Seeking To Break Taboos: Full Steam Ahead For Saudi Women With Train Driver Program
New Age Islam
News Bureau
08 January 2022
• Taliban’s
Religious Police Issue Posters Ordering Women To Cover Up
• Iranian Regime
In Isfahan Bans Bodybuilding For Women
• Women Compete
In Saudi Festival’s Camel Beauty Contest For First Time
• Uyghur Woman
Sentenced For 14 Years For Teaching Islam, Hiding Qurans
• DWE Celebrates
The Role Of Women In Business
• Covid-19:
Pakistan's largest city launches door-to-door vaccination for women
• The World
Should Address The Shocking Rise In Executions Of Women In Iran
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL:
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Seeking To Break
Taboos: Full Steam Ahead For Saudi Women With Train Driver Program
(Credit: @SRP_KSA video)
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January 03, 2022
JEDDAH: The
Saudi Railway Polytechnic is training women to drive trains on the Kingdom’s
Haramain High Speed Railway, in a project seeking to break taboos.
For decades,
train driving has been viewed as a masculine career profession.
And while women
in Saudi Arabia have broken records in traditionally male activities, including
racing and flying, they were left out of railway employment — until now.
The SRP project,
announced on Jan. 2, will see Saudi women operating the train line that links
the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.
SRP opened a
registration portal for the program through the srp.edu.sa website. It will
close on Jan. 13.
Training will
last for one year, during which trainees will receive theoretical and practical
lessons. Classes are taking place in Jeddah beginning Jan. 15.
Joining the
program will guarantee trainees several benefits, including medical insurance,
registration in General Organization for Social Insurance and a monthly SR4,000
($1,065) bonus during the training period.
The program also
offers graduates a guaranteed position with Renfe KSA, one of the companies
operating the high-speed train project. Once female graduates are employed with
Saudi Arabia Railways, they will receive a monthly salary of up to SR8,000.
SRP Director
Engr. Abdulaziz Alsogair told Arab News that trainees will be selected based on
several qualifications, including English language tests.
“Transportation
operation systems worldwide depend on good language knowledge, thus joining the
program requires scoring at least 3.5 in IELTS,” he said.
“Applicants with
better language levels will have priority in joining the program.”
The program also
demands at least a high school degree with a grade rating of 70 percent and
above. “Trainees must be aged between 22 and 30,” Alsogair added.
SRP is expected
to train 50 women in the first cohort. “The number of trainees will increase in
the coming years,” Alsogair said.
The program will
teach trainees all there is to know about transportation systems, including
safety measures, railway economics, communications, mechanical brake systems
and engines.
Trainees will
practice on train simulators as part of their practical training courses.
“There will also be training trips, where trainees will have the chance to
drive the actual railway train,” Alsogair said.
Haramain High
Speed Railway transports about 60 million passengers per year. Demand is
expected to grow significantly over the coming years, especially in the Umrah
and Hajj seasons.
Alsogair said
that Saudi railways aim to transport 1.5 billion Muslim passengers with full
operational capacity in the future.
“There will be a
high demand for train drivers of both genders, which will accordingly bring
more vacancies to the field to be filled by the daughters and sons of our
beloved homeland.”
Saudi women will
help meet the demand for qualified drivers, he added. “This is how we achieve
sustainability — one of Vision 2030’s most important goals.”
Women graduates
will work together with their male counterparts, who graduated from previous
programs.
Source: Arab
News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1997096/saudi-arabia
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Taliban’s
Religious Police Issue Posters Ordering Women To Cover Up
FILE - Burqa-clad women are
pictured at a market in Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 20, 2021.
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January 8, 2022
KABUL: The
Taliban’s religious police have put up posters around the capital Kabul
ordering Afghan women to cover up, an official said on Friday, the latest in a
string of creeping restrictions.
The poster, which
includes an image of the face-covering burqa, was slapped on cafes and shops
this week by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Since returning
to power in August, the Taliban have increasingly curtailed freedoms — particularly
those of women and girls.
