Muslim Woman Denied Food for Refusing To Chant 'Jai Shri Ram' In Mumbai
New Age Islam News Bureau
31 October2024
Muslim Woman Denied Food for Refusing To Chant 'Jai Shri Ram' In Mumbai
Taliban's Bizarre New Rule: Afghan Women Banned From 'Hearing Each Other's Voice'
Removal of sign with hijab from Montreal City Hall sends wrong message: Muslim group
New York woman who pepper-sprayed Muslim Uber driver indicted for hate crime
Mass displacement of pregnant women requires mobilization of maternal health services in Lebanon, Syria
My fight for academic freedom for every Iranian woman: Dr. Koshk Jan
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/muslim-woman-food-refusing-mumbai/d/133593
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Muslim woman denied food for refusing to chant 'Jai Shri Ram' in Mumbai
October 31, 2024
Screengrab of video showing the altercationCredit: X/@HateDetectors
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In yet another unfortunate incident of communal dispute, a Muslim woman who was in the queue for food being distributed by an NGO has alleged that she was asked to leave the queue for not chanting 'Jai Shri Ram'. The purported video of the incident, which took place in Mumbai, has gone viral on social media and has garnered a lot of attention and divided netizens as wellThe video in its caption said that the food distribution was being done by an NGO near the TATA Hospital in Mumbai and an elderly man is seen ladling out dal, sabzi and other food items to the people standing in the queue. After a voiceover which narrates the incident, the man is seen rebuking the woman and asking her to get off the line. One person nearby is also heard saying that this is god's prasad and if the woman can't chant 'Jai Shri Ram', she shouldn't be taking the food being given out. 'Jisko Ram nahinbolnahai line me khadanahi ho', the man is heard saying. A lot of people reacted to the incident and while some were angry at the m n for refusing food, there were some who doubted the veracity of the video. "The well-fed fierce hungry lady went with a camera man covering her face to a place serving food," said one. "This hate is going to destroy this country. Today it’s religion tomorrow caste and class. As Rahat Saab said lagegiaag…", said another. One person said that prasad is sacred and should be respected and hence the need to chant 'Jai Shri Ram' as it was not an NGO but an individual who was distributing the food.unrelated incident, a clash erupted between students from the Left outfits and the ABVP early Tuesday during a University Governing Body Meeting (UGBM) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University over alleged derogatory remarks against Lord Ram in Delhi. There were also some incidents of communal incident reported during Navratri/Durga Puja including a major incident in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich where one person was shot dead amid immersion procession. Source:deccanherald.com
https://www.deccanherald.com/india/maharashtra/watch-muslim-woman-denied-food-for-refusing-to-chant-jai-shri-ram-in-mumbai-3257009
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Taliban's Bizarre New Rule: Afghan Women Banned From 'Hearing Each Other's Voice'
October 30, 2024
At present, this decree is only restricted to prayers but experts fear it could have larger implications. (Image: AFP/File)
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Women have reportedly been banned from “hearing each other’s voice” in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in another move to restrict basic freedoms. The new decree states that women cannot pray aloud in the presence of each other, as per a report by a Virginia-based Afghan news channel.
According to Amu TV, the order was issued by Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, who is the Taliban minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice (PVPV). He said women should avoid reciting the Quran aloud when around other women.
“When women are not allowed to call takbir or azaan (the Islamic call to prayer), they certainly cannot sing songs or enjoy music,” he was quoted in the report.
A report published by The Telegraph said Hanafi stressed that a woman’s voice is considered “awrah” – something that must be concealed – meaning it should not be heard in public, even by other women.
At present, this decree is only restricted to prayers but experts fear it could have larger implications. Women are already not allowed to speak in public. Even female healthcare workers – among the few Afghan women allowed to work outside their homes – cannot speak to male relatives.
“They don’t even allow us to speak at checkpoints on our way to work, and in clinics, we are instructed not to discuss medical issues with male relatives,” a midwife in Herat told Amu TV.
This order is the latest in a series of new restrictions imposed on women in the Taliban regime that returned to power in 2021. In August, a rule was introduced for women mandating full-body coverage, including faces, when outside.
It also comes only days after the Taliban’s ‘living things’ images ban. Journalists across Afghanistan told AFP that the morality ministry is gradually introducing a ban on images of living beings in the media, with multiple provinces announcing restrictions and some Taliban officials refusing to be photographed or filmed.
Since mid-October, PVPV has held meetings with journalists in one province after another. They informed media workers that a ban on taking and publishing images of living things – namely people and animals – from a recent “vice and virtue” law will be gradually implemented.
