First Woman Moves Supreme Court Against Triple Talaq LawThat Criminalises the Practice of Granting Instant Divorce
New Age Islam News Bureau
8
Jul 2020
• Bar-Ilan
University Appoints, Prof. Elinor Saiegh-Haddad, First Arab Female Full
Professor
• Dubai Now
Has Region's First Female Public Bus Drivers
• UAE: Is It Safe
for Pregnant Women to Use Hand Sanitisers?
• WhatsApp
Number Launched In Dubai To Help Women Beat Covid Blues
• Syrian
Families In Turkey Marrying Off ‘Underage Daughters For Money Amid Coronavirus
Crisis’, Campaigners Warn
• Saudi Arabia
Calls for Stronger Links Between UN Women And GCC
• Iranian Authorities
Move to Block Release of Female Rights Activists
• Turkish Women
Not Represented Enough in Politics: CHP Leader
Compiled ByNew
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/first-woman-moves-supreme-court/d/122320
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First Woman
Moves Supreme Court Against Triple Talaq Law That Criminalises the Practice of
Granting Instant Divorce
Abraham Thomas
Jul 08, 2020
In August
2017, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had declared the practice of
talaq-e-biddat (a heretical form of divorce based on a husband pronouncing
divorce thrice in quick succession) as unconstitutional. (Biplov Bhuyan/HT
PHOTO)
----
A Kerala
lawyer has moved the Supreme Court against a law that criminalises the practice
of granting instant divorce becoming the first Muslim woman to do so since
Parliament passed the legislation in 2019.
Noorbeena
Rasheed on July 6 challenged the Protection of Rights on Marriage Act, which
provides for a three-year punishment for talaq-e-biddat, a practise also
referred to as Triple Talaq, which is practised among a small section of
Muslims in the country. “The protection of women cannot be achieved by
incarceration of husbands,” her petition stated.
Issuing a
notice to the Centre, a bench of three justices led by N V Ramana on Monday
admitted Rasheed’s petition, which will be heard with nine similar pleas
challenging the law’s validity. The other petitioners include organisations
like Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Muslim Advocates
Association, and two individuals. The petitions have called the law
disproportionate as well as excessive and stringent and sought that the court
hold it unconstitutional. A date for hearing these petitions has not been
listed as yet.
The law was
passed in July 2019 after intense debates in both the lower and upper houses of
the Parliament, with opposition parties stating that the law targeted the
Muslim community even as the centre asserted that the law would help achieve
gender justice for Muslim women.
Rasheed’s
petition questions provisions of the law including one which allows relatives
of the women to file complaints. The petition stated that this provision could
potentially destroy marital relationships in case of false complaint. “This
provision is highly detrimental not only to the wife but also to the marital
relationship.”
Her petition
also sought clarification from the Centre on the assessment that underlies
incarcerating Muslim men for divorcing women. “Welfare-oriented legislation
would promote amicable resolution of matrimonial disputes rather than
criminalise marital discord, particularly criminalisation of only one
community…the intent behind the Act is not abolition of triple talaq [instant
divorce] but punishment of Muslim husbands,” her petition said.
Rasheed’s lawyer,
Zulfikar Ali, said they want to highlight how the law will be detrimental to
the interests of Muslim women, which it seeks to protect.” He added Rasheed is
also the national general secretary of the Indian Union Women’s League, which
he described as the country’s largest Muslim women organisation affiliated to
the Kerala-based Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). IUML has
three members in Parliament’s lower House, or Lok Sabha.
In August
2017, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had declared the practice of
talaq-e-biddat (a heretical form of divorce based on a husband pronouncing
divorce thrice in quick succession) as unconstitutional. The practice is banned
in most Muslim countries including Pakistan.
The verdict
came on a petition of five Muslim women, including lead petitioner ShayaraBano,
who were abandoned after their husbands pronounced instant divorce.
The Centre
initially issued an ordinance after the verdict to criminalise the practice of
triple talaq for the want of majority in Parliament’s upper house, or Rajya
Sabha, before bringing the law.
The law makes
the practice a cognisable offence. An offence of such a nature allows the
police to carry out arrests without a warrant. Serious crimes such as theft,
rape, and murder are also cognisable offences.