“According to
Sharia law, Muslim women must wear the hijab,” the poster reads, referring to
the practice of covering up. A spokesman for the ministry, responsible for
enforcing the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law, confirmed on Friday that
it was behind the orders.
“If someone does
not follow it, it does not mean she will be punished or beaten, it’s just
encouragement for Muslim women to follow Sharia law,” Sadeq Akif Muhajir said.
In Kabul, women
already cover their hair with headscarves, though some wear modest western
clothing.
Outside of the
capital the burqa, which became mandatory for women under the Taliban’s first
regime in the 1990s, has remained common.
“What they’re
trying to do is to spread fear among the people,” a university student and
women’s rights advocate, who did not want to be identified, said.
“The first time
I saw the posters I was really petrified, I thought maybe (the Taliban) will
start beating me. They want me to wear a burqa and look like nothing, I would
never do that.”
The Taliban,
desperate for international recognition to allow funding flows to reopen to the
war-wracked country, have so far refrained from issuing national policies.
Instead, they
have published guidance for men and women that has varied from province to
province.
“This is not
good. 100 per cent, this will create fear,” said Shahagha Noori, the supervisor
of a Kabul restaurant where the poster had been put up by the Taliban.
“I think if the
Taliban get international recognition, then they will start to enforce it.”
Source: Dawn
https://www.dawn.com/news/1668249/taliban-issue-posters-ordering-women-to-cover-up
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Iranian regime
in Isfahan bans bodybuilding for women
JANUARY 5, 2022
The clerical
regime in the Iranian city of Isfahan has outlawed bodybuilding activities for
women, introducing a new body blow against the already dire condition for women
in the Islamic Republic.
Sheina Vojoudi,
an Iranian dissident who fled to Germany to escape persecution, said the mullah
regime does not want women to “feel powerful in Iran. It’s dangerous for the
regime. Now the world can notice that this regime is just using Hijab as an
excuse to suppress Iranian women.
“The Islamic
Republic has been based on anti-women ideology,” she said. “To suppress a
society, first you suppress the women of that society. Since 1979, the Iranian
women have always paid a heavy price for their rights. We’ve been oppressed,
we’ve been harassed, we’ve been threatened by Basij and we’ve been deprived of
our rights but we’re still fighting.”
The Islamic
Revolution in Iran in 1979 ushered in the theocratic state that imposes gender
apartheid on women, according to critics. The Basij is a volunteer paramilitary
force used by the Iranian regime to enforce the disenfranchisement of women and
crack down on political dissent.
The Iranian
regime-controlled media outlet Iran’s Metropolises News Agency (MNA) reported
this week that Hossein Zibaei, the deputy director of sports development at the
Isfahan Sports and Youth Administration, confirmed the prohibition of women’s
bodybuilding activities, saying about the ban.
“This section
has been notified to the general directorate of the country.”
MNA added, “In
response to the question whether this notification has been issued for all
provinces, he pointed out: This order came from the ministry and we just have
to obey this order.”
The central
Iranian city of Isfahan has been in the headlines over the last few months for
execution sprees in its vast prison system and mass protests against economic
and political corruption, including water shortages.
Tavaana, the
E-Learning Institute for Iranian Civil Society, tweeted to its 137,800 followers:
“Bodybuilding activities for women in Isfahan have been banned. Every day, the
Islamic Republic takes a new step to eliminate women from society.... We urge
sport teams/federations & male athletes not to stay indifferent to the ever
harsher restrictions imposed on women athletes.”
Source: Jerusalem
Post
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-691563
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Women Compete In
Saudi Festival’s Camel Beauty Contest For First Time
January 07, 2022
RIYADH:
Twenty-five female camel owners have been allowed to showcase their animals for
the first time in a beauty contest at a major festival taking place in Saudi
Arabia.
The sixth
edition of the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival has introduced an open round for
women with Maghatirs, an ancient and highly valued breed of camel.
A committee of
judges will grade the animals in three color categories and an individual
class.
The Saudi Camel
Club has been keen to encourage the involvement of women in regional and
international camel competitions.
