Iran Launches 'Noor' Campaign To Tighten Implementation Of Hijab Rule
New Age Islam News Bureau
14 April 2024
·
Iran Launches 'Noor' Campaign To
Tighten Implementation Of Hijab Rule
·
Controversy Erupts As Female Fan
Hugs Goalkeeper In Iran
·
Iran Arrests Former Goalkeeper's
Wife, Daughter for Not Wearing Hijab
·
Delhi Riots: Court Modifies Bail
Condition Of Ishrat Jahan, Allows To Travel
·
I Can’t Believe That After 10
Years, We Are Still Talking About Chibok Girls In Captivity — Aisha Yesufu, BringBackOurGirls
Founder
·
We Are Still Mourning 89 Chibok
Girls In Boko Haram Captivity – Borno Govt
Compiled by New Age Islam News
Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iran-noor-hijab/d/132135
------
Iran
Launches 'Noor' Campaign To Tighten Implementation Of Hijab Rule
Women are required by law to wear hijab in public.
Source: AP
-----
April
13, 2024
Iranian
authorities in the capital city of Tehran have launched a campaign named ‘Noor’
to tighten the implementation of the hijab rule for women.
Women
in Iran are required by law to wear hijab, Islamic head-coverings, in public
places. They are also barred from wearing clothes that are either too
form-fitting or reveal much skin. The dress code was implemented in the country
after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that overthrew the liberal, pro-West
monarchy and replaced it with a conservative clergy.
In
2022, the opposition to mandatory wearing of hijab triggered months of
women-led, nationwide protests in Iran after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini,
died in the custody of the country’s morality police. She had been detained
over an alleged violation of the hijab law. In these protests across Iran,
women often took to streets in large numbers and took off their hijabs, burnt
them, and cut their hair in public in defiance of the Iranian regime’s diktats.
Even
though the Iranian regime clamped down on protests by the middle of 2023, the
morality police had maintained a low profile since. That may change now as the
authorities are back to implementing the law rigorously under the ‘Noor’
campaign, according to AFP.
“From
today the police in Tehran, as in other provinces, will implement their
measures against this sort of violation of the law regarding hijab,” said
Tehran’s police chief Abbas Ali Mohammadian, as per the report.
Mohammadian
further said, “People who did not pay attention to previous police warnings
will be specially warned in the city from today and legal action will be taken
against them.”
The
announcement came days after Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, in
a speech emphasised that women in Iran must obey the dress code regardless of
their beliefs, according to the report.
Khamenei
said, “The hijab issue, which has now become an imposed challenge, did not
exist before the intervention of foreigners.”
On
Saturday, Iran’s Ham Mihan daily posted “images of the presence of patrol vans”
from the morality police in central Tehran’s Valiasr Square.
The
AFP noted that there have been reports in the Iranian media over recent months
that police have seized vehicles transporting women without veils and punished
their owners.
In
their bid to implement the hijab law, the Iranian authorities have also shut
cafes and restaurants where the wearing of the hijab was not respected,
according to the report.
Source:
firstpost.com
https://www.firstpost.com/world/iran-women-hijab-rule-campaign-13759306.html
----
Controversy
Erupts As Female Fan Hugs Goalkeeper In Iran
Goalkeeper
of a football team embracing a female fan
----
April
13, 2024
Iran's
Vice President for women and family affairs, EnsiyeKhazali, urged the sports
minister to deal with an incident involving the goalkeeper of a football team
embracing a female fan on the pitch.
It
is forbidden in Iran for strangers from the opposite sex to touch one another
or show any sort of intimacy, specially in public.
On
Friday, a young woman in Iran took a risk, running onto the field without
wearing the compulsory hijab and was hugged by Esteghlal FC goalkeeper Hossein
Hosseini during a match against another Iranian team, Aluminum Arak.
Khazali
responded by writing to the minister of sports demanding that "guidelines
for women's entry into stadiums be put into full effect as they are poorly
implemented.”
The
situation degraded when the police intervened to push Hosseini and the fan
apart, leading to an altercation. Later he gave his jersey to her and she
proudly waved it to the fans, who were shouting "shame on you" at the
police.
In
response, the Iranian Football League Organization has summoned Hosseini to a
disciplinary committee for his hug, noting it to be "unprofessional and
beyond the legal duties of a player."
The
IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency also used the incident to criticize the policy
of women in stadiums.
