UAE PM's Daughter Sheikha Latifa Says, ‘Back In the Hell Hole after Being So Close To Freedom’
New Age
Islam News Bureau
04
May 20123
• UAE PM's Daughter Sheikha Latifa Says, ‘Back In the
Hell Hole after Being So Close To Freedom’
• Benafsha Hashimi, the Afghan Girl Who Led Her Cricket
Team's Escape
• Turkish Court Sentences Pop Star Gülşen to 10 Months
in Prison Over Joke about Islamic Imam Hatip Schools
• Nigerian Hijab-Wearing Chef Seeks To Break Stereotypes
About Muslim Women
• How Muslim Women Are Changing Attitudes and the
Community
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/uae-sheikha-latifa-freedom/d/129701
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UAE PM's Daughter Sheikha Latifa Says, ‘Back In the Hell Hole after Being So Close To Freedom’
Sheikha
Latifa/ File picture
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The
Telegraph Bureau
04.05.23
A
deep dive by The New Yorker magazine into the lives of four royal women from
the immediate family of UAE’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al
Maktoum has again cast the glare on the Narendra Modi government’s alleged role
in the capture of his daughter while she was trying to break free from the
patriarchal stranglehold.
Titled
“The Fugitive Princesses of Dubai”, the article dated May 1 and meant for the
May 8 edition of The New Yorker, dwells on the painstaking effort that Sheikha
Latifa — daughter of Sheikh Mohammed — put into plotting her escape from her
heavily guarded existence in Dubai in February 2018.
The
report chronicles how she junked her phone in a restaurant bin, crossed into
Oman in the trunk of a car and then boarded a yacht from a dinghy on rough seas
to take her to India or Sri Lanka. But, the escape was cut short, purportedly
in a quid pro quo deal between India and the UAE.
“Sheikh
Mohammed had faced few difficulties in finding his fleeing daughter. Her
communications had been intercepted, and at the UAE’s request, Interpol had
issued Red Notices for her accomplices, accusing them of kidnapping her. When
the yacht was located, off the Goa coast, Sheikh Mohammed spoke with the Indian
Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and agreed to extradite a Dubai-based arms
dealer in exchange for his daughter’s capture. The Indian government deployed
boats, helicopters and a team of armed commandos to storm Nostromo (the yacht)
and carry Latifa away,” The New Yorker recalled.
Before
the capture, the US magazine reported, “aboard the yacht, Latifa texted a
friend, ‘I really feel so free now. Walking target yes but totally free’.
“A
week into the voyage, though, the captain spotted another ship apparently
tailing them, and a small plane circling overhead. The runaways were about
thirty miles off the coast of India, and the yacht was running low on fuel”.
“The
captain feared that Latifa had been located. ‘They will kill her,’ he texted a
friend on March 3rd,” The New Yorker reported.
“The
next day, another plane flew over. By nightfall, all was calm, but Latifa had
become unreachably silent.... At around 10pm, the two women descended to their
cabin, and Latifa brushed her teeth in the cramped bathroom. As she emerged,
the air exploded with a series of blasts. Boots pounded on the deck overhead.
‘They’ve found me,’ Latifa said. The friends shut themselves in the bathroom
and sent a string of SOS messages. Soon, smoke was pouring in through the air
vents and light fixtures. As they struggled for breath, Latifa said that she
was sorry....”
The
New Yorker said: “The darkness was sliced in all directions by the laser sights
of assault rifles. Masked men seized the women and forced them up to the deck,
where the captain and his crew lay bound and beaten. The floor was pooled with
blood. Latifa’s hands were tied behind her back and she was thrown down, but
she resisted: kicking, screaming, and clinging to the gunwales. As the men
dragged her away, Jauhiainen (friend) heard her cry out, “Shoot me here! Don’t
take me back.” Then the princess vanished overboard.”
After
long silence and when the media picked up the story, the Dubai government
released a response, saying that Latifa had not tried to escape, but had been
kidnapped. The New Yorker quoted the Dubai government as saying: “Her Highness
Sheikha Latifa is now safe in Dubai. She and her family are looking forward to
celebrating her birthday today, in privacy and peace.”
But
the magazine added: “In fact, Latifa had passed her birthday in captivity.
After disappearing overboard on Nostromo, she had been dragged onto anIndian
naval boat, then aboard a helicopter and onto a privatejet. She was given
tranquillizers twice, she recalled inan account written in detention, but the
drugs seemed to produce no effect. When an Emirati lieutenant tried to pull her
off the helicopter, she sank her teeth into his arm. Only after a third dose
did she feel herself losing consciousness.”
