U.N. Demands Release of Two Afghan Women Human Rights Campaigners Neda Parwan and Zholia Parsi
New Age
Islam News Bureau
02 November 2023
·
U.N. Demands Release of Two
Afghan Women Human Rights Campaigners Neda Parwan and Zholia Parsi
·
Indian Navy Women Prepare for
Solo Sail Across the Globe
·
Peace Prize Winner Narges
Mohammadi Smuggles Message Out of Cell
·
Angry And Tired, Gazan Mothers
Stuck in Israel After Medical Care Want to Get Home
·
Israel Accuses Hamas of Using
Over 100 Women and Children as Human Shields in Gaza
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/un-afghan-human-neda-zholia/d/131034
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U.N. Demands Release of Two Afghan Women
Human Rights Campaigners Neda Parwan and Zholia Parsi
Afghan human
rights activist Neda Parwan has been held in detention at an unknown location
without charge or access to legal counsel since being arrested along with her
husband in Kabul on September 19. Photo courtesy Jinha Women's News Agency
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By Paul Godfrey
OCT. 31, 2023(UPI)
The United Nations Human Rights High
Commissioner demanded Tuesday that Afghanistan's Taliban regime immediately
release two women human rights campaigners from "unjustified"
detention.
Experts at the U.N. said they believed
that Neda Parwan, who has been held since she was arrested on Sept. 19, and
Zholia Parsi, who was taken into custody on Sept. 27, were arrested for
exercising their "fundamental right to engage in peaceful protests."
"We urge the de facto authorities
to also release the women rights defenders and their family members without
further delay, as there is no justification for their detention," the
experts stated.
Parwan's husband and Parsi's adult son
are also being held under arrest. None of the four have been charged, appeared
in court, or been permitted access to a lawyer.
The U.N. said it was growing
increasingly worried about the welfare of the women who are both affiliated
with the Women's Spontaneous Movement and whom the U.N. describes as
"human rights defenders."
"The release of Ms. Parwan and Ms.
Parsi and their family members from detention is an urgent matter. After more
than a month in detention, we are increasingly concerned about their physical
and mental wellbeing," the experts said.
The U.N. experts stressed right to
freedom of peaceful assembly and association was at the core of international
human rights law, warning that it was critically important to defend and that
expressing dissenting views and exercising legitimate rights were not grounds
for detaining people.
Women human rights activists' gender
placed them at even higher risk of being singled out.
"The Taliban seem to be continuing
to intensify their restrictions on civic space, especially through silencing of
the voices of women and girls, thus creating a chilling effect," the
experts said.
"We urge the de facto authorities
to demonstrate respect for freedom of expression, freedoms of movement and
association including the right to engage in peaceful protest, in line with
Afghanistan's international obligations under human rights instruments ratified
by the State."
The freeing of women's education
campaigners Mortaza Behboudi and Matiullah Wesa was welcomed as a positive
step. The pair were arrested for speaking out on girls' rights to attend school
and calling on the Taliban-led government to end its prohibition on female
education.
Wesa was freed from prison Friday after
being detained for seven months, Pen Path, the education equality civil society
group he founded said in a post on X.
A Kabul court ordered Behboudi's release
after acquitting him of all charges on Oct. 18 after more than nine months in
detention.
In September, U.N. High Commissioner for
Human Rights Volker Turk told a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in New
York that Afghanistan was guilty of grave rights violations, warning that human
rights in the country were in a "state of collapse."
"Violations of human rights in the
country are not new: decades of armed conflict mean that Afghanistan has known
violence and injustice for much of its recent history," said Turk.
Source: upi.com
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/10/31/Switzerland-UN-human-rights-office-demands-afghan-women-activists-freed/1261698755026/
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Indian Navy Women Prepare for Solo Sail
Across the Globe
Navy Chief
Adm. R. Hari Kumar with Cdr. Abhilash Tomy (Retd) and the two women officers,
Lt. Cdr. Dilna K. and Lt. Cdr. Roopa Aligirisamy, undergoing training for the
solo circumnavigation attempt around the globe.
| Photo Credit: Dinakar Peri
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November 02, 2023
DINAKAR PERI
Despite the presence of modern aids,
life at sea demands alertness and one cannot take it lightly, said Navy Chief
Admiral R. Hari Kumar. He was speaking of the Navy’s next adventure activity,
which is a solo circumnavigation of the globe by a crew of women. It (sea) is a
completely different domain as humans are not used to living there and there
isn’t enough awareness among people, he noted.
