Tunisian Ons Jabeur and Egyptian Bassant Hemida Gave Arabs Tremendous Joy, Pride, and Hope
New Age Islam News Bureau
20 July 2022
• Just A Call from Pilgrims Makes Us Forget Fatigue;
Say Female Security Officials
• Lahore Court Sends Dua Zehra to Women's Shelter at
Her Request
• 'We Are Not Safe Anywhere': Egyptian Women Fear
Systemic Normalisation of Gender-Based Violence and Femicide
• What's Behind Iran's Claims Of Iraqi Women
Trafficking Crackdown?
• Turkish Court Upholds Exit from Treaty Protecting
Women
• Panjshir Women Demand Justice Following Shooting of
Afghan Woman by Taliban
• Muslim-German Women's Delegation Visits Israel to
Learn About Women's Religious Study
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/tunisian-jabeur-egyptian-hemida-arab/d/127527
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Tunisian Ons Jabeur and Egyptian Bassant Hemida Gave
Arabs Tremendous Joy, Pride, and Hope
Egyptian Bassant Hemida
----
July 14, 2022
Ons Jabeur and Bassant Hemida gave Arabs tremendous
joy, pride, and hope last week. The Tunisian professional tennis player and the
Egyptian Olympic sprinter, respectively, did one of the most difficult things
to do in Arab societies – translate hard work and talent into meaningful results
despite overwhelming obstacles.
Arab economies and societies need more women like Ons
Jabeur and Bassant Hemida because they demonstrate what could be, instead of
what most often is. And that is desperately needed to drive things forward.
This week Jabeur became the first Arab and African to
reach the Wimbledon or any other tennis Grand Slam final. At the Mediterranean
Games, Hemida became the first Egyptian to ever win gold medals and set records
for the 100-metre and 200-metrs sprints in the major international competition.
Talent and hard work can have very little to do with
what you can achieve in Arab societies. Privileges enjoyed by a few continue to
stifle and suffocate economies, robbing millions of people of opportunities.
Privilege is probably the most notable aspect of Arab
economies. It stubbornly undermines the growth and productivity of economies
and sectors. Therefore, there are less new companies and less new jobs.
Finding a job is not easy in the Arab countries. The
region features high unemployment rates, especially among youth and women. Arab
economies barely create new jobs. In addition, most women do not seek a job.
So, it is no surprise that Arabs have so much joy and
pride about these two women. They are what so many Arabs hope for, not what
people often experience, an opportunity to have hard work and talent mean
something.
Arab economies need to become places where the
economically marginalized can have more opportunities. Jabeur and Hemida are
rare exceptions. Arab countries lose out on enormous potential benefits to
economies and societies from better, including women, youth, people with less
financial means, and the disabled.
For societies that take great pride in negotiating
skills, there is a lot of value left on the table. Rather than having a bigger
economy that includes more citizens, the few with privilege and the governments
that favor them hold back growth and productivity so that a select group can
have a bigger piece of a smaller pie.
Hany Ragy, a cardiologist at Egypt’s National Heart
Institute (@Hrafy) tweeted, “Today is a historic day for Egypt! For the first
time ever, one of us wins an international competition, and guess what? It’s a
woman!! Bassant Hemeida makes history. Give women a chance, and everyone wins!”
Talking about Jabeur and Hemida, many expressed that
same sentiment on social media this week and they are totally correct.
Research shows removing barriers for female
participation in the workforce could have a significant positive impact on the
growth of sectors and the economies of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon,
Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia. A lot is being lost.
The IMF estimated that Egypt’s GDP would be about
one-third bigger with more equal inclusion of female labour not too long ago.
Women’s economic power is key for growth, affecting output and productivity,
and through higher domestic demand. It is also true that even the biggest and
best companies perform better with more female labour and management.
Now more than ever, Arab economies need to find
practical ways to include the economically marginalized because people are
really suffering. The COVID pandemic had a bigger impact on women, youth, the
low-skilled and migrant workers relative to men. Unlike past economic crises,
informal workers were not as spared as before.
This past week, Jabeur and Hemida gave a lot of Arabs
hope. After all, people love superheroes and role models because they can do
what a person wishes or hopes to do. But these women are not just
inspirational. Their stories are also informative.
At twelve years old, Jabeur moved from her hometown
Sousse to the capital city of Tunis to attend a national sports high school for
the country’s up-and-coming athletes, the Lycée Sportif El Menzah. Both she and
Hemida showed great success at international junior competitions and have now
repeated that success as young adults.
Identifying and championing talent from younger ages
is key. And it can also be relatively easily operationalized.
