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Islam, Women and Feminism ( 24 Jan 2023, NewAgeIslam.Com)

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Iran Arrests Three Female Journalists, Melika Hashemi, Saideh Shafiei And Mehrnoush Zarei, Amid Protests Triggered By The Death In Custody Of Mahsa Amini

New Age Islam News Bureau

24 January 2023

• Saudi Girls Razan Al-Ajami Jumps out Of Planes for Fun; First in the Kingdom to Get a Skydiving License

• Saudi Arabia Appoints 34 Women to Leadership Positions in 2 Holy Mosques

• First Boxing Club Opens Doors Exclusively For Women in Gaza

• Though A Tiny Religious Minority, Bangladesh's Nuns Chart New Path for Nursing

• 30 Female Iranian Prisoners Call for End to Protester Executions

• Yazidi Women Kept As Slaves by IS Appeal to UN to Intervene In Their Fight for Compensation

Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau

URL:   https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iran-female-journalists-melika-saideh-mehrnoush/d/128955

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Iran Arrests Three Female Journalists, Melika Hashemi, Saideh Shafiei And Mehrnoush Zarei, Amid Protests Triggered By The Death In Custody Of Mahsa Amini

 

Anti-Hijab protests have been going on since September 2022. (Representational)

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January 24, 2023

TEHRAN: Iranian authorities have arrested three female journalists in the past two days, local media said on Monday, amid months of protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

Iran has been gripped by protests since the September 16 death of Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who had been arrested by morality police for allegedly breaching the country’s strict dress code for women.

Authorities say hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed and thousands arrested during what they label as “riots” incited by the “enemies” of the Islamic republic.

“In the past 48 hours, at least three female journalists, namely Melika Hashemi, Saideh Shafiei and Mehrnoush Zarei, have been arrested in Tehran,” reformist newspaper Etemad quoted the Tehran journalists’ union as saying.

The paper said the three women had been transferred to Evin prison, where many of those arrested in connection with the protests are being held. Shafiei is a freelance journalist and novelist, while Zarei writes for various reformist publications and Hashemi works for an outlet named Shahr, according to local media.

It estimated that about 80 journalists have been arrested since the start of the unrest in the country four months ago.

Source: Dawn

https://www.dawn.com/news/1733326/iran-arrests-three-female-journalists-amid-protests

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Saudi Girls Razan Al-Ajami Jumps out Of Planes for Fun; First in the Kingdom to Get a Skydiving License

 

Razan Al-Ajami is one of the first licensed female skydivers who dreams of seeing the sport expand in the Kingdom. (Supplied)

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RAHAF JAMBI

January 23, 2023

RIYADH: In a jumpsuit and safety helmet, Razan Al-Ajami is ready to fly, as the young Saudi woman is the first in the Kingdom to get a skydiving license.

Al-Ajami obtained a freestyle skydiving license and indoor skydiving license from the UAE, where the sport is quite popular. However, she first tried the sport in Saudi Arabia.

She told Arab News: “I first fell in love with skydiving when I tried it a few months ago at an event organized by the Ministry of Sport. I figured, why not give it a shot, so I got professional training and did three jumps before realizing that this is what I want to do.”

Al-Ajami is now pursuing her goal of becoming a professional skydiver. Although she was afraid at first, with perseverance and diligent training sessions, she has been able to overcome her worries.

She described the skydiving experience: “At first, the feeling of the wind on your face and your body floating in the air is frightening, but once you get used to it, you’ll want to leap out of a plane once more.”

In the process of learning more about skydiving and obtaining her license, Al-Ajami faced challenges such as the lack of local avenues for skydiving, and the initial fear of jumping.

She is hopeful about the sport’s future in the Kingdom. “I’m glad to be one of the few licensed Saudi skydivers and hope that this sport will become more well-known in the near future. Freestyle skydiving is not a widespread sport in Saudi Arabia, and I had to travel to other locations, like Dubai, to practice it.

“There are certified clubs in Dubai where you may receive training and a skydiving license. I later obtained a license for indoor skydiving and I am currently working at the Superfly indoor skydiving program in Boulevard World.”

Al-Ajami has been encouraging and inviting more Saudi women to try the sport, and the Superfly at Boulevard World is an amazing opportunity to do so.

“The majority of visitors to this enjoyable indoor flying experience are children, and I adore their reactions since they are always so joyful. Everyone is welcome to participate as long as they weigh less than 140 kg,” she added.

Al-Ajami shared that her ultimate dream is to represent Saudi Arabia while competing at the skydiving world championship. She wants to leave a mark and make Saudi Arabia a global hub for the sport.

