‘I Am Not Afraid To Fight’: The Female Afghan Colonel, Saba Sahar, Who Survived The Taliban's Assassins
New
Age Islam News Bureau
24
December 2020
• Hasna Abu Bakr, Who Administered Minister of Health Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah Vaccine Shot, Shares Her Delight
•
In Turkey, JIN News Fights For Women's and Journalists' Rights
•
Seven Held over Child Marriage in Chitral, Pakistan
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/i-am-afraid-fight-female/d/123868
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‘I
Am Not Afraid To Fight’: The Female Afghan Colonel, Saba Sahar, Who Survived
The Taliban's Assassins
Ruchi
Kumar
Thu
24 Dec 2020
Sahar was shot five times in an attack by
insurgents. She believes the attack was an attempt to ‘silence’ her.
Photograph: Farzana Wahidy/The Guardian
-----
It
was just after 7am when the car carrying Colonel Saba Sahar, one of
Afghanistan’s most senior female police officers, came under fire from armed
insurgents. In the back seat, Sahar’s four-year-old daughter began screaming as
bullets shattered the windscreen and ripped into the upholstery. As she pushed
her child under the seat in front of her, Sahar saw three men carrying AK-47
assault rifles, firing as they approached the car.
In
the front of the car her bodyguard and driver had both been hit and were badly
injured and unconscious. Looking down, Sahar saw blood seeping through her
clothing. “It took me another moment to realise I’d been shot too,” she says.
She knew that she only had minutes to try to save her daughter. “They were five
or six metres away, and they were moving closer to the car, still firing. They
would have killed my child,” she says. Bleeding heavily from five shots to her
stomach, Sahar reached forward, grabbed the gun from her slumped bodyguard and
started returning fire.
Meanwhile,
a few blocks away, Sahar’s husband, Emal Zaki, was getting their older children
ready for school when he heard the gunfire. Wondering whether she could see
what was happening on the road ahead, he dialled his wife’s number while he
helped his children tie their school shoes.
“When
she picked up the phone she was still firing at the insurgents,” he says.
Through the sound of cracking bullets, Sahar screamed that she was injured and
told him to call for help. By the time he reached her car a few minutes later,
the gunmen had fled. He found his wife clutching the gun in one hand and their
daughter in the other. “I have never seen so much blood in my life,” he says.
Dragging
the bodyguard and driver into the family car, they sped through the streets to
the hospital. “My wife stayed conscious until she was sure our daughter was
safe and then she passed out,” says Zaki.
Sahar
knows she is lucky to be alive.
In
September, just a few weeks after the attack, the US embassy in Kabul warned
that Afghan women in public roles were at increasing risk of being targeted by
extremist groups, particularly women working for the government and armed
forces.
This
year eight policewomen have been targeted in similar attacks. Six have died.
In
July, 23-year-old Fatima Faizi, a police officer with the anti-narcotics squad,
was kidnapped by armed insurgents. Her mutilated body was found on the streets
weeks later. Just weeks before the attack on Sahar, another female police
officer was killed in Kunduz province by armed men who dragged her out of her
house and murdered her in front of her neighbours.
Speaking
from her hospital bed, Sahar says she was not surprised she had become a
target. Also famous as an actor and documentary filmmaker, in recent years she
has risen to become one of the most high-profile women in Afghanistan’s police
force, responsible for coordinating special units combating terrorism, drug
trafficking and criminal networks.
“I
am a very visible woman in public life and I have dedicated my life to working
on women’s rights and encouraging other women to join the security forces,” she
says. “Yet even now I am not afraid. Afghanistan has changed, and those
attacking and trying to silence us have to accept this.”
Since
the fall of the Taliban two decades ago, Afghanistan’s police forces have
become a focus of national and international efforts to create more visible
public roles for women. Yet few of the 4,080 women in Afghanistan’s security
services have risen up through the ranks. Many remain in backroom jobs, and
those who are out on the streets face harassment, abuse and discrimination.
Sahar
believes the recent attacks on women in the security services are part of a
wider campaign to silence progressive voices and undermine the precarious peace
talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban under way in Qatar.
In
early December, the Afghan government and the Taliban agreed framework rules
for peace talks after more than two months of discussions, allowing
negotiations on ending a nearly 20-year civil war to finally begin.
Yet
in Afghanistan, there has been a wave of bloodshed that has seen targeted
killings of journalists, human rights workers and activists.
According
to Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, 533 civilians were killed
and 412 others wounded in attacks in the first six months of 2020.
Against
this backdrop, women in the security forces are an obvious target.
“[The
armed groups] want to stop women from going for these jobs,” says Sahar. “Every
Afghan must be represented in the security services. In a country where men are
so dominant over every aspect of our lives, the more women we have in the
police, the more other women will be able to seek justice, protection and
support. We must resist.”
She
is aware that staying in Afghanistan might mean further attempts on her life.