A well-conceived and executed national strategy with
the intentional goal of better capturing what is now being lost would produce
results faster than most people think. Too often these strategies are toothless
tokens. Sound strategies and operations will include more interventions that
are already known to be effective.
Specialized high schools can develop and champion
young talent for many economic sectors, for example. Jabeur no doubt benefited
from attending a sports high school. If you look around the world you will see
this is a common intervention, just not that common in Arab countries. High
schools for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and the arts have
direct benefits for sectors and economies.
Education and achievement are not the problem in Arab
countries. While there are significant issues with the approach to, and quality
of education in countries around the region, globally speaking, the
economically marginalized in Arab countries are often better educated than
their counterparts in other countries around the world.
Companies in key sectors in the region would benefit
by better including the economically marginalized because of their talent. For
instance, technology companies could really benefit because more of the STEM
talent among the youth is now female. Notably, the Arab region leads the world
in female founders of online-based companies. Interventions that help translate
doing well in STEM to acquiring skills companies demand can be done in large
numbers.
The more talent and knowhow can be tested and
championed without regard to gender, age, financial means, or disability, the
better. Technology companies with a need for a technical skill and
knowhow-heavy workforce could provide a more level playing field. It would be a
good reason to favor them, for instance, by providing them more government
benefits if they could demonstrate that they do.
While Jabeur and Hemida are better off than most in
the region because they face fair and objective measures of their performance,
they are not exempt from Arab cultural attitudes and perceptions.
Egypt’s first professional squash player, Salma
Shabana said, “It’s tough. It’s a man’s world and for the most part everyone is
there to look at your legs. You have to do what [Hemida] did for people to
start taking you seriously and that’s why she deserves all the praise and
respect she’s getting.” And there certainly was a lot of talk about what Hemida
was wearing when she won both her gold medals at the Mediterranean Games.
Focusing on irrelevant things like appearance is a
common obstacle for the economically marginalized, not unique to the Arab
world. The focus on what a woman is wearing or how nice the shoes of a job
candidate with less financial means can reflect one assessing their own talent
compared to the marginalized or an attempt to dismiss and exclude them.
Attitudes towards and perceptions about women, youth,
people with less financial means, and the disabled in Arab countries is a
problem. But these things change and can be changed. People often worry that
things do not change, but how often has an event, a crisis, or new technology
changed so much about what people think and do?
Mohamed Salah, an Egyptian professional and currently
one of the world’s best football players, wrote to Hemida on Instagram after
her wins, “Congrats our champ, we are all proud of you.” She replied, “you
can’t imagine how I’m motivated right now because of your support, you are the
idol for all the athlete[s] in Egypt. Thanks Mo.”
Role models can change attitudes, perceptions, and
behavior both in and outside the household. Seeing someone that looks like you
matters. It is important for Arabs living in societies where privilege too
often dominates merit to see economically marginalized people have hard work
and talent translate into something individually meaningful. Success does not
necessarily make you a role model, especially because of privilege.
After her defeat in the Wimbledon final, Jabeur
tweeted, “I hope to have inspired Tunisia, the African continent and the Arab
world throughout my Wimbledon journey. I’ll be back on Centre Court! Keep
dreaming young girl.” The tweet included two pictures, one of her hugging a
Wimbledon silver plate and the other, a picture of a much younger Jabeur with a
bunch of trophies and medals.
https://twitter.com/Ons_Jabeur/status/1545840570458902530?cxt=HHwWhMC4meDz9vMqAAAA
I asked a few young, Egyptian girls about Jabeur and
Hemida. By chance two were athletes who have played in televised football
matches. They found both women to be inspirational because they could translate
hard work and talent into meaningful results despite overwhelming obstacles. In
their young lives they were already well acquainted with obstacles. Serena
Williams, the tennis superstar, also inspires them because she directly
responds in public to the same obstacles they personally face.
These young, Egyptian girls expressed the importance
of a person’s hard work and talent being supported, not just success, and
obstacles acknowledged. They already had the experience of being praised when
they won and demonized when they lost. They also faced having their appearance
be a focus in a variety of places in their lives.
Better inclusion happens better and faster with role
models and champions in and outside the household. Jabeur’s mother introduced
her to tennis and encouraged her to move to attend the specialized sports high
school. One of the young girls I spoke with was the niece of Egypt’s first
female iron man athlete. Another who met Salah through playing football in
Egypt expressed how supportive he was to young, female football players. Both
had role models and champions and faced obstacles in and outside the household.