Navy officers, Lieutenant Commanders
Dilna K. and Roopa Aligirisamy, are currently being mentored by Cdr. Abhilash
Tomy (Retd) to undertake the first women solo-circumnavigation as part of the
Navy’s ‘Sagar Parikrama’.
In April, Cdr. Tomy scripted history by
finishing second in Golden Globe Race, and became the first Asian to do so. It
involves travelling solo around the world non-stop in a boat with no modern
technological aids, mimicking the first complete, solo non-stop
circumnavigation race undertaken by Sir Robin Knox Johnston in 1968.
Cdr. Dilna is a logistics officer while
Cdr Roopa is a naval armament inspection officer.
Resilience
About what he expects from woman
officers for the upcoming challenge, Cdr. Tomy said, “From an instructor’s
point of view, I would want them to be like a sponge so that they can absorb
what I say and quickly replicate it.”
Also he would want to see how resilient
they are and how they handle being alone by themselves. “For a solo
circumnavigation, he or she, needs to have all the skills of an entire village.
Need to be a cook, electronics engineer, sails, weather, navigation and media.
I have to really judge them on these terms…,” he said.
On April 29, 2023 Cdr. Tomy finished
second in GGR-22, after sailing for 236 days, 14 hours and 46 minutes since his
cast off on September 04, 2022. He returned to to Les Sables-d’Olonne, France
behind Kirsten Neuschafer of South Africa.
A seasoned sailor, in 2013, he became
the first Indian to complete a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the world
under sail onboard INSV Mhadei. He also took part in GGR-18, but had to
withdraw owing to a debilitating back injury sustained in a storm enroute and
was rescued after a dramatic multi-nation operation. Five years later, with a
titanium rod in his spine and five fused vertebrae, he has aced the test of
human spirit and exhibited rare endurance, grit and determination in GGR 22,
the Navy said in a statement.
Source: thehindu.com
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/navy-women-prepare-for-solo-sail-across-the-globe/article67485839.ece
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Peace Prize Winner Narges Mohammadi
Smuggles Message Out of Cell
01st November 2023
OSLO: "Victory is not easy, but it
is certain," imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner and women's rights
activist Narges Mohammadi, said in a message smuggled out of her Tehran cell
and published late Tuesday.
In the message, read out in French by
her daughter, Kiana Rahmani, and posted on the official Nobel website, the
51-year-old activist and journalist expressed "sincere gratitude" to
the Norwegian Nobel committee.
Mohammadi -- who was awarded the prize
in early October "for her fight against the oppression of women in
Iran" -- once again criticised the requirement for women in Iran to wear a
headscarf and denounced Iranian authorities.
"The compulsory hijab is a means of
control and repression imposed on society and on which the continuation and
survival of this authoritarian religious regime depend," she declared
through her 17-year-old daughter, who has taken refuge in France along with her
family.
She condemned "a regime that has
institutionalised deprivation and poverty in society for 45 years", adding
that it was "built on lies, deception, cunning, and intimidation".
Arrested 13 times, sentenced five times
to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes, and imprisoned again since
2021, Narges Mohammadi is one of the women spearheading the "Woman, Life,
Freedom" uprising in Iran.
An 'unstoppable process'
The movement, which has seen women take
off their headdresses, cut their hair and demonstrate in the streets, was
sparked by the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, last
year after she was arrested in Tehran for failing to comply with the strict
Islamic dress code.
On Saturday, Armita Garawand, a
17-year-old ethnic Kurd, died a week after she was declared "brain
dead". She had been hospitalised since October 1 after falling unconscious
on the metro.
Rights groups have said the teen was
critically wounded during an alleged assault by female members of Iran's
morality police. The authorities dispute this account, saying she suddenly fell
ill.
"We, the people of Iran, demand
democracy, freedom, human rights, and equality, and the Islamic Republic is the
main obstacle in the way of realising these national demands," Mohammadi
said in her message.
"We... are struggling to transition
away from this religious authoritarian regime through solidarity and drawing on
the power of a non-violent and unstoppable process to revive the honour and
pride of Iran and human dignity and prestige for its people," she
continued in the message from Evin prison.
"Victory is not easy, but it is
certain," she concluded.
