Taliban Tells Women Govt Employees to Send Their Male Relatives as Their Replacements
New Age Islam News Bureau
19 July 2022
• Taliban Tells Women Govt Employees to
Send Their Male Relatives as Their Replacements
• Muslim Girls in Vadodara Apply Henna
to Hindu Girls on Gauri Vrat
• Siti Nuramira Abdullah, the Malaysian
Woman in Comedy Club Fiasco to Face Shariah Charge
• How Saudi Artist Sarah Brahim Combines
Dance with Visual Art
• Confrontations and Conflict Continue
Over Forced Hijab in Iran
• New Sexual Harassment Bill Edges Closer
To Law In Malaysia
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL:
https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/taliban-women-afghanistan/d/127517
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Taliban Tells Women Govt Employees to
Send Their Male Relatives as Their Replacements
An Afghan
woman stands in front of the former Ministry of Women's Affairs during a
protest against Taliban restrictions on women (Image: Reuters)
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JULY 18, 2022
Taliban officials who now run
Afghanistan’s highest offices have asked women employees to send male relatives
as replacements to take over their jobs.
They have been asked to stop working and
remain at home. According to a report by the Guardian, women workers of
Afghanistan’s finance ministry called up female government officials and asked
them to recommend male relatives who could take up those positions.
“I was asked to introduce a male family
member to replace me at the ministry, so I could be dismissed from the job,” an
employee was quoted as saying by the news agency.
The employee received a call from the
finance ministry’s HR department who asked her to recommend a replacement for
her post for which she worked her way up for 15 years.
The woman, who is the head of department
in the ministry and holds a master’s degree in business management, questioned
the ability of the person if she were to recommend him as her replacement,
since she has mastered the skills over a long period of time.
“How can I easily introduce someone else
to replace me? Would he be able to work as efficiently as I have for so many
years?” the woman asked.
She also questioned the official and
said that she wants to know what would happen to her and her job. She countered
the Taliban official and said to him that since she has been demoted after
their takeover she barely manages to pay her son’s school fees. “When I
questioned this, an official rudely told me to get out of his office and said
that my demotion was not negotiable,” she told the Guardian.
Women have been subjected to
medieval-era restrictions after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. The
terrorists follow a strict interpretation of Islamic laws and prevent women
from attending schools, colleges, offices.
The laws also promote moral policing and
objectification of women. Sahar Fetrat, assistant researcher with the women’s
rights division at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said that male relatives of women
are punished if the Taliban finds the body language and conduct of those women
offensive.
Many women told the Guardian that they
received similar calls from the Taliban officials. However, the female official
of the finance ministry said she and her female colleagues from the finance
department who had received similar calls will mobilize against the diktat.
“We have created a group of female
employees of the ministry. We are negotiating now, and we will demonstrate if
they don’t hear us,” the woman was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
Sourse: News 18
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Muslim girls in Vadodara apply henna to
Hindu girls on Gauri Vrat
On the
occasion of Gauri Vrat, Muslim girls applied henna (mehendi) on hands of Hindu
girls in Vadodara
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Vadodara (Gujarat), July 18 (ANI): -
A number of girls participated in this
event, which was organized by a trust run by a father-daughter duo, Gulab and
Nishita Rajput, who have been working for the education of women for the last
many years. In a unique gesture, dry fruits were also distributed among girls
observing Gauri Vrat or fast. The trust keeps on organizing such events with an
aim to sow seeds of harmony among the students at a young age. Legend has it
that Goddess Parvati observed this fast to get Lord Shiva as her husband and
therefore it is a widespread belief that those who observe ‘GauriVrat’ get an
idle husband.
Sourse: ANI News
https://www.aninews.in/videos/national/muslim-girls-vadodara-apply-henna-hindu-girls-gauri-vrat/
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Siti Nuramira Abdullah, the Malaysian
Woman in Comedy Club Fiasco to Face Shariah Charge For Insulting Islam
July 19, 2022
KUALA LUMPUR: Soon after posting bail
today, a woman who courted controversy during a stand-up comedy performance was
arrested by the Federal Territories Islamic religious department (Jawi).
Siti Nuramira Abdullah will face a new
charge of insulting Islam before the Shariah High Court tomorrow.
Lawyer Ramesh Chandran said this to
reporters after Siti Nuramira, 26, settled her RM20,000 bail for her earlier
charge under Section 298A of the Penal Code.