Iran’s
approach to women spectators in sports venues has not only led to domestic
controversy but also international scrutiny.
Despite
some previous measures to relax restrictions, such as controlled entry for
women, the backlash from 2022 nationwide protests led to a reversal,
culminating in matches being held without any spectators for several months.
Source:
iranintl.com
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202404133528
------
Iran
Arrests Former Goalkeeper's Wife, Daughter for Not Wearing Hijab
APRIL
13, 2024
The
Islamic Republic's police have arrested the wife and daughter of former Iranian
national football team goalkeeper AhmadrezaAbedzadeh.
According
to the Rokna news agency, NafisehLatifian and Negar Abedzadeh were detained on
Fersehthe Street in Tehran for not wearing the mandatory hijab on Saturday.
Fars
news agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
corroborated the report but claimed the arrests were due to "creating
tension and fighting with officers."
Fars
also reported that Abedzadeh’s family members were released after temporary
detention.
The
Tehran police chief announced stricter enforcement of mandatory hijab rules
starting April 13.
The
police threatened Iranian women and girls with "legal action" for
non-compliance.
Abbas
Ali Mohammadian, Greater Tehran's police commander, declared the start of
intensified enforcement against those not adhering to hijab guidelines.
He
stated, "People who ignored previous police warnings will be specifically
warned again in the city from today, and legal actions will be taken against
them."
Social
media reports and videos show a significant police presence, including the
notorious Morality Police, on the streets of major Iranian cities.
Source:
iranwire.com
https://iranwire.com/en/women/127476-iran-arrests-former-goalkeepers-wife-daughter-for-not-wearing-hijab/
----
Delhi
riots: Court modifies bail condition of Ishrat Jahan, allows to travel
13th
April 2024
Marziya
Sharif
New
Delhi: In a big relief to former Congress councillor and lawyer Ishrat Jahan, a
Delhi court has modified her bail condition in the case involving larger
conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi communal riots and allowed her to move across
the country with the prior permission of the court.
She
was earlier barred from leaving the national capital region (NCR) without the
court’s permission in advance.
Jahan,
along with several others, has been booked under anti-terror law, the? Unlawful
Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA),? for allegedly being one of the
“masterminds” of the February 2020 riots in northeast Delhi that left 53 people
dead and over 700 injured.
In
March 2022, a special court had granted bail to Jahan, saying her role in the
case, “prima facie”, persuaded it to extend her the relief despite the
embargoes contained in the law.
The
Delhi Police’s appeal against the relief is pending in the Delhi High Court.
In
an order passed on Friday, Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai noted that
the predecessor court had imposed the condition that Jahan shall not leave the national
capital territory (NCT) which was in December 2022 modified to the extent of
not leaving the National Capital Region (NCR) without intimating the court.
“It
is now submitted that the applicant (Jahan) is a practising advocate and the
condition imposed by the court is restraining her movement to do the law
practice beyond the NCR,” the judge noted.
He
noted Jahan’s submission that after being granted bail, she had not breached
any of the conditions imposed by the court.
“Considering
the fact that since the grant of bail, the investigating agency or the
prosecution has not brought any fact to the notice of the court that the
applicant has breached any condition of bail, the court deems it just and
appropriate to modify the condition as prayed by the applicant,” the judge
said.
The
court, while modifying the condition said she will not leave India without
prior permission of the court, nor would she indulge in any criminal activity.
The
prosecution opposed her application, saying the court had already given her
“reasonable liberty”. However, the judge granted her the relief.
Source:
siasat.com
https://www.siasat.com/delhi-riots-court-modifies-bail-condition-of-ishrat-jahan-allows-to-travel-3008368/
----
I
Can’t Believe That After 10 Years, We Are Still Talking About Chibok Girls In
Captivity — Aisha Yesufu, BringBackOurGirls Founder
Dana
Daniel Zagi
14 Apr 2024
At
the forefront of the move to secure the release of the abducted girls, was the
BringBackOurGirls group. The group mounted a campaign to put pressure on
relevant authorities to ensure release of the girls. Daily Trust in this
interview, with co- founder of the BringBackOurGirls movement, Aisha Yesufu,
sought to know the impact of that drive as well as the future of the group.
The
Interesting Things About Pha Din Pass, Dien Bien That Just A Few People Know
It’s
been 10 years since that abduction; looking back, how did you receive the news?
