New
Age Islam News Bureau
19
March 2021
•
Female Rangers Guard World’s Largest Arid Mangrove Forest In Pakistan
•
Noorbina Rasheed’s Candidature a Victory for Women in Indian Union Muslim
League
•
Police Trial Anti-Grab Hijabs in Bid to Recruit More Muslim Women
•
Rights Group: Indonesian Women Pressured to Wear Head Scarves, Follow Dress
Code
•
‘Daesh Brides’ Open Up In Syria Camp Documentary
•
Why Iran's Women's Rights Movement Will Endure Through US Sanctions
•
South African Muslim Bodies Call For Government Intervention Over Sri Lankan
Burqa Ban
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/samia-suluhu-tanzanias-first-female/d/124581
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Samia Suluhu Tanzania’s First Female Head of State
19
March, 2021
First
female president of Tanzania, Samiya Suluhu Hassan (file photo)
-----
Tanzania’s
Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in as president on Friday,
becoming the first female head of state in the east African country following
the death of President John Magufuli.
Hassan,
61, was sworn in at State House in the country’s commercial capital Dar es
Salaam. She assumes the presidency following Wednesday’s announcement of the
death of Magufuli, after a more than a two-week absence from public life that
drew speculation about his health.
In
a statement, the presidency said Hassan would address the nation after being
sworn in and would also hold a cabinet meeting.
The
absence of Magufuli, Africa’s most vehement COVID-19 skeptic, since Feb. 27 had
fuelled speculation about his health and sparked rumors he had contracted the
disease, although officials had denied he was ill. Hassan said he had died of
heart disease.
Described
as a soft-spoken consensus-builder, Hassan will also be the country’s first president
born in Zanzibar, the archipelago that forms part of the union of the Republic
of Tanzania.
Her
leadership style is seen as a potential contrast from Magufuli, a brash
populist who earned the nickname ‘Bulldozer’ for muscling through policies and
who drew criticism for his intolerance of dissent, which his government denied.
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2021/03/19/Tanzania-swears-in-Samia-Suluhu-as-president-country-s-first-head-of-state
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Female
Rangers Guard World’s Largest Arid Mangrove Forest In Pakistan
A female forest worker poses with the signboard of
a mangrove nursery established by WWF-Pakistan in Mero Dablo village in Thatta,
Pakistan, on March 09, 2021. (AN Photo by Zulfiqar Kunbhar)
-----
Zulfiqar
Kunbhar
March
18, 2021
THATTA:
For decades, grazing animals and loggers destroyed thousands of trees on
Pakistan’s Indus River Delta, home to the largest arid mangrove forests in the
world.
The
Indus Delta has around 95 percent of the total mangrove forest cover in
Pakistan, and was once home to eight species of mangroves, which the Sindh
Forest Department (SFD) says forest destruction reduced by half.
By
2005, mangrove cover had declined to 84,000 hectares — the lowest recorded
level — from 260,000 hectares in the 1980s.
In
2019, as part of an ongoing campaign to improve forest cover, the SFD
collaborated with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to set up a mangrove nursery,
hiring 250 women not just to plant new trees but also to guard them against
threats from animals and humans.
Hired
along with their families, the women, officially called eco-guards, play a
“vital role in the protection of mangroves, which is a family unit job,” Riaz
Ahmed Wagan, the SFD’s chief conservator of mangroves, told Arab News.
Assessments
by the SFD showed that mangrove cover had increased once more to 210,000
hectares by 2020.
The
women eco-guards, Wagan said, had a large role in improving the numbers.
One
of them, 60-year-old Hawa Dablo from Mero Dablo, a fishing village on the edge
of the Arabian Sea, said she spent her days planting seeds, looking after
saplings and standing guard, with other members of her family, against the
trees being destroyed by roaming animals.
“I
have been working here for the last two years since this nursery was
established in my village,” Dablo told Arab News.
She
said the most vulnerable trees were young mangroves that had to be protected
from grazing camels and buffaloes as well as from local loggers.