“If you can leave, you do,” one said to me. Arab
societies and economies lose hard working, talented people of all kinds to much
larger economies all the time. The mother of one young girl has encouraged her
daughter to move abroad to better develop her career. Egypt is losing this
young, promising talent, a thoughtful, well-spoken, impressive Egyptian.
Jabeur and Hemida give Arabs joy, pride and hope. They
do what so many hope for – an opportunity to translate hard work and talent
into what is individually meaningful despite overwhelming obstacles. To drive
things forward, Arab economies and societies need to demonstrate more of this.
Economic advice for Arab countries often focuses on stopping privilege by
starting at the top, working with the government to tackle the ways privilege
happens. This is important but addressing privilege is only a part of
presenting opportunities. Smart strategies and interventions can help.
Attitudes, perceptions, behaviors, and culture will change, especially when
that is the intentional goal. So very much of what is important is being lost
by never coming to be. At least this week, Arabs had two very good reasons to
have hope.
Source: Daily News Egypt
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Just A Call From Pilgrims Makes Us Forget Fatigue; Say
Female Security Officials
Photo: Saudi Gazzette Leading the Way
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July 18, 2022
MAKKAH — Women staffers of the Ministry of Interior
spoke about their exciting experience while participating in the recently
concluded annual pilgrimage of Hajj, stressing their pride and prestige in
serving the pilgrims. They shared their feelings of gratification in offering dedicated
and selfless services to the guests of God.
The female employees say that they feel excited over
the very thought of getting an opportunity to serve pilgrims who came from all
corners of the globe, answering the call of the Almighty. It was a unique
opportunity to serve the guests of God, especially in the vicinity of the Holy
Kaaba within the Grand Mosque. They noted that just a call from the pilgrims,
seeking their service, is enough for them to offer dedicated services during
which they forget all their fatigue in the midst of hours long field duty.
Ghada Ahmed, a member of the Special Forces for Hajj
and Umrah Security, said that the security forces who were deployed in serving
the pilgrims attended a military training course at the Women’s Institute in
Riyadh, during which they learned and practiced physical fitness exercises and
self-defense skills.
Many other women soldiers shared their unique
experiences when they served the pilgrims. They spoke about the way they
worked, the major tasks assigned to them and what they have accomplished
through their work. They said that their major takeaway from this year’s Hajj
season was an enhanced sense of security.
Source: Saudi Gazette
https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/623056
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Lahore court sends Dua Zehra to women's shelter at her
request
Imran Gabol | Rana Bilal | Naeem Sahoutara
July 19, 2022
A district and sessions court in Lahore on Tuesday
sent Dua Zehra — a Karachi girl who was reported kidnapped in April and later
discovered to have purportedly eloped in Punjab — to the Darul Aman (shelter
home) at her request.
Dua had submitted an application with the court, a
copy of which is available with Dawn.com, in which she requested to be sent to
Darul Aman, citing "constant threats" from her parents while also
underlining that she was "not on good terms" with Zaheer Ahmed, the
person said to have contracted a marriage with her.
Responding to her petition, Judicial Magistrate Rizwan
Ahmad said Dua submitted a plea with the court saying she had "serious
threats from parents and other relatives".
"She is in constant danger from her parents who
use to tender severe beating her (sic) and threaten [her] with dire
consequences [...] keeping in view the above consideration, the petitioner's
plea is accepted and she be sent to Darul Aman, Lahore," the magistrate
said in his order, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com.
A police official privy to the development confirmed
to Dawn.com that the girl had been sent to the shelter home after court orders.
He said he was not authorised to speak to the media but said the police had
implemented the orders.
Salman Sufi, the head of the prime minister's
strategic reforms unit, said on Twitter that the Punjab government "has
secured Dua Zehra at Darul Aman under strict security and protection after a
court order".
He added that the Sindh government has been
"requested to dispatch a child protection bureau team to take her to her
parents" and that "Mr Zaheer is being traced for arrest".
He also tagged Jibran Nasir, the lawyer of Dua's
parents, in the tweet.
'Allegations against parents not new'
Separately, Jibran Nasir, told Dawn.com that her
allegations against them were not new as they were made in previous statements
too.
He, however, said what was more concerning were the
accusations she made regarding her alleged marriage.
He thanked the Punjab police for ensuring that Dua
stayed under security at the shelter home.
Investigation officer changed
Meanwhile, a sessions court in Karachi directed the
Additional IG (investigation) to change the police officer investigating the
case.
Additional District and Sessions Judge (East) Muhammad
Mehboob Awan passed these directives while allowing a ‘second’ application
filed by Dua’s father, Syed Ali Mehdi Kazmi, against the AIG (investigation)
and East-SSP (investigation) for not entertaining his requests to change
incumbent IO, DSP Shoukat Ali Shahani.
