Asra Panahi, the Iranian Schoolgirl Dies After Beating By Security Forces During A Raid:
New Age Islam News Bureau
21 October 2022
• UNAMA Chief Meets with Afghan Women Leaders
• UAE Calls For Taliban To Lift Restrictions On Women
And Girls
• Kerala Woman To Drive To Qatar To Watch Football
World Cup
• Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan Calls for
Reopening Girls’ Schools
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iran-asra-panahi-death/d/128233
--------
Asra Panahi , the Iranian Schoolgirl Dies After
Beating By Security Forces During A Raid: Teachers
Asra Panai, the school girl
----
Oct 20, 2022
A 15-year-old Iranian girl died last week after being
beaten during a raid by the security forces on her school, a teachers' union
said, urging the authorities to stop killing "innocent" protesters.
Asra Panahi died on October 13, after
"plainclothes officers attacked" Shahed High School in the
northwestern city of Ardabil, the Co-ordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates
said.
The pupils had been taken into town for an
"ideological event" at a spot known to be a centre for protests
sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in the custody of Iran's notorious morality
police.
Some pupils, who started "chanting slogans
against discrimination and inequality", were "subjected to violence
and insults by plainclothes and veiled women", the union said.
After being returned to school, they were beaten
again, it said in a statement issued on Monday.
"After that one of the pupils named Asra Panahi
unfortunately passed away in hospital and a number of students were
arrested," it said, adding the beating left another pupil in a coma.
State television later aired an interview with her
uncle in which he said she died of heart failure.
Ardabil's parliamentary representative, Kazem Mousavi,
was quoted as saying she had "committed suicide by swallowing pills"
in a report by the Didban Iran website.
Those accounts raised the ire of retired Iranian
football star Ali Daei, who hails from Ardabil and has run into trouble with
the authorities over his support for the Amini protests.
In a post to his 10 million Instagram followers, Daei
said he did not believe Panahi had died of heart failure and dismissed as
"rumours" the MP's claim that she had taken her own life.
The death of the 22-year-old Amini, after her arrest
for allegedly breaching Iran's strict dress code for women, has fuelled the
biggest protests seen in the country for years.
In its statement issued on Tuesday, the teachers'
union slammed the school's decision to get pupils involved in the
"ideological event" without the consent of their parents.
"The council calls on the system and military and
security forces to stop their transgressions against schools," it said.
"This council also calls on the system to stop
the killing of innocent people and defenceless protesters."
In response to Daei's Instagram post, the judiciary's
Mizan Online website rejected his version of events as "fake news".
"If Mr Daei has any proof regarding the claims
made about the death of the girl pupil in Ardabil, he is expected to present
them to the related officials as soon as possible and to follow up on
them," it said.
A coalition of human rights groups, including Amnesty
International, said on Monday that the security forces' crackdown on the Amini
protests has killed at least 23 identified children.
Source: Times Of India
--------
UNAMA Chief Meets with Afghan Women Leaders
New UNAMA chief Otunbayeva
discusses rights to education, work for women with Afghan leaders
-----
By Saqalain Eqbal
20 Oct 2022
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan
(UNAMA) Head, Roza Otunbayeva, met with a number of women’s leaders and women
rights activists in Kabul, the Afghan capital.
According to a thread of tweets posted on Wednesday,
October 19, Roza Otunbayeva, also the UN Secretary-General’s Special
Representative in Afghanistan, discussed the restrictions imposed on women by
Taliban rule.
The socio-economic “hardships” of Afghan women after
the imposition of restrictions on the education of girls and the work of women
were the center of discussion between the UN official and the Afghan women
leaders.
The UNAMA Head, who has been recently appointed, also
met top Taliban officials earlier this week. Otunbayeva initially met with the
Taliban Minister of Foreign Affairs where she discussed “trust-building” and
the removal of the education ban on Afghan girls.
She also visited the Taliban Deputy Prime Minister for
Administrative Affairs, Mawlawi Abdul Salam Hanafi, and the Taliban Deputy
Prime Minister for Political Affairs, Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, separately.
Otunbayeva discussed the role of women in the
reconstruction of Afghanistan, governance, establishing an inclusive
government, the need to lift the ban on girls for their education, and media
rights with the Taliban officials.
Roza Otunbayeva, a former president of Kyrgyzstan, was
appointed by the UN Secretary-General as his new Special Representative for
Afghanistan and Head of the UNAMA in early September.
Source: Khaama Press
https://www.khaama.com/unama-chief-meets-with-afghan-women-leaders-267432/
--------
UAE Calls For Taliban To Lift Restrictions On Women
And Girls
Adla Massoud
United Nations
Oct 21, 2022
The UAE's ambassador to the UN Lana Nusseibeh on
Thursday called it “unacceptable” that girls are still not allowed to attend
secondary schools in Afghanistan more than a year after the Taliban took power.
“This is enabling gender apartheid,” Ms Nusseibeh told
the UN Security Council at an annual meeting focused on women’s leadership as a
path to peace in regions plagued by conflict.
“We find ourselves still battling the misconceptions
of women and girls as victims or survivors, but not agents of change.”
Ms Nusseibeh said the exclusion of female Afghans from
public and social life is yet another example of how violence against women and
girls can take numerous forms.