“‘I
want them to be embarrassed that it took the navy, several warships, armed
commandos, 3 tranquillizer injections and an hour-long struggle to put an
unarmed pint-sized woman on a jet,’ Latifa wrote. She regained consciousness in
Dubai. ‘I remember tears just streaming down my face,’ she wrote. ‘It was the
worst feeling in the world. To be back in the hell hole after being so close to
freedom.’
“Latifa
was taken to a desert prison named Al Awir and placed in a cell with
blacked-out windows,” The New Yorker reported.
India
has never publicly commented on the swap that is said to have helped the Modi government
get its hands on Christian Michel — accused in the VVIP chopper deal. The
closest India has come to commenting on it was in February 2021 in response to
the contention of the Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
that Michel had been extradited from the UAE in a “de facto swap” for India’s
capture and return of Sheikha Latifa.
Even
in this instance, the external affairs ministry dwelt more on Michel and said:
“We regret that the conclusions drawn by the Working Group are based on limited
information, biased allegations from an unidentified source and on an
inaccurate understanding of India’s criminal justice system. The extradition
wasdone entirely in accordance with the provisions of the extradition treaty
signed between two sovereign states. The arrest and subsequent custody were
done as per the due process of law and cannot be considered arbitrary on any
grounds.”
The
Working Group had in its report said that it “notes with concern the submission
by the source, which has not been disputed by either government, that the
approval by the United Arab Emirates of the extradition request made by India
was a de facto swap for the capture and return to Dubai by India of a
high-profile detainee, a swap reportedly authorised by the Prime Minister of
India in March 2018”.
India
has had good relations with the UAE for decades now and Prime Minister Modi
built on it by elevating it to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
Modi
was awarded the Order of Zayed — the highest civilian honour of the UAE — in
August 2019 by Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, then the Crown Prince of Abu
Dhabi and the present President of the country. This highest civilian
decoration is named after UAE’s first President Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The
Nahyans control Abu Dhabi and the Maktoums rule Dubai in the federal
arrangement of the UAE. The list of attendees at the award function reported in
the Gulf News newspaper did not mention any of the Maktoums.
International
Holding Co, which agreed to invest $400 million in Adani’s FPO (follow-on
public offer) when the conglomerate was facing a rout after the Hindenburg
report, is an investment firm of the Al Nahyans — Abu Dhabi’s ruling family.
Source:
telegraphindia.com
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/uae-princess-blot-on-modi-govt-refuses-to-fade/cid/1934140
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Benafsha
Hashimi, the Afghan Girl Who Led Her Cricket Team's Escape
B ySharda
Ugra, New Delhi
May
03, 2023
What
if today’s most astonishing story out of Afghanistan cricket is not about
white-ball success or left-arm wrist spinners? But instead features a 5ft tall
teenage cricketer covered from head to toe on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,
arguing with a Taliban border guard carrying a machine gun and, what she truly
feared, a whip.
“We’re
not afraid of guns or bombs, we’ve grown up with them. But flogging – it is
merciless, vicious,” says Benafsha Hashimi. In the early hours of a September
2021 morning, she was showing her border pass to the Talib, brother Hamid at
her side, the two most fluent Urdu speakers of their family. “The Talib was on
the edge. He asked Hamid, who is the man here, who has given girls the right to
talk that you have given this one. She should be quiet, stand aside.”
That
night, Benafsha was the first of the Afghan women’s cricket team trying to
escape the Taliban. Fourth among eight children of an Afghan Special Forces
soldier’s widow, she had become the women cricketers’ point person in Kabul. At
18 she was one of their youngest players but took charge of collating information
and paperwork and sharing it with a group of Australian social workers and
rights activists.
After
the Taliban takeover in August 21, Benafsha says she had many opportunities to
get to the US, Canada, Dubai or Pakistan with just her family. “But you know
how they say one person doesn’t make a team. I had spent so much time with
these girls, how could I leave them?” Only perhaps teenage idealism can make
the impossible a priority. When the Aussies first reached Benafsha, they
weren’t promising to get the whole team out. “It had to be all of us. When I
said I love my team they said, is it possible to get everyone over at once? It
had to be step by step. In total secrecy”
The
moment she got the signal to move, the girl called ‘chotishaitan’ (little
devil) confiscated all her family’s phones. No talking to anyone. Her group was
first on the road, leaving home at 3 am, (“I was crying, we left like
thieves”), three more cricketers’ families following. Throughout the journey,
she texted updates and warnings about the 15 or so check points ahead. Every
checkpoint was told that the convoy was going to a wedding in Nangarhar before
they reached the border. Failing to convince that angry Talib could ruin the
entire evacuation. “I said I will sit here until you let us through.”