It was not disclosed how the message was
smuggled out.
Kiana Rahmani, who read out the
10-minute message sent by Narges Mohammadi, and her twin brother Ali will
represent their imprisoned mother at the award ceremony in Oslo on December 10,
the Norwegian Nobel Institute announced Wednesday.
The Nobel Peace Prize has on five
occasions honoured jailed activists, including last year's winner Ales
Bialiatski of Belarus, whose prize was accepted by his wife, and Chinese
dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010, whose chair remained empty.
Source: newindianexpress.com
https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2023/nov/01/peace-prize-winner-narges-mohammadi-smuggles-message-out-of-cell-2629081.html
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Angry and tired, Gazan mothers stuck in
Israel after medical care want to get home
LAZAR BERMAN
November 02, 2023
ASHDOD — As Hamas terrorists were
rampaging through Israeli communities on the morning of October 7, sick Gazan
children were being treated in Israeli hospitals.
With a war now raging in Gaza, and the
civilian Erez Crossing facility between Gaza and Israel destroyed during the
Hamas onslaught, the kids and their families are unable to return home.
For now, and for the foreseeable future,
they are stuck in the coastal city of Ashdod, living at Shevet Achim, an
Israel-based Christian organization that brings children from neighboring
countries into Israel for heart surgery.
Despite the free life-saving treatment
their children are receiving from Israeli doctors, paid for by Israeli
taxpayers, there is little warmth for the country among the Gazan relatives
accompanying the young patients. Several hold Israel to blame for all of Gaza’s
woes; one or two are more nuanced.
Running to bomb shelters to protect
themselves from Hamas rockets several times a day, and endlessly scrolling
through images of dead Gazans on Arabic social media, the mothers and
grandmothers are scared, angry, and want the fighting to end so they can get
back to their families and their homes, if they are still standing.
And they don’t have much sympathy for
Israeli civilians, beyond the medical staff they encounter in the hospitals.
“We experienced a lot of mercy in the
hospital, yes,” said Umm Roz, a 24-year-old mother from Shejaiya. “But we are
not experiencing mercy in Gaza.”
Praise for the doctors only
Umm Yousef, who is in Israel for the
first time with her 2-month-old nephew Hor, told The Times of Israel on Sunday
that she did not hear anything positive about Israelis when she was growing up
in Jabaliya.
“We were under occupation; what am I
going to hear about them?” she asked.
Umm Yousef said she is afraid to be
anywhere except the Shevet Achim house or Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv.
She and Hor were the only Gazans in the ICU on October 7, and she initially
feared for their safety.
Though Umm Yousef quickly understood
that she was safe, she was in the hospital four days later when members of the
far-right La Familia group broke in, amid rumors that wounded Hamas terrorists
were being treated there.
“They protected us; the management
brought the police,” she recounted.
But she sees the care and protection
provided by the Sheba staff as an exception.
“There’s a difference between the
doctors and the soldiers,” she explained. “The doctors treat us well, the
soldiers don’t. If I walk in the hospital I’m safe, if I walk in the street,
I’m not safe.
“We are asking for protection, and we
want to get home to our families,” pleaded Umm Yousef.
If and when she does make it back, it’s
not clear where she’ll go. Her family home has been destroyed, and her five
children are in the southern Gaza Strip, she said. “Totally, totally, totally,
it’s gone,” she said.
And Umm Yousef has lost more than just
her home. The day before the interview, she said, her brother was killed by
Israeli strikes in Gaza.
She also sees the kidnapping of Israeli
civilians as justified.
“We have somebody in the Israeli
prisons. We want our prisoners back, and you want your prisoners back.”
Hamas, she said, “is trying to protect
the women and children among the hostages, but Israel isn’t protecting women
and hostages.”
The Palestinians at Shevet Achim mostly
spoke in Arabic, and an Iraqi Kurdish mother translated to English.
It is impossible to separate their
comments from the fact that they and their families live under Hamas control in
the Gaza Strip, and speaking too warmly about Israel could put them in danger.
They asked that their full names not be used and their faces not be shown.
Umm Leen is with her 6-year-old
daughter. The two have made multiple trips to Israel to receive treatment for
Leen’s heart condition.
Her family’s home, in an agricultural
village east of Khan Younis, has also been destroyed by Israeli attacks, she
said.
