MP Iqra Hasan Attends Kanwar Event: Heart-Warming Example Of 'Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb'
New Age Islam News Bureau
17 July 2025
· MP Iqra Hasan Attends Kanwar Event: Heart-Warming Example Of 'Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb'
· Iranian Intelligence Forces Arrest Afghan Sociology Student, Sara Gohari, At Border
· Govt Orders Inquiry Into ‘Hijab’ Row In Jharkhand School
· Selangor Top Cop: Four Women Undressed During ‘Queens Night’ At RM9,000 eHati Programme
· Afghan Women and Girls Deported From Iran Fear ‘Coming Back to a Cage’
· Muslim Women Face Deep Discrimination And Burnout In UK Media Industry, Study Finds
· Syrian Women Face Rising Violence In Suwayda
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/ganga-jamuni-tehzeeb-kanwar-event-warming/d/136203
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MP Iqra Hasan Attends Kanwar Event: Heart-Warming Example Of 'Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb'
July 16, 2025
Iqra Hasan Serves Food to Devotees During Kanwar Yatra in Saharanpur (Photo Credits: PTI)
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Saharanpur (UP), Jul 16 (PTI) A heart-warming example of 'Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb' (Hindu-Muslim bonhomie) was witnessed in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district when Kairana MP Iqra Hasan visited three Kanwar service camps and personally served food to pilgrims, spreading a message of love and communal harmony.
On Tuesday evening, Iqra Hasan of the Samajwadi Party visited three camps set up for Kanwar Yatra pilgrims in Saharanpur — the Shiv Seva Kanwar Sangh camp, Shri Kailash Dham Shiv Kanwar Seva Camp, and Shri Shiv Om Samiti Kanwar Seva Camp.
"It is a moment of pride that a Muslim woman MP can serve Shiva devotees," she said after personally serving food at each of these camps.
Speaking on the occasion, Hasan said she was deeply pleased to be part of the service and added that what she witnessed there was not just a religious act but a reflection of humanity, describing it as "India's true strength".
This is not just a country but a land of values and culture," she emphasised.
The first time Lok Sabha lawmaker also praised the "selfless service" of men and women from various social organisations who were volunteering at the camps and called the initiative a symbol not just of religious devotion but of social unity.
"The kind of service being done here without any discrimination is something today's politics should also learn from," she added.
During her visit, the organisers of the Kanwar camps welcomed Iqra Hasan by offering her a traditional chunari (scarf) and pagdi (turban) as a mark of respect. The MP thanked the organisers and appreciated their efforts in running the camps.
Kanwar Yatra is an annual pilgrimage carried out by devotees of Lord Shiva on foot during the auspicious month of Shravan in the Hindu calendar. They fetch water from the Ganga and then offer it to Lord Shiva at their local temples.
Source: theweek.in
https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/national/2025/07/16/des34-up-kanwar-iqra.html
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Iranian Intelligence Forces Arrest Afghan Sociology Student, Sara Gohari, At Border
JULY 16, 2025
Sara Gohari, who studies at Tehran University, was detained by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence
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Iranian security forces arrested a 29-year-old Afghan sociology student on July 6 at the border crossing with Afghanistan and transferred her to an unknown location.
Sara Gohari, who studies at Tehran University, was detained by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence.
Before her arrest, Gohari had announced on her Instagram page that she planned to travel to the Taybad border to collect stories and conduct independent research on the situation of Afghan migrants.
10 days after her detention, Gohari's family remains unaware of her whereabouts and health condition. Their repeated inquiries have yielded no results.
The arrest was carried out without a judicial warrant or official notification, according to sources from IranWire.
Since early June, nearly 450,000 Afghan refugees, many of whom arrived after the Taliban regained power in 2021, have been deported, and 5,000 children have been separated from their parents, according to reports from UN agencies.
Afghans in Iran have long been blamed for the country's economic problems, but the crackdown has intensified following the recent conflict with Israel.
During the 12-day war, daily deportations jumped from 2,000 to over 30,000 as Iranian authorities redirected public anger toward this vulnerable minority.
Source: iranwire.com
https://iranwire.com/en/news/143261-iranian-intelligence-forces-arrest-afghan-sociology-student-at-border/
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Govt Orders Inquiry Into ‘Hijab’ Row In Jharkhand School
Jul 17, 2025
Chatra: Ten Class 9 students of Plus Two Girls School in Marwari Mohalla of Chatra accused the school principal of removing their hijab in school on Tuesday.
