Middle East Press on LGBTQ, Macron and Islam: New Age Islam's Selection, 23 October 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Bureau
23 October
2020
• Ban ‘Panic Defence’, Save LGBTQ Lives
By Jennifer Williams
• Macron’s Crisis with Islam
By Merve Şebnem Oruç
• Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Except Muslims
By Hilal Kaplan
• Egypt Female Candidate Angers Feminists by
Glorifying the Patriarchy
By Amr Emam
------
Ban ‘Panic Defence’, Save LGBTQ Lives
By Jennifer Williams
22 Oct 2020
A
protester holds a slogan with a photo of the killed transgender Filipino woman
Jennifer Laude during a rally in Quezon City, the Philippines on September 11,
2020 [AP/Aaron Favila]
----
Last month,
a Philippines criminal court granted US Marine Lance Corporal Robert Joseph
Pemberton an early release from his ten-year prison sentence for killing a
Filipino woman named Jennifer Laude in 2014. Miss Laude was found dead in a
hotel room after the American serviceman strangled and drowned her in a hotel
bathroom.
During
their investigation, local police referred to the murder as a “hate crime”,
having established that Pemberton attacked Miss Laude after finding out she was
a transgender woman. At his 2015 murder trial, the serviceman claimed that he
killed his victim while defending himself. This specious claim convinced the
court to give him a lesser prison sentence.
The judge
found Pemberton “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” of homicide, but reasoned that
he reacted out of “passion and obfuscation” when he “arm-locked the deceased,
and dunked [her] in the toilet”. The judge had accepted the defendant’s legal
claim that Miss Laude’s not revealing her gender identity to him was a
mitigating circumstance in the case. In this way, Pemberton successfully used a
panic defence to dodge a harsher murder sentence.
Panic
defences have been successfully used to mitigate sentences in murder cases of
LGBTQ people around the world. By accepting such arguments, courts basically
declare that killing an LGBTQ person is less of a crime than killing a
non-LGBTQ person, and that the victim is to be blamed for having “provoked” the
violence they experienced. When crimes committed against LGBTQ people are not
treated the same as similar crimes committed against non-LGBTQ people, this
sends a signal that it is okay to harm a LGBTQ person and that the perpetrator
will not face full and just punishment.
Although
Miss Laude’s murder took place thousands of kilometres away from where I live
in the United States, her case disturbed me. I am a transgender woman myself
and I live in a country where the number of murders of transgender people is
now the highest ever recorded. Since January, 33 transgender people have been
killed in the US and this makes me think seriously about my own and my friends’
safety.
Like in the
Philippines, panic defences have been used here in the US. One of the most
publicised cases was the 1998 trial for the murder of Matthew Shepard. Mr
Shepard, a gay college student at the University of Wyoming was beaten, robbed,
set on fire, tied to a roadside fence and then left for dead in the winter cold
by two men who were captured and brought to trial. During the trial, one of the
two defendants claimed that he was sexually bullied in his youth by another boy
and that this caused him to panic and attack Shepard – after an alleged
unwanted advance which he believed justified his violent actions.
The
defendant’s panic defence claim was disallowed in court, but only because the
state of Wyoming did not allow insanity pleas. However, he was eventually
convicted of felony murder and sentenced to two life terms in prison, which
carries a lesser punishment than the first-degree murder charge desired by
prosecutors.
Another
major case that involved panic defence was the murder of transgender teenager
Gwen Araujo in 2002, in California after her transgender status was revealed at
a party. Four men were charged with her murder. One defendant pled guilty to
voluntary manslaughter, but the other three successfully used a panic defence
to obtain a mistrial when a first-degree murder conviction could not be
obtained.
In the
second trial, prosecutors offered the lesser option of second-degree murder
convictions – and the jury obliged for two defendants without additional
hate-crime penalties attached, while the third defendant pled “no contest” to a
lesser-charge of manslaughter. The murder and subsequent trials gripped
California and the nation and would herald the campaign to end gay and
transgender panic defences in America.