“In
order to preserve mangroves, locals start initiatives from their own households
and at the personal level,” Dablo said. “Every household or village will ensure
that their animals are released for open grazing in only those areas where
there are mature mangroves; locals will make sure that animals will not touch
the areas where new plantations have been done.”
But
she said illegal logging still remained a threat, although it was no longer
rampant.
“If
we notice any mangrove cutting activity we inform our male family members to
take further action,” Dablo said. “When there is a deliberate cutting of
mangroves, mostly by outsiders, we complain to local SFD officials through our
male partners.”
Dr.
Tahir Rasheed, the regional head for the Sindh and Balochistan wing of WWF Pakistan,
said that under the mangrove protection program, the women rangers were paid a
small stipend and given incentives “including sewing machines to do stitching
and embroidery work, iceboxes, and ponds for fishing to improve their
livelihoods.”
The
incentives, he said, were important in an area where it is estimated that
nearly 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Most
households on the delta rely on fishing, and preserving mangroves was key to
maintaining the marine ecosystem, another female eco-guard explained, given
that a wide variety of fish lay their eggs in mangrove bushes on the delta.
“We
guard mangroves and don’t allow people to cut green mangroves,” said Razia
Dablo from the island fishing village of Khariyoon Takur. “If there are no more
green mangroves, it will destroy the ecosystem for fish; that will negatively
affect our livelihoods.”
Besides
employing eco-guards, the SFD has given full-and part-time “green jobs” to over
50,000 people since 2000 — around 40 percent of them women.
“Despite
social restrictions that put limitations on work on women outside their homes,
female participation in afforestation on the Indus River Delta is almost half
of the total forestation workforce, which is a great achievement,” Wagan said.
“For upcoming plantation projects on the delta and elsewhere, we are planning
to achieve maximum female participation.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1827666/world
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Noorbina
Rasheed’s Candidature a Victory for Women in Indian Union Muslim League
19th
March 2021
KOCHI:
The selection of Noorbina Rasheed as the candidate of the Indian Union Muslim
League (IUML) for the Kozhikode South constituency has been hailed as a bold
step by the party to overshadow the orthodoxy in the community. Noorbina’s candidature
was celebrated as the victory of the ‘progressives’ in IUML over the hardliners
who never wanted women to enter the public sphere. But those familiar with the
history of the All India Muslim League, IUML’s precursor, say women played a
significant role in the party in pre-independence era and shortly after the
country became free.
“There
were prominent figures such as Begum Aizaz Resul who was the Muslim League
party leader in Uttar Pradesh assembly from 1950 to 52. She joined the party in
1935 and was elected to UP Assembly in 1937,” said historian M C Vadakara, who
has written the book ‘Hundred Years of Muslim Politics.’
Born
in the family of landlords, Begum was at the forefront of the agitation against
ending the zamindari system and went to jail. “She was the lone woman member in
the constituent assembly and was the president of the Indian Women’s Hockey
Federation and Asian Women Hockey Federation,” Vadakara said.
Begum
Shanawaz, the leader from Punjab, moved a resolution against polygamy and got
it passed at the Lahore session of the Muslim League in 1918. “She was the
president of the women’s wing of the Muslim League in Punjab and was elected to
the Punjab Assembly in 1937. She also represented the League in the delegation
for the Round Table conference in London,” he said.
Another
stalwart among the women leaders was Begum Ameerudeen, who was the member of
the assembly of Madras Presidency from 1946 to 1952. “She was an orator par
excellence. It is said C Rajagopalachari once came to the House only to hear
her speech even while he was down with fever,” Vadakara said.
There
were other leaders such as Begum Habeebullah, the working committee member of
the Muslim League, who was a novelist and a journalist worked with the BBC.
“The All India Muslim League had a women’s wing of volunteers, the leaders of
which were also women,” he said.