The case
On April 16, Dua's parents filed a first information
report alleging that their daughter had been kidnapped when she left the house
to dispose of some trash. The incident had provoked an outcry, especially on
social media, which had prompted authorities to take notice.
After nearly 10 days, on April 26, the teenage girl
was recovered from Okara. In a video statement that day, Dua had said that she
wasn't kidnapped and had married Zaheer of her "free will".
She had said that she had left her house of her own
accord. "I have married out of free will. No one forced me. I'm happy with
my husband here. For God's sake, don't bother me," she had stated.
Dua had also claimed that her parents were lying about
her age.
Subsequently, she and Zaheer approached a Lahore
district and sessions court and filed a petition against Dua's father and
cousin.
Meanwhile, the police had also filed a plea in court
demanding that Dua be sent to Darul Aman. However, the magistrate rejected the
request and allowed the teenager "to go wherever she wanted to".
On the other hand, Dua's parents were adamant that
their daughter had been kidnapped and said that she had been forced to give the
statement.
The teenager's father had also approached the SHC in
May with a plea against the Punjab court's orders. Kazmi had stated in the
petition that as per her educational, birth certificates and other records,
Dua's age was 13 and under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013 it was
illegal to marry a minor.
He had asked the court to order a medical examination
of his daughter. In the following days, Karachi police repeatedly failed to
produce the teenager in court earning the judges' ire.
On June 6, the SHC had ordered an ossification to
determine Dua's age. She was also sent to a shelter home for the time being
after she refused to meet her parents.
Two days later, the court ruled that the teenager was
at liberty to decide who she wanted to live with. During the hearing, the IO
filed his report along with an age certificate issued by the office of the
police surgeon which stated that as per the opinion of doctors and the Civil
Hospital’s department of radiology, the bone age of the alleged abductee was
between 16 and 17 years of age.
In its order, the bench said the petition had served
its purpose as it was only to the extent of the whereabouts of the alleged
minor/abductee.
Later, Kazmi challenged the verdict in the SC, which
had in turn asked him approach the relevant forums for the constitution of a
medical board. Subsequently, a judicial magistrate in Karachi had ordered the
constitution of another board to determine Dua's age.
Source: Dawn
https://www.dawn.com/news/1700530/lahore-court-sends-dua-zehra-to-womens-shelter-at-her-request
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'We are not safe anywhere': Egyptian women fear
systemic normalisation of gender-based violence and femicide
Yousra Samir Imran
19 July, 2022
Shock, fury, heartbreak, and outrage; these are the
sentiments women in Egypt have felt over the past two months since the day
21-year-old university student Nayera Ashraf was stabbed to death outside her
university in Mansoura as she was on her way to her final exams.
“Women in Egypt are outraged and furious, and I think
most people are in incomplete shock, but Egyptian women no longer feel safe,”
Egyptian feminist and former TV and radio broadcaster, Reem Ayed, tells The New
Arab.
“When you think about it, Nayera Ashraf was murdered
outside of campus, and it’s terrifying because your university is like your
second home – when you’re a university student, you end up spending more time
on campus than you do at your own home. The two places that you’re supposed to
feel the safest are your own house and your school.
"The fact she was murdered right outside her
school is terrifying because it means that safe place is no longer safe for
women. Egyptian women never felt safe on the streets, to begin with, so now
it’s even worse.”
Nayera’s murderer Mohammed Adel, who has been
sentenced to death by hanging, was a man who had been stalking her for some
time after she refused his marriage proposal.
According to Egyptian news outlet Cairo 24, Adel’s
neighbours said he had never caused any trouble and they only heard him when he
was beating his mother and sister, exhibiting the social acceptance of a man
who was known to have been committing acts of violence against his female
family members.
The murder of Nayera Ashraf had a knock-on effect.
Just a couple of days later, the Arab world was shaken once more when nursing
student Iman Irshaid in Amman, Jordan, was shot five times outside her campus
at the University of Applied Sciences. Her murderer, 37-year-old Uday Abdullah
Hassan, reportedly sent her this text message the day before:
“Tomorrow I am coming to speak to you and if you don’t
accept I am going to kill you just like the Egyptian killed that girl today.”
He died by suicide after refusing to surrender himself
to the Jordanian authorities.
Within days of Nayera’s murder, Egyptians woke up to
the news that missing TV presenter Shaima Gamal’s body had been found on a farm
in Giza – she had been murdered by her husband, a judge, her face burned with
acid in an effort to disguise her identity.
