News

25/6/2010

Kenya-Somalia: Persecutions of victims of child abuse

Ahmed Mohamoud* seems like a typical eight-year old boy. He is dressed in jeans and sneakers and wears a hat of the New Orleans Saints, the team that won the US Super Bowl this year. Mohamed fled from the Hawiye area of Banadir region, not far from Mogadishu, with his parents. IRIN met Ahmed in Kakuma, northwestern Kenya, where his mother Fatuma agreed to tell IRIN their story.

25/6/2010

Indonesia: Developing A Discourse Of Gender Justice In Islam

In sharp contrast to many other Muslim-majority countries, women in Indonesia play a very significant role in the public sphere, even in the realm of the production of Islamic discourses. The history and experiences of Indonesian Muslim women, including their role in Islamic scholarship, and also the prolific writings of a number of Indonesian male scholars championing gender justice using Islamic arguments, is largely unknown to Muslims elsewhere.

24/6/2010

Canada: Killers of 16-year-old Aqsa Pervez sentenced to life in prison

The killers of 16-year-old Aqsa Pervez were convicted on June 18. Mohammad Pervez and Waqas Ahmed, Aqsa’s father and brother, were sentenced to life in prison by a jury in Ontario, Canada. Aqsa was killed after being picked up by her brother from her school bus stop. She was taken to the family home where she was found dead by the police. DNA material belonging to her brother was found under her fingernails and her father confessed to the murder.

24/6/2010

Iran: High Price of “Bad Hejab”

When Iranian girls go out these days, their friends warn them they face trouble if they are wearing makeup or are fashionably dressed. Their friends point out that they have a 1,000-dollar price tag on their heads. They would do well to heed such advice, because the Iranian police launched a new drive a few weeks ago to crack down on anyone deemed to be wearing “bad hejab” or to be flouting the rules of chaste behaviour in other ways. The campaign is being called the “new approach to moral security”.

23/6/2010

Pakistan/UK: Woman abandoned in Pakistan by British husband

The picture shows Aqila, aged 18, celebrating her marriage in front of relatives and friends. At the time she dreamt of coming to England for a happy, long life with her new husband and his family. Two years later, the young bride is stranded in her village in Pakistan after, a court has heard, being drugged and forcibly taken back by her husband and father-in-law without her newborn baby. Aqila, 20, was dumped outside her parents' house in March without her passport and British visa, leaving her stranded with little hope of return, the High Court was told last week.

23/6/2010

Israel: Palestinian Knesset Parliamentarian Fights Death Threats

"I stopped counting after I had received 50 death threats. I told my secretary not to tell me about them any more," Arab-Israeli Knesset (parliament) member, Haneen Zoabi told IPS. "As a result of the death threats I’ve been given personal body guards both within the Knesset and outside," adds Zoabi. Zoabi, a member of the Arab-Israeli political party Balad, was on board the ‘Mavi Marmara’, part of the Free Gaza (FG) flotilla, when it was attacked by Israeli commandos in international waters as it tried to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza several weeks ago.

23/6/2010

Mediterranean: Publication of 2009 annual report of EMHRF

The year 2009 has highlighted the recurring situations confronting defenders in the southern and eastern Mediterranean. These situations are closely linked to the nature of their activities but they are also related to broad political trends at the national and international levels. It is in this context that the Euro-Mediterranean Foundation of Support to Human Rights Defenders (EMHRF) increased its responsibilities and provided assistance to 36 defenders in 2009.

23/6/2010

Saudi Arabia: Women threaten to breastfeed drivers if they aren't allowed to drive

Many were stunned when Saudi cleric Sheik Abdel Mohsen Obeikan recently issued a fatwa, or Islamic ruling, calling on women to give breast milk to their male colleagues or men they come into regular contact with so as to avoid illicit mixing between the sexes. But a group of Saudi women has taken the controversial decree a step further in a new campaign to gain the right to drive in the ultra-conservative kingdom, media reports say. If they're not granted the right to drive, the women are threatening to breastfeed their drivers to establish a symbolic maternal bond.

22/6/2010

Dubai: Alleged victim of gang rape sentenced to one year in prison

The Criminal Court of Abu Dhabi, in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, ruled this week that an 18-year-old Emirati woman who accused six men of gang-raping her will herself serve a one-year sentence for consensual sex. It's one of in the latest in a scourge of reported rape cases in Dubai, The court proceedings were marred by legal travesties, experts say. While the plaintiff was not granted a lawyer, the defendants were. Moreover, the plaintiff could not have any family members present with her during the trial, the court decided. The prosecution also argued that simply because the plaintiff agreed to enter the police officer's car, this action somehow constituted partial consent to sex, The National reported.

22/6/2010

Malaysia: Increase in marriages involving underage Muslims in the Federal Territory

THERE was an increase in marriages involving underage Muslims in the Federal Territory last year. This goes against the assumption that child marriages are now on the decline due to changing cultural trends. Last year, 49 Muslim girls under 16 years of age and 39 boys under 18 tied the knot. According to the statistics provided by the Federal Territory Religious Department, this number was higher compared with the previous year.