What
made the party and parliamentary posts in the Muslim League inaccessible to
women after 1960s? “Religion was not the basis of the League in the beginning
though it carried the religious tag. Many early leaders of the party were not
very religious. But later, the party became subservient to religious
organisations and consequently, women were pushed to the side-lines,” said
writer Mujeeb Rehman Kinaloor.
“Vote
bank of organised religious outfits became important for the party and
decisions were taken after consulting with them. The dominance of the orthodox
Sunnis in IUML prevented women from entering the public space,” he said.
Noora
V, who wrote a book on the legendary Muslim leader Haleema Beevi, recalled how
Beevi was elected as the Tiruvalla taluk secretary of the Travancore State
Muslim League in 1946. “Haleema Beevi was the secretary of not the Vanitha
League, but that of the party that consisted of men and women. The membership
in the committee was dominated by women and she was elected the secretary,” she
said.
https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2021/mar/19/noorbina-rasheed-s-candidature-a-victory-for-women-in-iuml-2278487.html
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Police
Trial Anti-Grab Hijabs in Bid to Recruit More Muslim Women
19th
Mar 2021
Elham
Asaad Buaras
Leicestershire
Police is trialling “anti-grab” hijabs to encourage more Muslim women to join
the force.
Police
have given the hi-tech headgear to a student officer to roll them out to
colleagues on the front line. Made of a sports fabric and fastened with
magnetic buttons, which allow for quick release if a suspect attempts to grab
it, the hijab is designed to sit comfortably with police headgear such as caps
and radio earpieces.
A
team spent 16 months designing the new-look hijabs at New Zealand’s Massey
University College in Wellington. New Zealand Police introduced them into its
uniform last November and they are now expected to be rolled out to forces in
the UK.
Chair
of Leicestershire Police’s Association of Muslim Police, Detective Constable
Yassin Desai, said, “If everything goes well and the necessary tests and
approvals are met, we could be rolling this out in Leicestershire.
I
have also been talking to other forces in England and Wales and the Home Office
about it being a national solution for emergency services and frontline staff.
It’s really important for our Muslim officers who wear the hijab.
Operationally, a standard hijab is needed”.
“It
looks professional, uses very similar material to our current police uniform
and has relevant design and safety features. More importantly, it will help
attract other Muslim females to become police officers. It will also help
provide role models to the community to show them they too can follow a career
in policing”.
In
a statement to The Muslim News student Officer Khadeejah Mansur, who is
trialling the hijab, said, “Once fellow Muslim females see me as a frontline
hijab-wearing officer, I hope it will inspire them to look at a career in
policing as there are no restrictions or setbacks.”
She
added, “It is a big step for Leicestershire police to be able to cater to
upcoming hijab-wearing Muslim female officers. It breaks down barriers, breaks
stereotypes and brings communities together and that is something that we value
as police officers.
The
hijab itself is fashionable and practical; I hope it will be inspiring to
fellow Muslim females to encourage them to start a career with our police
force.”
Deb
Cumming, Senior Design Lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand, created
the hijab with colleague Nina Weaver said, “The hijab fits the head and
neck-shoulder area for freedom of movement and rigorous performance with
contoured panels and reinforced zones for durability, access for the
communication device and a quick-release fastening system for safety reasons.
It
is made from a technical sports fabric, which is light to wear, antibacterial,
moisture-wicking and robust. We conducted extensive wear trials to ensure the
hijab was fit for purpose”.
Suleman
Nagdi, who is running a project “Cops Communities Consent” for the last three
years through the Open Society Foundation and working with the police forces in
Leicestershire, Antwerp and Rotterdam, said, “I hope that this new dress
addition to our forces uniform will contribute to making the Police more
reflective of the communities it serves, this will encourage a greater
diversity of applicants and demonstrates the openness of our Police Force to
consider applicants from all backgrounds.”
http://muslimnews.co.uk/newspaper/home-news/police-trial-anti-grab-hijabs-bid-recruit-muslim-women/
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Rights
Group: Indonesian Women Pressured to Wear Head Scarves, Follow Dress Code
2021-03-18
Women
and girls face increasing pressure to follow religious dress codes in
workplaces and schools amid growing Islamic conservatism in Indonesia,
according to a report released by Human Rights Watch on Thursday.