In the wake
of the outrage that Ms Araujo’s murder and subsequent trials provoked, Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the 2006 Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act,
which became the first law to ban the use of societal bias, including panic
strategies, to influence the proceeding of a criminal trial. Eight years later,
California became the first US state to fully ban any use of a gay or
transgender panic defence in its courts. Ten other US states have enacted bans
since, and seven more states, as well as the District of Columbia are now
considering them.
In the
state of New Jersey, where I live and work, the panic defence was finally
banned last year. In an important bipartisan moment in our state’s history,
Republicans and Democrats in our state legislature voted unanimously in favour
of the Gay and Transgender Panic Defence bill which disallows this type of
defence in New Jersey courts. The bill was then promptly signed by our
governor.
Despite
these successes, the fight continues. There are still 39 US states where a
panic defence can be used and we still do not have a federal law outlawing it
in federal courts. The US House of Representatives and US Senate each have a
bill called the Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act of 2019, but both
bills are stuck at committee-level and will likely not advance until a new
Congress convenes next year.
Meanwhile,
politicians at the local, state and national level continue to legislate to
limit transgender and LGBTQ lives, proposing bills limiting access to restrooms
and restricting medical treatments for transgender youth. Nationally, US
Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who is running for reelection this November,
recently found three co-sponsors for her bill to restrict transgender
schoolgirls from playing sports as girls. This electoral season, like those in
the past, has also seen vitriolic anti-transgender attacks and campaigns in
places such as Texas and Michigan.
Hostility
and aggression against transgender and LGBTQ people in general are also
widespread across the world. Worldwide statistics hardly account for all acts
of violence and murders, but a 2019 report stated that 331 trans and
gender-diverse people were killed between October 2018 and September 2019. Brazil
accounted for 130 reported murders, Mexico – 63, and the United States – 30.
Statistics are hard to find in other places where violence and discrimination
are widespread, including many African countries, as well as Iran, Poland,
Chechnya and Russia.
While 29
countries recognise same-sex marriage, few of them ban gay and trans panic
defence. Australia and New Zealand ban such defences, while France and Israel,
among other countries only increase criminal penalties for hate crimes.
With LGBTQ
people already facing much danger and aggression across the world, allowing the
use of panic defences to continue only further endangers them. That is why the
campaign to end its use in courts should now move to a global level.
In 2019,
the United Nations General Assembly received a detailed, informative report
called “Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity”. To date, no substantial action has been taken
on its findings. It is time for the UN to pick up the mantle and lead by
calling on its members to collectively eradicate panic defences and commit to
protecting LGBTQ lives.
We are all
humans, regardless of our race, colour, religion, sexual orientation or gender
identity; each of us deserves equality, respect and justice – even in death.
-----
Jennifer Williams is a LGBTQ advocate in the
United States.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/10/22/ban-panic-defence-save-lgbtq-lives/
-----
Macron’s Crisis with Islam
By Merve Şebnem Oruç
OCT 23,
2020
French President Emmanuel
Macron wearing a face mask delivers a speech at the Seine-Saint-Denis
prefecture headquarters in Bobigny, near Paris, France, Oct. 20, 2020. (Reuters
Photo)
------
On Jan. 12,
2015, an estimated 3.7 million people rallied in shows of unity and solidarity
across France with more than 40 world leaders marching with them shoulder to
shoulder following the killings in Paris.
From Jan.
7-9, 17 people were killed by three terrorists in attacks on the satirical
Charlie Hebdo magazine headquarters, a kosher grocery store and the general
area of the Paris suburb of Montrouge.
Although
the march was organized in a short amount of time, millions walked the streets
of Paris chanting, "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie").
According
to France's Interior Ministry, the demonstration was larger than the rallies
staged when Paris was liberated from the Nazis in World War II. The gathered
crowd was described as the largest in France's modern history. Around the
world, from Hong Kong to Tunisia, crowds gathered in major cities illuminating
their famous monuments in the Tricolor.