She said she is angry at the Israeli
people. “When someone does something harmful to us, yes, it has an effect. Am I
still going to feel love for them? No.”
When asked if she had any sympathy for
Israeli mothers butchered by Hamas on October 7, she simply shook her head.
“I was only afraid for my house and my
family and my children, and the people in Gaza, when I heard about it,” Umm
Leen said.
But she and Leen might be in Israel for
months. Her daughter has defective heart valves, and suffers from seizures. She
is scheduled for more treatment early next year.
“I want to go home, I want to see my
family,” she said. “What is going to happen, am I going to stay here for
another three months?”
Umm Roz, who came to Israel for the
first time two months ago and returned shortly before the war, also wouldn’t
express sympathy for Hamas’s victims.
After hearing about the October 7
attacks by Hamas, “I felt the world had turned upside down and I was very
afraid,” she said.
She did have plenty of praise for the
medical staff at Sheba, however.
“The doctors have mercy and a
humanitarian attitude toward children,” she said. “They give the same treatment
to everyone.”
‘This is my voice’
Despite the palpable anger among most of
the adults, some of the Gazans wanted to focus on the positive.
“Everything is good here,” said Fares, a
gentle Khan Younis carpenter holding his 3-month-old daughter Abeer. “I’m not
afraid to be here.”
He seemed to put the blame for the war
on Hamas. “There’s a war because they came into Israel; before that there
wasn’t one. We could come and go and there weren’t any problems.”
Umm Naim, 47, lost her husband during
the 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas. She gave birth to her son in Sheba
Medical center shortly afterward, and named him after her husband Naim.
She said she didn’t hate Israel after
her husband was killed. “It was conflict,” she said.
I love peace, this is my dream for me.
Umm Naim stressed that her father had
worked in Israel for many years.
“I want peace, to be with my children,
because I am all the time afraid,” she said in English.
“I do not have the power,” Umm Naim
continued. “I love peace, this is my dream for me.”
She said she wanted Arab countries to
sit around a table and solve the Gaza issue. “Solve the problem.”
“Stop kill the children, for both
sides,” said Umm Naim. “This is a human and this is a human.”
She also expressed hope that Arab states
could facilitate elections in the Gaza Strip.
“We hope all the children, all the
people in the earth, to be smile, to be happy,” Umm Naim continued. “Muslim,
Jewish, anyone. Anyone. This is my voice.”
A blessing to the nations
Jonathan Miles, the founder of Shevet
Achim, told The Times of Israel that he works to bring sick Gazan children to
Israeli hospitals because “we’re Christians from the nations who believe the
word of God that we received from the Jewish people.”
“We’re created in the image of God, so
every life is of value,” he said. “At the very beginning of the covenant with
Abraham, his seed was promised to be a blessing to all the families of the
Earth.”
Miles, who has also brought dozens of
children from Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and the West Bank to Israeli hospitals for
life-saving heart surgery, had no shortage of praise for the values of Jews and
Israelis.
“It’s in their spiritual DNA,” he said.
“Like it or not, to be a faithful Jew means to be a blessing to the nations. No
other nation is willing to do for these children what Israel is doing.”
Miles said that Israeli authorities
“will go to almost any length to allow children who need life-saving care to
enter Israel, that the doctors and nurses will fight for these kids with every
resource they have, including the sacrifice of their personal time, and that if
we’ll stand with them the hospitals are willing to absorb at least half the
cost themselves.”
At the same time, Miles observed that
“this war is such a hard blow that people in Israel are struggling to value the
life of their neighbors in the same way they always have. Without God’s help,
it’s impossible.”
‘There is no Hamas’
Toward the end of the hour-long
conversation, the Gazans let their frustration with Israel flow freely.
“We are peaceful people, but I’m afraid
we are going to get a call that my kids are killed,” said Umm Leen. “Four of my
family members were killed today. Why did they attack the home?”
“This war is between Hamas and the Jews,
and we pay the price.”
Hamas is not preventing anyone from
heading south, she insisted, accusing Israel of targeting those fleeing.
“Israel says to get out, then they shoot
rockets at the car, and there are kids and women. There was no Hamas,” Umm Leen
charged.
This war is between Hamas and the Jews
and we pay the price.
“Our families are trying to do what
we’re told, we’re trying to seek shelter, and people are being killed.”
