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26/1/2010
Malaysia: Ban lifted on Sisters in Islam book

The [Sisters in Islam] SIS Forum (Malaysia) succeeded in throwing out the Home Minister’s order banning its 215-page book, Muslim Women and the Challenges of Islamic Extremism. High Court judge Justice Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof on Monday ruled that the book is not a threat to public order. He said the Islamic Development Department of Malaysia’s (Jakim) objection to the book was that it could confuse Muslims, especially those who with only a superficial knowledge of their religion, as the publication explains Islamic teachings according to the writers’ own views.

25/1/2010
UPDATE: Uzbekistan: Ahmedova charged with defamation against Uzbek nation

Police in Uzbekistan are compiling an unusual criminal case against one of the country’s leading photographers, Umida Ahmedova. The charge is defamation, and the insulted party is the population of Uzbekistan. IWPR has learned that Ahmedova was required to sign an undertaking not to leave the country by a police investigator on January 13. A month earlier, she was charged with defamation and with harming Uzbekistan's reputation, RFE/RL radio reported. The case against her is based on two articles of the criminal code, carrying penalties of up to six months in jail. Update on Uzbekistan: Woman Human Rights Defender Umida Ahmedova Facing Charges

25/1/2010
West Africa: Fatwa against practice of FGM

Efforts to eradicate female genital circumcision in West Africa have taken a step forward with a fatwa against the practice in Mauritania and sanctions in Niger against mothers who subject their daughters to it. Known also as female genital mutilation (FGM), the tradition involves removing external parts of a girl's genitals and sometimes narrowing the vaginal opening. Bleeding, disease and problems in urinating and childbirth can result for millions of victims each year in Africa and the Middle East.

25/1/2010
Saudi Arabia: Free Nazia Quazi

In most countries, a woman in her mid-20s is legally an adult. And in most countries, foreigners are free to leave when they like. In its flagrant rejection of these two principles, Saudi Arabia is unique, and that is a big problem for 24-year-old Nazia Quazi.

22/1/2010
Iran: No Information About Detained Women’s Rights Activist

Iranian judicial and prison authorities have refused to release any information about charges against women’s rights activist Somayeh Rashidi (24), who was arrested on 19 December 2009, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported today. During the past two months, over a thousand people have been detained through the use of a blanket detention order, which is effectively a license for security and intelligence agents to arrest anyone at will. Hundreds of these detainees, similar to Somayeh Rashidi, have disappeared into Iranian prisons without any information available to their families or lawyers.

21/1/2010
France: WLUML statement on the violent attack on the Algerian-born actress, Rayhana

On Tuesday 12 January 2010, the feminist playwright and actress of Algerian origin, Rayhana, was doused with petrol and narrowly escaped being burned alive when the lit cigarette thrown at her by two assailants failed to ignite. This completely unprovoked attack took place in the eleventh arrondissement of Paris as the 45-year-old actress was arriving at the theatre, ‘La maison des Metallos’, where she was due to resume her role in the play about women in Algeria, ‘At my age, I still have to hide to smoke!’ This grave act of physical aggression was accompanied by a verbal assault that left few doubts in the minds of the victim’s family about the link between the attempted homicide and the play’s representations of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

21/1/2010
Egypt: Women reciting Quran in spotlight

Egypt's women have already made inroads into several one-time domains of men. But a suggestion to allow women to recite Islam's holy book the Quran in public has triggered sharp differences among Muslim clerics in this country recently swept by a wave of Islamism.

21/1/2010
Egypt: High Administrative Court overturns ban on full veils in exams

Egypt's High Administrative Court overturned on Wednesday a ban on female students wearing the niqab, or full face veil, in university examinations, saying it violated women's constitutional rights. The case, and that of a religious edict banning the niqab in girls' school dormitories, has bounced back and forth among various courts since Minister of Higher Education Hany Helal imposed the ban in October.

21/1/2010
Malaysia: Stress, quarrels and neglect: the 'normal' polygamous family

A large-scale study currently underway across Malaysia uncovers proof that polygamy harms everyone involved: from emotionally scarred children, to wives who think they’d be better off as single-parent households, and even husbands who admit “I wouldn’t recommend it for my son; it’s quite stressful.”

21/1/2010
Haiti: Women's movement mourns death of 3 leaders

One returned to her Haitian roots, to give voice to women, honor their stories and shape their futures. Another urged women to pack a courtroom in Haiti, where she succeeded in getting a guilty verdict against a man who battered his wife. A third joined the others and helped change the law to make rape, long a political weapon in Haiti, a punishable crime. Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, founders of three of the country's most important advocacy organizations working on behalf of women and girls, are confirmed dead -- victims of last week's 7.0 earthquake.