His judge immunity has been lifted and he is to be
trialled in a criminal court. And if this isn’t enough, in June a woman in the
district of Halwan in Cairo was stabbed by her husband 20 times followed by
having her right ear cut off. When asked why he did it, her husband said,
“because she does not listen to what I say.”
The murders of Nayera Ashraf and Iman Irshaid are
reminiscent of those of Farah Akbar in Kuwait and Noor Mukadam in Pakistan just
last year, whose murderers took their lives after having their proposals
rejected.
Similar to the case of Farah, Nayera and her family
had made repeated formal complaints to the Egyptian authorities. In both Akbar
and Ashrafs’ cases, the authorities failed to keep them safe, leading to their
deaths.
Yet sadly neither the authorities in Kuwait nor in
Egypt have been held accountable for their part in failing to take action.
These acts of femicide are not new to Egypt. In
October 2020, three men sexually assaulted 24-year-old Mariam Salah and then proceeded
to attempt to steal her handbag, dragging her to her death with their microbus.
Two of the men were sentenced to death and the third
was acquitted. And last year, three men broke into a 34-year-old woman’s flat
in El Salam district in Cairo for receiving a male visitor, torturing her
visitor and then terrorising her to the point she reportedly jumped off the
balcony of her 6th-floor apartment and died.
However, her body was found lying on the floor outside
another building, making the claim that she threw herself off unclear. The men
were charged with unlawful imprisonment and thuggery, not with murder.
What this all proves is that targeted gender-based
murders and violence have become systemic in Egypt, something that Amira
Salah-Ahmed, Chief Media Officer and Executive Producer at Womena, agrees with.
In a public statement following Nayera’s murder, Amira
said, “Nayera Ashraf’s murder cannot be seen as an isolated incident, but needs
to be accurately portrayed as part of a dangerous narrative that normalises
gender-based violence.
"The dangerous cultural narrative not only
discriminates against women on a daily basis but goes further to normalise
gender-based violence by depicting it lightly or comically as entertainment in
all forms of media. Patriarchal and misogynistic mindsets are further cemented
by these fatal narratives that are brought directly into our homes. This is
worsened by the lack of legal frameworks to protect women who actively seek
protection from authorities.”
Gathering statistics on cases of femicide and the
numbers of girls and women subjected to gender-based violence is a mammoth task
in Egypt.
The Edraak Foundation for Development and Equality is
one of a few reliable organisations that has undertaken this incredibly
difficult task.
In their report issued last year, they estimated that
7.8 million girls and women in Egypt have experienced some form of gender-based
violence.
There were 415 violent crimes committed against girls
and women in Egypt in 2020, 113 cases of women murdered as a result of domestic
abuse, and a total of 165 cases of femicide in that same year.
In the days following Nayera Ashraf and Iman Irshaids’
murders, some on social media referred to their murderers as incels. However,
Arab writers and academics have disagreed with the use of this term which has
been created by the West to describe men who find themselves involuntarily
celibate and as a result target women with misogynistic abuse and violence.
Egyptian American feminist, journalist, and author of The
Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, Mona El Tahawy, tells The New Arab
that there is an important distinction that needs to be made between incels in
the West, and men like Nayera Ashraf and Iman Irshaids’ murderers.
When it comes to sex and the ability to express one’s
self sexually and openly, we’re talking about very different cultural contexts,
because today for most people in the so-called West, you can have sex with
whoever you want whenever you want and it’s a different scenario in Egypt, in
Jordan, and in what we now call South West Asia and North Africa,” explains
Mona.
“There’s much more taboo connected with it, there’s
much more shame, there’s much more silence, so it is a different playing field.
When we look at a country like Egypt or Jordan and other countries in the
region, you’re socialised into waiting to get married until you have sex.
Because of patriarchy in South West Asia and North Africa, men have much more
leeway when it comes to this; they are able to express their sex drive in ways
that women can’t, so it's a different kind of involuntarily celibate men,"
Mona continues.
“These men in Egypt and Jordan believe that women must
succumb to their advances, these women owe them their attention and their love,
and if they don’t, then these men believe – because patriarchy protects and
enables men’s violence against us – that they have the right to punish women.
And there is nothing in our societies that holds those men accountable.”
The outpouring of rage and anger from people in Egypt
following Nayera’s murder meant that her murderer’s trial and conviction was
one of the fastest ever seen in Egypt’s Criminal Court, as murder cases tend to
take months or even years to reach a verdict.