Under the Taliban’s previous stint in power from 1996 to 2001, television was completely banned but this has not yet been imposed since their return three years ago. Enforcement of many articles of the “vice and virtue” law, which codifies the Taliban government’s strict interpretation of Islamic law and includes sweeping codes of behaviour, has been uneven.
But, journalists have expressed concern over the possibility of a full crackdown that will make Afghanistan the only Muslim-majority country to impose such bans.
Source:news18.com
https://www.news18.com/world/talibans-bizarre-new-rule-afghan-women-banned-from-hearing-each-others-voice-9104117.html
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Removal of sign with hijab from Montreal City Hall sends wrong message: Muslim group
October 30, 2024
By Sidhartha Banerjee
A national organization that represents the Muslim community says the decision to remove a welcome poster at Montreal City Hall that includes a woman wearing a hijab sends the wrong message. The poster is shown at Montreal City Hall, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giuseppe Valiante
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A national Muslim advocacy group says Montreal would send the wrong message if it takes down a welcome sign in the lobby at city hall that generated controversy because it included a woman wearing a hijab.
Stephen Brown, chief executive of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said Wednesday his organization was surprised and disappointed by the city’s decision.
Montreal Mayor ValériePlante told a television talk show that aired on Sunday that the artwork depicting a woman wearing a headscarf would be removed in the name of secularism, adding that it made some people feel uncomfortable.
The image, in the style of a pencil sketch, shows the woman standing between two men — a younger man wearing a baseball cap and an older man with his hands crossed — with the words “Welcome to Montreal City Hall!” in French above them.
“This poster represents Montrealers — not a religious person or a secular person,” Brown said, adding the city should have told anyone who was uncomfortable to take a stroll around town.
“In Canada in the 21st century, we don’t remove people from society because of the way they look,” Brown said. “The poster was not the picture of a veiled woman — the poster was representative of Montrealers and anybody that goes outside and walks around Montreal for half an hour is going to see all sorts of different people.”
On Sunday night, Plante told “Tout le monde enparle” on Radio-Canada she recognizes that the image had caused “discomfort” and that institutions must strive to be secular. She said the city should find ways to promote diversity while also favouring secularism.
Since city hall reopened after renovations in the spring, the new sign has sparked criticism from secular and women’s rights groups, who have said the image is insulting to women and promotes religion in the public space.
Brown, however, took issue with the secularism justification and said it sets a “dangerous precedent” for the city.
“Secularism is the idea that the state does not involve itself in religious matters and religious matters do not involve themselves in the governance of the state,” Brown said. “That is not the same thing as policing what people look like.”
Brown said it’s unacceptable to send a message that it’s OK to “render people invisible” because of the way they look.
“We got to the point in society where we said if you don’t like the way somebody looks, it’s not for that person to hide themselves or to change their identity — it’s for you to get over your own anxieties.”
Plante told reporters Wednesday that she doesn’t want anyone to feel erased because in Montreal “everyone has their place.”
She also expanded on her comments on the talk show, explaining that the sign is part of a rotating exhibit and would eventually have been replaced with something new. “For me to say that it will be changed, is something that we would have done anyway,” she said.
Source:globalnews.ca
https://globalnews.ca/news/10838917/montreal-city-hall-hijab-sign/
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New York woman who pepper-sprayed Muslim Uber driver indicted for hate crime
31 October 2024
A New York woman who pepper-sprayed a Muslim Uber driver while he was praying has been indicted by the Manhattan district attorney on hate crime charges.
Jennifer Guilbeault, 23, is shown in a surveillance video repeatedly pepper-spraying her Uber driver, Shohel Mahmud. The assault took place in August on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, near the corner of east 65th Street and Lexington Avenue, shortly after Mahmud began reciting a prayer in Arabic.
Guilbeault’s fellow passenger, an unnamed woman, is seen trying to prevent her from continuing the assault.
The driver called 911 and Guilbeault was arrested.
Guilbeault was officially charged in a state supreme court indictment “with one count each of Assault in the Second Degree as a Hate Crime, Assault in the Third Degree as a Hate Crime and Aggravated Harassment in the Second Degree”.
“As alleged, Jennifer Guilbeault senselessly assaulted a Muslim Uber driver while he was just doing his job,” Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement. “The victim is a hardworking New Yorker who should not have to face this type of hate because of his identity. Everyone is welcome to live and work in Manhattan, and our Hate Crimes Unit will continue to address bias-motivated attacks by thoroughly investigating and prosecuting cases, conducting community outreach, and supporting victims.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) publicly expressed support for the charges.
“We welcome the hate crime charges in this case and thank law enforcement authorities for sending a clear message that those who allegedly carry out bias-motivated attacks will face the consequences,” said AfafNasher, the Cair-NY executive director.