Hebdo and
free speech
Charlie
Hebdo is a satirical newspaper that has a reputation for standing up to
authority, confronting what is held sacred or questioning any group claiming supremacy.
After
publishing cartoons that mocked Islam on a number of occasions, in 2015 the
magazine printed numerous images that insulted the Prophet Muhammad in a move
that provoked Muslims for who drawing the prophet is considered blasphemous and
prohibited in the Quran. In simple terms, the editors of the
"irresponsible magazine"(their own words) hurt the feelings of
believers of Islam.
The Charlie
Hebdo attack was different than other massacres because it was seen as an
attack on freedom of speech. In the wake of the attack, the world seemed to me,
to think that there was nothing more important than the freedom of expression.
I personally believed the holy principle of freedom of speech was superior to
everything.
If that
were the case, people would have the right to freely express all of their
opinions regardless of whether they criticize or mock what is sacred to others.
I was aware that the French law didn't protect unrestricted free speech.
For
example, condoning terrorism is a crime and denying the Holocaust is banned in
France. But after the millions-strong march, I thought things had changed as
the streets of Paris felt like an outdoor temple revering in divine free speech
that day. But I was wrong. A few days after the historic rally, French authorities
began to arrest people on charges of glorifying or defending terrorism online.
It was time
for nations to better understand why disaffected citizens were joining radical
causes. There should be efforts to get to the root of the problem especially in
Western countries, such as France where the Muslim population is around 5
million.
Unfortunately,
the French government chose to follow an extreme version of secularism or
laicity. Depicting the Charlie Hebdo attack as France's 9/11, the country
started to change radically, maybe more so than that the U.S. was changed after
the fall of the Twin Towers.
The
popularity of the former French President François Hollande, a socialist, hit
rock bottom and support for the far-right leader Marine Le Pen increased.
In 2017,
Emmanuel Macron went head-to-head against Le Pen in the second round of the
presidential elections after a first-round vote brought centrist, left-wing and
moderate voters together against a possible far-right presidency.
Coming to
power as a centrist and having no established party, ideology or tradition,
Macron was free to govern France for a full five years avoiding populist
extremism, which was rapidly spreading across Europe and beyond.
He was
viewed as the one liberal, democratic politician who could stem the tide of
populism sweeping the globe. However, he has become the most populist leader in
Europe.
His
supporters rationalize his policies saying if Macron didn't do something about
the populist threat he would be replaced by a far-right leader. As the protests
of yellow vests began in November 2018, his approval ratings sank to 29%.
While his
globalist supporters went quiet, Macron may have thought he would not be able
to secure his seat by continuing to take on the populists who were gaining
ground every day, opting to embrace populism instead.
The
rhetoric of hatred
The French
president did not stop there and gradually adopted a strong anti-Islamist
rhetoric intended to draw in the Islamophobes. Today, so-called
"secular" hatred towards Muslims has become a part of everyday speech
for the French government as well as its media. French Muslims keep asking
Macron to stop stigmatizing them, but his normalization of hate speech against
Islam has almost legitimized the institutionalized discrimination towards the
France's Muslim community.
Taking
further steps, the French President recently said "Islam is a religion
that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our
country." Adding that he is seeking to "liberate" Islam in
France from foreign influences by improving the oversight of mosque financing.
He announced a law against religious "separatism" and outlined new
measures to "defend the republic and its values and ensure it respects its
promises of equality and emancipation."
His
supporters argue that the upcoming draft bill against "separatist"
threats will also include other groups like White supremacists when it is
clearly targeting Islamist movements. French Muslims now fear that the
extremists will not be the only target of the state and public hatred towards
Islam as a religion will increase.
