Iranian Singer Parastoo Ahmadi Facing Action After Live-Streamed Concert Without Hijab
New Age Islam News Bureau
13 December 2024
· Iranian Singer Parastoo Ahmadi Facing Action After Live-Streamed Concert Without Hijab
· UN Huddle Condemns Taliban's Curb On Female Medical Education
· Sima's Song – A Film Portraying Struggle Of Afghan Women For Freedom
· Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act: Reform is Not Repeal
· Judicial Review Granted: Court Sides With SarawakianWoman Seeking To Leave The Muslim Convert Register
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iranian-singer-action-taliban-hijab/d/134014
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Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi facing action after live-streamed concert without hijab
12/12/2024
On Wednesday night, Iranian singer and composer, Parastoo Ahmadi, held a ground-breaking performance. The female musician performed in one of Iran's traditional caravanserai, the inns once used by Silk Road travellers, and was broadcast live on her YouTube channel.
Ahmadi’s performance was in defiance of the strict restrictions placed on female singers in Iran. Women continue to protest against the restrictive gendered morality laws in the country since the 'Women, Life, Freedom' emerged in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022.
Ahmadi has previously performed the ballad 'From the blood of the youth of the country', in support of the movement. Alongside the mandatory hijab law, women are not free to sing publicly in Iran.
Over the past years, women in Iran have been allowed to sing only in performances with only female audiences and listeners.
Ahmadi's concert this week, although performed to no in-person audience, was live streamed. It was viewed 74,000 times in the 12 hours after the performance, despite being filtered by Iran's restricted access to YouTube.
In the introduction to her performance, Ahmadi says: "I want to sing for the people I love. This is a right that I could not ignore; singing for the land that I love dearly."
Following the concert’s widespread sharing online, her home was raided by security agents, and she was summoned to the Tehran Security Prosecutor's Office for questioning.
Source: euronews.com
https://www.euronews.com/culture/2024/12/12/iranian-singer-parastoo-ahmadi-facing-action-after-live-streamed-concert-without-hijab
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UN huddle condemns Taliban's curb on female medical education
December 12, 2024
ISLAMABAD —
An Afghan woman holds her sick daughter as a nurse treats her in the malnutrition ward of the Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Feb. 24, 2022.
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The United Nations warned Thursday that the Taliban's decision to prohibit female students from pursuing medical training is expected to worsen Afghanistan's already dire humanitarian crisis, which the U.N. undersecretary-general says is the second-worst in the world after Sudan's.
Tom Fletcher, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told a quarterly Security Council meeting that the proposed restriction could potentially inflict "serious and lasting damage" on health care for Afghan women and girls.
Earlier this month, Taliban health authorities ordered public and private medical institutions across the country to halt enrollment of female students and the completion of their end-of-semester examinations. However, the abrupt directive gave 10 days to medical institutions to allow female students to take their semester exams.
"This was the last remaining sector in which Afghan women could pursue higher-level learning, following the ban on girls' higher education," Fletcher said.
"It would prevent more than 36,000 midwives and 2,800 nurses from entering the workforce in the next few years, and rates of antenatal, neonatal and maternal mortality could dramatically increase," he said.
The ban on female medical education comes as the Taliban have barred male doctors in several Afghan provinces from treating female patients.
Fletcher noted that one-third of women in Afghanistan already give birth without professional medical assistance, and preventable maternal complications claim the life of a woman every two hours in the country.
The female medical education ban is the latest in a series of edicts that radical Taliban leaders have enforced in the country since sweeping back to power in August 2021. Previously they banned secondary school education for girls and excluded Afghan women from most workplaces except those in health and a few other sectors.
The restrictions are part of what is known as the "Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" law, or PVPV law, which the Taliban have promulgated in line with their stringent interpretation of Islamic law, known as Shariah.
During a virtual address to Thursday's Security Council meeting, Roza Otunbayeva, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said she had strongly urged the Taliban to reconsider their ban on female medical education.
However, Otunbayeva said, de facto Afghan authorities have persistently pursued their vision of an Islamic system "characterized by unprecedented" restrictions on women and girls.