As an ambitious young woman, she is striving to start the country’s first skydiving club and form a women’s team.

“The lack of a Saudi women’s team prevents me from competing abroad. I want to create a team that will represent Saudi Arabia,” she said.

Source: Arab News

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2237641/saudi-arabia

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Saudi Arabia Appoints 34 Women To Leadership Positions In 2 Holy Mosques

Ibrahim Al-Khazen  

23.01.2023

Saudi Arabia has appointed 34 women to leadership positions in the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina.

In a statement, the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Mosques said the appointments are aimed at "developing services for visitors to the two holy mosques"

The move, the statement said, "is part of the qualitative changes the Kingdom is seeking for qualified Saudi women to serve female visitors to the two holy mosques."

In August 2021, Saudi Arabia appointed two women as assistants to the head of the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia announced the appointment of 32 women as drivers in the Haramain Express Train Leaders Program.

The oil-rich kingdom has taken a number of measures to empower women in recent years, including allowing women to drive and enlist in military service.

Source: Anadolu Agency

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/saudi-arabia-appoints-34-women-to-leadership-positions-in-2-holy-mosques/2795106

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First Boxing Club opens doors exclusively for women in Gaza

23 January ,2023

In Gaza’s only boxing club for girls, 15-year-old Farah Abu Al-Qomsan is practicing her moves, trading jabs and punches with the other girls training with coach Osama Ayoub at the Palestine Boxing Centre.

Since taking to the sport at the age of nine, Farah has found a release from the daily stresses of life in Gaza, a narrow coastal strip where some 2.3 million Palestinians live blockaded by both Israel and neighboring Egypt.

“We used to train in a small garage. Now we train according to the full rules and release bad energy,” the 15-year-old girl, at the territory’s first women-only boxing center.

Six years ago, Ayoub, started with two girls. As more joined, they moved out of the garage and began training on the beach or in rented spaces before moving into the new club building.

“The girls are ready. I trained them hard for five years,” said Ayoub. “We are setting an example.”

Now around 40 girls train in the center with its full-size boxing ring, training equipment and posters of boxing heroes such as Mike Tyson on the walls, defying expectations in a region where boxing has traditionally been a sport for men.

“Some people used to tell me ‘Why boxing, what are you going to benefit from it, go and learn something girly’,” Farah said. “I benefit a lot from boxing and today my ambition is to represent my Palestinian people and take part in world championships.”

Source: Al Arabiya

https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/01/23/First-Boxing-Club-opens-doors-exclusively-for-women-in-Gaza

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Though a tiny religious minority, Bangladesh's nuns chart new path for nursing

BY UTTOM S. ROZARIO

January 23, 2023

Sister Mary Dipali chose to go into health care mostly because of her vocation, but also her willpower.

"Through this profession, people can be approached a lot," said Sister Mary Dipali of the Associates of Mary Queen of Apostles, popularly known as the SMRA Sisters. "A nurse is needed from birth to death. I get to be around people, and many people are blessed through this profession."

Sister Mary Dipali, 60, was born under the watchful eyes of the sister nurses of St. Mary's Catholic Mother and Child Care Hospital in Tumilia, Gazipur, in the Dhaka Archdiocese. The SMRA Sisters provided her an education and cared for her when she was ill.

"I was born by Catholic nun nurses, and many children have been delivered by my hand in my almost 30 years of nursing service," Sister Mary Dipali said. "I think I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for being around the sisters and having my family."

Although Christians make up less than half a percent of Bangladesh's population of approximately 165 million, the Catholic Church runs around 80 hospitals, health centers, dispensaries and clinics across the country with the help of nuns from the SMRA Sisters, the Congregation of the Holy Cross, the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, the Missionaries of Charity, the Little Handmaids of the Church, and the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate.

After seeing the work of these nuns, many girls from remote areas now show interest in becoming nurses, which was unimaginable 20 years ago.

Back then, the Muslim majority in Bangladesh used to view the nursing profession badly, assuming that nurses on duty with male doctors overnight developed illicit relationships. Nurses also did not wear veils like Muslim women did. But this idea has been changed by Catholic sisters.

"When I saw the service of the Catholic sisters, I was encouraged to enter the nursing profession, but first I had to fight with my family. I had to fight with society," said Sabina Akhter, 47, a senior nurse and mother of three who works in a government hospital. "Society and my family did not think that a Muslim girl should enter the nursing profession.

"But I made one of my two daughters a nurse and the other, a doctor. I am grateful to the Catholic sisters for this success, especially for me and my family. Without their services, I would not be where I am today," Akhter told Global Sisters Report in a recent interview.

