News

31/8/2010

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning, was told on Saturday that she was to be hanged at dawn on Sunday, but the sentence was not carried out, it emerged tonight. Mohammadi Ashtiani wrote her will and embraced her cellmates in Tabriz prison just before the call to morning prayer, when she expected to be led to the gallows, her son Sajad told the Guardian. "Pressure from the international community has so far stopped them from carrying out the sentence but they're killing her every day by any means possible," he said.

27/8/2010

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) is gravely concerned by the tremendous losses of life and livelihoods and ongoing humanitarian crisis triggered by the worst floods in Pakistan’s history.We stand in solidarity with all the women, men and children of Pakistan during this difficult time. In particular, we send a message of solidarity to the women of Pakistan, who for many years have contributed to upholding the struggle for peace and democracy throughout the country, and who continue to struggle for survival in the face of this unprecedented crisis

27/8/2010

A Saudi couple tortured their Sri Lankan maid by hammering 24 nails into her hands, legs and forehead, after she complained of a too heavy workload, officials said today. Nearly 2 million Sri Lankans sought employment overseas last year and around 1.4 million, mostly maids, were employed in the Middle East. Many have complained of physical abuse or harassment. LT Ariyawathi, a 49-year old mother of three, returned home on Friday after five months in Saudi Arabia.

26/8/2010

A court case to determine whether Canada's polygamy laws violate religious protection might have been sparked by a fundamentalist Mormon sect in southeastern British Columbia, but the legal challenge will also examine rarely discussed polygamous practices among North America's Muslims. The B.C. government asked the province's Supreme Court last year to decide if the section of the Criminal Code prohibiting polygamy also contravenes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

26/8/2010

The controversial Family Protection bill was dealt a blow at the Islamic parliament today as one of its articles outlining legal registration of "temporary marriages" was voted down. ILNA reports that Article 21 of the new bill failed to pass through the parliament with only 45 votes in favour of it. The article was one of the points women’s rights activists objected to in the so-called Family Protection bill.

26/8/2010

Open letter to President of Afghanistan: H.E. President of Afghanistan, The last decade in the history of our country, despite all the shortcomings, was full of hope for the women of Afghanistan. In the first few years of the decade, we witnessed positive developments toward freedom of women from yokes of captivity, fanaticism and fundamentalism. These hopes opened a new page in history for women and we may dare say that the newly founded democratic government of Afghanistan became a bastion of ideals of gender equality and justice for women who were tired of the rule of fanaticism and misogynism. Those developments revived the lost dignity of Afghanistan at the international level. Alas, those hopes and achievements have been subjected to disruption and regression in recent years leading to human catastrophes such as assassinations, stoning and gender discrimination. 

26/8/2010

The Women and Memory Forum has recently published the first book of its new series of Readers on Gender in the Humanities and Social Sciences in the Arabic language. The book is titled Reader on Gender and Political Science, edited by Mervat Hatem and translated by Shohart El-Alem. 

25/8/2010

The controversial mock presidential elections held by the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to form an Islamic government that works as a model of administrating the state under a civil Islamic government. The elections became controversial when the idea was raise to nominate a woman for the presidency. Moreover, the administration of the "Muslim Brotherhood's Youth Forum," which was responsible for running the elections, refused the request of the forum's Muslim Sisters’ group to be nominated to the presidency. The website's administration declared its insistence to adhering to Islamic law, which states that women are not allowed to be nominated as presidents of a state.

25/8/2010

The Yemeni authorities, facing growing internal and external pressures, are abandoning human rights in the name of security says a new Amnesty International report, Yemen: Cracking down under pressure. The role of armed Islamist militants in Yemen rose to prominence during the civil war in 1994, when they fought alongside the army of the former YAR (North Yemen) to defeat the armed forces of the former PDRY (South Yemen). The PDRY was a secular state, widely perceived to be communist and backed by the USSR. The Islamist militants siding with the YAR comprised Yemenis and other nationals, mainly from Arab countries. Many had settled in Yemen, with the encouragement of the government in the north, after taking part in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.

24/8/2010

In response to an interview with Salil Shetty, the new secretary general of Amnesty International, WLUML made the following comments on Guardian online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/15/salil-shetty-amnesty-international-leader