Saudi camel
owner, Munira Al-Mukhass, told Arab News that having the opportunity to take
part in the contest with her camel, Tawq, felt in itself similar to winning a
medal.
“I have met and
had meetings with many camel owners over the years and it’s funny that I said
to one of them, Umair Al-Qahtani, God willing, one day I will participate in
the festival. Now my wish has come true,” she said.
Al-Mukhass noted
that rules for entering the competition had been simple to follow. “The
registration and medical examination procedures for young camels took me only
one day. They explained to us how to participate, register, and the time of
attendance.”
And she hoped
that after competing in the festival, her camel may be worth around SR1 million
($266,000), and that next year’s event could see equal numbers of male and
female camel owners taking part.
A consultant and
member of the Saudi Society for the Study of Camels, Fahad Al-Bogami, said the
animals came in many shades with each color having its own beauty
specifications and distinguishing features.
He pointed out
that the beauty of a camel was judged on parts of its body such as the head,
neck, and hump, and generally took into consideration size, length, and height.
Bedouin tribes
divide maghatir camels into colors that range from white shades, to yellow and
red, and each color has a name.
The King
Abdulaziz Camel Festival, staged northeast of Riyadh, attracts more than
100,000 visitors from around the world every day.
Source: Arab
News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2000061/saudi-arabia
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Uyghur Woman
Sentenced For 14 Years For Teaching Islam, Hiding Qurans
By Shohret
Hoshur
2022.01
A Uyghur woman
abducted from her home in China's far-western Xinjiang region in the middle of
the night more than four years ago was sentenced to 14 years in prison for
providing religious instruction to children in her neighborhood and hiding copies
of the Quran, sources with knowledge of the situation and local police said.
Hasiyet Ehmet,
now 57 and a resident of Manas (in Chinese, Manasi) county in Changji Hui
Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, has not been heard from since she was
abducted by authorities in May 2017, said the source who requested anonymity
for fear of reprisal by Chinese authorities.
Police from the
county’s No. 3 police station broke into Hasiyet’s home and put a black hood
over her head, refusing her request to put on other clothes and gather her
medicine before they took her away, according to the person with knowledge of
the situation.
A Manas county
court official confirmed that Hasiyet Ehmet had been sentenced to 14 years.
“It was because
of teaching kids the Quran and hiding two copies of Quran when authorities were
confiscating them, and later getting caught,” the official said. “These were
the reasons for her sentences.”
Nine years
before her arrest, Hasiyet’s husband was convicted of “separatism” charges and
sentenced to life in prison in 2009, the source said.
Hasiyet had
stopped teaching children two years before her arrest because of health
problems. She also refrained from attending public events, said the source.
Chinese
authorities have targeted and arrested numerous Uyghur businessmen,
intellectuals, and cultural and religious figures in the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region for years as part of a campaign to monitor, control, and
assimilate members of the minority group purportedly to prevent religious
extremism and terrorist activities.
Many of them
have been among the 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities believed to
be held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has
said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread
and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in Xinjiang.
Hasiyet was
arrested along with some of her neighbors and held for 15 days after
questioning, said the chairman of the local neighborhood committee, a
grassroots-level organization in China that monitors residents. Authorities
arrested her a second time that September and sentenced her.
Staff at the
Manas county police department declined to answer questions about Hasiyet, only
telling RFA that there were not many Uyghur police officers or Uyghur residents
who lived in the county, which covers nearly 9,200 square kilometers (3,550
square miles).
Changji Hui
Autonomous Prefecture has a population of more than 1.6 million people,
according to China’s latest census data on Xinjiang, issued in June 2021. The
information did not break down the population at the county level.
A police officer
in Manas did not deny that Hasiyet was in detention but said it was a “state
secret” and provided no further details.
Another source with
knowledge of the situation told RFA’s Uyghur Service after it first reported on
Hasiyet’s case that authorities sentenced the woman to 14 years in prison —
seven for teaching the Quran and giving religious lessons to local children and
another seven for hiding two copies of the sacred text during a time when
police began confiscating religious books from Manas county residents.
