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24/10/2011
Tunisia: 'In the name of democracy - What secularists and women have to lose in the Tunisian elections'

On the eve of the elections in Tunisia that will shape the future of the country and even that of the Arab world as well, Western do-gooders and Islamic fundamentalists hand in hand rejoice in ‘Tunisia’s first free elections’ and its access to ‘ democracy’. The recent history of Iran and Algeria have taught us better… And women in Tunisia watch in horror the rise of Muslim fundamentalists, as a possible replication of the Algerian scenario of 1989 .

24/10/2011
Tunisia: 'Tunisia's Election through the Eyes of Women'

The role of women in the new Tunisia has been a controversial issue throughout the transitional period, with some fearful that they would lose precious rights from the previous era, and others arguing for a return to traditional values.

 

Early on in the democratic transition, an ambitious gender parity law was introduced to ensure women would have a voice in the constituent assembly.

24/10/2011
Libya: 'interim ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law'

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its "basic source". But that formulation can be interpreted in many ways - it was also the basis of Egypt's largely secular constitution under President Hosni Mubarak, and remains so after his fall.Mr Abdul-Jalil went further, specifically lifting immediately, by decree, one law from Col. Gaddafi's era that he said was in conflict with Sharia - that banning polygamy.

20/10/2011
Tunisia: 'Tunisia's women fear veil over Islamist intentions in first vote of Arab spring'

In a tiny hall in Nasarallah, a poor agricultural village in the hills beyond Tunisia's historic Islamic city of Kairouan, Jamila Brahid is irate. Sitting in a huddle of country women wearing traditional rural headscarves, the 50-year-old villager is proud to have had a primary school education in a place where many of her female friends – mostly seasonal fruit-pickers – cannot read or write. A carpet-weaver who owed debts on wool and has never married because of her obligations looking after elderly relatives, she gives thanks for Tunisia's prized status as the most feminist country in the Arab world. But, she says, Sunday's elections will be the true test.

19/10/2011
France: 'Paris, October 17, 1961: 50 Years on From a Dark Day'

Fifty years ago, the Parisian police brutally suppressed a demonstration of 30,000 Algerian workers protesting against a discriminatory and racist curfew banning them from the capital’s streets at night. The march was peaceful, but by the end of the night over 200 Algerians were dead and 11,000 had been arrested and detained in horrific circumstances by French police units.

The date, barely known outside France, is undoubtedly one of the city’s darkest episodes, and survivors of the repression and relatives of those killed are still seeking the truth about what happened that night, and full recognition of the role the authorities played on October 17, 1961.

19/10/2011
Argentina: 'Women in Rural Argentina Speak Out on Climate Change'

RESISTENCIA, Argentina, Oct 13, 2011 (IPS) - Rural and indigenous women in northern Argentina, hit hard by the expanding agricultural frontier, deforestation and the spraying of toxic pesticides, spoke out about their problems and set forth proposals for discussion at the next global summit on climate change. They did so at the Women's Hearing on Gender and Climate Justice 2011-Argentina, held Tuesday Oct. 11 in Resistencia, the capital of Chaco province, 950 km north of Buenos Aires, attended by representatives of organisations from the northern 10 of the country's 23 provinces.

18/10/2011
Senegal: Movement to End FGM Spreads in Senegal

SARE HAROUNA, Senegal — When Aissatou Kande was a little girl, her family followed a tradition considered essential to her suitability to marry. Her clitoris was sliced off with nothing to dull the pain.

But on her wedding day, Ms. Kande, her head modestly covered in a plain white shawl, vowed to protect her own daughters from the same ancient custom. Days later, her village declared it would abandon female genital cutting for good.

18/10/2011
Malaysia: Sisters in Islam respond to the article 'Hudud is a matter of choice for Muslims'

SISTERS in Islam would like to respond to “Hudud is a matter of choice for Muslims” (The Star, Oct 9).

Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud states that the proponents of hudud law must first present their case in detail before it can be opposed.

The truth is, the Kelantan Hudud Enactment was adopted 18 years ago, and the Terengganu Enactment has been in existence for over nine years.

18/10/2011
India: 'Indian SC gives Hindu women equal property rights'

NEW DELHI: A Hindu woman or girl will have equal property rights along with other male relatives for any partition made in intestate succession after September 2005, the Indian Supreme Court has ruled, the Press Trust of India reported.

A bench of justices R M Lodhaand Jagdish Singh Khehar in a judgment said that under the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, the daughters are entitled to equal inheritance rights along with other male siblings, which was not available to them prior to the amendment.

18/10/2011
Egypt: "Nawal El Saadawi: 'I am going to carry on this fight for ever'"

At the age of six, in the summer of 1937, Nawal El Saadawi was pinned down by four women in her home in Egypt. A midwife, holding a sharpened razor blade, pulled out her clitoris and cut it off. "Since I was a child that deep wound left in my body has never healed," she wrote in her first autobiography, A Daughter of Isis.

"I lay in a pool of blood. After a few days, the bleeding stopped, and the daya [midwife] peered between my thighs and said, 'All is well. The wound has healed, thanks be to God.' But the pain was there, like an abscess in my flesh."