However, this is not the norm, and the Egyptian legal
system is greatly lacking when it comes to laws that punish femicide and acts
of gender-based violence. In fact, terms such as “misogynistic hate crime” and
“femicide” are not recognised.
Article 60 in the Penal Code allows a perpetrator of
domestic violence to be pardoned if he “acted in good faith,” and Article 17
allows a judge to lower a sentence for rape or an honour killing as an act of
“mercy,” although recently there has been talk of Article 17 being abolished.
Furthermore, when you are living in a country where
the state itself commits acts of gender-based violence against women, such as
the sexual violence and forced virginity tests perpetrated by the military
during the Arab Spring in 2011 and anti-military protests in 2014, it is no
wonder that men like Nayera Ashraf’s murderer kill so brazenly and with such
impunity.
“It is essential that we identify these violent men,
while not forgetting that femicide is an act fuelled by misogyny and the
absence of laws that view women as equal citizens. We cannot stop at blaming
these men, or calling them incels, without working to dismantle the larger
patriarchal system we live in,” says Huda Jawad, Co-Director of Musawah, the
global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family.
For over a decade Musawah has been campaigning for
reform to personal status laws and family laws in both Egypt and other
Muslim-majority countries.
“It is important to note here that we do not yet see
femicide as a crime in our region. We do not differentiate between the act of
killing and the act of killing a woman because of the sole fact that she is a
woman, so the penal code is lacking when it comes to femicide.
"We hope we will be able to get justice for these
women. We also hope that we start building a collective discourse on femicide
that translates into systemic and legal efforts. At Musawah, we believe
equality and justice are necessary and possible and we know that the time for
this change is now."
Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and
author who is based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick,
being published by Hashtag Press in the UK in October 2020
Source: The New Arab
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/features/egyptian-women-fear-growing-normalisation-femicide
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What's behind Iran's claims of Iraqi women trafficking
crackdown?
JULY 19, 2022
Iranian media on Monday published accounts of a major
bust of a human-trafficking operation. The story, however, is more salacious
than the usual reports coming out of Iran’s pro-government media.
The report said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
intelligence organization was involved in arresting the leader of a “gang”
involved in trafficking Iranian women and girls to northern Iraq.
The report is interesting because it references Iran’s
intelligence officers, known as “anonymous soldiers of Imam Zaman.” Why the
IRGC and its intelligence arm was involved is unclear. The report said the
agents arrested the leader of the trafficking organization and accused the
group of involvement in promoting vice.
Human trafficking between Iran and Iraq
According to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, which is close
to the IRGC and is pro-government, vice can mean the promotion of
“homosexuality, gambling, fraud and illicit sexual relations.”
It would appear that the report insinuates that young
women were trafficked for sexual exploitation.
The Iranian intelligence agents “reached Erbil,” the
report said. This means they operated deep inside northern Iraq’s autonomous
Kurdish Region. Erbil is the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The intelligence agents penetrated the network,
supposedly, and were able to stop this gang of traffickers, which Iran said was
the “largest” of its kind. Several months of surveillance took place. The
trafficking group had several operators and was accused of taking “hundreds” of
girls to Erbil and that some “thousand people” were “sold” by this group.
Rudaw media in the Kurdistan Region also reported the
story. The Erbil police department had not commented on the arrest yet, the
report said.
“Human trafficking is a stain that Tehran has not been
able to get rid of for years now,” Rudaw reported. “It was among the ‘worst
human traffickers’ in 2018, a year after it ranked third in global human
trafficking, according to a US State Department Report. Iranian women, boys,
and girls are vulnerable to sex trafficking abroad, including in Iraq and the
Kurdistan Region, the department said in its annual report last year.”
The report said some 2,000 young Iranian women and
girls had entered the KRG in 2018. Many of them ended up victims, working in
“cafes, hotels, and massage centers,” it said.
Honeypot operations
Iran’s regime has often used women or fake
social-media accounts pretending to be women as a way to target adversaries
abroad. These online “honeypot” operations have been revealed several times
over the year. A Defense Connect story said Iran had targeted a US employee of
an aerospace company in such an operation. Terrorist groups linked to Iran have
also targeted Israel.
“Hackers believed to be working for the Iranian
government have impersonated a young female photographer on social media for
more than a year, luring men working in industries strategically important to
Tehran’s regional adversaries, according to research,” Reuters reported in
2017.
It is believed that Iran has also used women or people
posing as women in other intelligence operations. A “‘Honeytrap’ snares Iranian
dissident Ruhollah Zam,” The Times of London reported in 2019. While the full
details of the case may not be known, Zam was lured to a meeting in Iraq and
then kidnapped and taken to Iran, where he was executed in 2020.