Authorities did
not try Hasiyet on the charges in court, but instead sent a court verdict
letter to her family, the person said. But because Hasiyet’s husband was
serving a life sentence in prison, her parents were dead, and the whereabouts
of her 13-year-old daughter were unknown, the letter may have been delivered to
her husband’s family.
“The verdict
statement briefly summarized the reasons for her abduction along with her
prison term,” the source wrote to RFA.
Source: RFA
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/hasiyet-ehmet-01072022150935.html
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DWE celebrates
the role of women in business
January 08, 2022
Dazzling Women
Entrepreneurs Group (DWE) hosted its first icebreaker event at the Crowne Plaza
Dubai, Jumeirah Hotel, on December 16, 2021. DWE is a global social networking
platform founded by Pushpa Jaleel to support women empowerment and SMEs.
The event
received positive feedback and was attended by Dr Yaqoob Al Ali, executive
director and private advisor for the office of Sheikh Juma Bin Maktoum Al
Maktoum; Maktoum Almarzouqi, director, Almarzouqi Group; Sameera Rizwan Sajan
and Shabnam N Kassam, directors at Danube; Shilpa Shirodkar, Bollywood actress;
Dr Shams Abdullah Alamro, international judge of human rights at United
Nations; Dr Jean Shahdadpuri, MD, Nikai Group of Companies; Juhi Y Khan,
founder, Future Philanthropist CSR Company, and Lara Tabet, TV presenter.
Speaking about
building a business, Jaleel saidthat sixty two per cent of women business
owners are between the ages of 40-59 years. She further said: “Networking is an
investment in your business. Building business relationships are highly
important in the UAE, therefore, stay connected, bond and network.
” Jaleel said
that gender is not a necessary criteria to achieve big in the entrepreneurial
world. On the topic of personal growth for women in business today, Jaleel
advises: “Showcase your passion. Make your goals visible through your character
and your actions. Learn from one another and lead an enriched professional
life.”
Jaleel has also
announced her interest to train, mentor, and share her experiences and
knowledge with young online women business owners.
Source: Khaleej
Times
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-network/dwe-celebrates-the-role-of-women-in-business
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Covid-19:
Pakistan's largest city launches door-to-door vaccination for women
7 Jan 2022
Pakistan’s
largest city Karachi is launching a door-to-door campaign to vaccinate women,
who are lagging behind men in rates of coronavirus inoculation as the country
enters a fifth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, a senior official said on Friday.
Pakistan on
Friday reported nearly 1,300 cases in a single day, its highest tally in two
months, with a positivity rate of 2.5%. Karachi’s positivity rate rose to 10%,
from 4.74% on Dec. 31.
“We have found
that a sizable population of housewives are unvaccinated, and they socialise
and attend weddings without face masks,” Qasim Siraj Soomro, parliamentary
health secretary of the Sindh provincial government, told Reuters.
In contrast, the
rate of vaccination among male family members who go out to work is higher than
the rate among women, he added.
The provincial
government’s campaign will use female health workers, who have long played an
instrumental role in country-wide polio vaccination campaigns in the South
Asian nation.
“We plan to
target clusters in urban areas and at later stage in rural areas,” said the
parliamentary secretary.
About 70 million
people in Pakistan, or 32% of the population, have had two vaccine doses.
The first case
of the Omicron variant was reported on Dec. 13 in Karachi, and the federal
government has acknowledged that a fifth pandemic has started in the country,
with Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad seeing most of the cases.
The government
has not yet announced new restrictions but has urged people to follow
precautionary measures.
The government
has authorized booster doses for citizens over the age of 30 from Monday.
Children over the age of 12 are being offered vaccinations at their schools.
Source: Khaleej
Times
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The world should
address the shocking rise in executions of women in Iran
December 21,
2021
The seven
executions of women in Iran in just one month is half the average annual rate
The clerical
regime has stepped up executions in the past month with a shocking rise in the
executions of women in Iran.
Since November
22, 2021, at least 39 persons, including seven women, have been hanged in
various prisons across the country.