In its
petition, Jamiat-Ulama-I-Hind has said there are graver offences like rioting
and bribery under the Indian Penal Code for which there is a lesser punishment
than instant divorce.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/1st-woman-moves-sc-over-triple-talaq-law/story-GDNz12PC0SSXEXNrNZWm0O.html
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Bar-Ilan
University Appoints, Prof. Elinor Saiegh-Haddad, First Arab Female Full
Professor
By AARON
REICH
JULY 7, 2020
Bar-Ilan
University has appointed Prof. Elinor Saiegh-Haddad as their first Arab female
full professor.
Saiegh-Haddad
boasts a stellar resume as a former department chairwoman, distinguished
scholar and experienced lecturer, and has become one of the very few Arab women
to hold this position at Israeli universities. In addition, she also serves as
a senior adviser to various organizations in Israel and around the world, such
as UNESCO, the chief scientist in the Education Ministry, the National
Authority for Measurement and Evaluation and the Center for Educational Technology.
She is a member of the Arabic Language Academy, is the head of a number of
committees and proceedings to develop curricula and to enable teachers to
identify children with reading difficulties and to implement appropriate
intervention, is on the editorial board of a number of international journals
and is a mentor to graduate students at universities abroad.
Working in
Bar-Ilan's Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Saiegh-Haddad's
work specializes in developmental psycholinguistics and language acquisition,
especially on the impact linguistic distance of speech and print languages has
on literacy acquisition.
Much of her
work has sought to answer specific questions, such as understanding the scope
of language disparity between Standard Arabic and its many spoken dialects when
seen through a developmental psycholinguistic lens, and how this affects a
child's language and reading acquisition. It is topics such as this, as well as
studying dyslexia and developmental language disorder in Arabic-speaking
children, that particularly engage Saiegh-Haddad.
Indeed,
Saiegh-Haddad was actually the first scholar to attempt to quantify the
linguistic difference between spoken and standard Arabic in children's
vocabulary. This groundbreaking research is important for teaching the Arabic
language as well as in attempting to diagnose reading and developmental
language impairments in children, and has paved the way for further research on
the subject.
Having
published numerous articles on the topic in several leading international
academic journals as well as several reports and books, Saiegh-Haddad is now
pushing forward with her research backed by several new research grants,
including two from the Education Ministry. The first grant is for developing an
early intervention program for Arabic-speaking preschool children and to train
teachers in implementing the program with a thousand children in northern and
central Israel. The second grant will allow her to examine how diglossia
affects reading development. She has also been given grants from the Israel
Science Foundation to examine how diglossia affects linguistic development
through childhood into adulthood, as well as a similar grant from the Arabic
Language Academy in Israel.
Saiegh-Haddad
has also recently submitted a large-scale research grant proposal to the US
National Institutes of Health (NIH) in order to track the role of diglossia in
reading development in Arabic, as well as examine statistical and computational
models alongside US researchers= to better understand the factors that govern
reading success in Arabic.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/bar-ilan-university-appoints-first-full-time-arab-professor-634178
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Dubai now has
region's first female public bus drivers
July 06, 2020
Ashfaq Ahmed
RTA has
employed the first female public bus drivers in the region.
Image Credit:
Courtesy: RTA
------
Dubai: After
female taxi drivers, Dubai now has the first female bus drivers in the region.
The Roads and
Transport Authority (RTA) in Dubai revealed on Monday that it had recruited the
first batch of three female bus drivers for deployment on the internal bus
network, making Dubai the first city in the Middle East to take this
initiative.
RTA currently
has 165 female taxi drivers, 41 female limousine chauffeurs, and one female
school bus driver. The three female bus drivers started driving passenger buses
from July 3 on different routes in Dubai.
“This
initiative goes with the best global practices of employing female drivers
along with male drivers. The step creates job opportunities for women in a
field dominated by men,” said Ahmed Hashim Bahrozyan, CEO of the RTA’s Public
Transport Agency. He observed that the initiative would further promote the
culture of using public transport in the community with better services for
commuters.