Another dissident may have been a victim of a similar
scheme, Sky News reported in 2020.
“Habib Chaab: Files show how Iranian dissident was
kidnapped in Turkey after ‘honeytrap by Iran… The string of security pictures,
uncovered by the Turkish investigation, claim to show a plan was hatched to
lure Mr Chaab to Turkey on the pretext of a romantic meeting with a young
woman… The Turkish investigators claim she was, in reality, an Iranian spy who
was acting as a ‘honeytrap,’” the report said.
The overall context of the IRGC being involved in
busting a human-trafficking ring that targeted women may be more than is
reported. It was unclear why the IRGC and its intelligence agents were sent to
Erbil, why they focused on this ring and why Iran seems to have viewed this as
an important security operation, whereas cracking down on vice and human
trafficking, including prostitution and kidnapping of women, would normally be
a police and law-enforcement issue, rather than an intelligence case.
Source: J Post
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-712526
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Turkish court upholds exit from treaty protecting
women
July 20, 2022
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A top administrative court in
Turkey ruled Tuesday that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to pull the
country out of a key European treaty protecting women from violence was lawful,
rejecting petitions seeking its cancellation, the state-run news agency
reported.
Erdogan withdrew Turkey from the Council of Europe’s
Istanbul Convention last year, prompting condemnation from women’s rights
groups and Western countries. The landmark convention was signed in Istanbul in
2011.
Several women’s groups and other organizations had
petitioned the Council of State, arguing that Erdogan’s move to pull out of the
treaty through a presidential decree was unlawful. The court’s judges, however,
ruled by a majority decision to reject the petitions, Anadolu Agency reported.
Yilmaz Tunc, a member of Erdogan’s ruling party,
welcomed the court’s decision, saying it would put an end to “discussions that
lack a legal basis.” The main opposition party leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu,
vowed to return Turkey to the convention “within a week or even 24 hours”
should his center-left party come to power in an election next year.
Last year’s decision to leave the convention came
after some officials from Erdogan’s Islam-oriented party had advocated for a
review of the agreement, arguing it was inconsistent with Turkey’s conservative
values by encouraging divorce and undermining the traditional family unit.
Critics also claimed that it promoted homosexuality.
Erdogan insisted it wouldn’t be a step backward for
women and in March, Turkey’s parliament ratified a bill aimed at combating
violence against women that included introducing tougher sentences if the
victim of a violent crime is a woman and making persistent stalking punishable
by prison.
At least 226 women have been murdered in Turkey so far
in 2022, and 425 last year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide group.
Source: AP News
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Panjshir women demand justice following shooting of
Afghan woman by Taliban
19 July, 2022
Kabul [Afganistan], July 19 (ANI): A group of women in
Panjshir province of Afghanistan have been voicing their demand for justice
following the killing of a woman by the Taliban forces.
A woman who was trying to take food to her husband in
Panjshir Abshar district was shot by a Taliban sniper earlier this week, local
media reported.
Afghan women have been protesting against the Taliban
for the violations of their rights and the removal of women from government
institutions since they took over Afghanistan last August.
The atrocities of the Taliban against Afghan women
have been on an incessant surge since the organization seized power in
Afghanistan in August last year, banning young girls and women of humanitarian
rights.
Taliban on Monday issued a new diktat against female
employees and told them to send male relatives as their replacements.
With regular reports of the use of torture and
extrajudicial executions of civilians by the Taliban, serious human rights
violations in the region have created a climate of fear and distrust.
Earlier, in June, a London-based rights group raised
concerns about the reports of unlawful killings and arbitrary arrests in
Afghanistan’s Panjshir province.
“Constantly, reports are coming of arbitrary arrests
and unlawful killings of civilians by the Taliban in Panjshir. Events in the
last couple of weeks leave little room for doubt that there is a growing
pattern of extrajudicial executions and arbitrary arrests committed by the
Taliban,” said Zaman Sultani, Amnesty International’s South Asia Researcher.
The amnesty researcher in a statement said these
serious human rights violations create a climate of fear and distrust in the
region and violate international humanitarian law and may constitute war
crimes.
While the Taliban have rejected any reports of
civilian deaths, these incidents are accompanied by a lack of accountability
within the Taliban rank and file.
As the de facto authorities in the country, the rights
groups have asked the Taliban to take immediate steps to conduct thorough,
impartial and independent investigations of these incidents and prosecute those
responsible for the torture, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial execution,
according to rights groups.
“To ensure accountability, transparency and safeguard
civilians from torture, arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances, the
Taliban must release information on all those who have been arrested or
detained and permit detainees to communicate with their families.”