“Leaving
my country has not even crossed my mind,” she says. “Why would I leave when my
struggle is here with my people? If I stay I can help work towards a peace with
the Taliban or I can fight as a solider of Afghanistan. I do not fear another
attack from them but I pray they come to us in peace. I am not afraid to fight
them again.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/24/i-am-not-afraid-to-fight-the-female-afghan-colonel-who-survived-the-talibans-assassins
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Hasna
Abu Bakr, Who Administered Minister of Health Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah Vaccine
Shot, Shares Her Delight
December
22, 2020
Hasna Abu Bakr'
------
RIYADH
— Hasna Abu Bakr's voice choked with emotions as she expressed her joy over
getting the unique opportunity to administer the COVID-19 vaccine shot to
Minister of Health Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah.
In
a ceremony held in the presence of print and visual media persons at the Riyadh
International Conference Center, Dr. Al-Rabiah received the first dose of the
vaccine on Thursday, thus becoming the first Saudi citizen to get vaccinated
against coronavirus.
Hasna
is a Saudi graduate of the Medical Care College in Riyadh affiliated with
Al-Yamamah University. In an interview with Al-Arabiya.net, Hasna, a laboratory
specialist, expressed the unique experience of giving the first shot to none
other than the minister of health himself. Hasna said she had no idea about it
until an hour before the launch of the vaccine injection process.
When
Hasna was informed about it, she felt very happy for the trust reposed in her.
“When the minister came, I felt a bit nervous, then I began to inject
confidence into myself believing that I am going to do my role and the VIP is
simply a normal patient.
Dr.
Al-Rabiah thanked and invited me and other members of the team one by one.”
“When I heard the words of encouragement from the minister, I was choked with
emotions and was not in a position as how to respond due to an overwhelming
feeling of joy. After administering the injection, I requested his permission
to take a picture with him, and he readily agreed to take a memorial snap,” she
said.
Hasna
said she specialized in clinical laboratories. “Laboratory specialists are
among the best medical practitioners to administer injections because they
specialize in jobs such as taking blood samples or performing blood donation
drives and they are involved in the process of determining the vein from which
blood is required to be drawn. Therefore the work is easy for any medical practitioner
just like an emergency doctor, staff nurse, or general practitioner, and all
those with these specialties can give an intramuscular injection,” she said.
Hasna
thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince Muhammad
Bin Salman for the great support and care for the Saudi people, and the concern
for the health of citizens and expatriates. “The Saudi leadership has given
Saudi women ample opportunities to prove themselves and their worth in various
fields in which they are excelling and are eventually becoming victorious. I
also thank my family, who are very supportive and helpful to me,” she said.
Hasna
affirmed: “It is enough for me to be proud that I have represented Saudi women
and women health practitioners who are capable of scoring remarkable
achievements and outstanding performances. Through this, they have conveyed to
the world that they are supportive of their society.”
According
to Hasna, there are thousands of citizens who brought their fathers and mothers
to take coronavirus vaccine doses, and these are the most beautiful pictures of
righteousness, altruism, and respect for parents, and this is what we have seen
during the period of continuous work in the field hospital, where work of
giving vaccines continues uninterruptedly.
Hasna
said that the non-stop work is underway for the fourth day since the start of
the vaccination campaign amid the feelings of happiness being experienced by
the medical staff and the practitioners, who are administering vaccine shots to
the elderly people as part of the first phase.
https://www.saudigazette.com.sa/article/601735/SAUDI-ARABIA/Hasna-who-administered-minister-vaccine-shot-shares-her-delight
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In
Turkey, JIN News Fights for Women's and Journalists' Rights
By
Dorian Jones
December
22, 2020
ISTANBUL
- In Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, a news network staffed entirely
by women is taking the lead in reporting on women's rights. But in doing so,
JIN News finds itself targeted by the government's “war on terrorism.”
Founded
in 2017 under the mantra "On the path to truth, with a woman's pen,"
JIN News says its goal is to expose exploitation and violence faced by women.
"We
are wherever women are," Gulsen Kocuk, editor of JIN News Turkish service,
told VOA. "We report, in a way, on every aspect of their life, with the
aim of making women visible, making women's work visible, and providing a
platform to express their views."
Based
in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, JIN News reports both in Turkish
and Kurdish, with a staff of about 20. The agency has offices across the region
serving its web page, which is funded by personal subscriptions.
The
region in which JIN is based is the center of a decades-long battle between the
Kurdish separatist group the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and the Turkish
state, a conflict the government says has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
The
PKK is designated by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist
organization.
Much
of JIN’s reporting focuses on alleged human rights abuses by security forces.
In October, two of its journalists broke a story that accused Turkish soldiers
of throwing from a helicopter two shepherds, killing one and severely injuring
the other.
The
story became front-page news across Turkey’s main independent media. The
interior ministry later confirmed the incident but maintains the injuries were
sustained while the two shepherds were trying to escape capture.
However,
one of the JIN News reporters—Sehriban Abi, from the city of Van—was arrested
on charges of “inciting enmity against the state” and “membership of a
terrorist organization,” and remains in detention.