A
recent decree prohibiting public schools in the Muslim-majority country from enforcing
religion-based dress codes – such as headscarves and long skirts – does not
include Islamic schools, or women who work in the civil service and government
offices, the HRW report said.
“Over
the past two decades, women and girls in Indonesia have faced unprecedented
legal and social demands to wear clothing deemed Islamic as part of broader
efforts to impose the rules of Sharia, or Islamic law, in many parts of the
country,” the report said.
“These
pressures have increased substantially in recent years,” said the report titled
“‘I Wanted to Run Away’: Abusive Dress Codes for Women and Girls in Indonesia.”
HRW
said that compelling women and girls to dress a certain way is discriminatory.
Responding
to HRW’s report, an executive at Indonesia’s semi-official authority on Islam
denied that women had been forced to wear hijabs.
Amirsyah
Tambunan, secretary general of the Indonesian Ulema Council, also questioned
why HRW said urging women to wear headscarves was discriminatory.
“What
I see in society is that wearing a headscarf for Muslim women is voluntary and
there is no coercion,” Amirsyah told BenarNews.
“On
what basis is HRW reporting that calling on women to wear headscarves is a
discriminatory act against women? Have they done research with correct methodologies
based on facts on the ground?”
An
official at the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection said the
government needs to take reports of discrimination against women seriously,
“especially when victims experience bullying and harassment.”
The
ministry would respond to any cases of such discrimination, said Lenny N.
Rosalin, the deputy for child development.
“Such
discrimination has an impact on children and we must take action,” Lenny told
BenarNews.
‘Jilbab
bullying’
Pressuring
girls and women to wear garments such as long skirts and the jilbab – a cloth
that covers a woman’s head, neck and chest – is an assault on their rights to
freedom of religion, expression and privacy, and an attack on gender equality,
HRW said. This compulsion also affects girls’ and women’s physical and mental
well-being, the report said.
Ifa
Hanifah Misbach, a psychologist in Bandung, spoke to HRW about what she called
“jilbab bullying” – teachers and colleagues punishing girls and women and
harshly ridiculing them for not strictly adhering to what they consider modest
dress.
HRW
recommended that the government take strong disciplinary action against
institutions that pressure women and girls to wear the jilbab or other
religious dress.
In
some parts of Indonesia, women are forced or pressured to wear jilbabs and long
skirts instead of long pants, HRW said.
In
February 2020, 10 Girl Scouts wearing their uniform – long skirts – died when
they were swept into a river during a hike in Yogyakarta, local media widely
reported.
Wahyu
Efendi L., the Yogyakarta head of the National Search and Rescue Agency
(Basarnas), told The Jakarta Post that the girls’ long skirts caused them to be
dragged away by the strong flood current and limited their physical movement.
In
its report, HRW recommended that Indonesia’s scouting authority repeal
provisions of the uniform regulation that have been interpreted as requiring
female scouts and schoolgirls to wear the jilbab and other religious dress.
‘Decree
needs to be applied broadly’
In
2014, the Ministry of Education and Culture issued a regulation on public
school uniforms which was widely interpreted as requiring Muslim female
students to wear headscarves.
“Even
when school officials have acknowledged that a 2014 national regulation does
not legally require a jilbab, the existence of the regulation adds to schools
applying pressure on girls and their families for the girls to wear one,” HRW
said last month. Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim, who co-signed
the Feb. 3, 2021, decree allowing students to choose what they wear to school,
told HRW at the time that the schools have “misinterpreted” the 2014
ministerial regulation.
The
latest decree, she hoped, would correct that misinterpretation, HRW said.
Still,
the new decree applies only to state schools under the management of local
governments and the Education and Culture Ministry.
The
rights group recommended that the government review dress codes in Islamic
state schools and universities under the Ministry of Religious Affairs, “which
makes mandatory jilbab [a] requirement.”