Reacting to the allegations, principal Neetu Kumari Prajapati said, "The school has its own dress code. We only requested the girls to keep the hijab in their bags while at school and to wear it when going home. This decision was made during a school management meeting. It has been misconstrued by some to present a different narrative," she said, adding that the school has 1,300 girls between Class 6 and 12 of various faiths and no one has previously filed such charges.
When asked if any student can be instructed to remove a hijab in school, Chatra SDO (Sadar) Jahur Alam told TOI that there is no guideline regarding the wearing of such headgear, and in this case, the school took an unnecessary step that created controversy.
The 10 students also accused the teacher of assaulting them in this regard. On Tuesday, they reported to Sadar Hospital for treatment, claiming they had been assaulted by their teacher. The hospital subsequently informed the district administration. However, sources indicated that none of the students bore any injuries during the medical examination.
Alam and district education officer Dinesh Kumar Mishra, who spoke to the students, said that the matter is still under investigation. They maintained that the assault charges levelled by the students seem baseless based on the investigation so far by Sadar police station in-charge Vipin Kumar. No FIR has been filed yet in this regard.
Denying the assault charge, the principal claimed that altogether 22 mobile phones of students were confiscated. "Ten of them levelled the baseless allegations against me," she claimed.
Alam said, "The mobile phones were returned to the students. Further probe is on, but nothing concrete has come to the fore to hold the school management accountable."
Source: indiatimes.com
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/govt-orders-inquiry-into-hijab-row-in-chatra-school/articleshow/122588625.cms
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Selangor top cop: Four women undressed during ‘Queens Night’ at RM9,000 eHati programme
By R. Loheswar
16 Jul 2025
SHAH ALAM, July 16 — Four participants at the eHati motivational programme took off their clothes during an event called Queens Night, Selangor police chief Comm Datuk Hussein Omar Khan revealed today.
He said all four were female.
“The event which took part on one of the days during the programme saw the females at some point be naked, at least by four individuals.
“It was part of the event called Queens Night. In that programme they had two packages, A and B. B was more expensive and ended with Queens Night.
“It was an extra activity and said nudity happened here in an activity called “rebirth” which they claimed was to raise the participants’ spirits,” he told reporters in Shah Alam today.
Hussein said that the programme had participants from all over Malaysia and one of them was from Kedah.
He also said that non-Muslims had also taken part in the event and urged all who have not stepped forward to give their statements or risk being arrested.
“The organiser apparently was trying to organise an event to rediscover yourself. So, participants paid RM6,000 for package A and around RM9,000 for package B. Package B was Queens Night,” he said.
Thus far the police do not have any video recording nor pictures of the event, said Hussein, adding that the organisers weren’t there during Queens Night. They were there during the day.
Source: malaymail.com
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2025/07/16/selangor-top-cop-four-women-undressed-during-queens-night-at-rm9000-ehati-programme/184143#google_vignette
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Afghan Women and Girls Deported From Iran Fear ‘Coming Back to a Cage’
July 16, 2025
No more evening walks. No more jobs at the supermarket. No more hopes for school.
As three Afghan sisters returned to Afghanistan after being deported from Iran last week, the reality of what they had once enjoyed and was now out of reach sank in amid their sighs and dwindling claims of defiance.
Marwa, 18, noted they should start by getting head scarves and outfits to cover themselves, which they didn’t have.
“Afghanistan is like a cage for women, and we’re coming back to that cage,” said Khurshid, 17, the youngest of the three and a self-taught painter.
Iran’s mass deportation of more than 1.4 million Afghans this year has shattered the hopes of women and girls working and studying in Iran. Neighboring Pakistan has implemented a similar policy, putting at risk the lives of many other women who fled Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Some of the world’s most severe restrictions on women and girls await. Under the new Afghan government, it is against the law for girls to study beyond sixth grade. Women cannot hold most jobs or go to public spaces like parks, nor travel long distances without a male companion.
In recent months a growing number of single women, female-headed households and unaccompanied minors have been deported or forced to return from Iran, according to half a dozen humanitarian workers, mental health counselors and migration officers in Afghanistan.
They include 15-year-old girls split from their parents and deported on their own; wives traveling on their own as their husbands hide in Iran and try to keep jobs; and single mothers struggling to speak about the police beatings or sexual abuse they faced at the hands of Iranian landlords and employers.