The
Turkish government and prosecutors regularly accuse JIN News of terrorist
propaganda. With the laws' catch-all phrases, rights groups claim it opens the
door to prosecution to normal journalist activities, including attending
political rallies and funerals of killed militants.
At
least 37 journalists were in jail in Turkey on December 1, nearly all accused
of such charges, according to annual data released by the Committee to Protect
Journalist. The New York-based rights group ranks Turkey second only to China
in detaining the media.
"There
was big oppression against women's journalists during our time as JIN
agency," said Kocuk. "We faced many situations like arrests,
detentions, office raids and confiscation of our technical equipment. Probably
the majority of JIN reporters have been taken into custody. Almost 20 of our
colleagues had been in and out of prison."
Turkey’s
Communications Ministry did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.
The
government defends its measures, saying the country is facing powerful and
dangerous conspiracies, which have developed networks throughout Turkey’s
society, including within the media.
Critics,
as well as journalists, say the broadness and ambiguousness of the antiterror
legislation, though, make it difficult to know what is legal and illegal. This
makes reporting on contentious subjects like the war against the PKK and
government malpractice risky.
JIN
News also has reported allegations of abuse of women at the hands of security
forces, including claims of rape. Such stories often result in the reports
being banned by court or interior ministry gagging orders, according to Kocuk
of JIN News.
Cat-and-mouse
game
Turkey,
which has a number of laws and regulations to control web pages and social
media, also has blocked access to the JIN News web page at least ten
times.
In
a familiar game of cat-and-mouse that alternative media organizations play with
authorities, JIN sidesteps these bans by reissuing the site under a slightly
modified name.
But
it's not only JIN's reporting on contentious subjects that makes it a target of
prosecutors.
"They
are not treated as journalists. They are treated as terrorists, and this is the
problem," said Emma Sinclair-Webb, a senior Turkish researcher of the New
York-based Human Rights Watch.
"The
government doesn't understand there is a right to do objective
journalism," Sinclair-Webb said. "The other reason, in the last year,
we've seen particular intolerance by government officials of women's rights
activism around the Istanbul Convention and combating violence against
women."
The
Istanbul Convention is an international treaty guaranteeing women's rights,
from which some government ministers are calling for Turkey to withdraw.
Women's
rights movements across Turkey have become a vocal opponent to the government,
which they say has failed to enforce laws to protect women against domestic
violence and threatens to reverse hard-won gender rights, including access to
abortion.
Sinclair-Webb
says the targeting of women's activists by the authorities is particularly
severe in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish region, where fighting for gender
rights is a major policy for Kurdish political parties.
The
People’s Democratic Party (HDP), Turkey's main legal pro-Kurdish party, has a
policy of all elected positions being jointly held by a man and woman. The HDP
has been accused by Ankara of having links to the PKK—a link it denies. A key policy demand of the Kurdish rebel
group the PKK is the equality of women.
"It's
a region of gross gender inequality, very low levels of women in employment,
high levels of domestic violence in the region," said Sinclair-Webb.
"You
have a Kurdish political movement very focused on gender equality," she
added. "So the idea of a having a women's news agency did come out of a
kind of political impulse in the region to tackle the problem."
"So
it allows the government to say if the Kurdish political movement is very
focused on gender equality, so any news agency focused on gender equality must
be involved in politics and terrorism, not journalism," said
Sinclair-Webb.
Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is vowing no let-up on the war on terrorism and
what he calls "terrorist supporters." It’s a thinly veiled reference,
analysts say, to the county's legal Kurdish political movement and broader
civil society.
Despite
the risks they face, the journalists at JIN News have no plans to stop.
"Fear
doesn't even enter our mind," said Kocuk of JIN News. "Of course, we
wish to be able to write in a safer environment. But if you are advocating for
a free press, there shouldn't be a place for fear because fear makes you stand
back. We are not afraid, and we keep writing."
https://www.voanews.com/press-freedom/turkey-jin-news-fights-womens-and-journalists-rights
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Seven
Held over Child Marriage in Chitral, Pakistan
24
Dec 2020
CHITRAL:
The Chitral police have arrested seven persons, including the bridegroom, the
nikah khwan and five witnesses over the marriage of an 11-year-old girl with a
man of 35.
The
incident took place in Port village of Laspur valley in Upper Chitral.
Upper
Chitral deputy commissioner Shah Saud told Dawn that he had taken cognizance of
the underage marriage when the police delayed registration of an FIR on the
request of the girl’s father. He said the girl’s father had alleged that the
accused had coerced his daughter into marrying an aged man.
Mr
Saud said that a court had given the girl into the custody of her uncle, and
sent witnesses Afiat, Ali Bad, Sher Guli, Manzur and Garin to jail.
He
said the court remanded the prime accused, Shakoor Ahmad and nikah khwan Ali
Ahmed.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1597475/seven-held-over-child-marriage-in-chitral
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