Guilbeault’s former employer, the public relations and marketing firm D Pagan Communications, wrote on X it is aware of her actions and “don’t condone this behavior”.
Source:yahoo.com
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/york-woman-pepper-sprayed-muslim-205634052.html
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Mass displacement of pregnant women requires mobilization of maternal health services in Lebanon, Syria
30 October 2024
BEIRUT, Lebanon/ DAMASCUS, Syria – More than 11,000 pregnant women have been impacted by the escalated bombardment of Lebanon. Some 1,300 of them are expected to give birth in the next month, even as an estimated one quarter of the country’s infrastructure has been destroyed. The health system, already stretched before the current crisis, has been pushed to the brink – some 100 primary healthcare centres and dispensaries have closed, as have multiple hospitals.
The crisis in Lebanon has “taken on an entirely different nature and scale,” the United Nations Secretary-General said last week, uprooting over a million people, many of whom have crossed the border into also-embattled Syria.
When shelling began in southern Lebanon, "we didn’t know where to go,” Soumaia told UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. “We had no family, no friends to turn to.”
She and her husband fled with their eight children – and Soumaia was pregnant at the time. Together, they headed towards Syria, a journey that took four days with little food, only to find the borders closed.
It took days more before they were able to enter the country, then transit to a shelter in Al-Horjelah in rural Damascus.
It was there she experienced a stillbirth: “I woke up in the middle of the night with sharp pain and cramps. When I went to the bathroom, I realized that something was wrong. I was in my fifth month of pregnancy, and my baby was gone."
Soumaia was rushed to the maternity hospital, where doctors were able to remove the placenta and manage her bleeding. "Losing my baby in the midst of all this chaos felt like the final blow," she said.
Displaced again and again
A majority – some 52 per cent – of those internally displaced within Lebanon are women and girls. Dania* is among them. She has been forced to relocate three times since the crisis began – twice while pregnant.
The first time, she fled her home in Kfarkila on the southern Lebanese border, in November 2023. She was four months pregnant at the time, and air strikes in their village were escalating. She, her husband and their 4-year-old son moved in with friends in Nabatieh. Later, they moved in with Dania’s relatives, who had also been displaced. In May of 2024, she gave birth to a baby girl, Aya, by Caesarean section, at the Sheikh Raheb Hospital.
“Nabatieh was then attacked in September. We were in survival mode and had to evacuate again immediately, but we had no idea where to go, and had already spent all of our savings,” Dania said.
“When the first airstrike hit, it was so close,” she recalled. “My husband had taken my son for a walk outside, and for a few minutes, I thought they were dead. My first instinct was to grab Aya from my sister, as if she was somehow safer in my arms, and run towards the door to find the rest of my family. I didn’t realize I had gone temporarily deaf, and couldn’t hear my mother shouting, ‘They’re right outside the house, you can see them from that window’.”
The family left Nabatieh for Beirut, where they moved into the Basta Middle School, a temporary shelter housing dozens of families.
“We are now sharing a classroom with my husband’s brother and his family of three,” Dania told UNFPA. Baby Aya, now 6 months old, is the youngest person at the shelter – but not for long. Two more shelter residents are pregnant.
Shoring up health services
UNFPA is supporting maternal health services for displaced pregnant women at 30 hospitals across Lebanon. This support includes covering the costs of procedures and providing medicines and supplies for safe deliveries and emergency obstetric care. Supplies, contraceptives and reproductive health medicines have also been delivered to 70 primary healthcare centers in Akkar, Aley, Chouf, Saida, Sour, Tripoli and Zahle.
UNFPA is also deploying medical mobile units to shelters throughout the country to conduct needs assessments, provide basic healthcare services, and provide referrals for additional care. Refresher training on emergency obstetric care for staff at government hospitals has also been provided, helping healthcare providers recognize danger signs in pregnancy, identify reproductive health infections and prescribe contraception.
UNFPA is also supporting health and psychosocial services in Syria, including through partners such as the Syrian Family Planning Association.
Soumaia, in Al-Horjelah shelter received support from the Syrian Family Planning Association after her tragic stillbirth.
"They gave me vitamins and painkillers, as well as a hygiene kit. They also gave medicine and nutrition for my children," Soumaia recalls. "I didn’t even have clothes for myself or my children. But they contacted other organizations and helped secure what we needed."
She also received psychosocial support to address her grief. "The psychologist listened to me. She didn’t rush me or judge me. For the first time since all of this happened, I felt heard."