“RTA is always
keen to continue its pioneering efforts. The initiative of employing female bus
drivers is unprecedented in the Middle East region. The step is also in line
with the RTA’s principle of empowering women and achieving gender balance
across various jobs,” he noted.
RTA has
deployed the drivers on three routes:
The first is
the circular Route 77 linking Baniyas, Deira City Centre, Dubai International
Airport Terminal 1 and Terminal 3.
The second is
Route F36; a Metro link service that runs between Mall of the Emirates, Dubai
Science Park and Al Barsha South.
The third is
Route F70, which is also a Metro link service, that shuttles between Burjuman,
Bur Dubai and Al Fahidi.
https://gulfnews.com/uae/dubai-now-has-regions-first-female-public-bus-drivers-1.72443515
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UAE: Is It
Safe for Pregnant Women to Use Hand Sanitisers?
July 08, 2020
How safe are
alcohol hand rubs for pregnancy?
Image Credit:
Supplied
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It’s been
drummed into all of our heads by now: the best way to kill the new Coronavirus
and prevent its spread during the pandemic is to wash our hands frequently with
soap and water, or to use a hand sanitiser that contains at least 60% alcohol.
Sales of
alcohol-based hand rubs (ABHRs) and related products have skyrocketed as a
result, rising by more than 800% compared to last year’s figures in the US,
while the increase in demand has led to rationing in some parts of the world
and price hikes as manufacturers work to keep up with the surge in demand.
But as
companies start pumping out new product at an unprecedented speed, the
chemicals that such sanitisers contain have come under scrutiny, with Dubai
Municipality recalling six different hand sanitiser brands for containing
methanol, a type of alcohol that’s known to be highly toxic and hazardous to
human health.
While approved
alcohol-based hand rubs (ABHRs) do not contain methanol, their active
ingredients are usually ethanol or isopropanol - potent alcohols that have been
proven to be strong enough to kill the Coronavirus that causes Covid-19 when
applied for more than 30 seconds.
But, while we
may want them to be strong enough to kill the virus, are such powerful
chemicals totally safe for pregnant women?
Could
alcohol-based hand rubs (ABHRs) harm my growing baby?
In normal
times, hand sanitisers are used so infrequently that you'd probably never
seriously consider their potentially negative effects. But during this
pandemic, use of alcohol-based hand rubs has become almost a nervous tic for
many of us. “A pregnant woman may worry about the use of alcohol-based hand
sanitisers, thinking that the alcohol can get absorbed through her skin and
inhaled through her nose when using it,” says Dr Deemah Salem, Specialist in
Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Genesis Healthcare Center in Dubai, “and we do
know that ingestion of alcohol results in high levels of alcohol in the blood
stream, which then crosses the placenta and causes teratogenic effects (harmful
to fetal development)."
However,
topical application of alcohol is very different from drinking it, says Dr
Salem: “Absorption through the skin and inhalation through the nose are
definitely not the same as ingesting it by drinking it and result in different
blood alcohol levels.”
A 2011 study
looked at whether frequent use of hand sanitiser could trigger a positive
screen for alcohol use in certain types of tests and found that, in some cases,
biomarkers for alcohol could be detected in the urine of the study participants
(who had used hand sanitiser every five minutes for a 10-hour period for three
days in a row). This is because many of the hand sanitisers contain ethyl
alcohol, which is the same type of alcohol in alcoholic beverages, says Gary
Reisfield, MD, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry with the
UF College of Medicine. “The body does not distinguish between drinking alcohol
and handwash alcohol. Anyone out there who is required to abstain from alcohol
needs to be very cognisant about alcohol that may be hidden in products such as
handwashing gels, mouthwashes, hairsprays and cosmetics. You need to be careful
not just what you put in your body but what you put on your body.”
However, the
level of detectable alcohol is so low that it would not pose any risk to the
health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child, says Genesis Clinic’s Dr Salem.
“The limited studies that were done showed that the amount of alcohol absorbed
through the skin as well as from inhalation resulted, at most, to blood alcohol
levels comparable to drinking non-alcoholic beverages, which are extremely low
levels. With this said, it is very unlikely that these small concentrations
will cause teratogenicity for the developing fetus and using alcohol-based hand
sanitisers are safe.”