The
February decree does not apply to publicly funded institutions either, where
female civil servants are pressured to wear a jilbab and “decent clothing,”
HRW’s report said.
A
lecturer at a public university in Jakarta – who wished to remain anonymous –
told the rights group that she had been under pressure to wear a jilbab even
though there was no campus regulation on the garment and the university
mandated only “decent clothing.”
The
constant pressure to dress a certain way prompted the lecturer to resign last
March.
“She
took a new job at a private university where she says she is not judged for
teaching without a jilbab,” HRW said.
The
Indonesian government must also work with Islamic organizations to create a
public messaging campaign against requiring or pressuring women and girls to
wear the jilbab and promoting tolerance and inclusivity, the HRW report said.
https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/indonesian/id-women-dress-03182021154545.html
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‘Daesh
Brides’ Open Up In Syria Camp Documentary
March
18, 2021
LOS
ANGELES: “Okay, um... My name’s Shamima. I’m from the UK. I’m 19.”
Spoken
with a nervous laugh, the introduction to a room full of women and restless
babies could be the start of any young mothers’ support group.
But
the speaker is Shamima Begum, the teenage “Daesh bride” who left Britain for
Syria in 2015 to join the Daesh group, and whose desire to return sparked a
right-wing press frenzy that saw her stripped of her citizenship.
The
footage is captured in “The Return: Life After ISIS,” a documentary premiering
Wednesday at the online Texas-based South By Southwest festival.
Spanish
director Alba Sotorra got rare, extensive access to Begum and other Western
women over several months in Syria’s Kurdish-run Roj camp, where they remain
following the so-called caliphate’s collapse in 2019.
“I
would say to the people in the UK, give me a second chance because I was still
young when I left,” Begum tells the filmmakers.
“I
just want them to put aside everything they’ve heard about me in the media,”
she adds.
Begum
left her London home aged just 15 to travel to Syria with two school friends,
and married a Daesh fighter.
She
was “found” by British journalists, heavily pregnant at another Syrian camp, in
February 2019 — and her apparent lack of remorse in initial interviews drew
outrage.
But
Begum and fellow Westerners including US-born Hoda Muthana strike a very
different and apologetic tone in Sotorra’s film.
The
documentary follows “workshop” sessions in which the women write letters to
their younger selves expressing regret about their departures for Syria, and
plant a tree to remember their loved ones.
“It
was known that Syria was a warzone and I still traveled into it with my own
children — now how I did this I really don’t know looking back,” says one
Western woman.
Begum
recalls feeling like an “outsider” in London who wanted to “help the Syrians,”
but claims on arrival she quickly realized Daesh were “trapping people” to
boost the so-called caliphate’s numbers and “look good for the (propaganda)
videos.”
Sotorra,
the director, gained camp access thanks to Kurdish fighters she had followed in
Syria for her previous film.
She
set out to document the Kurdish women’s sacrifices in running a camp filled
with their former enemies’ wives and children, but soon pivoted to the Western
women.
“I
will never be able to understand how a woman from the West can take this
decision of leaving everything behind to join a group that is committing the
atrocities that Daesh is committing,” Sotorra told AFP.
“I
do understand now how you can make a mistake.”
On
Sotorra’s arrival in March 2019, the women — fresh from a warzone — were
“somehow blocked... not thinking and not feeling.”
“Shamima
was a piece of ice when I met her,” Sotorra told AFP.
“She
lost the kid when I was there... it took a while to be able to cry,” she
recalled.
“I
think it’s just surviving, you need to protect yourself to survive.”
Another
factor is the enduring presence of “small but very powerful” groups of even
“more radicalized women” who remain loyal to Daesh and exert pressure on their
campmates.
“We
had (other) women who joined in the beginning, and then they received pressure
from other women so they stopped coming,” said Sotorra.
In
the film, Begum claims she “had no choice but to say certain things” to
journalists “because I lived in fear of these women coming to my tent one day
and killing me and killing my baby.”