On 12 June, the Taliban shot dead Murzataza, a
resident of Khesa-Awal district of Panjshir who reportedly was also suffering
from mental illness.
Prior to that, the spokesperson for the Taliban
Governor of Panjshir Province in a video statement to the media said that fewer
than 40 people were arrested. In Panjshir the National Resistance Front of
Afghanistan, an armed group fighting against the Taliban, has strong presence.
According to Sultani, events in the last couple of
weeks leave little room for doubt that there is a growing pattern of
extrajudicial executions and arbitrary arrests committed by the Taliban. (ANI)
Source: The Print
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Muslim-German women's delegation visits Israel to
learn about women's religious study
By ZVIKA KLEIN
JULY 19, 2022
It’s not every day that you’d expect to find a group
of women fully dressed in their traditional hijabs sitting in a Talmudic study
hall alongside Jewish texts. But that is
exactly what one saw upon entering the Midreshet Lindenbaum Seminary of Ohr
Torah Stone earlier this month, when a delegation of 20 Muslim women came to
visit.
The women were in Israel as part of the Alliance of
German Dialogue Institutions (BDDI), an Islamic union that works across Germany
to develop relationships between people of different faiths. Their time in
Israel included visiting institutions of higher learning for women in an effort
to better understand various perspectives on women’s religious study.
The Israel mission, an initiative of the Stuttgart
Fund for Interreligious Dialogue under the direction of Karl Hermann Blickle,
was coordinated with the Israeli Blickle Institute for Interfaith Dialogue. A
division of the Ohr Torah Stone network, the Institute's fellows include men
and women who are active in positions of spiritual and halakhic leadership
throughout Israel.
The Israel mission, an initiative of the Stuttgart
Fund for Interreligious Dialogue under the direction of Karl Hermann Blickle,
was coordinated with the Israeli Blickle Institute for Interfaith Dialogue. A
division of the Ohr Torah Stone network, the Institute’s fellows include men
and women who are active in positions of spiritual and halachic leadership
throughout Israel.
The BDDI visit to Midreshet Lindenbaum began by
meeting with students in the Women’s Institute for Halachic Leadership, and an
opportunity to meet with its director, Rabbanit Devora Evron, regarding
developments in integrating women into positions of communal leadership and how
women are increasingly being found in roles previously reserved for men.
While visiting the religious study hall, the German
guests were introduced to Jewish texts and met with other educators from the
seminary. The delegation had an emotional discussion with Rabbi Ohad Teharlev,
Director of the Israeli programs at Midreshet Lindenbaum, who shared his
personal story following murder of his son in a terror attack. Teharlev said
that his educational vision in the wake of his son’s death was to always work
to spread the positive aspects of life and act in ways that urged people not
only to “think outside the box, but to think that there actually shouldn’t be
any box at all.”
“It was important for us to share with the members of
this group that beyond the advancing role of women in the world of halacha,
this extends far beyond the study hall and into positions within the
community,” Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Nagen, Director of the Blickle Institute
explained. “The visitors were therefore also introduced to the rabbinical court
advocates working in Ohr Torah Stone’s Yad La’isha organization that represents
‘chained women’ who are suffering from get refusal and use halachic and legal
tools to gain their freedom.”
Israeli-Palestinian coexistence
The second part of the BDDI visit in Israel was
dedicated to highlighting co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians in the
Gush Etzion region. The delegation toured the “Shorashim Center” where they
heard about ongoing initiatives to bring together the communities and overcome
the well-known political and social divides.
At the offices of the Blickle Institute, the group met
with Rabbi Sarel Rosenblatt, a fellow in network’s Beit Midrash for Judaism and
Humanity, as well as Ishmael, a Palestinian who has been working within the
educational network for over 15 years and who shared his personal story and how
the working relationship he has was particularly helpful during his and his
family’s challenges during the Corona pandemic.
One of the program participants said, “What we heard
today and the remarkable work we were introduced to was deeply moving and gave
me a sense of inspiration unlike anything I’ve felt before.”
“In Germany I heard a great deal about Jews, but after
meeting Israeli Jews for the first time, I realized how different things are
from what I had thought,” another commented.
“We know that at the end of the day, if we want to
change relations between peoples of different faiths, both in Israel and around
the world, we need to ensure that these interactions occur and have these
face-to-face meetings,” Nagen stressed.
“This is the only way to create lasting connections between the various
sides.”
Source: J Post
https://www.jpost.com/j-spot/article-712542
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/tunisian-jabeur-egyptian-hemida-arab/d/127527