This is
supported by research announced in 2017, which was undertaken in response to
the US Federal Drug Association’s (FDA) request for more data on the safety of
alcohol rubs, and concluded that pregnant and breastfeeding healthcare workers
are well within safe exposure limits and can use alcohol hand rubs without risk
to foetus or baby. “The internal doses of ethanol associated with frequent use
of hand sanitizers and scrubs are hundreds of times lower than the
concentration that might be related to [reproductive] developmental effects,”
said Andrew Maier, PhD, CIH, DABT, associate professor of environmental health
at the University of Cincinnati. “That is good news. Based on this, there is no
significant risk of developmental reproductive [effects] from repeated use of
these types of materials. The exposure that one can get from using these
products is way below the concentrations that cause these kinds of effects.”
Benefits
versus risks
While some
experts have pointed out that there is no established safety threshold for
fetal alcohol syndrome, the benefits of pregnant women using alcohol hand rubs
to safeguard against Coronavirus and other infections far outweigh this risk,
and there is no need to limit the use of alcohol-based hand sanitisers, says Dr
Salem: “Based on what we know, it is not advisable to limit the use of the
alcohol based hand sanitisers by pregnant women. Doing so may actually cause
more harm by increasing the chances of infection by having contaminated hands.
And the consequences of infection in a pregnant mum can be detrimental. We
would make the same recommendations to pregnant women as we would to the
general public and that is that proper hand washing with soapy water for at
least 20 seconds is key in prevention of the spread of the novel Coronavirus,
and if soap and water are not available and the hands are not visibly soiled,
an alcohol based hand sanitiser (containing at least 60% alcohol) is a safe and
effective alternative.”
Careful
handwashing with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds is still the gold
standard when it comes to best hand hygiene practice against the Coronavirus,
according to the World Health Organisation, but this is because it is more
effective at removing dirt, bacteria and viruses, not because of health
concerns about alcohol-based sanitisers, says Dr Salem: “Soap and water remain
to be preferable to hand sanitisers because hand sanitisers may not completely
clean the hands when they are visibly dirty or greasy. Hand sanitisers are only
used as a quick alternative if water and soap are not available.”
Nevertheless,
ingesting alcohol hand rubs by mouth can cause alcohol poisoning, so it’s
important to keep such products out of the reach of children and ensure they
are monitored when using them.
It’s also
worth noting that the research into the effectiveness of ABHRs against
SARS-CoV-2 (the Coronavirus that causes Covid-19) found that they are able to
inactivate the virus only when there was exposure for at least 30 seconds or
more, so make sure you’re using them for the required amount of time.
https://gulfnews.com/parenting/pregnancy-baby/uae--covid-19-is-it-safe-for-pregnant-women-to-use-hand-sanitisers-1.1592889671386
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WhatsApp
Number Launched In Dubai To Help Women Beat Covid Blues
July 6, 2020
A number of
psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists will be available on the ReacHer
platform.
A mental
health chat-line launched in Dubai on Monday will help women overcome
challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. 'ReacHer' offers consultation
services for women to "enhance" their "contributions across
familial, social and economic roles", the Government of Dubai Media Office
said.
Women can get
in touch with mental health practitioners via WhatsApp on 050-4068222. Sessions
can then progress to telephone or video-conference calls if deemed necessary.
"All inquiries, conversations and identities involved in any interaction
with practitioners will abide by strict confidentiality clauses to ensure
women's complete privacy," the media office said.
Launched by Al
Manal Humanitarian Initiative, the initiative will be carried out in
partnership with the Dubai Healthcare City (DHCC). A number of psychologists,
psychiatrists and therapists will be available on the ReacHer platform.
Al Manal
Humanitarian Initiative will also be hosting routine life-coaching sessions by
certified life coaches like Amal Alotaibi, Jehan Safar, Huda Al Ali and Layal
Taher.
Sheikha Manal
bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of the UAE Gender Balance
Council, President of Dubai Women Establishment and President of Dubai Ladies
Club, said: "The initiative will support any woman in need of guidance
during this time, given that their mental and emotional wellbeing is a social
and economic priority that falls within the framework of the UAE's commitment
to empower all members of society."