Stating,
"secularism is the cement of a united France," Macron also defended
"the right" to commit blasphemy, in a nod to the Charlie Hebdo
cartoons insulting Islam. He expects all French citizens to respect the values
of the Republic while he does not respect the values of Muslims.
Macron has
no tolerance for Islam but at the same time asks Muslims to be tolerant of
insults toward their religion. If it continues like this, the problem won't be
the prohibition of respecting Islamic values but the active obligation to
attack them.
Then, it
shouldn't come as a surprise to hear that Muslim kids are forced to eat pork at
school or draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad under the guise of "being
a true French citizen."
Unfortunately,
there have been more tragic incidents in France as a result of Islamophobia and
extremism. Last week a school teacher was beheaded by an extremist for showing
cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a class, while two Muslim women were
stabbed under the Eiffel Tower as the attackers shouted "Dirty Arabs"
this week. We will continue to see cases like these if the French government
continues to encourage Islamophobia.
Noticing
the double standards between freedom of speech and freedom of religion after
the Charlie Hebdo attack, many Muslims around the world came to see the event
as a milestone. From that day onwards they knew Islam would be attacked again
under the pretext of being a non-peaceful religion and these attacks would not
be limited to harsh words or insults.
Charlie
Hebdo actually paved the way for extremists, who were looking for a pretext to
attack, one of whom pledged allegiance to Daesh and the other two declared
their loyalty to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). A Yemeni branch of
al-Qaida took responsibility for the deadly attack against Charlie Hebdo,
claiming the al-Qaida leadership chose the target and the massacre was in
retaliation to the depictions mocking the Prophet Muhammad.
All Muslim
countries, including the French Muslim community, immediately condemned the
Charlie Hebdo attack. As radicalization began to spread, particularly since the
evolution of the Daesh terrorist group, Muslim countries played a major role in
fighting the notorious terror organization. However, their efforts were not
enough to stifle the rise of Islamophobia around the world as Islamophobic
incidents including far-right terrorism, motivated by a variety of ideologies,
started to increase.
In France,
more than 1,000 Islamophobic incidents occurred in 2019 including 70 physical
attacks. While intelligence agencies in the West warn that white supremacists
are becoming a more dangerous threat every day, countries like France do not
listen. Fortunately, not all of the Western countries follow the same path.
The
Christchurch attack
Last year,
Australian Brenton Tarrant killed 50 Muslim worshippers in a terrorist attack
on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand – a usually peaceful country.
This time
there were no global marches for the victims, no promises of solidarity and
unity from other countries, no condemnation or warning of rising extremism from
world leaders.
Other than
Muslim countries, only German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the mosque
attacks as "terrorism" when expressing her sorrow over the
"citizens who were attacked and murdered out of racist hatred."
Regardless
of the lack of support she received from the rest of the Western world, New
Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern worked her hardest to ease the pain of
the families of the victims.
She took a
decisive stand against terrorism in a world where even liberal leaders cater to
white-supremacists in a bid to keep votes. In her own words, her role was to
"voice the grief of a nation."
She was the
face of New Zealand and denounced terrorist attacks to the world. Following the
attack she visited the families of the victims, wearing a headscarf to show
respect, and promised to ensure their safety in mosques across the country.
Ardern
opened the next session of New Zealand Parliament with an evocative
"Assalamu alaikum" message of peace to Muslims and vowed never to
utter the name of the terrorist. "He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He
is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless," she said.
There was a
recitation from the Quran, a tribute to the souls of the Muslims killed in the
attacks. Led by Ardern, all the MPs, wearing black had a moment of silence and
listened to the recitation. Across New Zealand the public mourned the victims,
visited mosques and placed flowers on memorials. In the following days she
declared a ban on all military-style-rifles, including assault and
military-like semi-automatic rifles. The enthusiastic public showings of
support for Ardern has now come to be known as "Jacindamania."
This week,
Ardern won a landslide victory in the country's general elections. She has led
the center-left Labor Party to its best result in 50 years, winning 49.1% of
the vote.