Source:unfpa.org
https://www.unfpa.org/news/mass-displacement-pregnant-women-requires-mobilization-maternal-health-services-lebanon-syria
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My fight for academic freedom for every Iranian woman
by Dr. Koshk Jan
October 30 2024
This story is not about me. It is about all Iranian women. It is about all women who face harassment, repression and censorship for pursuing their human right of education.
I was born in Bardsir, Iran in Kerman province. At age 18, I decided to continue my education at a university in political science. Most of my family friends warned against it. They told me that this is a completely male-dominated major, and I wouldn’t be able to find a job.
They told me to become a physician or a surgeon. I knew as a doctor I would be able to help many people, but if I became a specialist in political science, religion and sociology, I would be able to help a nation.
I believe that without comprehending religion and its impact on our life, it is impossible to understand the political process in the Middle East, surely in Iran.
After completing my dissertation, I came back to Iran to teach at ShahidBahonar University of Kerman as a professor of political sociology and psychological politics. I encouraged my students to think critically about our world, to challenge their realities and to understand that there is nothing essential in our society. Even students from other departments within the university would come and sit in on my lectures, discussing social constructionism.
However, I continued to face intense suppression from Iranian security forces while teaching. During the seven years I taught there, I was prevented from being promoted to an associate professor, and I was blocked from pursuing tenure.
Later I joined the strike during the Women, Life, Freedom movement, a series of protests following the death of MahsaAmini in September 2022, who was arrested and detained by Iran’s “morality police” for failing to properly cover her hair and later died in police custody. I was the one of the only professors in Iran who shut down their classes in support of the protestors and young women.
I knew I was putting myself at risk, but I could not stay neutral in such a situation. This wasn’t new for me. Over the span of my seven years teaching in Iran, I was interrogated repeatedly by the Ministry of Intelligence in Kerman. Finally, I was fired according to the revolutionary court and the order of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence.
As a result of the protests, tens of thousands of protesters were arrested and hundreds were killed. Other professors, teachers, activists, lawyers, journalists were arrested, their homes were raided, and their loved ones were threatened.
But despite fears of going to jail, or worse, I, like many others, did not want to leave Iran.
When I walked down the street or went to my coffee shop, many young people, former students or others, recognised me. They would show their respect, support and solidarity. Students in Iran started to make my name as a hashtag on Twitter, and this encouraged me to continue fighting; to stay and to resist.
Eventually, the situation became too dangerous – not just for me but for my family, and particularly my parents. When I realised I could no longer teach, write, or continue my academic work, I knew it was time to leave Iran. I started applying for scholarships and I found IIE’s Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF). IIE-SRF not only enabled me to continue my career and my life, but it gave me the opportunity to represent the voice of Iranian women.
The program arranges, funds, and supports fellowships for threatened and displaced scholars at partnering higher education institutions worldwide. Since 2002, IIE-SRF has supported 1,134 scholars from 62 countries in partnership with 511 host institutions in 59 countries, including my own.
In May 2023, I was awarded the IIE-SRF fellowship, and I am currently undertaking my fellowship appointment at the University of Chicago as a visiting assistant professor of political sociology.
Here, I teach political sociology and sociology of religion to graduate and undergraduate students. Since being here, I have submitted more papers to American political science journals, as well as my new book proposal. Last spring, I taught a course on political religion and the university graciously provided me with a Zoom link so my former students in Iran and Europe could join.
Although I am no longer living in Iran, I still feel deeply connected to my former students and all Iranian women fighting for their rights. Even in the wake of the protests in 2022, we continue to witness horrific violence against women and young girls who want an education.
Beginning in January 2023, there were a series of chemical attacks, deliberate poisoning and targeting girls’ schools in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign to punish them for removing their mandatory hijabs during the 2022 protests.
In September 2023, the Iranian parliament approved a draft Hijab and Chastity Bill with 70 articles proposing additional penalties, such as fines, increased prison terms up to 10 years for expressing opposition to hijab regulations, and restrictions on job and educational opportunities for hijab violations.
In my classes and beyond, my greatest advice for all of my students and for all Iranian women around the world is to read, read, read! If we want to have any impact on our society, we must be equipped with the knowledge and analytical skills to fight oppressive systems. I want my students to know they have the right to learn. They have the right to move and grow. They have the right to promote their knowledge. This is the way we will break dictatorship systems. Education is the pathway to freedom.
I will always advocate for women’s academic freedom and liberation, and encourage my fellow teachers, Iranians, and citizens of the world to do the same. This past year, I was honoured to be named the IIE-SRF Beau Biden Scholar. Thanks to IIE-SRF, I have the opportunity to continue to share my knowledge with other women and fight for our economic, political, psychological, religious and social freedom in Iran and around the world.
https://thepienews.com/fight-for-academic-freedom-iranian-women/
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