She also
thanked the mental healthy practitioners who volunteered their time and efforts
to the initiative.
Mona Al Marri,
Vice-President of the UAE Gender Balance Council and Chairperson of the Dubai
Women Establishment Board of Directors, said the initiative is a
"continuation of the philanthropic projects carried out by Al Manal
Humanitarian Initiative since its launch in 2013".
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/coronavirus-pandemic/whatsapp-number-launched-in-dubai-to-help-women-beat-covid-blues
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Syrian
Families In Turkey Marrying Off ‘Underage Daughters For Money Amid Coronavirus
Crisis’, Campaigners Warn
Maya Oppenheim
Jul 7, 2020
Increasing
numbers of Syrian families are marrying off their underage daughters to Turkish
men for money in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, campaigners warned.
A damning
report by ECPAT, a network of organisations that strives to end the sexual
exploitation of children, said it is an “economic coping mechanism” for Syrian
families who have no other way to earn money or afford food for their children.
The study,
which was shared exclusively with The Independent, notes Turkey has the highest
number of child refugees in the world and argues they are highly vulnerable to
forced marriage, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation.
EzgiYaman,
secretary general of ECPAT Turkey, said: “We have heard of cases where Syrian
families are selling their daughters to marry — either formally or informally —
Turkish men. Sometimes to be a second or third wife of a man. This is to get
rid of them. To have one less plate at the table. The families are also getting
money to help them pay for rent. We heard several cases where the family
couldn’t afford to pay the rent to the landlord, so they say: ‘We are giving
you our daughter’.
“At the
Turkish landlord’s house, sometimes the daughters live in servitude and it is
labour exploitation but most cases also involve sexual exploitation. And
sometimes the landlord unofficially marries the Syrian daughter. We can’t
provide statistics because they are happening unofficially. Also even if the
family doesn’t want it to happen, they are underreporting incidents due to
being afraid of losing their legal documents or legal status. They don’t want
to go back to Syria.
“The Turkish
government does not collect data on Syrian girls being married to Turkish men
or on child trafficking. Under Covid-19, it has been hard to reach children
from Syrian families. At least they were going to school before, where there
were protection measures and teachers could report issues to us. Domestic
violence, sexual violence and child exploitation have increased during
coronavirus because of chaos and people having less money and because everyone
is at home all the time during the lockdown.”
The
coronavirus lockdown in Turkey ended on 10 June and shops, restaurants and
cafes are now open there, although bars and clubs remain closed.
The report
draws attention to a law that was first debated in the Turkish parliament in
January that would allow men accused of having sex with girls who are under 18
to get suspended sentences if they marry their victims and ther= age gap
between them is less than 10 years. Researchers warn the legislation could
leave female refugees in the country at particular risk.
Ms Yaman
argued the legislation, which has been dubbed the so-called “marry-your-rapist”
bill, is likely to be brought back to parliament at some point but she could not
give a firm date.
“Many NGOs
stood up against it but they delayed it,” she added. “Possibly because of
coronavirus. We have no idea when it will be brought back. The bill will allow
rapists to marry the children who they rape. It will cause more damage to
victims of rape and child sexual exploitation. It is also a big risk for
children in the wider population who are not refugees. It goes against the
human rights of children and against human rights conventions.”
The report
warns the bill legitimises child marriage, statutory rape and gives
perpetrators impunity. A similar bill was defeated in Turkey in 2016 after
national and global outrage. The legislation would have only pardoned men if
they had sex without “force or threat”.
Selen Dogan,
of Flying Broom, a women’s non-governmental organisation based in Ankara in
Turkey, told The Independent: “Before the Turkish Panel Code amendment in 2005,
rape against women and girl children had been ‘rewarded’ by marriage. This
means; when more than one person raped a woman, if one of them marries that
woman, the punishment of others is forgiven.
“Feminist
organisations and activists struggled a lot to change this primitive law. In
the end, the law was largely amended by the demands of women’s organisations in
2005. Today, the acquisitions, like this and so on, of women’s movements are
taken away from us. Child marriage is a consequence of gender inequality, which
is infected by conservatism.”