At
that time, honestly, the news was unbelievable. I literally didn’t believe it,
because it was reported that almost 300 students had been taken away from their
school. But a few days after the
abduction, the military came out to announce that all the girls had been
rescued, but for eight of them, only for the families to come out and say that
they had not seen their daughters. That
was when I realized that their daughters were still in captivity. And I tell you that till today, I can’t
believe that after 10 years, we are still talking about the Chibok girls in
captivity.
Just
for you to understand how it was for me; we used to have these wristbands that
we made in May of 2014 and the ones we had then didn’t have any inscription on
them, so I went to a printer and he said he will have to take them to Lagos and
we will get them back in two weeks. I told him that we did not have two weeks,
because by two weeks, all the girls would be back. But we are talking about 10
years now, sadly.
How
does this make you feel?
To
answer that question, I am going to talk about something that my daughter, who
was 12 years old when the Chibok girls incident happened, said. She said, “mommy if one of the Chibok girls
was an American, they would have been rescued by now”. That was in 2014 and it
broke me as a parent, that my 12-year-old daughter understands the fact that
the life of an American child is much more than her own. For me, right now, it
is a feeling of failure. We have failed our children, we failed our society, I
mean, the country has failed everyone.
PDP
national chairmanship: I’ll abide by party’s decision – Ombugadu
Electricity
workers demand withdrawal of new tariff
It
is sad that children were taken away from a school and we could not get
together and as a nation to make demands, so as to send a very strong message
to anyone, that you dare not touch one Nigerian and that the moment you touch
one of us, over 200 million of us will descend on you. People decided to make
it about politics, about tribe, about their support for those in government and
10 years after, we are witnessing a lot of abductions. People have come to realize that we’re all
victims waiting to happen.
What
prompted you to join the Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign?
For
me, it is the fact that I am a mother; I have two children. One was a teenager,
the other was a pre-teen at the time it happened and I felt that if it were my
own children that were taken, I would not stay at home and do nothing. That was
the initial thing that prompted me into making demands for the Chibok girls.
But as we went on, weeks into the demands, I realized that I was no longer
making demands for them, just because I was a mother. I was making the demands
for them because I was once the Chibok girl, because in 1991, I wrote my Senior
Secondary Certificate Examination, the same exam that the Chibok girls were
writing when they were abducted. Again, in 1991, I was a child of poor parents
and in Nigeria, when you are poor; you are faceless, nameless and voiceless. I
was one who lived in the ghetto. I lived in Kano, in a place called Kwana-Hudu,
so I could relate with the Chibok girls, knowing how it is to want to stay in
school and not having anything, because
when I was in secondary school, I would go to school in the morning
without breakfast.
There
was a Chibok father, who said his daughter was driven away from school because
of N500 and he worked for a few days to get the money and send her back to
school. It was the very night she returned to school that she was abducted. So
it brought back the kind of life that I had lived. If I was the one that was
abducted when I was writing SSCE and there was nobody to speak for me, I
probably would be dead today. So for me,
I felt that if I failed the Chibok girls, I would have failed the little girl
that I was.
So
did the Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign help in any way?
Absolutely!
Without the Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign, I don’t think any of the girls
would have been released and as I’m sitting here with you right now, I can tell
you that even I wouldn’t have remembered that Chibok girls were abducted.
That’s how we are in this country; we’re so much in a hurry to move on and of
course sometimes you can’t blame people; they have to protect their sanity.
There are a lot of things happening and if you are not careful, you will be
emotionally affected. But I must say that one of the things that our movement
did, was to bring to the attention of Nigerians and the world, the atrocities
that were being committed in the North-east.
People were being killed and the nation just moved on as if nothing was
happening. If you remember, the then president would say that the atrocities
were happening on the fringes, but the fringe is still Nigeria. If anything happens to any part of Nigeria,
the whole country should take it as one, so we brought the attention and we
ensured that the issue of the Chibok girls was not swept under the carpet. It
was made a front burner issue and we continued. It was two years after our
advocacy, that the first girl escaped and came back home. Before then, we were
told that they had died, we should move on; that we were crying more than the
bereaved and all sorts of things. But I will tell you that, not just the Chibok
girls issue, there are a lot of issues in Nigeria that the Bring Back Our Girls
advocacy was able to highlight.
Not
much is being heard about the group now, what happened?