Hamas, she said, is underground and
nowhere to be seen. “Hamas didn’t stop people. There is no Hamas. Where is
Hamas?”
“The people here are saying they are
attacking Hamas, but there are no Hamas people there,” said Umm Leen. “They are
attacking the hospital.”
The Gazans endorsed Hamas’s claim that
Israel was behind the October 17 blast at the Al-Ahli Hospital. Israel has
produced evidence, endorsed by the US and leading Western news outlets, to show
it was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket misfire.
They also had plenty of criticism for
Egypt’s government.
“Why don’t any of our neighbors allow us
to come?” asked Umm Naim. “Nobody wants us.”
“Just like Netanyahu won’t let us into
this land which was once ours, Egypt won’t let us go there,” lamented Umm Leen.
“We’re sick of war, we just want to see
our families,” said Umm Fares, a 35-year-old grandmother from the Nuseirat
refugee camp who is slated to give birth in Israel in the coming weeks. “We
want a clean and peaceful life.”
Source: timesofisrael.com
https://www.timesofisrael.com/angry-and-tired-gazan-mothers-stuck-in-israel-after-medical-care-want-to-get-home/
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Israel accuses Hamas of using over 100
women and children as human shields in Gaza
November 02, 2023
Hamas sent a large group of women and
children to act as human shields against Israel Defense Forces troops who were
attacking a key compound of the terror group in the Gaza Strip, according to
soldiers.
Two IDF soldiers were killed in the
Tuesday assault on Hamas’s Central Jabaliya Battalion compound, located in the
Jabaliya refugee camp inside Gaza. Israel is battling to destroy Hamas and end
its rule over the Strip after the group’s devastating terror attack earlier
this month that killed over 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians.
According to a report Thursday by the
Ynet news site, Hamas sent a group of 100 women and children to act as human
shields to protect the compound.
“We are prepared for more incidents of
such cynical and blatant use of the population,” said an unnamed IDF officer
who apparently witnessed the incident.
The report did not say how troops dealt
with the situation, but the compound was captured by the IDF.
The army said the large amount of
intelligence material seized from the base is already aiding in other Gaza
battles, according to the report.
An initial investigation found that IDF
Sgt. Roei Wolf and Staff Sgt. Lavi Lipshitz, both 20, were killed as forces
were withdrawing from the compound. Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile
that hit a wall of the building, killing the soldiers and injuring others. The
remaining soldiers returned fire while an evacuation operation was carried out.
Around 50 Hamas fighters were killed
during ground operations on Tuesday, according to the IDF.
Israel has repeatedly said Hamas is
using civilians as human shields, including by locating operations bases under
hospitals. Captured Hamas terrorists have confirmed the claims, explaining that
Hamas knows Israel will not bomb a medical center.
US President Joe Biden has also said
that Hamas is using civilians as human shields.
The war was sparked on October 7, when
some 3,000 terrorists led by Hamas burst across the border into Israel from the
Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing over 1,400 people under the cover of a
deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities.
The vast majority of those killed as
terrorists seized border communities were civilians — including babies,
children and the elderly. Entire families were executed in their homes, and
over 260 people were slaughtered at an outdoor festival, many amid horrific
acts of brutality by the terrorists. In addition, more than 240 people of all
ages were abducted and taken back to Gaza as captives.
Israel says its offensive is aimed at
destroying Hamas’s military infrastructure, and has vowed to eliminate the
entire terror group, which rules the Strip. It says it is targeting all areas
where Hamas operates while seeking to minimize civilian casualties.
The military has also said it is taking
care not to bomb areas where hostages are believed to be held, Ynet reported.
In the weeks since the massacre, Hamas
and other terror groups have continued to rain rockets on Israel, including
from Lebanon in the north, causing further deaths and injuries. Over 200,000
Israelis have been displaced due to the rocket fire and over a million have
frequently been forced into bomb shelters for safety.
According to the Hamas-run health
ministry, more than 8,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, and more
than 22,000 people have been wounded. The figure, which cannot be confirmed,
would be without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Hamas
has been accused of artificially inflating the death toll, and does not
distinguish between civilians and terror operatives. Some of the dead are
believed to be victims of Palestinian terrorists’ own misfired rockets.
Source: timesofisrael.com
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-accuses-hamas-of-using-over-100-women-and-children-as-human-shields-in-gaza/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/un-afghan-human-neda-zholia/d/131034