Sister Mary Dipali works as matron of Kumudini Hospital, a well-known hospital run by the Hindu community in Mirzapur, and Kumudini Nursing College, the country's first nongovernmental nursing institution. Another SMRA sister, Sister Mary Rina, is principal of the Kumudini Nursing College.

We are proud to be working in top positions at a well-reputed non-Christian hospital," Sister Mary Dipali said. "We are also witnesses of God and spread his word to other communities. There are no Christians around the hospital, so people know Christianity by us and our work."

British-style nursing was introduced at Dhaka Medical College in 1947. In the same year, a few sister tutors, sisters and staff nurses from India established Bangladesh's first professional senior nursing school at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital.

The local SMRA congregation was established in 1933. In Muslim-majority Bangladesh at that time, girls were veiled and almost all doctors were men, so even if village women were sick or pregnant, they did not go to the doctor. As a result, many mothers and children died in childbirth.

Holy Cross Bishop Timothy Crowley, the founder of the Associates of Mary Queen of Apostles, saw the situation of the women of the villages and together with Holy Cross Sr. Rose Bernard Gehring established the SMRA congregation with public education and health as main vows.

Beginning in 1945, the SMRA nuns began to travel from village to village to provide health services to rural women and children in small houses in Tumilia Parish.

"Since the SMRA congregation started working on rural women's health before Dhaka Medical College, and we were the first to go abroad for degrees in nursing and came back to serve our people, it can be said that we are pioneers in the field of nursing in Bangladesh," said Sister Mary Chamily, the director of St. Mary's Catholic Mother and Child Care Hospital. Now, the hospital runs a nursing institution with approximately 50 students.

There are currently 214 Associates of Mary Queen of Apostles in Bangladesh, about 50 of whom are working in the health sector, said Sister Mary Chamily. They also run eight health care centers and two hospitals.

The mentality of members of the Christian community in Bangladesh has changed over the years after being exposed to Catholic sisters from an early age. Many parents have willingly sent their daughters into nursing.

"When I was young, my parents showed me a sister and told me, 'You have to serve people like that sister.' It was ingrained in my mind," Sumana Biswas, 40, a senior nurse at a government hospital, told GSR.

Biswas obtained her diploma in nursing from Kamudini Nursing College in the presence of those Catholic sisters.

The sisters have sometimes had bad experiences while working in nursing, but mostly, they have had a happy ministry.

"When someone comes to the hospital for service, I serve him and, at the same time, I also do the work of spreading the message of God," Sister Mary Chamily said. "For example, giving medicine to someone who comes for service and saying, 'I will pray for you' or 'God will heal you.' I think these words give them peace of mind and increase their dependence on God."

About 80% of the patients who come to missionary hospitals or dispensaries are not Catholic and have heard about the services by word of mouth, since missionary hospitals do not advertise, she said.

"Our service centers do not charge high service charges because our patients are mostly from poor families," Sister Mary Chamily said. "But we don't have all kinds of medical equipment. To buy them, a lot of money is spent, and at the same time, money is needed for manpower and space."

According to the Bangladesh Nursing and Midwifery Council, the country had 73,043 registered nurses and 102,997 registered doctors as of April 2020. Countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development have on average three nurses for each doctor, which means Bangladesh has only 24% of the nurses it needs, the nursing council says.

The Christian Medical Association of Bangladesh said there are about 280 Christian doctors and about 4,000 Christian nurses in Bangladesh in this tiny minority religious community.

Maruf Hossain, a doctor and government health official from Rangpur Medical College, said Christian nurses are pioneers.

"I have worked with many Christian nurses in my career. Their efficiency and dedication to work are unmatched," Hossain told GSR. "The fact that service is a religion cannot be understood without seeing nurses, especially Christian nurses. I hope more Christian nursing colleges will be established in Bangladesh."

Now, the Bangladesh Catholic Church runs three nursing institutions nationwide, but some Catholic nuns and lay nurses teach in non-Christian nursing institutions.

"The health sector has now become a business, not a service," Sister Mary Dipali told GSR. "To come out of this, you have to be humane. We are trying very hard to get our Christian girls into the nursing profession."

Source: Global Sisters Report

https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/though-tiny-religious-minority-bangladeshs-nuns-chart-new-path-nursing

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30 female Iranian prisoners call for end to protester executions

24th January 2023

Tehran: Thirty female political prisoners in Evin Prison in Iran on Sunday have signed a petition calling for an end to the execution of protesters in the country, local media reported.

The prisoners, including Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah and Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, wrote in a petition that they had “come together to say ‘no’ to execution. We to defend people’s right to live in justice.”