For
a long time, I only knew Benafsha through WhatsApp voice notes. At its saddest,
it was small, low, defeated after the arrival of the Taliban in August 2021,
wrapped in panic and fear. It was hard to imagine that voice against the Talib.
But when talking about other stuff – how cricket moves her, her love for her
team, what she thought of the treatment of Afghan women – I remembered the
voice became flinty, certain, unyielding.
Benafsha
began playing cricket aged five and inspired by Hamid Hassan’s success, refused
to stop when told that she couldn’t play in the streets anymore. Pestered the
Afghan women’s cricket manager with daily calls to check when women’s practice
would begin. Ignored the guards at the stadium mocking her for landing up hours
early.
At
the border that night, her brothers took over, and when they finally got
through, “I was in shock, I didn’t know what would happen after that.” There
were cars waiting to take them to Peshawar and on to Islamabad the next day.
Then after a fortnight or so, onto an Australian military aircraft to Dubai,
finally landing in Australia on October 8.
The
Aussies who worked around the clock for the Afghan women’s cricketers prefer
anonymity. The exact number of women cricketers and families that escaped out
of Afghanistan thanks to the efforts of Benafsha& friends is not clear.
Except an ABC news story said that 22 of the total 25 contracted women
cricketers who had escaped to Pakistan were granted emergency visas to
Australia. The number would have to be more than a hundred. Benafsha said, “I
did what I had to do, I tried my best – I was just the bridge.”
The
women are now based in Canberra and Melbourne. Last season, Benafsha played for
Tuggeranong Valley Cricket Club, travelled to Fiji with Cricket Without Borders
and took the Governor General’s wicket. “When I’m playing cricket, I forget
everything.” But not what came out of the ICC’s March Board meeting which
raised the Afghanistan Cricket Board’s budget but made no specific comments
about their women. “I fell sick. Girls have been playing from 2014, they made a
team then, Afghanistan ruined the team, again we built a team and now they are
saying there is no team? If it is a crime to be born a girl, then say so
openly.”
Responding
to the Hindustan Times, an ICC spokesperson replied, “The relationship with
players in any of the ICC’s Member countries is managed by the Board in that
country, the ICC does not get involved. Similarly, the authority to field men’s
and women’s national teams lies solely with the Member Board in any country,
not with the ICC.”
Dr
Catherine Ordway, associate professor, sports integrity research lead,
University of Canberra, is not impressed. “The ICC can start by providing
transparency on where the money has been - and will be - spent when funding
member organisations. In the case of the ACB, where women were forced to flee
their homeland to survive… [in a country] where women’s sport, women’s
education and women’s participation in public life is banned, then how is
funding the ACB acceptable?”
The
Afghan women are enraged that the ACB has ghosted them: Tracey Holmes reported
on ABC, that during a November 2022 visit by ACB officials before the men’s T20
World Cup, an unnamed Afghan woman cricketer tracked down chairmanMirwais
Ashraf to a restaurant but, “when I got there, he got into his car and left.”
Benafsha
says she is heavy-hearted because Afghan women have risked their lives for
cricket. Unknown callers threatened Benafsha and her younger sister. She says
kids along one route taken by the women players had been asked to pelt the
cricketers with stones, so much that they opted for a longer route. They were
regularly heckled as spoilt, dirty, damaged women.
“Everyone
says the men have made Afghan cricket. Excuse me – you supported them, you gave
them pay, they went ahead….” To get her teammates out of the Taliban’s
clutches, Benafsha Hashimi didn’t weigh the consequences of the risk she was
taking and doesn’t do so now. “Truth bolne main (In speaking the truth), I
don’t care.”
Source:
hindustantimes.com
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cricket/the-afghan-girl-who-led-her-cricket-teams-escape-101683130916340.html
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Turkish
court sentences pop star Gülşen to 10 months in prison over joke about Islamic
Imam Hatip schools
Wednesday
May 03 2023
A
Turkish court handed pop star Gülşen a suspended sentence of 10 months in
prison for "incitement to hatred and hostility" over a remark she
made on stage about religious schools, state-owned Anadolu Agency reported on
May 3.
The
singer-songwriter, whose full name is GülşenÇolakoğlu, was briefly jailed last
year in August after a video of her comments from four months earlier surfaced
on a website of a pro-government newspaper a day earlier.
"He
studied at an Imam Hatip (school) previously. That's where his perversion comes
from," Gülşen says in a light-hearted manner in the video, referring to a
musician in her band.