"It is now approaching nearly 1,200 days without girls having access to formal education beyond sixth grade, with women and girls facing a progressive erasure from almost all walks of life," she said.
She lamented that the enforcement of the PVPV law has impacted women's already constrained freedom of movement and access to public services, with the Taliban morality police inspectors preventing women who are unaccompanied by a male guardian from traveling in vehicles, even for short distances from their homes, and from accessing health care facilities.
"There has been a notable expansion of de facto PVPV inspectors' enforcement of the requirements regarding men's beards and Western-style haircuts through visits to mosques and other public places to advise on the requirements of the law, arrests of barbers and men identified as having shaved their beards and forcing barbershops to close," she said.
Her mission, she said, has been engaging with the Taliban to establish a "constructive dialogue" in support of Afghan peace and stability.
"The objective is an Afghanistan reintegrated into the international community and upholding its international obligations," she said.
Responding to those criticizing her engagement with the Taliban despite their bans on women, the UNAMA chief emphasized that isolation is not a solution.
"Some say that engagement has not worked because these decisions keep coming despite international condemnation," Otunbayeva said. "But pressure and condemnation do not seem to be working, and if pursued without forward-leaning principled engagement, it will lead to Afghanistan's isolation."
Otunbayeva told the Security Council meeting that her office had documented a "widening pattern of restrictions" on the media, noting that the "space for public debate, including on key issues such as the rights of women and girls, continues to shrink" in Afghanistan.
The Taliban government, which is neither officially recognized by any country nor allowed to represent Afghanistan at the U.N, did not immediately respond to Thursday's criticism of its policies.
Nonetheless, de facto Afghan authorities have persistently ignored international objections to their governance, saying their rules are aligned with Sharia and local culture.
'Sick' and 'heartless'
In her address to Thursday's meeting, the head of the United States mission to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, condemned the Taliban for restricting the education, employment and overall well-being of women and girls. She decried as "sick and heartless" the restriction on female medical education, calling it "a death sentence" for Afghan women in need of potentially lifesaving medical treatment.
"How will women's health care needs be met in the future if there are no qualified women doctors, nurses, dentists and midwives? And male doctors are not allowed to treat women," Thomas-Greenfield said.
"This is not cultural, and it's not religious. It is unfathomable. It is sick. It is heartless. It means these men — Taliban — are sentencing their mothers who birthed them, their sisters, their wives, their own daughters, to die before their eyes if they become ill," she said.
The U.S. envoy emphasized that any engagement with the Taliban must be linked with a broader dialogue on human rights and a political road map in line with the U.N. resolutions.
Source: voanews.com
https://www.voanews.com/a/un-huddle-condemns-taliban-s-curb-on-female-medical-education-/7899517.html
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Sima's Song – A film portraying struggle of Afghan women for freedom
13-12-2024
Sima and Suraiya in a scene from the film Sima's song
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Islamic fundamentalist Mujahideen were flourishing in the mountains and their sporadic battles with the army created an occasional buzz. At this time the world was divided into two camps led by America and Russia respectively.
However, even amid this, Afghanistan was a land where women were happy and free.
Roya Sadat's film 'A Letter to the President' was Afghanistan's official entry for the Oscars in 2018. She is a refugee in America. She may face a death sentence if she comes to her native country. One of the actors of the film said at the ongoing Red Sea International Film Festival, Jeddah that women have much freedom in Saudi Arabia where Islam was born and they have no freedom under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
“Education is the right of women. The Taliban can occupy our country but cannot take away people’s voices. Millions of women are suffering every day. Our fight will continue,” most of them said.
Sima and Suraiya are two close friends. Sima learns music at the university and sings well. Suraiya comes from an influential political family and turns into a campaigner for women's freedom. She becomes the head of the women's department of the most powerful communist party.
Sima has nothing to do with politics. She is happy in her romantic world of traditional art and music. Suraiya and Sima's friendship is very deep although both have different political views. Their economic and social status never comes in the way of their friendship.