“The needs are very high for gender-based violence and mental health, and our resources very limited,” said Sunita, who works near the border for a humanitarian agency. She asked, like most women who spoke for this article, to be identified by one name for safety reasons.
Upon the women’s return to western Afghanistan, social workers have tried to prepare teenagers and women who were born in Iran or lived there for years about the restrictions they would face.
Khurshid arrived in Afghanistan, at the Islam Qala border crossing, wearing torn denim overalls and trendy sneakers. She said she draws her style from an Iranian influencer and an Afghan celebrity living in Dubai whom she follows on TikTok.
When Taliban guards overseeing the relocation facility in Islam Qala commanded Khurshid to wear a hijab last week, she rejected the orders, telling them, “I like the way I am.” Marwa acknowledged that the sisters, including the eldest, Behishta, 19, would have to buy head scarves and head-to-toe outfits to cover their bodies.
Across the facility, which has accommodated, on average, more than 20,000 Afghans returning every day, some women defied Taliban-imposed restrictions by polishing their nails or smoking e-cigarettes in the open.
“They don’t know what they’re coming back to,” said Ferishteh, an aid worker in western Afghanistan.
“We’re telling them, ‘The way you dress isn’t good for here, get ready for what awaits you, get ready to cope,’” she said.
“We’re not happy to tell them that, but we have to, for their own protection,” she added, citing the need to relocate them, provide emergency money and reunite single women with relatives as the most urgent priorities.
Still, many women and girls said they felt relieved to be back in Afghanistan after facing unchecked xenophobia in Iran. The mother of a 10-month-old toddler said pharmacies had refused to sell her baby milk powder because she was Afghan. Another said four hospitals turned her away when she brought in her 19-year-old son for surgery after two Iranian men slashed his hand open with a knife while shouting “dirty Afghan.”
For women who were working in Iran, job opportunities will be scarce. Seven percent of Afghan women were employed outside their homes as of last year, according to the United Nations Development Program.
Shabnam Ashrafi, who planted apricot trees in an orchard and packed tomatoes and cucumbers in northern Iran, said she didn’t know how her household would cope with the loss of her monthly income of $130. “Being the only breadwinner adds some pressure,” her husband, Amrullah, said one evening last week as they waited to board a bus that would take them to Kabul, the Afghan capital, from the relocation facility in Islam Qala.
Their 13-year-old daughter, Shamila, stood in silence behind them. She had just completed sixth grade in Iran when the family was arrested. Her mother said that Shamila’s and her younger sister’s education had been one of the main drivers behind their move to Iran after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
“She’s asked me, ‘What have all these years been for?’” Ms. Ashrafi said. “We only cared about our children’s education, but here we are now, and I don’t know what to tell her.”
Source: nytimes.com
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/world/asia/afghanistan-women-refugees.html
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Muslim Women Face Deep Discrimination And Burnout In UK Media Industry, Study Finds
July 17, 2025
A new study has found that Muslim women working in the UK media industry face deep discrimination, toxic workplaces, and emotional stress, especially when covering sensitive issues like the war in Gaza.
The report, titled “Muslim Women in the Media: Breaking Barriers, Bearing the Burden”, was released by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CMM) and is based on anonymous responses from 102 Muslim women across print, broadcast, and online media.
Many of these women said they regularly face Islamophobia, harmful stereotypes, and feel left out of important roles and decisions in their workplaces. Some are so disheartened that they’re questioning whether to stay in journalism at all. One woman even said she had never felt so ashamed to call herself a journalist, referring to the way the media has covered Gaza.
The study shows that the majority of these women believe there is a strong anti-Muslim bias in media organisations. A large number of them said they have personally experienced discrimination because of their identity. Most also said the media’s reporting on Gaza has taken a serious toll on their mental health, and many admitted they have considered leaving journalism altogether.
The report highlights how Muslim women often face a strange mix of being highly visible and yet still excluded. While media outlets may hire them to show diversity, many are only assigned stories related to Muslim communities and are left out of real decision-making roles. Women who wear the hijab said they faced even more stereotyping and isolation at work.
Writer and Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik spoke at the report’s launch and said that the political environment in recent years has been especially harsh for Muslims. She added that after living under such pressure for so long, many people no longer even realise how unfair things have become.