“We, the political and ideological prisoners in the women’s ward of Evin Prison, demand an end to the execution of protesters and an end to unjust sentences of prisoners in Iran,” said the petition.

The petition was also signed by Niloufer Bayani, the former representative of the United Nations Environment Program in Iran who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2020 for “conspiring with America as a hostile government,” AFP reported.

Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) reported that four people have already been executed and 110 others face execution in protest-related cases.

Iran’s protests erupted on September 16, following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, after she was arrested for wearing a headscarf improperly.
Source: Siasat Daily

https://www.siasat.com/30-female-iranian-prisoners-call-for-end-to-protester-executions-2509200/

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Yazidi women kept as slaves by IS appeal to UN to intervene in their fight for compensation

Kaamil Ahmed

24 Jan 2023

Five Yazidi women held as slaves by an Islamic State fighter are appealing to the UN to intervene in their case for compensation in a move lawyers hope will help fix a “lawless” global system that is failing torture survivors.

The women, captured in Iraq in 2014, were taken to Syria as slaves by IS fighters, including the Australian citizen Khaled Sharrouf, who was pictured standing next to his young son holding a severed human head.

The women, in a case due to be filed next week, want the UN’s Committee Against Torture to remind Australia of its obligation to provide survivors of violence with redress under the UN’s torture convention, which the country has ratified. The Australian authorities have so far denied all requests for compensation.

Lawyers had argued that the women were entitled to compensation under New South Wales law because Sharrouf was born in Sydney and NSW was his last known place of residence. The NSW Victims Rights and Supports Act entitles survivors to $10,000 and other means of support. However, the Australian courts, including the high court, ruled against the women.

Philippe Sands KC, one of the lawyers leading the case, said the purpose of taking the complaint to the UN committee is to end the impunity of western governments who have pledged to support Yazidis in their quest for justice.

“You’ve got a situation of utter lawlessness in which western governments who have committed to rooting it out seem unwilling to take responsibility to provide the institutional and financial mechanisms to deliver on that commitment. If there’s a gap, and unless that gap is filled, you have impunity and more lawlessness,” said Sands.

“The legal framework as it stands seems incapable of delivering, so this application is intended to fill that gap and seek to recognise the responsibility of a state like Australia to ensure that justice is done for the victims.”

In their complaint to the UN, the women argue that Sharrouf’s crimes were of universal jurisdiction, and Australia’s obligation to act under the torture convention is not limited by territory. They also state that Australia had failed to prevent Sharrouf from leaving the country, despite previous arrests for terror offences.

Yasmin Waljee, the international pro bono partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells, which is representing the women, said the women cannot be compensated by IS or the perpetrator, as Sharrouf is presumed to have been killed in a 2017 US airstrike. Waljee said the case highlighted how difficult it is for survivors to access compensation, even when their abuse had been widely condemned.

“We’ve got women who experienced sexual violence and violence generally as part of this horrific movement which the world condemned, and yet they’ve left the victims on their own without any remedy,” said Waljee. “It’s shocking – you’re dealing with post-traumatic stress, suicides, all sorts of horrendous long-term impacts.”

Waljee said survivors have short and long-term needs – like healthcare, mental health support and accommodation – that require money. While a positive ruling from the UN committee cannot compel Australia to provide compensation, she said, a finding that the government had breached the convention against torture would be “a move forward” in international law.

“It is important that the experience of these courageous women is widely recognised, documented and remembered. If we don’t draw these issues into the light, there’s no hope that improvements will ever be made,” said Waljee. “The world condemned this movement [IS] and continues to condemn it, but then doesn’t try to support the victims in any way.”

Lawyers believe the outcome of this case can have implications for survivors of violence in other conflicts, especially those by non-state militias.

Erin Rosenberg, senior legal adviser to the DRC-based Mukwege Foundation, said: “Right now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, one of the most vicious and brutal is a non-state actor, M23. It’s crucial that victims could be provided with redress even when the perpetrator is a terrorist or militia.”

Rosenberg, who previously worked at the international criminal court, said that international justice is too focused on prosecuting individuals for crimes against humanity and does not offer enough support for victims. The need for compensation is recognised by most countries but, in reality, few are willing to pay.

“We see a lot of rhetoric from a lot of states about the idea of a victim-centred approach, ensuring victims are provided with redress and able to rebuild their lives, but these talking points are often deprioritised when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of paying,” she said.

Source: The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jan/24/yazidi-women-islamic-state-slaves-appeal-to-un-to-intervene-in-their-fight-for-compensation

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URL:   https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iran-female-journalists-melika-saideh-mehrnoush/d/128955

 

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