He said Siti Nuramira will face a charge
under Section 7 of the Shariah Criminal Offences (Federal Territories) Act.
The provision states that “anyone who
insults or brings into contempt the religion of Islam shall be guilty of an
offence”.
The offence is punishable by a fine of
up to RM3, 000 or two years’ imprisonment upon conviction.
Eight Jawi officers were seen at the
court complex here to take Siti Nuramira into custody.
Last week, she claimed trial before the
Sessions court to causing disharmony among the Muslim community during her
performance at the Crackhouse Comedy Club in Taman Tun Dr Ismail on June 4.
The court granted her bail of RM20, 000
and warned her not to comment on the case.
She and her partner, Alexander Navin
Vijayachandran, managed to raise around RM40,000 through crowd funding to post
bail.
Navin was charged separately at the
Petaling Jaya sessions court with uploading insulting content on social media.
On the first count, he was accused of
sharing a posting on his Instagram account on June 5 with the intention of
insulting others.
The second charge said he shared content
via his YouTube account on June 16 with the intention of insulting others.
The court also imposed a RM20,000 bail
for Navin, which he posted.
Sourse: Free Malaysia Today
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How Saudi artist Sarah Brahim combines
dance with visual art
July 18, 2022
DUBAI: Saudi artist Sarah Brahim is
making waves with her multidisciplinary collaborative work — ahead of her
showing at the Lyon Biennale in September, the Riyadh-based choreographer,
dancer and artist discussed her contemporary art.
Brahim, 30, has studied dance since she
was just three years old, an education that she says was a fundamental
preparation for her career as visual artist.
“My background in dance allowed me to
study the body in space, the body in motion and experiences of the body — how
the body fits into architecture, into music and into silence,” she explained.
“All of these experiences prepared me for my current modality of expression. My
practice now is both experimental and research-based. I tend to find something
that is powerful or strong or really important and then work with it within
whatever medium is best fit to express it.”
Brahim, who calls herself a performance
and visual artist, studied, choreographed, performed, and taught jazz, contemporary,
ballet, and tap dance. She attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and
in 2016 she graduated from the London Contemporary Dance School with a
bachelor’s degree in contemporary dance.
Since then, she has collaborated with
professional performers across the US, Europe and the Middle East, exploring
various themes through her performances, film and installation work.
The artist has explored themes of loss,
identity, borders, veiling, migration, the experiences of women of color and
those of individuals living a transnational existence. Brahim has shown her
work around the world, including in Italy, Saudi Arabia, the US, and the UK.
In her most recent work, “Soft
Machines/Far Away Engines” in 2021, commissioned for the first Diriyah
Contemporary Biennale in Riyadh, screens showed individuals interacting with
each other, moving, intertwining and embracing. Small gestures, says the
artist, are “amplified through repetition and layering, conjuring up
multi-faceted images of beauty.”
The way Brahim worked with the
technological framework that brought her work to the viewer, in addition to her
sensitivity to how the body is used to present ideas, thoughts and emotion,
revealed a singular vision of a world that is both intimately and ethereally
interconnected.
In September, Brahim will show the same
work at the Lyon Biennale, taking place from Sept. 14 until Dec. 31, which was
originally slated to open in 2021. The pandemic-postponed edition, curated this
year by duo Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, who have long worked with artists
from the Arab world, tackles the idea of fragility.
“The installation will be changed
slightly to be site-specific to the factory I am working in in Lyon,” Brahim
told Arab News. “I am working to make certain elements of the piece more
immersive through sound and visuals and for the overall experience. I want
guests to feel that they are inside the performance that is being projected.”
Brahim is also showing 10 works in
cyanotype print on cotton from her series “Who We Are Out of the Dark,” which
she began in 2020 and is ongoing. Her dreamy, abstract and suggestive series
explores the concept of generational grief through the idea of epigenetics, the
study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the
way one’s genes work.
“The works reflect different symbols for
grief,’ she said. “Because I wasn’t finding symbols that resonated with the
grief I was experiencing and I thought to research and make new symbols and
externalize them so that I could better understand my pain and the subject with
more depth.”
Brahim’s cyanotypes will be displayed at
different museums in Lyon.
Sourse: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2124461/lifestyle
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Confrontations And Conflict Continue
Over Forced Hijab In Iran
Iran’s government continues its intense
campaign to force women to wear the hijab, as public debate on the issue flares
up each day with fresh news of confrontations.
