Empowerment

Comme chaque année, nous célébrons avec fierté la promulgation du Code du statut personnel qui, en son temps, le 13 août 1956, a représenté une conquête de la raison moderne et constitué un des éléments clés de l’émancipation féminine. C’est pourquoi aujourd’hui, comme chaque année, nous le célébrerons à notre manière, contre les dénis de l’histoire et l’amnésie générale des mémoires en rendant d’abord hommage au peuple qui en a rendu possible l’esprit et la lettre. Cet hommage nous l’exprimons sans complaisance ni esprit d’exclusive, à tous ceux et celles qui, à titre collectif ou individuel, femmes et hommes, ont posé les jalons de l’émancipation et de la dignité des Tunisiennes. 

Lebanon may be used as a regional base for the spread of gender equality, a representative from the Council of Europe (CE), a Europe-wide organization concerned with the promotion of human rights and the rule of law, revealed Tuesday. “We are hoping to use Lebanon as a hub for stretching out legislation against domestic abuse across the region,” José Bota, chairperson of the Equal Opportunities for Women and Men from the parliamentary branch of the CE, told The Daily Star.

 The harrowing case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani – a mother of two sentenced to stoning by an Iranian court for adultery – has rightly drawn the world's attention to Iran's draconian penal code, which reserves its cruellest punishments for women. The practice of stoning, in particular, is so abhorrent that even political allies like Brazil have been roused into action. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva offered Ashtiani asylum over the weekend in a direct appeal to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran has yet to respond formally, and a foreign leader can have no direct bearing on a domestic legal proceeding. But the Brazilian intervention sends a powerful message to the Islamic Republic: its human rights record can never be divorced from its nuclear diplomacy.

In the summer issue of the WLUML newsletter, Fatou Sow asks: “To ban or not to ban the burqa?” – that is a question in the European Union; Belgium and France banned it lately, so the debate continues at a high political level amongst many other member states, provoking contradictory responses across the world. Meanwhile in Iran, a year after the disputed elections of 2009, the women’s movement faces growing suppression from the authorities. We feature an article by Leila Mouri, which examines the impact of the government crackdown on the status of women and their activism in Iran today.