The
Bring Back Our Girls’’ campaign is still on, though there is suspension on the
sit-out. From April 30, 2014, all the way to March 2015, every day, members of
the group came out and made demands. So when COVID happened and there was the lockdown,
of course the campaigns stopped, but the movement on its own still continues.
We are still making demands for the girls that are in abduction. One of the
things we constantly say is that making demands for Chibok girls is not doing
them a favor, we are not helping them, it is not a privilege for Chibok girls
to be rescued. It is their right as enshrined in the constitution.
We
failed them as a nation by allowing them to be abducted and the next thing that
was supposed to have been done was to rescue them immediately. Unfortunately,
10 years after, some of the girls are still in captivity. On the 1,000th day of their abduction, my
daughter wrote an article and one of the things she said was that as long as
the Chibok girls are in captivity, we all are in captivity. Sadly, we are still
in captivity about a decade after.
There
were accusations then that the Bring Back Our Girls’ group was set up to
sabotage the government…
For
those, who thought so, I pray to God almighty that what happened to Chibok
parents happens to them, since their empathy is very expensive and they cannot
feel the pain of someone sending his/ her child to school and that child does
not return. Let them feel it and when they go through it, they probably will
understand what it means. Because I don’t get it, girls went to school, they
were abducted and people came out, made demands for them to be rescued and some
were talking about sabotaging the government? The government was the one that
sabotaged itself, first of all, by allowing girls to be abducted and secondly,
for coming out to say that the abduction never happened. It was the Goodluck Jonathan’s government that came out
to say there was no abduction and I remember one of the Chibok mothers said
anytime she heard such statement, she
asked herself if her 18-year-old daughter who she sent to school never existed?
So when people talked about sabotage I did not understand where they were
coming from; did that mean that the lives of the Chibok girls were not
important?
You
know why, because they are children of the poor. At the time the Chibok girls
abduction happened, my daughter and the child of the then vice president,
Namadi Sambo, were in the same school here in Abuja, alongside children of
governors and senators. If it was from that school that children were taken, I
wouldn’t even need to be on the street, because we had people that would have
taken on the machinery of the state and ensured that the children were brought
back. But because Chibok girls are children of the poor; that’s why some
people, even after a decade, are still saying no abduction happened. Until we
get to a place in this country were no Nigerian is more Nigerian than the
other, we will continue to hear things like that.
About
90 of the girls are still in captivity, why do you think this is so?
It
is because the government is not interested, there is no political will to
bring them back. The government doesn’t care about the lives of the people. And
what really surprises me is how citizens don’t understand that as long as
Chibok girls are left there, it means if you and I are taken away, the
government will not care. So by making them care for those ones that have been
taken away, is ensuring that they care for us also.
There’s
no political will and the government has had an enabling environment, to
abdicate its responsibility and not do the needful, which is why terrorists and
those who are abducting citizens are now emboldened to carry out more
atrocities.
They
have also seen that citizens do not unite to make demands. Some of them would
rather be attacking the members of the Bring Back Our Girls’ group, or anyone
who is making demands for the girls to come back. That’s why today, a decade
later, we are having kidnappings not just schools, but also from peoples’
houses, even here in Abuja. The thing is that, there needs to be political
will, a situation where as a nation we say, nobody should be left behind,
nobody should be taken away. In 2015, the Bring Back Our Girls movement
designed what was called a missing persons register and we gave the document to
the then President Muhammadu Buhari, and a whole lot of other documents as a
citizen solution to end terrorism. We needed to have a register where we know
how many of us citizens were abducted; let’s know who they are, like the
students who were abducted recently. They could say they have all been brought
back and you will not know who is not back. So, that’s one of the things we
need to do in tackling the insecurity. Also, we need to work on intelligence gathering
and you can’t have intelligence gathering without a cordial relationship
between the civilians and the security agents. A situation, whereby people take
information to the security agents and face retaliation or they are killed, is
not good for the country. There should
be a room where people can drop information anonymously so that they’re also
protected. We should also ensure that our military are properly equipped.
In
2014, the Iraqi government found out that they had 50,000 ghost soldiers, what
has Nigerian government done to ensure that there is a check on the military to
find out whether we have ghost soldiers?
For
example, in 2014, when the then president said they had sent 20,000 soldiers to
the North-east, a lot of the people said they weren’t seeing the soldiers on
ground. That is an issue that should be looked into.