She
had said she had made a joke with colleagues during an April performance and
apologised to anyone offended, adding her words were seized upon by some to
polarise society.
She
was released several days later, after being arrested on a charge of incitement
to hatred.
Her
arrest had sparked outrage, with critics saying that she was targeted for her
support for LGBT+ rights and liberal views that go against President Tayyip
Erdoğan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).
An
Istanbul court on May 3 handed Gülşen a suspended sentence of 10 months in
prison, Anadolu reported. The suspended sentence means that Gülşen will not
serve prison time unless she is not convicted of another charge again within
five years.
Erdoğan,
whose AKP first came to power nearly two decades ago, himself studied at one of
the country's first Imam Hatip schools, religious institutions which were
founded by the state to educate young men to be imams and preachers.
The
sentence stirred a huge reaction on social media, as people pointed out that a
joke can be sentenced to prison while President Erdoğan granting amnesty for a
man sentenced to aggravated life in prison over being terrorist organization
Hizbollah's "military wing officer" on the same day.
Erdoğan
on May 3 granted amnesty for Mehmet EminAlpsoy due to his age. In 2000, Alpsoy
admitted in the court that he was a member of the Hizbullah organization
between 1990-1996, but claimed that he did not participate in its actions.
After he tortured and killed three people in the capital Ankara, he hid the
corpses in the basement of his brother's house, the daily Evrensel reported.
The
move came after the AKP and Islamist Free Cause Party (HÜDA-PAR) became allies
for the upcoming elections. In December 2012, some of Hizbullah members formed
the HÜDA-PAR with the government's support, which allowed the party to enter
politics.
Source:
duvarenglish.com
https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkish-court-sentences-pop-star-gulsen-to-10-months-in-prison-over-joke-about-islamic-imam-hatip-schools-news-62330
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Nigerian
hijab-wearing chef seeks to break stereotypes about Muslim women
04-05-23
Nigerian
chef Sherifah Yunus Olokodana speaks during an interview with Reuters in her
studio in Lagos
[1/3]
Nigerian chef Sherifah Yunus Olokodana speaks during an interview with Reuters
in her studio in Lagos, Nigeria April 7, 2023. REUTERS/SeunSanni
LAGOS,
May 4 (Reuters) - Nigerian Sherifah Yunus Olokodana looks like any Muslim woman
with a veil that only exposes her eyes, but the entrepreneur who has carved a
niche as a chef in Lagos is seeking to break stereotypes about hijab-wearing
women in the country.
Nigeria
is almost evenly divided between the largely Christian south and mainly Muslim
north, where cultural norms often discourage women to get into business.
Olokodana,
a Yoruba Muslim from the southwest, has been a pastry chef for nearly two
decades and sells food spices, but she said she still faced prejudice.
"Being
a woman who dresses this way, I have to do 10 times the work of the average
woman," she said while preparing for an Instagram cooking show in her
studio.
"Women
in hijab continue to get negative vibes from people. People who dress the way
I'm dressed are looked down upon in Nigeria."
Source:
reuters.com
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/nigerian-hijab-wearing-chef-seeks-break-stereotypes-about-muslim-women-2023-05-04/?rpc=401&
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How
Muslim women are changing attitudes and the community
ith
Eid behind us, the countdown to the annual Haj pilgrimage, one of the most
important events in the Islamic calendar, has started.
Like
every year, millions of Muslims from across the globe — their bodies covered
only by a white sheet signifying austerity and spiritual purity — will
congregate in the holy city of Mecca in what is hailed as the biggest ‘live’
demonstration of Islamic egalitarianism. Except that until now women were not
quite shown the courtesy of being treated on par with their menfolk.
A
key precondition for them to be allowed to perform Hajj required them to be
accompanied by a male guardian.
The
practice has no sanction in Islam, but was introduced by Saudi Arabia as part
of its extreme Wahhabi interpretation of sharia ostensibly to ‘protect’ women,
the logic being that they would be less vulnerable, if accompanied by a male.
medium99906275
The
rules also prescribed that the male escort must be a mahram — husband, father,
brother or son among others — irrespective of their age and physical capability
to protect them.
It
led to ridiculous situations where elderly women were seen bossed around by
their little male escorts.
Winds
of change
Happily,
however, all that is in the past. Following widespread protests and
international criticism, Saudi Arabia has removed some of the restrictions
imposed through the male guardianship system.
For
instance, women above 21 now have the right to obtain a passport and travel
without the permission of a male guardian.
So,
for the first time, women will perform Haj as independent entities — not as
‘male baggage’. And India is set to send the largest contingent of single
women. According to the ministry of minority affairs as many as 4,314 ladies
without mahram (LVM) have been approved for Haj.