As of April
2020, almost four million refugees lived in Turkey, of which 3.6 million were
estimated to have fled war-ravaged Syrian. The report warns the sexual
exploitation of Syrian children in Turkey is not only massively underreported
but is barely reported at all to the authorities despite underage girls likely
to be among victims.
The report
explains an issue linked to child, early and forced marriage in Turkey is that
many of these marriages are “only religious ceremonies known as Nikah
marriages”.
“These
marriages are not recognised as official marriages by the Turkish state and
therefore Syrian girls and women married in this way are not entitled to rights
and legal protections, leaving them vulnerable to maltreatment and abuse,” the
report adds. “Interviews with Syrian women who were married in Turkish refugee
camps as children highlighted that many Syrian girls forced into these
marriages are ‘exploited in every way’ and in some cases, families of the men
who have ‘married’ these children feel entitled to be able to exploit them as
well.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/syria-underage-daughters-marriage-coronavirus-turkish-men-a9606706.html
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Saudi Arabia
Calls for Stronger Links Between UN Women And GCC
June 27, 2020
JEDDAH: Saudi
Arabia has called for greater cooperation between UN Women (the UN Entity for
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment) and Gulf Cooperation Council
countries, in a bid to further implement the UN Women 2018-2021 strategic plan.
The Kingdom
made the statement at a virtual annual meeting of the UN Women executive board.
“The extraordinary
circumstances of 2020 posed a challenge to the progress made in regard to the
achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the empowerment of
women and girls,” Saudi Arabia’s Permanent Mission to the UN said.
It added: “As
the current Women 20 (W20) Presidency, Saudi Arabia’s theme of ‘Putting Women
at the Heart of the G20’ adds to the pillars of labor inclusion, financial
inclusion and digital inclusion that have been introduced by previous G20
presidencies — a fourth pillar of inclusion in decision making.”
As the current
Arab Women’s Committee Presidency, Saudi Arabia “stresses women’s empowerment
in the Arab world, with a focus on the 2030 agenda for sustainable development
and the follow-up to the recommendations of the ministerial conference on
women’s empowerment and its impact on social development.
“As a member
of the executive board of the UN Women and the Commission on the Status of
Women, Saudi Arabia reaffirms the importance of ensuring that UN Women is
responsive to the needs and priorities of recipient countries.
“As such, for
the work of UN Women to achieve concrete and lasting results, there needs to be
a stronger level of collaboration and coordination with these countries, taking
into account their national interests, development priorities, and the support
they need; and stresses taking into account lessons learned so far from
COVID-19, to ensure better preparedness in the event that similar crises occur
in the future,” the Saudi mission said.
The statement
added: “We all perceive the significance of 2020 as it marks milestone
anniversaries for the UN and women, be it the UN 75th anniversary, the 10th
anniversary of UN Women, the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on
Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995),
and the 20th anniversary of UN General Assembly resolution 1325, not to mention
the 10-year countdown to the Sustainable Development Goals. In short, it is a
pivotal year for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.”
Referring to
the coronavirus outbreak, the statement said: “A lesson learned from the
coronavirus pandemic is that addressing the health crisis as well as the
socioeconomic impacts of this pandemic, particularly on women and girls, and
especially as we enter the Decade of Action of the Sustainable Development
Goals, requires system-wide approaches and further collaboration between
relevant UN agencies, as well as stronger regional and international
partnerships.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1695941/saudi-arabia
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Iranian
Authorities Move to Block Release of Female Rights Activists
Kate Hodal
30 Jun 2020
Female human
rights activists imprisoned in Iran are facing a slew of new charges to prevent
them from being temporarily released because of the Covid-19 epidemic, rights
groups say.
Since Covid-19
spread rapidly through the country in early March, Iranian authorities have
been under pressure to release all prisoners who pose no risk to society.
Around 85,000 prisoners were temporarily released under a furlough scheme
earlier this year in response to the coronavirus outbreak, half of whom were
believed to be political detainees.
Yet dozens of
women’s rights activists remain in prisons across the country, with groups
including the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) accusing authorities of
deliberately rendering them ineligible for release by bringing new charges.
Those considered “security prisoners” with sentences of more than five years
were automatically denied furlough.