They include the
execution on December 19, 2021, of a Kurdish political prisoner, Haidar
Ghorbani, 40, and the father of two, after five years of captivity.
The Iranian
Judiciary handed down his death penalty based on forced confessions extracted
from him under torture. They carried out the death penalty without informing
his family and/or lawyer. The intelligence services did not hand Haidar’s body
to his family and buried him secretly.
The entire
“legal” procedure, from the beginning to the end, violated all international
standards and humanitarian law.
On the same day,
two Baluch citizens were hanged in the Prison of Shiraz. One of them was Na’eim
Shahbakhsh, 38, the father of four, including two children under ten years.
Again, the
authorities did not inform his family before the execution. Therefore, he died
without having a final visit with his family.
Seven women were
hanged in one month
Four of the
seven women hanged over the past month have not been identified.
The authorities
of the Central Prison of Yasuj carried out the death penalties for a couple on
November 23, 2021, on murder charges.
On drug-related
charges, Maryam Khakpour, 41, was hanged on November 25 in Dastgerd Prison of
Isfahan. She had repeatedly claimed innocence saying the drugs belonged to her
husband, sentenced to 18 years.
A 2017 amendment
to the Iranian regime’s law strictly limits the use of the death penalty for
drug-related offenses. The executions on drug-related charges have nevertheless
continued.
On December 9,
2021, six inmates, including three unidentified women, were hanged in the
Central Prison of Kerman.
Massoumeh
Zare’i, 40, was hanged in the Prison of Amol at dawn on December 14, 2021. She
had a 21-year-old daughter and was in prison for seven years for the murder of
her husband, a drug addict who often battered her and did not consent to
divorce.
Fatemeh Aslani
was hanged on December 19, 2021, in Dastgerd Prison of Isfahan for murdering
her husband. She had been on death row for nine years despite pleading not
guilty.
Ebrahim Ra’isi
oversees surge in executions
The seven
hanging executions of women in Iran during just one month are noteworthy,
particularly because, since 2013, the average number of women executed in Iran
has been 15 per year.
The Iranian
regime has executed some 350 persons since January 2021, compared to the 255
executed in 2020. Of course, the actual number of those executed by the regime
must be considered higher because the regime executes many in secret and away
from the public’s eyes.
The significant
rise in the number of death penalties carried out in Iran in 2021 is an outcome
of the presidency of Ebrahim Ra’isi, who is notorious for his direct role in
the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in just a few months in 1988.
In the face of
growing societal discontent, The inhuman clerical regime has found the only way
to preserve its rule in intensifying executions, torture, and repression.
The Iranian
Resistance has repeatedly urged the UN Security Council, the UN
Secretary-General, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights, as well as the European Union and its member states, to
strongly condemn the growing number of executions in Iran and to take immediate
action to rescue prisoners on death row.
With this
month’s surge in executions, this imperative becomes ever more urgent.
No talks, no
ties with the world’s chief executioner of women
Iran is the
world’s chief executioner of women.
The Women’s
Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) genuinely
believes that women are the force for change. It urges all women’s rights
advocates and activists worldwide to play an active role concerning the fate of
their sisters in Iran and help stop the executions of women in Iran.
Women should
urge their governments to make all economic and political relations with Tehran
contingent on a halt to executions, especially the executions of women in Iran
and torture of political prisoners.
They should urge
their governments to refer the dossier of the clerical regime’s human rights
abuses to the UN Security Council.
The UN and its
member states should form an international tribunal to hold the leaders of the
Iranian regime, especially its supreme leader Ali Khamenei, its president
Ebrahim Ra’isi, its Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, and its
parliamentary speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, accountable for four decades of
crimes against humanity and genocide.
The
freedom-loving women worldwide must not withstand their governments negotiating
and shaking hands with a murderous regime, let alone appeasing it.
The women of
Iran look to their sisters around the world to lend them support in their
tortuous struggle for freedom and equality.
Help stop
executions of women in Iran!
Source: NCR
https://women.ncr-iran.org/2021/12/21/rise-in-executions-of-women-in-iran/
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