The
question of what can and should be done with these women — and their children —
plagues Western governments, sowing divisions among allies.
Last
month, Britain’s Supreme Court rejected Begum’s bid to return to challenge a
decision stripping her citizenship on national security grounds.
How
much the women knew about — and abetted — Daesh’s rapes, tortures and
beheadings may never be known.
In
the documentary, Begum denies she “knew about” or “supported these crimes,”
dismissing claims she could have been in Daesh’s feared morality police as a
naive 15-year-old who did not even “speak the language.”
“I
never even had a parking ticket back in my own country before... I never harmed
anybody, I never killed anybody, I never did anything,” says Canadian Kimberly
Polman.
An
incredulous Kurdish woman points out that “maybe your husband killed my
cousin.”
Sotorra
believes the women could be useful back home in preventing the same mistake in
future generations, and points to the cruelty of raising young children in this
environment.
“It
took them a while to realize that they have responsibility for (their)
choice... they cannot just think ‘Okay, I regret, I go back, as if nothing has
happened,’” she said.
“No,
it’s not about this... you have to accept the consequences.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1827106/middle-east
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Why
Iran's Women's Rights Movement Will Endure Through US Sanctions
MAEDEH
SHARIFI
8
MAR 2021
Donald
Trump may be out of office, but women in Iran will continue to feel the weight
of his "maximum pressure” campaign as sanctions are being maintained under
Joe Biden.
During
the electoral campaign, Joe Biden addressed Donald Trump’s policy of sanctions
against Tehran as a failure but has refused to offer the country relief to the
sanctions upfront. The diplomatic stalemate between Iran and the US means
Iranian women have been left to tackle the repercussions of economic sanctions
and Covid-19, just as the country is expecting a fourth wave.
TRT
World spoke to Amir Abdoli, Assistant Professor at Jahrom University of Medical
Sciences in Tehran, to gain insight on what the healthcare impacts are on
vulnerable women during the pandemic.
“Besides
heavy inflation due to sanctions, many people have lost their job due to the
Covid-19 outbreak, resulting in fallen household incomes. In these situations,
vulnerable people, including pregnant women are more affected” Abdoli tells TRT
World.
“Pregnant
women need to consume healthy diets containing proteins, vitamins, and
minerals. The inflation caused a sharp rise in the price of basic foods, such
as meat, poultry, fish, vegetables and fruits. In addition, the costs of
routine screening, medicines and supplements approximately 10 times increased
during the sanctions of Trump's administration. Poor nutrition and lack of
access to health services severely affect maternal and child health, especially
in poor groups of society” Abdoli adds.
As
the sanctions are yet to be lifted by the Biden administration, Abdoli believes
that “the long-term effects of sanctions could be more dangerous for female
populations than their short-term impact”.
The
impact of US sanctions
America
has framed part of its sanctions policies in the name of civil society, yet,
the reality of these policies hurt not only ordinary women but also the
movements happening on the ground in the realm of women’s rights.
Assal
Rad, a Senior Research Fellow at the National Iranian American Council, tells
TRT World “While U.S. policymakers may argue that sanctions are intended to
target the Iranian government, in practice, they impact ordinary Iranians of
all backgrounds”.
Washington’s
narratives have been pushed back since Trump’s re-imposition of sanctions in
2018 by analysts and regional experts. They argue that sanctions impede the
women’s rights movement in Iran even further, and the no sanctions on Iran
coalition of feminist Iranian-American scholars, artists and activists are
calling for an end to them.
“Studies
on the impact of sanctions have shown that they tend to exacerbate women's
rights, and this is not just the case in Iran. Since sanctions have a negative
impact on a country's economy and political stability, women tend to suffer
more because of their vulnerable political status as well. The security threats
that come along with sanctions and heightened tensions create an atmosphere of
greater security measures and increased repression of civil society movements,
including but not limited to women's rights” Rad adds.
The
interlink between the state and sanctions
The
U.S sanctions, which have been in place since 2018, have not made it any easier
for the women in Iran that are spearheading the movement towards gender equity.