A woman who was arrested because of an
acrimonious dispute with a hijab enforcer in a city bus was identified as
SepidehRashno, an educated person with a good public profile, Iran
International has learned.
Rashno – a 28-year-old artist, writer
and editor – was arrested on Saturday evening, July 16, after a video of her
quarrel with a woman enforcing hijab rules – identified as RayehehRabi’i --
went viral.
In the video Rabi’i, who was fully covered
by a long, black ‘chador’ – which is typical of the supporters of the Islamic
Republic – is seen shouting at Rashno who had unveiled in the transit bus. The
quarrel became so frantic that other passengers intervened and kicked the hijab
enforcer out of the bus.
Rabi’i was also recording the incident
and threatening the hijab-protester to send it to the Revolutionary Guards.
There are unconfirmed reports on social media that Rabi’i’s father is a member
of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij paramilitary force and was involved in the
crackdown of popular protests in 2009.
Some government officials, including the
head of the Islamic Development Organization, have praised Rabi’i and called on
people to confront women who unveil in public.
IRGC affiliated Fars news broke the news
which could frighten people whose support for anti-hijab protests are growing,
adding that several other anti-hijab activists had also been arrested since
Iranian women launched a campaign against the compulsory Islamic dress code on July
12.
In another video released this week, a
man started berating a few teenage girls who had removed their hijab at a
subway station in Tehran, but other people came to help and sent the angry man
away. The number of videos of confrontations between anti-hijab protesters and
hijab enforcers are growing in social media.
In a statement released on Sunday,
Iran’s exiled queen Farah Pahlavi condemned the widespread arrests of civil and
human rights activists in Iran, particularly the anti-hijab activists.
Denouncing the violent behavior of the
morality – or hijab – police while arresting the protesters, she said that “not
a day goes by without news and images of attacks on women and violation of
their rights, disturbing the souls of noble Iranians, but the news of the civil
struggle of women and men of my land against any kind of coercion and
discrimination is a source of pride and honor.”
Iranians deserve peaceful coexistence no
matter their beliefs, clothing or lifestyle as it was like this before the Islamic
Revolution and will become so thanks to people, she said.
She noted that the will and civil
courage of Iranian men and women is greater and stronger “than the oppressors’
power.”
On July 12, following a call by women’s
rights activists for civil disobedience with the hashtag of ‘No2Hijab’ social
media exploded with dozens of videos and photos of women unveiling in public.
Iran has started arresting women who
participated in the nationwide campaign against the compulsory Islamic dress
code this week.
For the past few weeks, the government
has increased harassment of women for their insufficient hijab and many have
been detained by special police patrols.
Sourse: Irani Ntl
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202207184350
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New sexual harassment bill edges closer
to law in Malaysia
By Emily Ding
19 Jul 2022
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – At university,
three years ago Esma* felt a persistent pain along her arm and went to the
campus clinic.
When she lay on the examination bed, the
medic asked her to unbutton the top of her dress. He said that a lump on her
chest could be causing the pain and told her to lower her bra.
“I did what he asked me to do because
there was nothing suspicious at first. I thought he was doing his job,” she
told Al Jazeera.
She soon discovered otherwise.
The medic told her she had beautiful
breasts, kissing one and squeezing her nipples. It took about 30 seconds for
her to fully comprehend what was happening.
“I didn’t say anything. I was too
shocked,” Esma said. “I just sat up and dressed myself, and he sat back in his
chair to write me a medical prescription for my arm – it didn’t mention the
lumps. Then I left.”
Reports of sexual harassment are not
uncommon in Malaysia, but despite the existence of various legal mechanisms,
many women say effective redress is still lacking.
They hope the long-awaited Anti-Sexual
Harassment Bill, which had its first parliamentary reading in December last
year, will soon become law. A second reading will take place this month.
“This bill would apply to any person, in
any context,” said Daniella Zulkifili, from the Association of Women Lawyers,
who had a hand in the bill’s drafting.
The legislation would broaden the
current, piecemeal application of sexual harassment laws – going beyond the
workplace to cover occurrences in any setting, such as educational
institutions, clinics, public transport, sports clubs, even online.
Sourse: Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/19/sexual-assault
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/taliban-women-afghanistan/d/127517