Sima falls in love with a classmate from the university and marries him. Her life begins to change from this point. Her husband is in touch with Mujahideen fighters. Both of them start attending their secret meetings. They feel that they are working to protect Islamic values.
On the contrary, Suraiya is a communist and is working for women's equality and freedom. Despite this, their friendship remains intact.
After the coup by the Afghan army, the situation is changing. The army is aware of Sima and her husband's activities. One day, the army raids her house and kills Sima's father. Many years ago, the army had also killed Suraiya's father on false charges. Suraiya puts Sima and her husband in her car and leaves them with the Mujahideen in the mountains outside Kabul.
Sima is no longer holding a musical instrument but a gun handed over to her by the Mujahideen. In a touching scene, Suma gives her favourite musical instrument to Suraiya and says that she does not need it anymore.
Suddenly the Army swoops in and arrests everyone. Sima and Suraiya are now in jail. Sima is accused of being a traitor and faces torture in the jail. It is heartbreaking to see an innocent girl who loved music getting trapped and dying.
A few days later, Afghanistan is occupied by the Russian army and Suraiya is freed because she is the leader of the Communist Party. Sima is dead and Suraiya keeps her daughter. Politics changes but the questions of women's equality and freedom don’t.
The film 'Sima's Song' begins with a protest by women led by Suraiya in Kabul under the Taliban rule of today. Police and army personnel shoot at unarmed women and many women are killed. Suraiya returns home, plays Sima's song on the tape recorder, and opens the album of photographs to go through the moments in the last 50 years of life. Most of the persons in pictures are now dead - killed in the civil war in Afghanistan.
Source: awazthevoice.in
https://www.awazthevoice.in/entertainment-news/sima-s-song-a-film-portraying-poignant-struggle-of-afghan-women-for-freedom-33098.html
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Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act: Reform is Not Repeal
12/13/2024
In the wake of the presidential and general elections, the National People’s Power (NPP) government will have to navigate the disinformation and scare tactics that were deployed during the campaign period about reform of the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA). The new government has a genuine opportunity to lead an inclusive, evidence based and responsible public discussion on the reform of MMDA.
It is important that those in power are clear in their intention, their messaging and their approach to this sensitive but important issue. They must clarify that reform of the MMDA does not mean repeal of family law for Muslims. They must affirm that legal pluralism is not to be feared, will be protected and is a form of respect and acceptance of the rich diversity in Sri Lanka. They must uphold the constitution as a compact benefitting all citizens, including women in minoritized communities. They must ensure that consultation on Muslim family law reform must necessarily involve persons most directly harmed by the current practices – women and girls.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in his address to the tenth parliament on November 21 stated that the government was committed to rebuilding the rule of law, to restoring trust of the people in the legal system and to securing justice for citizens. He also affirmed that people should not be afraid to practice their beliefs and culture and assured that a politics of racial fearmongering would be over. It is encouraging that in its opening statement of policy, the new government, centered justice for the people, and this public commitment is directly relevant to the reform of the MMDA.
The discrimination and harm caused under the MMDA
Justice for Muslim girls and women in the context of MMDA reforms has been decades overdue. The MMDA has several provisions that discriminate against women, including permitting girls to be married even under the age of 12; denying women the right to sign their own marriage documents; failing to regulate the practice of dowry or matrimonial property and related social hardship; allows quazis to impose unjust divorce procedures that discriminate against women; and denying of women the right to hold public or judicial office in the administration of marriage and divorce and related matters. In terms of harms, girls compelled into marriages have endured physical, sexual, verbal and emotional violence, have lost opportunities to be financially secure and have been deserted with children to care for. Muslim women have endured physical, sexual, verbal, emotional harm, have lost property, have been rendered destitute, have become trapped in marriages where their maintenance has been neglected as a consequence of the practice of polygamy and have been subject to unfair, cruel and degrading treatment by some quazis.
Muslim women have been advocating for reform for over 40 years and within the last decade have succeeded in making their concerns a matter of national debate. Today, there is a bill sitting with the Ministry of Justice that is based on the largely unanimously agreed reforms contained in the 2021 report by a Committee of experts consisting of Islamic religious scholars and Muslim lawyers reflecting a range of positions on MMDA reform. Although consensus draft reforms are consistent with international human rights, the constitution and Islamic values and jurisprudence seemed within grasp, the political upheaval of the recent past has created an opportunity for those who oppose reform to stall this.
MMDA during and after parliamentary elections 2024
Interest groups who have for decades opposed progressive and harm preventing reforms were seen using the run up to the parliamentary election to boost their campaign of fearmongering around reform, equating it to the loss (repeal) of the MMDA. A video of NPP candidate SarojaSavithriPaulraj clearly articulating the discrimination faced by Muslim women and girls was circulated in order to mobilize Muslim communities against the candidate and her party and also to put pressure on them to back down from their stated support for MMDA reform.
Compelled to comment on the interim NPP government’s position during the campaign period, on November 6 Minister VijithaHerath appeared to state that there was no need to reform the MMDA. This was an extremely unsatisfactory position, given that the reasons for reforms have been widely publicly debated and the discrimination and harm caused under the cover of the MMDA had been a topic of national concern for many years. For Muslim women victims and activists who have advocated for reform in the face of social pressure from anti-reform forces, especially at the community level, it was disheartening that a political party poised to secure power was not willing to acknowledge that there were serious issues like child marriage and discrimination on the basis of gender to be addressed. The language of, “we will reform any religious law only in consultation with religious leaders”, in a context where such leaders are exclusively male was another blow that failed to acknowledge that women and girls affected by this highly discriminatory law were key voices on the question of reform.
The campaign of fearmongering has continued since the parliamentary elections, with opponents of reform using social media platforms and WhatsApp groups to circulate posts that evoke the language of one country, one law – a phrase associated with anti-Muslim threats to repeal the MMDA during the GotabhayaRajapakse-led government. The appointment of Paulraj as the new Minister of Women’s Affairs has also been used to further stoke fears, referencing her past statements in support of reform. Similarly, Dr. KaushalyaAriyarathne, in her first speech to parliament on December 6, highlighted that Muslim women have been advocating for much needed MMDA reforms without being heard and this one line of concern ignited another round of fear-based messaging from certain sections of Muslim communities.
It will be important to tackle this damaging fearmongering as part of the state reforms process and model inclusion and trust building when leading conversations of harm prevention related to minoritized citizens.
Damage caused by fearmongering
The fearmongering delegitimizes and cultivates hatred against the good social service and community bolstering work by Muslim women and men working directly in their Muslim communities with women and children affected by the problematic colonial MMDA. This delegitimization also affects victims experiencing discrimination and various forms of harm under the MMDA as it creates an environment in which victims seeking help from service providers are seen as betraying the community. In some recent social media videos community members, particularly parents, were warned against speaking to researchers on harms caused under the MMDA. There have also been targeted campaigns against particular community activists. All this adds to the alienation and oppressive culture experienced by victims and those working with victims. It hinders the path to solutions to the daily problems people face under the MMDA.
The fear-inducing language of “they are coming to repeal our Muslim law” deployed by opponents of reform fosters distrust within members of Muslim communities about the Sinhala majority and alienate Muslim citizenry from the state. There is a deliberate conflation of the draft MMDA reforms that would actually benefit Muslim women and girls with the Islamophobic rhetoric and politics of recent regimes in order to undermine reform. This is consistent with longstanding tactics by regressive male Muslim politicians and community leaders who have benefitted from playing on community fears and sowing division to bolster their own status and political support. This deeply cynical approach threatens hard won progress towards consensus on MMDA reform as evidenced by the 2021 report and also undermines the possibility of restoring Muslim communities’ relationship to democracy and rule of law.
Reform is about strengthening justice for all Sri Lankan Muslims
It is the call for justice for the Muslim women and girls affected by the MMDA that has prompted and sustained the conversation of reform for over 40 years. Whoever else is consulted on law reform, there can be no reform without serious, non-tokenistic, participation by and on behalf of affected women. Justice in the context of MMDA reforms will entail treating women and children with dignity, providing equal protection of the law to women and children, ensuring that the MMDA is a Shari’ah compliant Islamic law that strives for righteous living in the interest and wellbeing of Muslims and realizing constitutional guarantees for all Muslims of the country. Reform of the MMDA will represent all these progressive aspects: Islamic legal jurisprudence, constitutional protections, universal human rights and basic human compassion and fairness. Indeed the call for reform is one to strengthen and preserve the MMDA rather than repeal it.
The new government must recognize the current fearmongering campaign for what it is and confidently advance MMDA reforms. The government must assure Muslim communities that it will retain and protect Muslim personal law in a form that is just and is protective of the dignity, wellbeing and rights of all users of the MMDA, especially women and children. The government must also publicly engage communities to reassure them that Muslims will have access to a family law reflective of the justice guaranteed by Islamic law while also providing all the basic legal protections and administrative efficiencies available to other citizens. Advancing MMDA reform under the new parliament must build on the significant work done to date. In the exercise of MMDA reforms to ensure justice and equality for women and girls, there is an opportunity to build a relationship of inclusive governance with the Muslim people and to contribute to shaping a political culture of respect and inclusion, not of fear and division.
Source: groundviews.org
https://groundviews.org/2024/12/13/muslim-marriage-and-divorce-act-reform-is-not-repeal/
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Judicial review granted: Court sides with Sarawakian woman seeking to leave the Muslim convert register
13 Dec 2024
PUTRAJAYA, Dec 13 — A Sarawakian woman was granted leave by the Court of Appeal today to initiate a judicial review seeking to compel the Federal Territory Registrar of Mualaf to remove her name from the Register of Converts.
A three-judge panel comprising Court of Appeal judges Datuk SupangLian, Datuk Lim Chong Fong and Datuk Ahmad Fairuz ZainolAbidin unanimously allowed the woman’s application to set aside the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s decision on September 21, 2023, which denied her request for the leave.
Delivering the decision through an online proceeding, Justice Supang said the court found that the High Court judge erred in imposing a higher burden on the appellant to demonstrate that her application was not frivolous.
“It seems to us that the learned High Court Judge, in rejecting leave prematurely delved into answering the merits of the opposing arguments of the parties, instead of merely being satisfied that there are serious arguments to be determined at the judicial review hearing,” she said.
Justice Supang said such leave ought not to have been denied to the appellant based on the Federal Territory Registrar of Mualaf’s (named the first respondent) lack of duty concerning the mandamus prayer.
“The appellant’s appeal is therefore meritorious and is accordingly allowed. The decision of the High Court is set aside and the appellant is given leave to commence judicial review in the High Court,” said Justice Supang.
Lawyer Iqbal Harith Liang represented the 27-year-old woman while federal counsel Sallehuddin Ali appeared for the government.
The woman filed the application on April 20, 2023, and named the Federal Territory Registrar of Muallaf, the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council (MAIWP) and the government as respondents.
Born to Christian parents, she sought a declaration that the Administration of Islamic Law (Federal Territories) Act 1993 (Act 505) gives jurisdiction to the Registrar of Mualaf to declare that a person is no longer a Muslim.
She also requested that her name be cancelled from the Register of Mualaf immediately, adding that its refusal or delay to make decisions on her application filed on January 30, February 20 and March 17, 2023, is irrational and unreasonable.
In her supporting affidavit, the woman said she converted to Islam on August 18, 2017, and registered as a mualaf after a Malay Muslim man asked for her hand in marriage.
However, on January 27, 2022, she pledged in an affidavit that she wanted to leave Islam and return as a Christian and applied to have her name removed from the registry to which the Registrar of Mualaf has yet to reply. — Bernama
Source: malaymail.com
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/12/13/judicial-review-granted-court-sides-with-sarawakian-woman-seeking-to-leave-the-muslim-convert-register/159746
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iranian-singer-action-taliban-hijab/d/134014