Until
last year, they would have been denied the opportunity to perform Haj if they
didn't have a suitable mahram to accompany them.
It
might seem like a small number compared to 1.4 lakh, the total number of
approved applicants across all categories. But, given the stereotype of the
submissive Indian Muslim woman who has no independent agency, it's a huge step
forward.
It's
hard to believe that their menfolk wouldn't have resisted the idea of letting
them go alone. Let us remember most of these women come from conservative
religious backgrounds and lead extremely sheltered lives.
But,
clearly, for once they decided that enough was enough and made a conscious
choice to throw away the crutches and be on their own. And the fact that men
chose not to get in the way — maybe out of deference for a holy occasion —
shows that, contrary to the assiduously cultivated notion, all Muslim men are
not raving fundamentalists.
medium99906429
In
recent years, a new generation of Muslim men has come of age and most are a lot
more relaxed about women's independence.
But
the real import of the Haj episode is that it reflects a wider change in Muslim
attitudes towards women and the latter's own growing assertion of their rights.
Stand
up for your rights
Indian
Muslim women missed the first wave of feminism and their current push for
change is an attempt to catch up with it. Significantly, it is not restricted
to upper middle-class left-liberal families alone, but cuts across
traditionally conservative sections.
The
latest pressure point is a spirited campaign for mosques to be thrown open to
women worshippers. Several women's groups in different parts of the country are
working to facilitate access to mosques. And their efforts have started to bear
fruit with a number of mosques across India opening their doors to women, as
the TOI+ reported recently.
In
Kerala, Huda Ahsan, director of the Khadija Maryam Foundation, is leading a
campaign for a women-only mosque where the imams, devotees and committee
members will all be women.
medium99906460
"We
didn't want the token gesture of someone allowing us a small space in a mosque
or anyone's sympathy," Ahsan was quoted as saying.
As
with most discriminatory practices, restricting women's access to mosques too
has no sanction in Islam. It's an invention of hardline mullahs. In the time of
Prophet Muhammad, mosques were open to all irrespective of gender. According to
scholars, there is no mention in the Quran prohibiting women from going to
mosques.
Tuba
Sanober, an activist, told an interviewer that it was a Sunnah (tradition of
the Prophet) to offer namaz in masjid.
“We
must remember the Prophet’s clear commands and ensure that no one prevents
women from coming to the masjid. We endeavour to make the masjid’s doors open
for everyone – men, women, persons with special needs and kids. Mosques should
be accessible like they were in our beloved Prophet’s time,” she said.
Across
Europe, mosques are open to women and double up as community centres and common
spaces for families to meet.
Taking
on the right
To
cut to the chase, the Indian Muslim community is in the throes of a momentous
change though it is still at the ‘baby-steps’ stage. Even arch conservative
groups such as the All India Muslim Personal Law Board have started to
recognise with gritted teeth the need for reform. To be sure, it is driven by
pressure from grassroots women.
Tabassum
Sheikh, the teenaged Karnataka student who has topped the Class XII state board
exams, is a case in point. Caught up in the hijab row and faced with the stark
choice of missing her exams or taking off her hijab for a few hours while
writing her papers, she bravely chose the latter despite being goaded by Muslim
groups to boycott the exams in protest.
medium99908215
But,
she prioritised education over a contrived symbol of Muslim identity even as
many of her classmates stopped attending classes.
"I
decided to give up the hijab [in college] and pursue my education. We will need
to make some sacrifices for education,” she told the media, pointing out that
it was not an easy decision to make for someone who had been wearing the hijab
since the age of five. And she is now back to wearing it.
So
far so good. But lamentably there is still no nationwide and inclusive reforms
movement — only a patchwork of individual women-driven initiatives on specific
gender issues with men reluctantly tagging along. The Wahhabi-minded clergy and
patriarchal attitudes still retain a stranglehold over vast swathes of the
community.
This,
combined with Hindu nationalists' belligerent campaign to isolate and cow
Muslims into submission, makes even limited success in moving the community
forward a lot more significant than it would in normal circumstances.
Indeed,
there's a view — and it has some merit — that pressure from the Muslim right on
the one hand and Hindutva-inspired Islamophobia on the other has made Muslims
more determined to assert their independence and stand on their own feet.
If
so, here is commiserating with the assorted jamaats and senas for getting
Muslims so wrong.
Source:
msn.com
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/newsindia/how-muslim-women-are-changing-attitudes-and-the-community/ar-AA1aChJH?li=AAggbRN
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/uae-sheikha-latifa-freedom/d/129701