Western
leaders such as Emmanuel Macron may think that tolerance towards Islam and
Muslims would destroy their political career but in fact it has been the making
of others just like Jacinda Ardern.
Ardern has
been depicted as "anti-populist" in the media for a long time and we
can credit her victory to her sympathy and compassion. Uniting the country she
has been an example to other world leaders who adopt populist rhetoric out of
fear of being replaced by right-wing politicians and whose policies cause divisions.
I know I am trying to keep the faith, but what will be left to us if we also
lose hope.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/columns/macrons-crisis-with-islam
-----
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Except Muslims
By Hilal Kaplan
OCT 23,
2020
Two Muslim
women were stabbed by anti-Islamic groups in the French capital of Paris on
Sunday. In the attack, which took place near the Eiffel Tower, a group
repeatedly stabbed the two women with knives while shouting "dirty
Arabs," French police sources reported.
Muslim
communities have been targeted, just as they were in 9/11, following the murder
of a history teacher who allegedly showed his pupils cartoons insulting the
Prophet Muhammad in his class.
Practices
that would never come to mind if the killer were a Christian extremist are
readily applied to Muslims whose only crime is practicing their religion.
Only last
month, in the name of allegedly “fighting radical Islamism,” 12 mosques,
private schools, associations and businesses were closed in France, French Interior
Minister Gerald Darmanin stated, making it a total of 73 since the beginning of
the year.
Defining
the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) as an “enemy of the
state,” Darmanin announced that similar nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
would be closed in line with a Cabinet decree. The CCIF is known for its fight
against the French government's discriminatory stance toward Muslims.
In
assessing the developments, it is important to note that President Emmanuel
Macron justified the repressive policy, vowing to fight “Islamist separatism.”
The
expression labels French Muslims as second class citizens, encompassing the
devout who are careful to consume “halal” food and Muslim women who wear
headscarves, making them “fair game” for the state.
France's
restrictive stance on Muslims, which started with the banning of the burkini
and veil and continued with the "law on secularity and conspicuous
religious symbols in schools” that was approved by the parliament in 2016,
impacts the lives of about 6 million Muslim citizens.
Jews were
the target of far-right racism in Europe 100 years ago, and now, Muslims are
facing racism in Europe. The fact that Macron, whose party sustained resounding
losses in local elections in June, has targeted Muslims is proof that the issue
is no longer confined to the "far-right."
So, the
alarm bells should ring given that Muslims are the latest target in Europe's
long history of racist practices, some of which were still in place less than a
century ago.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/columns/liberty-equality-fraternity-except-muslims
------
Egypt Female Candidate Angers Feminists By
Glorifying The Patriarchy
By Amr Emam
Oct 22,
2020
A female
candidate for the Oct. 24-25 elections for Egypt's House of Deputies is coming
under fire for glorifying men and demeaning women.
Wafaa
Salaheddine, who is running as an independent in the Nile Delta province of
Menoufia, says women have to serve their husbands as servants.
Salaheddine,
who is not married, even backs polygamy and says men have the right to get
married to more than one woman at a time.
This is
touching a raw nerve with the nation's feminists, who have long struggled to
change stereotypes about women.
People such
as Salaheddine, they say, are casting aside women's struggle for equality in a
society that has grown accustomed to considering them inferior to men and
marginal family members.
“People
like this candidate are dangerous in that they are able to reach a large number
of people,” Nehad Abul Qomsan, the head of local nongovernmental organization
Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, told Al-Monitor. “She spreads hate against
women, even as she may represent these women in parliament if she wins the
elections.”
Salaheddine
uses her YouTube channel to spread the word about her program and to reach out
to voters in her constituency.
One video
on the channel shows her talking with one of her constituents and promising to
solve the problems he and fellow constituents face, including rampant
unemployment.
In a way,
Salaheddine represents a growing trend in Egypt, one that reveres the
patriarchy and supports polygamy.