“Now more than ever, action is the missing piece,” she
said. “We need to stop talking about empowering women and just give them
power.”
She added that when women participate in the economy,
“they are more resilient against violence”.
She emphasised the importance of women gaining access
to technology to help them achieve economic parity with men.
“Their voices need to be heard and amplified in
school, with their classmates and in all the other facets of public life where
they belong,” Ms Nusseibeh said. “Let's give them the digital tools to compete
in the same world as men and boys.”
Sima Bahous, the executive director of UN Women, said
there is a major lack of funding for women’s organisations in conflict-affected
countries, decreasing from $181 million in 2019 to $150m in 2020.
“In Afghanistan in 2022, 77 per cent of women’s civil
society organisations have not received any funding and are no longer running
programmes,” Ms Bahous said.
She also noted that women’s representation in national
parliaments in 2021 is 5 per cent lower in conflict-affected countries than the
global average, and 12 per cent lower in local governments.
Source: The National News
--------
Kerala woman to drive to Qatar to watch football World
Cup
October 21, 2022
Football and travel are two things this mother of five
is crazy about. So, taking a solo trip in her four-wheeler to watch the FIFA
World Cup in Qatar was just a spontaneous decision for Kerala woman Naaji
Noushi, a homemaker from nearby Mahe.
As the World Cup fever is slowly gripping people and
football fans, Noushi, an avid traveller, YouTuber and vlogger, commenced her
journey to Qatar by driving from here the other day. When Transport Minister
Antony Raju flagged off the trip in the presence of village panchayat
authorities, it was a dream come true for this soccer crazy woman who has
always loved to take adventurous trips. After reaching Mumbai via Coimbatore,
she and her Thar, which is fondly named “olu” (means woman in local parlance),
would land in Oman by ship.
From there, she would travel via road and would cover
Arab countries including UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia before reaching
Qatar, which plays host to the FIFA World Cup this time. Noushi said it may be
for the first time that a woman from Kerala was undertaking an overlanding trip
to the GCC nations and that too to watch the football world cup.
“My plan is to enter Qatar by December 10 and watch
the finale. I am so excited about this trip. I am a hardcore Argentina fan and
Lionel Messi…really want to see my favourite team lifting the cup,” she said.
She will continue her stay in Qatar till December 31.
Noushi said the trip was expected to be a complete
van-life experience as all essential cooking articles were stocked in the
vehicle. It is also planned to park the vehicle near toll plazas and petrol
pumps and stay within it at night. She said she has an Oman driving licence,
which has already been converted into an international one. “I am a person who
has been dreaming to see an Indian team playing the FIFA World Cup. Through
this innovative trip, I am trying to be a part of the gala by reaching there in
an Indian-made vehicle,” she said.
Noushi, who has completed her Plus-Two, married
Noushad, an NRK, at a young age and became a mother at the age of 19.
Describing the family as the pillar of support, she said her husband and
children were her actual cheerleaders and were encouraging her to travel more.
She already completed four travel series including an all-India trip to Ladakh and
shared the photos and videos through her social media pages.
Noushi said her youngest child is just two years old
but her mother is taking care of her children when she is away for travel.
“If a woman like me- a homemaker, a wife and a mother
of five- can realise my dreams, any ordinary woman in Kerala can chase her
dreams confidently,” she added.
She also wished that her trip would become an
inspiration for more women to come forward to realise their dreams.
Source: Indian Express
--------
Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan Calls for
Reopening Girls’ Schools
By Mohammad Farshad Daryosh
October 20, 2022
The Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan, with
representatives from 27 countries, expressed deep concern regarding the
increasing “erosion of respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of
women and girls in Afghanistan by the Taliban,” including limiting access to
education for women and girls.
They called on the “Taliban to immediately reverse the
effective ban on girls’ secondary education in Afghanistan.”
The members of the Group urged the UN Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) to continue to closely monitor and report on the
situation.
They also “request the Special Representative of the
Secretary-General to continue to engage with all relevant Afghan political
actors and stakeholders, including relevant authorities, on this issue, in
accordance with the mandate of UNAMA.”
The schools for girls’ students above grade six have
remained closed for more than one year and there has yet to be a final decision
in this regard.
The students have repeatedly voiced concerns over
their uncertain future.
"We request they fulfill their promises and
reopen the girls schools beyond grade six,”
a student said.
"The only ambition that we have is the reopening
of girls' schools. With every night's end and when morning comes, I think that
they will now tell us to come to your school,” a student said.
The Islamic Emirate has yet to comment on the
statement of the Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan but earlier argued
that human rights are ensured in Afghanistan.
“One day of closed schools will have massive historic
and intellectual effects. I believe Afghan women have the ability in many
areas, so not only schools will be reopened but also work opportunities should
also be provided for them," said Najibullah Jami, a political analyst.
The Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan
emphasized findings by the World Economic Forum that banning women from working
in the government and formal sectors will cause Afghanistan’s GDP to contract
by a minimum of $600 million in the immediate term and restrictions on women’s
private sector employment could lead to a $1.5 billion loss of output by 2024.
Source: Tolo News
https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-180383
--------
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iran-asra-panahi-death/d/128233
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism