Witnessing History Through the Eyes of a Japanese Female Islamic Scholar, Dr. Akari Iiyama
10
April 2022
• Witnessing History Through the Eyes of a Japanese
Female Islamic Scholar, Dr. Akari Iiyama
• 'No Lawyer' for Muslim Woman, Kuthma Sheikh, Jailed Over WhatsApp Status on Pakistan
Resolution Day
• Trump Said A GOP Congress Would 'End The Woke War On
Women And Children' And Railed Against Transgender Athletes
• Covid And Climate Change Push Many Older Women Into
Prostitution In Sundarbans
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
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Witnessing History Through the Eyes a Japanese Female
Islamic Scholar, Dr. Akari Iiyama
Dr. Akari Iiyama
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By Jason Morgan
April 10, 2022
Unlike its American ally, Japan has a generally
positive history of relations with Muslim countries, and its connections with
Islam are not fraught with the history of conflict between Islamic and Western
forces. By the same measure, though, most people in Japan have little knowledge
of Islam.
JAPAN Forward recently sat down with Dr. Akari Iiyama,
one of the top scholars and public commentators on Muslim affairs in Japan. In
the interview the fluent Arabic speaker further explained the complex
relationship between Japan and the Muslim world.
Your new book, Under the Egyptian Sky, is an
engrossing tale of your time working in the Middle East. You certainly seem to
have encountered a great deal of negativity due to your sex and also to the
fact that you are not a Muslim and come from a foreign land. But you also write
of your fascination with Egypt and other Muslim countries, and of the friendships
you formed there. Please tell us how you ended up in Egypt and what you
experienced.
I went to Egypt in 2011, right at the beginning of the
Arab Spring. As you will recall, the Arab Spring started with protests in
Tunisia which built on long-simmering dissatisfaction with the Tunisian
government. In December of 2010, a street vendor set himself on fire in Tunisia
in desperation after the government took away his means of livelihood. This was
the spark in the powder keg. Egypt quickly boiled over into a revolutionary
fervor, too.
I witnessed the Arab Spring with my own eyes. What I
saw was vastly different from what was reported in Japan or in the West. Many
in America, for example, see the Arab Spring in Egypt as a people’s revolution,
against the long-reigning, American-supported dictator Hosni Mubarak, later
thwarted by a military coup.
The reality was that the Egyptian people rose up in a
surge of patriotism and carried out two revolutions, not one. The first was
against Mubarak. The second was against Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim
Brotherhood-backed candidate whom Egyptians elected after Mubarak was ousted.
In 2014, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was elected president, and re-elected four years
later. This was all a victory for Egyptian patriotism, very different from how
it was covered in the West and Japan.
You write in Under the Egyptian Sky that you
encountered some Egyptians with much less of a patriotic sense than the average
man or woman in Tahrir Square in Cairo during the Arab Spring.
One interview I will never forget was with a man who
was a fanatic about the Islamic State (IS). This man was Egyptian, but told me
that, as a Muslim, he wanted to blow up the pyramids and the Sphinx, because
they were symbols of a pagan culture. He had also taken part in blowing up the
two ancient rock carvings in Afghanistan known as the Buddhas of Bamiyan. He
seemed to have great hatred for Egypt, and this clearly made others
uncomfortable, even — especially — those who were devout Egyptian Muslims.
My witness to Egyptian history taught me that
patriotism and religious devotion complement one another in the Middle East,
and that the urge among radicals and extremists to restore the caliphate, as
with the jihadist I met who supported IS, is alien to most Muslims.
This same man refused to speak to me directly, by the
way. I went to our interview without a full body covering. He looked at me,
said I was “‘awrah,” a word related to the nakedness of genitalia meaning
something like “shamefully exposed” and demanded that I sit in the back of the
room.
One of the things that strikes me is that the Japanese
scholars of Islam you mention in your books are almost all male. Many of them
have adopted Muslim dress and habits, and defend, even justify, violence
carried out by Muslims. But as you write in your books and columns, Islam looks
very different from a woman’s perspective. And you are one of very few women in
Japan who are expert on Islam.
There are women researchers in the world of Middle
Eastern studies in Japan. However, while pretending to be close to Muslim
women, they defend the Iranian Islamic regime, which forces Muslim women to
wear the hijab, and Hamas, which also forces women to blow themselves up and
become martyrs.
In the West there have been many debates about the
requirement in many Muslim countries that females wear a head covering, such as
a hijab , or even a whole-body covering, such as a burqa, chador, niqab, or
isdal.
What many don’t seem to understand is that these kinds
of coverings for females, while suggested by the Muslim scriptures, the Quran,
are not required. In the 1950s and 60s, many Muslim countries moved away from
the strict interpretation of Islam, and women became much freer to dress as
they pleased. In Afghanistan, Iran, and Egypt, among other places, women were
wearing dresses and heeled shoes, and styling their hair in the latest
fashions.
Today, however, the trend is in the opposite
direction. Women are losing their freedom. I write in my books about the
Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, who coined the term “black wave” to
describe the return—inspired by rising fundamentalism in some Muslim
countries—to all-black body coverings for women.
In Iran, women are frequently imprisoned for refusing
to wear a headscarf. Many women in other Muslim countries also secretly dislike
having to cover themselves in this way.
The Quran places men above women in many contexts. I
think many women in Japan would be shocked to learn that this is the norm in
many Muslim countries — and that male scholars of Islam in Japan apparently
endorse this view.
It is not always easy to speak forthrightly about
sensitive topics like this. Have you had any negative reactions to your
assessments?
When I have spoken out against aspects of Islam such
as the status of women in some Muslim countries, I have been accused of hate
speech. But the facts are the facts. Women in Muslim countries are very often
presented with impossible dilemmas such as these, between religious and social
pressures on the one hand, and their own desires and sense of worth on the
other.
Lara Logan, the reporter famous in the United States,
was repeatedly raped while covering the Arab Spring. She has bravely told the
world what happened, and also been branded anti-Muslim for telling the truth. I
respect her tremendously. The truth is that Islam, in many ways, is hostile to
women.
People in Japan, especially Japanese women, must
understand the reality. We must not rely only on male Japanese scholars of
Islam for our information.
You have written, and argued in public appearances,
that Japan must be prepared to use the rule of law to cope with the gradual
increase in Muslim residents in the country. What do you mean by this?
Muslims often live by a separate law called sharia
law. Sharia law can be sharply at odds with national laws, especially in places
like Japan or the United States. For example, some Muslims practice female
genital mutilation, which the vast majority of Americans and Japanese find
abhorrent.
When there are conflicts like this between Japanese
law and custom and Muslim practice, Japan must strictly enforce the Japanese
laws and the Japanese way. We must protect Japanese women and make it clear
that Muslim residents will be expected to adapt to the rule of law here.
Assimilation is not always Islam’s strong suit. In the
case of Japan, there is a growing problem of Muslims demanding that cemeteries
be built for burial in the ground, leading to conflicts with local residents.
In Japan, burial in the ground is not illegal.
However, many Japanese people have a physiological aversion to it. If these
problems increase, the dislike of Muslims may increase. This is unfortunate for
both the Japanese and the Muslims.
As I have said many times, I love Egypt, I love my
Muslim friends, I am grateful for the experiences I had in Muslim countries.
Japanese and Muslim people can live in harmony. But in Japan, Japanese culture
must be respected and preserved.
Source: Japan-Forward
https://japan-forward.com/interview-witnessing-history-through-the-eyes-a-female-islamic-scholar/
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'No Lawyer' for Muslim Woman, Kuthma Sheikh, Jailed Over WhatsApp Status on Pakistan
Resolution Day
Mohammed Irshad
10-04-2022
Bagalkot (Karnataka): Despite blatant attempts by
Hindutva groups in the region to deny legal support to the 25-year-old Muslim
woman, Kuthma Sheikh, who was arrested on March 24, at Mudhol for allegedly
sharing a “problematic” status on her private WhatsApp account, she was
released on conditional bail on March 26.
According to members of her family, she is unfazed by
her experience as a target of Hindutva antagonism and confident that she will
prove her innocence in the matter.
Kuthma had been arrested on March 24, a day after Arun
Kumar Bhajantri, allegedly a Hindutva activist, was reportedly offended by her
private WhatsApp status and registered a complaint at the Bagalkot police
station. In her WhatsApp status on March 23, Kuthma had wished peace and
prosperity to all nations across the world on the eve of Pakistan Resolution
Day.
Kuthma’s family alleges that a group named the Mudhol
Hindu Organisations’ Forum had, through a memorandum, appealed to the Lawyers’
Association to refuse to represent Kuthma Sheikh in court. It was only with the
help of local community leaders and close friends that the family was able to
appoint a lawyer who helped the woman secure bail.
Later, when Kuthma’s bail petition came up for
hearing, a few members of the Hindu forum were physically present inside the
court premises, thereby creating such a hostile environment for the Sheikh
family that the lawyer who appeared for Kuthma had to advise them to leave the
court and apply for bail the next day.
Since Kuthma’s conditional bail entails her to refrain
from interacting with the media, her brother Salman explained to The Wire that
Bhajantri had been able to see Kuthma’s WhatsApp status due to the fact that
his wife had provided Kuthma with tailoring services and the two women had
exchanged phone numbers.
“Something as inconsequential as a private WhatsApp
status wishing all nations peace and prosperity was purposely made viral by the
complainant and his network of people. This was used to file a preposterous
complaint against Kuthma. In the Mudhol region, the various communities have
been interacting with each other peacefully and things were relatively normal
until this news surfaced,” Salman told The Wire.
“Two women constables knocked at our door at around 8
pm on March 23. When I opened the door, they asked if there were any women in
the house. After I called my mother, the women constables spoke to my mother
and sister, showing them a screenshot of the status message uploaded by my
sister,” Rizwan recollected.
According to Rizwan, there were six police personnel
in total: four male constables and two women constables. “They did not have a
warrant at hand, but insisted that they were there to ensure our safety as the
status message uploaded by my sister had rubbed people the wrong way,” Rizwan
said. “We cooperated with them and responded to their questions. The lady
constables stayed in our residence that night while the four male constables
stayed outside. The women officials even took Kuthma’s pictures at our
residence.”
At about 5 am the following morning, the six police
personnel escorted Kuthma to the Circle Police Inspector’s Office, accompanied
by Rizwan, where they waited till 10 am.
“After 10 am, we were taken to the police station,
where my sister was questioned by different officers. Since her WhatsApp status
was a prayer for all countries, my sister explained her point of view and also
said she had not known that the message would become this kind of an issue. She
clarified that she had had no intention other than wishing all nations peace,”
said Rizwan.
At the police station, Kuthma was photographed again
and asked to sign several documents. At about 1 pm, police personnel took her
for a medical test at the government hospital.
Kuthma’s brothers are also startled by the fact that
the photos taken of Kuthma by the police during her arrest and questioning have
found their way to social media.
“Kuthma had not posted any of her photos on social
media. However, when the police took her for interrogation, they had taken her
photo, which later went viral on WhatsApp groups in the town,” Salman told The
Wire.
“We had hired a lawyer and tried to secure her bail
earlier on March 24, but it was rejected in the court. The next day, March 25,
I was at the court with her lawyer, seeking bail for Kuthma. But around 10-15
members of the Hindu Sangatanegala Okkota, Mudhol (Hindu Organisations Forum,
Mudhol), had gathered at the court. It was this group that had appealed to the
Lawyers’ Association to not take up Kuthma’s case,” Salman told The Wire.
With the presence of the members of the Hindu group at
the court, the atmosphere turned hostile and Kuthma’s lawyer asked Salman to
leave the premises, stating that he would file the bail application the
following day.
“The court granted bail to my sister on March 26,”
said Salman. “We received the bail order at around 4.30 pm and she was released
by 7 pm that day.”
The memorandum submitted by the Hindu organisations of
Mudhol to the lawyers’ association read: “With regards to above subject on
23-03-2022 Kuthma Sheikh urf Khrthujabi of Mudhol, a Muslim Woman has involved
(sic) in the anti-national activity, as she took a stand against India by
uploading a Pakistan flag as her WhatsApp status. With regards to this, we have
registered a case against her in Station (sic). There are chances that she
might apply for bail, so we the Hindu organisations of Mudhol are requesting
the association members to show their patriotism by not helping her in
proceeding with her bail application.”
While The Wire acquired a copy of this memorandum from
the Lawyers’ Association itself, it is learned that the document was also
widely propagated through social media.
Kuthma’s lawyer, Lakappa Avardhi, told The Wire that
he had been under no pressure from anyone and that he had only fulfilled his
duty as a lawyer by appearing for her in court. Meanwhile, V.D. Katti, the
president of the Lawyers’ Association, did not respond to The Wire‘s repeated
attempts for a comment on the memorandum.
When The Wire asked Arun Kumar Bhajantri whether he
had been instigated by any group or organisation to file the complaint, he said
it had been his own decision to lodge it. Asked if he was affiliated with any
organisation, he refused to comment.
Lokesh Bharamappa Jagalasar, superintendent of police
in Bagalkot, told The Wire that the case against Kuthma Sheikh is still under
investigation.
“The woman in question had uploaded a post related to
the Pakistan Resolution Day. We received a complaint that the post was
provocative and aimed to cause friction in society. Since the uploader’s intent
is not determined, we are still investigating the matter,” said Jagalasar.
Kuthma has been charged with sections 153(A) and 505
(2) of the Indian Penal Code. These sections relate to the creation or
promotion of enmity, hatred or ill-will between groups on the basis of
religion, race and so on.
“Our role is to mitigate escalating situations between
parties that are in disagreement. As police, we have witnessed provocative
postings from both sides of the spectrum and we have taken all of this into
consideration. We are investigating all the sides involved. Our focus is to
maintain peace, law, and order in the land. We will investigate accordingly,”
Jagalasar added. When asked for a copy of the first information report (FIR) on
the basis of which a case was registered against Kuthma, Jagalasar said the FIR
had been uploaded on their website, but that he had forgotten its number.
Source: The Wire
https://thewire.in/communalism/karnataka-whatsapp-pakistan-resolution-day-mudhol
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Trump said a GOP Congress would 'end the woke war on
women and children' and railed against transgender athletes
APR 10, 2022
Former President Donald Trump said a Republican-led
Congress "will end the woke war on women and children" in a series of
comments he made about transgender people during a rally in Selma, North
Carolina, on Saturday.
"A Republican Congress must stand up for parental
rights and parental choice. I think that's a good idea. No teacher should ever
be allowed to teach far left gender theories to our children without parental
consent," Trump said. "It's truly child abuse. Plain and
simple."
He continued: "Last week, the Biden
administration sent Congress a budget crammed with billions and billions of
dollars of transgenderism and so-called equity provisions that are nothing more
than government sponsored racism. The Republican Congress will end the woke war
on women and children, we will stop illegal government discrimination, we will
restore the sacred American principle of equality under the law."
Biden last week announced a $5.8 trillion budget
proposal that includes $10 million to go towards improving transgender
visibility in Census Bureau surveys.
Trump said if the GOP won majorities in Congress they
would also "demand justice for the January 6 prisoners," overhaul the
mail-in voting system, and "proudly uphold the Judeo Christian values and
principles of our nation's founding" before turning back to transgender
athletes.
"We will not by the way, have men participating
in women's sports," Trump said, saying that allowing trans athletes like
the record-breaking University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas to compete
would ruin women's sports.
Trump also used the rally to express support for Rep.
Ted Budd, who is currently running for the North Carolina Senate seat being
vacated by Richard Burr.
Source: Business Insider
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Covid And Climate Change Push Many Older Women Into
Prostitution In Sundarbans
By Press Trust Of India
10-04-2022
New Delhi, Apr 10 (PTI) In the swamplands of the
Sundarbans, where steady erosion has robbed thousands of people of their homes
and livelihoods, Covid has combined with climate change to wrought another
dimension of grimness – older women, some even grandmothers, being pushed into
prostitution.
Their abject poverty, made worse by a pandemic that
has stretched on for more than two years, made them vulnerable to traffickers
who found it difficult to procure young women and minor girls and shifted focus
to middle aged women from West Bengal’s coastal regions, said activists working
in the area.
“There is less scrutiny on older women and their
vulnerability has made them accessible to traffickers,” Nihar Ranjan Raptan,
director of the Goranbose Gram Bikash Kendra (GGBK), told PTI while explaining
why traffickers are interested in middle aged and older women. “It was difficult to find minor girls
during the lockdown as they were locked in their homes so traffickers moved
their attention to older women who were in need of money to keep the sex trade
going. Earlier, women below 24 years were usually seen to be trafficked,”
Raptan, whose NGO works on issues of human trafficking, child rights and
climate change impact, added.
He said 12-13 women in their late 30s and 40s from the
Sundarbans area who were pushed into sex slavery have been rescued over the
last four months. And this could just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
In the marshland that is the Sundarbans – a vast area
of about 10,000 square kilometres including both land and water that stretches
between West Bengal and Bangladesh where countless homes have been washed away
and agriculture in many places has become unviable due to salinity – Covid has
added another chapter to the stories of exploitation, sexual abuse and
desperation.
Like Gareema*, whose life took turns she never could
have imagined after her husband’s death due to a brain stroke in March 2020,
just when the pandemic was gathering force and India went into lockdown. Two
months later, Cyclone Amphan hit, and the 49-year-old like many thousands of
others lost her home and belongings.
Gareema*, who said she was raped multiple times
everyday in a brothel in Pune to which she was sold to, has now returned to her
home in Diamond Harbour in the South Parganas 24 district that falls in the
Sundarbans region after three months in a rehabilitation home. She was
trafficked when her children stopped giving her food. “I started looking for places to do
household chores but the whole area is so poverty stricken that no one had
money to employ me. I thought of moving to a city so that at least I would have
life of dignity and would have better opportunities, That is when I came in
touch with my trafficker who promised to take me to Kolkata where he said there
are many houses looking for maids,” she told PTI over the phone.
Instead of Kolkata, Gareema*, a grandmother, was
trafficked to Pune and sold to a brothel where she was sexually abused for 14
months.
Gareema* was rescued in a police raid last year, After
three months in a rehabilitation home, she has returned home where she is still
facing abuse from her family.
“My sons abuse me, call me dirty. I have started doing
odd jobs at homes to get some money but still there are days when I just drink
water and go to sleep,” she said despairingly.
Social activist Pampa Ghosh said they are seeking
compensation for her and also looking for rehabilitation homes where she can be
shifted for long term.
Shamila*, 42, is also a grandmother. She was looking
for outstation employment as a domestic help when she disappeared in May 2021
from her home in South 24 Parganas.
Her sons are still looking for her but she was said to
be in touch with some traffickers who probably pushed her into prostitution,
Ghosh said.
Then there is 33-year-old Samira*, who was trafficked
to Goa from the Sundarbans in December last year, but was fortunately rescued
after a week and is presently lodged in a government home in Goa.
According to Ghosh, traffickers identify the financial
vulnerability of older women due to COVID-19 and climate change and are taking
advantage of it.
Though some have been rescued, many still might have
been caught in the web sex trafficking from the region whose whereabouts are
unknown. “We are still in the process of realising the complete impact that
COVID-19 brought in this region already battling climate change effects,” she
said.
Subhasree Raptan of GGBK said several areas in the
Sundarbans have been washed away due to the rise in water levels, displacing a
large number of people who were then forced to migrate due to financial
insecurity and vulnerabilities.
In most cases, she said, agriculture has become
unviable due to the increase in salinity of the water because of sea level
rise. As a result, there is abject poverty and people, particularly women, are
desperate to look for livelihood as they are often the breadwinners.
Cyclone Amphan, which made landfall in May last year
near the India-Bangladesh border, was the costliest tropical cyclone on record
for the north Indian Ocean with reported economic losses in India of
approximately USD 14 billion. It resulted in the displacement of 2.4 million people
in India, mostly in West Bengal and Odisha,
a flagship UN report had said.
A UN report said
the COVID-19 pandemic has created larger pools of vulnerable persons
who, due to their worsened economic situation, were recruited for labour or
sexual exploitation.
According to official data, the maximum number of
cases of human trafficking was registered under
the purpose of sexual exploitation for prostitution in 2020 at 1,466.
However, experts say the real numbers are several folds higher than the official
figures and there are countless people like Shamila* who have been in probability trafficked and
their whereabouts are not known.
Source: Republic World
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