There are
many icons of this trend now and — surprisingly enough — most of them are
women. One of them, Mona Aboshanab, a media figure, argues that only cowards
abstain from getting married to more than one woman at a time. She even
encourages fathers and male members of the family to impose their full control
over female members.
This way of
thinking goes hand in hand with an old Egyptian tradition of considering women
mere followers or subordinates of men.
This
tradition is detailed in the works of Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz,
especially the Cairo Trilogy, the first part of which, "Palace Walk"
— a story about the structure of Egyptian families and patriarchal dominance in
the past century — highlights the long struggle Egyptian women needed to stage
in order to be viewed as equal members of society.
The
struggle against male dominance seems to have reached a higher level with the
emergence of a new generation of Egyptian feminists who campaign fiercely
against women's low status within families and the institution of marriage.
Apart from
asserting that women are, not equal to, but even better and more qualified than
men, the same feminists campaign against polygamy, a practice acceptable in
Islam (under certain conditions), but one that is becoming socially
unacceptable to some Egyptians.
Nonetheless,
these views are being challenged by people such as Salaheddine.
Salaheddine
did not return calls from Al-Monitor or answer messages via the messaging
platform WhatsApp requesting comment.
Nonetheless,
one psychologist saw an electoral campaigning trick in her remarks.
Leading
psychologist Mohamed Hani said Salaheddine might not be a strong believer in
what she says.
But at the
least, he added, she uses this rhetoric to curry favor with male voters.
“She uses
this negative propaganda against women to win men over,” Hani told Al-Monitor.
“After all, men make up the bulk of voters in any election.”
Around 61
million Egyptians are registered to vote. Almost half of these voters are
women. However, more men tend to show up at polling stations.
A sizable
portion of the 4,006 candidates running as independents in the 143
constituencies specified for independent candidates are women.
Egypt's
election law specifies that 25% of the 596 seats in the House of Deputies go to
women.
The same
law requires half the lists of the political parties contesting 284 seats be of
women candidates.
Independent
female candidates and those included on the political party lists are
campaigning fiercely, including on social media and on television, to persuade
voters.
On the
streets of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, and other cities, posters of female
candidates take their places proudly beside those of male candidates.
Some of the
female candidates hold street rallies and others tour their constituencies to
talk with voters directly one on one.
“I believe
the female candidates will compete strongly in the elections this time,” Nadia
Helmi, a professor of political science at Beni Suef University, told
Al-Monitor. “Women have become main partners in the political process in this
country.”
Women are
apparently trying to capitalize on the gains they made in the House of Deputies
elections in 2015. Women won 87 seats out of a total of 596 seats in the
elections, which amounted to around 15% of the total seats of the house.
Salaheddine,
26, is one of the youngest female candidates.
She is a TV
host by profession. She tours the streets of Shebeen el-Kom, the capital of
Menoufia province, to talk with ordinary people and appeal to them.
She says
her media record as a TV host with the local al-Hadath al-Youm channel and as a
newspaper reporter (which she does not mention on her Facebook page) gave her
the chance to form an idea about people's problems and the means of solving
them. She is aware, she says, that unemployment and poverty are the largest
problems facing the people of her constituency. She promises to focus on small
projects to economically empower her constituents, including housewives.
But it is
her remarks about the status of women and men that have grabbed the attention
of almost everybody.
Many women
don't like it. “The low view of women is very painful, especially when it comes
from women themselves,” Shaimaa Sayed, a housewife in her early 40s, told
Al-Monitor. “Some women believe they are inferior beings, but in defending
their view, they humiliate other women.”
On Oct. 13,
Salaheddine told a local newspaper that regardless of the success women might
have in their professional life, they have only one refuge: their husbands'
homes.
“I was
raised to become a servant of my husband,” Salaheddine said. “This is what our
parents taught us.”
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/10/egypt-female-candidate-elections-demean-women-rights.html
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