Is
the Bring Back Our Girls group doing anything behind the scene to ensure the
girls are released?
There
is nothing like that. We are just an advocacy group; making demands and calling
on the people who have the constitutional duty to do their job. What we do is
to make demands on the ones who are vested with the authority of the state;
which is the government, to go out there and bring them back. Not just the
Chibok girls, like we always say, the Chibok girls are just a symbol for those
who were taken away before and after them. And at the Bring Back Our Girls’
movement we keep saying that this advocacy is about every Nigerian, because if
we don’t do something about that, it is going to continue. When there is
failure in governance, what happens is that lives are not protected and they
will keep abducting and replacing them.
How
long will this campaign be sustained?
As
long as there are girls in captivity, we will continue to make demands. Sadly, Nigeria has gotten to a place whereby
citizens are constantly being taken away and it is as if there’s no end in
sight and it’s really worrying. People don’t understand the emotional damage it
does for one to be on the street making demands, listening to parents and
seeing heartbroken citizens, whose children have been taken away. We are
definitely going to keep on the campaign, until there is no need, until no
Nigerian is in the hands of abductors.
What
are your takeaways from this experience?
Ten
years and we are still here. I think one of the things that I learned just
going to the Unity Fountain, every day, is that governance is everything and
the reason the Chibok girls were abducted was because of bad governance. Bad
governance is the reason things are not working in the country, the reason we
have the problems; whether it is corruption or whatever. As long as bad
governance is not tackled, the country will continue like this. Today, it can
be Chibok girls, and tomorrow it will be someone else. So whatever we do, we
must understand that bad governance affects everyone.
And
it is in our interest to do something.
We should also remember that the youngest of the Chibok girls was 15
going on 16 years of age when they were abducted, so right now, she is
25-years-old and her mother is still waiting for her. So the next time you want to say that the
bring back our girls movement was about politics, remember that there are
parents who are still waiting for the children to come back home and that you
can also be one of them.
Source:
dailytrust.com
https://dailytrust.com/i-cant-believe-that-after-10-years-we-are-still-talking-about-chibok-girls-in-captivity-aisha-yesufu/
----
We
Are Still Mourning 89 Chibok Girls In Boko Haram Captivity – Borno Govt
14
April 2024
The
Borno State Government has said it is deeply sad that 89 out of 276 abducted
girls of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, are still in Boko Haram
captivity.
The
State Commissioner for Information and Internal Security Affairs, Prof Usman
Tar, stated this at a press conference on Saturday to commemorate the 10th
anniversary of the incident.
It
would be recalled that on April 14, 2014, Boko Haram terrorists abducted 276
school girls from Government Secondary School in Chibok, Chibok Local
Government Area of Borno State.
It
was gathered that over 50 of the female students were able to escape almost
immediately by jumping off the truck, which was conveying them into the bushes.
Sadly,
10 years later, about 90 who are still in Boko Haram captivity have been
married off and become mothers.
However,
Tar disclosed that so far, 187 of the 276 abducted Chibok girls have been
rescued and reunited with their families, while 89 of them were still missing.
The
commissioner noted that the 187 girls were rescued over a period of ten years,
including 57 that escaped on the day of abduction.
He
said the 187 rescued girls were enrolled in various scholarship programmes,
capacity-building centres and the Second Chance Schools initiative to make them
self-reliant.
The
commissioner expressed hope that with the combined efforts of the security
forces, intelligence agencies and communities, all the remaining girls in
captivity would return home.
He
said: “With about 100 still in captivity, I can say that we are still in a
mourning period, and we are still in prayer sessions in Mosques and Churches
for their rescue.
“This
is not a moment of celebration and joy, but a moment for prayers and
commemoration. We will celebrate when all have been rescued.”
Tar,
who spoke alongside his counterpart of Women Affairs, ZuwairaGambo, called on
the parents of the girls who are still missing to be patient as the government
is doing everything possible to bring them back.
“We
really understand the pain and anguish that the families of those still in
captivity are going through, and the government is committed to rescuing the
remaining girls in captivity; we are working very closely with the federal
security agencies along this line,” he added.
Source:
naijanews.com
https://www.naijanews.com/2024/04/14/we-are-still-mourning-89-chibok-girls-in-boko-haram-captivity-borno-govt/
---
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iran-noor-hijab/d/132135