NargesMohammadi,
one of Iran’s best-known women’s rights defenders, was jailed for 16 years in
2015 after she campaigned to abolish the death penalty. Mohammadi’s family and
the GCHR say that she has been denied furlough and charged with “dancing in
prison during the days of mourning to commemorate the murder of the Shia Imam
Hussein” – a charge the family dismissed as absurd.
It is feared
that Mohammadi could face another five years in prison and 74 lashes as a
result of the new charges, which include “collusion against the regime”,
“propaganda against the regime” and the crime of “insult”.
AtenaDaemi,
32, a women’s rights activist and anti-death penalty campaigner, was expected
to be furloughed on 4 July, but is facing additional charges that make her ineligible
for the scheme.
Already
serving a sentence for disseminating anti-death penalty leaflets, she now faces
a further 25 months in prison for writing a letter criticising the execution of
political prisoners. Her family say that she is also facing additional charges
for “disturbing order” at Evin prison by chanting anti-government slogans, a
claim she denies.
Saba
KordAfshari, 22, who was jailed for nine years in 2019 for not wearing a
headscarf, has had her sentence increased to 24 years.
“It’s no surprise
that intelligence agents and judicial officials in Iran are zealously working
to put women’s rights activists behind bars and keep them there for as long as
possible,” said Jasmin Ramsey of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in
Iran. “Women are on the frontlines of struggles for rights and equality in
Iran, as shown by the multiple political prisoners who continue to speak out
for the rights of others from inside jail cells.
“By going so
far as to alter the judicial process with the hopes of muzzling these prisoners
under lengthy jail sentences, Iranian judicial and intelligence officials are
revealing how desperate they are to prevent women from taking on more
leadership roles.”
Nassim
Papayianni, Amnesty International’s Iran campaigner, said that adding fresh
charges is commonly used to silence detainees, particularly when they have
campaigned from behind bars.
Increasing
numbers of female activists have been arrested in recent years and given
lengthy sentences for criticising or challenging state policies by advocating
human and civil rights.
US-based
journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, who started the White Wednesdays
campaign against mandatory veiling, said the increasing number of charges
levelled against female activists like Afshari proved how desperate the Iranian
state had become.
“For years and
years, we had the fear inside us. And now women are fearless. They want to be
warriors and that scares the government,” she said.
“In the
Islamic Republic, we don’t have freedom of expression, we don’t have free
parties or free media or free choice. They can shut down NGOs and political
parties and newspapers but they can’t go after every person who becomes an
activist or a movement themselves, who become their own saviours instead of
waiting for someone to save them.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jun/30/iranian-authorities-move-to-block-release-of-female-rights-activists
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Turkish women
not represented enough in politics: CHP leader
June 29 2020
Women in Turkey
are not adequately represented in the Turkish political system and civil
society associations should impose pressure to secure at least a one third
quota through an amendment of the Law on the Political Parties, the leader of
the main opposition party has said.
“We implement
a 33.3 percent quota for women representation in our party. But women
associations should pursue their struggle for the introduction of the 33.3
quota into the Law on the Political Parties. Then all the parties will be
obliged to implement the gender quota,” Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the
Republican People’s Party (CHP), said at a meeting with the members of the
ŞerifeBacı Women Platform over the weekend.
Women are
still denied from social and political life by certain groups who dislike
women’s visibility in daily life, Kılıçdaroğlu said, stressing this can only be
defeated through a continued endeavor by women’s organizations.
The CHP leader
recalled that Turkish women are very effectively active in the academic life
and elsewhere but it’s hard to suggest that their organization is not at a
desired level.
“But it would
also be wrong if we would suggest that ‘Women have no name.’ They sure have.
But their weight in politics is not sufficient. The most important reason to
that is the fact that the political arena is highly corrupted and the corrupted
climate does not allow women to do politics,” he said.
That’s why a
law on political parties should be legislated and politics need to be cleared
of the corruption, Kılıçdaroğlu added.
“Both women
and youth may enter politics if politics develops on the moral basis. I wish
all women can unite on certain objectives and act together,” he added.
https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-women-not-represented-enough-in-politics-chp-leader-156110
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/first-woman-moves-supreme-court/d/122320