The report also found that Muslim women are often shown unfairly in media content, and many feel stuck in their careers due to a lack of real opportunities and tokenism. For many of them, the way the war in Gaza has been reported was especially painful. Some described the coverage as biased and felt that their efforts to raise concerns were ignored, leaving them feeling helpless and unheard.
This comes at a time when global conflicts like those in Gaza, Sudan, and Kashmir are shaping how Muslim women are treated and what stories they’re expected to cover—usually without enough support, the report said. The CMM warned that unless the industry changes, many Muslim women could leave journalism altogether due to burnout, frustration, and being pushed to the margins.
The report ends on a cautious note. It says Muslim women are already playing a vital role in the media, often despite the lack of support. But if real, long-term changes aren’t made, many feel discouraged from staying in the industry. While some women said their Muslim identity helps them bring valuable perspectives to their work, this small hope is overshadowed by the structural problems they face every day.
CMM’s director Rizwana Hamid urged media leaders to take the findings seriously. She warned that surface-level diversity efforts won’t fix the deeper issues and said no other group is as unfairly treated in the media as Muslims are right now.
Manji Fatima, journalist & former C4 Newsreader, born and raised in Peterborough, she studied politics at the London School of Economics before joining the BBC as a trainee. But it was in 2016, as she stepped into the Channel 4 News studio wearing a hijab, that she made history becoming the UK’s first hijab-wearing national newsreader.
Her presence has caught the attention of both admirers and detractors, but she chooses not to allow her choice of attire to define her: “I wanted to let my journalism do the talking,” she said in a 2020 webinar with the Aziz Foundation. “While I’m a visibly British Muslim woman, that cannot be the only thing about me.”
Manji has been vocal about the need for greater diversity in newsrooms. “It’s really important that newsrooms reflect the populations they serve,” she told The Guardian.
Source: freepresskashmir.news
https://freepresskashmir.news/2025/07/17/muslim-women-face-deep-discrimination-and-burnout-in-uk-media-industry-study-finds/
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Syrian Women Face Rising Violence In Suwayda
17 July, 2025
The Syrian people are once again facing extremist ideologies, from the attacks by ISIS mercenaries on Kobani and Raqqa, to the Turkish occupation’s attacks on Afrin, Sere Kaniye, and Tal Abyad, and extending to the massacres in the Syrian coast, rural Damascus, and Suwayda.
The city of Raqqa witnessed one of the most horrific massacres against humanity by ISIS mercenaries, particularly targeting women and children. The city’s central roundabout was dubbed “Hell Roundabout” due to the gruesome scenes of beheadings and because it became a market for selling women, especially Yazidi women.
In Afrin, occupied by Turkey and its mercenaries since 2018, inhumane crimes against women and children are committed daily, with no international action to stop these crimes or hold perpetrators accountable. Among these crimes was the mutilation of the body of BarinKobani, a fighter in the Women’s Protection Units, on February 1, 2018.
Similarly, mercenaries of the Turkish occupation mutilated the body of Hevrin Khalaf, the Secretary-General of the Future Syria Party, during Turkey’s offensive on Sere Kaniye and GireSpi on October 9, 2019. Following the fall of the Baath regime on December 8, 2024, and the establishment of a new transitional government in Syria, areas under its control, particularly the Syrian coast and Suwayda, are experiencing a state of lawlessness and severe human rights violations.
Reports indicate thousands have been killed, with hundreds of cases of women being kidnapped in the coastal areas and Hama. These scenes are recurring in Suwayda today.
Local sources reported the killing of Dr. Faten Halal with a gunshot to the head while heading to her work at the National Hospital in the city. In Al-Dour village, many women, including Fawzia Fakhruddin Al-Sharani, who took a courageous stand defending her neighborhood and village, faced brutal attacks.
This comes amid escalating violations by the transitional government forces in Syria, which have carried out executions of entire families and caused injuries to dozens of women and children due to shelling and random gunfire on residential areas, according to medical testimonies.
However, in Kobani, the will of Kurdish women turned the tide against ISIS mercenaries. This was exemplified by the martyrdom operation carried out by fighter Arin Mirkan on October 5, 2014, which prevented mercenaries from entering the city. This calls for Syrian women to unite their ranks and organize to stand against these attacks.
Source: hawarnews.com
https://hawarnews.com/en/syrian-women-face-rising-violence-in-suwayda
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/ganga-jamuni-tehzeeb-kanwar-event-warming/d/136203