In an economy being crippled by sanctions, the pressure mounts on women’s
rights defenders, with several activists being handed prison sentences in the
past two years.
Ali
Fathollah-Nejad, an expert on Iranian sanctions, and an affiliated scholar at
the Centre for International Cooperation and Development Studies with the
Université libre de Bruxelles, explains to TRT World how the negative impacts
from sanctions materialise.
“In
most cases, authoritarian governments try to externalise the costs of sanctions
onto the civilian population. Both discursively and materially. Also in the
Iranian case, there is a process of externalisation of costs, discursively and
materially, onto the civilian population, including civil society and its main
components in Iran, namely the students, labour and women's movements”.
“The
discursive externalisation, for instance, works in a way that activists may be
portrayed as being pawns in the hands of malign outside forces of imperialism
in order to de-legitimise what they're doing” Fathollah-Nejad adds.
Due
to the negative economic impacts of sanctions, he says “the economic well-being
of civil society activists is being complicated so that it could lead to a
scenario in which political activism becomes merely a luxury”.
A
consensus certainly exists among regional analysts - although the movement for
women’s rights in Iran is intensified by US sanctions, the country’s own policy
choices are considered the root of its deplorable women’s rights records.
Fathollah-Nejad
tells TRT World “When it comes to the specific issue of women's rights in Iran,
the most important hurdle is the state, and not sanctions. The most important
factor is the state and its multifaceted limitations imposed upon women, their
rights and activism. This is something that is quite clear in the Iranian
case”.
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/why-iran-s-women-s-rights-movement-will-endure-through-us-sanctions-44824
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South
African Muslim Bodies Call For Government Intervention Over Sri Lankan Burqa
Ban
March
19, 2021
South
African Muslim organisations have called on the country’s foreign minister to
intervene in the proposed Sri Lankan ban on the burqa and closure of hundreds
of Islamic schools.
This
followed the announcement by Sri Lanka’s minister for public security, Sarath
Weerasekera, during the weekend that his country would ban the traditional
full-face covering worn by some Muslim women because it posed a threat to
national security.
This
was quickly followed by a statement from the Sri Lankan foreign ministry, which
said a decision would only be taken on the proposal after consultations and
further discussion.
The
United Ulama Council of South Africa (UUCSA) has now asked South Africa’s
Minister of International Relations and Co-operation Naledi Pandor to intervene
in the matter.
UUCSA
had earlier also called for such intervention when Sri Lanka decided that
Muslims should also be cremated rather than buried, in defiance of Muslim
requirements, which prohibit cremation. The cremation ruling was rescinded
later.
“The
UUCSA will once again appeal to the Department of International Relations and
Co-operation to engage with its counterparts to stop state-sanctioned
Islamophobia,” Yusuf Patel, the secretary-general of UUCSA, told the weekly
Post.
“Muslims
in Sri Lanka have become targets of virulent hate speech in mainstream and
social media. The ban on the burqa and the closure of schools are meant to
appease Sri Lanka’s Buddhist majority, who thrive on entrenching sectarian and
religious divides through hate propaganda,” Patel said.
Adding
its voice to the call for action against Sri Lanka, the South African Muslim
Network (Samnet) said it was hypocritical of the Sri Lankan government to
target Islamic schools.
“There
are other religious groups who also have institutions that teach their
religious teachings, but there has been no attempt to target those,” Samnet
chairperson Dr Faisal Suliman told the weekly.
“Such
moves like this, on the Muslim community, will likely give rise to radicalism,
fundamentalism and underground movements, which will in fact be a greater
source of insecurity than working with religious schools, interacting with them
and looking at the syllabi taught. By doing this, they will be ensuring that
there are standards and uniformity of the teachings.”
Suliman
said Samnet would express its concerns to both the local foreign ministry as
well as the Sri Lankan embassy in South Africa.
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/south-african-muslim-bodies-call-for-government-intervention-over-sri-lankan-burqa-ban-7235046/
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