Authority, Sialkot, Chief Executive Officer Dr Chaudhry Muhammad Aslam
said operating theatre attendant Muhammad Asim and two nurses had been
suspended from service and a report sought from THQ hospital Medical
Superintendent Dr Adnan.
The
operating theatre attendant, Asim, can be seen in the video administering
anaesthesia and operating upon the women for appendix and C-section on his own.
Complete procedures have been recorded and Asim seems to be violating the SOPs.
Nurses and paramedical staff roam around in the operating theatre.
Health
authorities suspend three, seek report
People
expressed their disgust at the negligence of the authorities concerned
jeopardising the lives of women.
This
correspondent tried to contact Medical Superintendent Dr Adnan but he did not
reply to the calls. Deputy Commissioner Imran Qureshi told Dawn that he was
saddened by the incident and had sought a detailed report from the CEO Health.
Strict departmental action would be taken against those responsible for
negligence, said the DC, who also holds the charge of District Health Authority
chairman.
Citizens
have demanded Chief Minister Usman Buzdar to take notice and bring the culprits
to book.
Source:
Dawn
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/hijab-female-football-france/d/126265