News

7/5/2010

International: Progressive male Muslim preachers: oxymoron or reality?

Feminist concern about the violation of women’s rights by male clerics in Muslim countries is slowly producing a response from some states. At the same time, rights activists are increasingly reporting examples of clerics who are standing up for women’s rights. This isn’t about the progressive male and female scholars that are increasingly visible in the Muslim world, nor about the occasional female imam; it’s about male preachers on the streets and in the villages.

6/5/2010

International: Reinterpreting 'qawwam'

Director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Peace and Spirituality, editor of the monthly Al-Risala journal and author of almost two hundred books, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is one of India’s best known Islamic scholars. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, he talks about issues related to Islam and women.

6/5/2010

UPDATE: Saudi Arabia: Child bride granted divorce

A girl aged 12 has won a divorce from her 80-year-old husband in Saudi Arabia in a case that may help to introduce a minimum age of marriage in the kingdom for the first time. Update on Saudi Arabia: Rights panel take up child bride case

6/5/2010

United States: FGM is not a cultural requirement

On 26 April 2010, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a “Policy Statement – Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors” that in effect promotes changes in US federal and state laws to “enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick” such as “pricking or incising the clitoral skin to satisfy cultural requirements.”

6/5/2010

International: Feminism in the Muslim world

One of the most contentious issues within Islam today is the role of women in society. Conservatives endorse a narrow reading of Islamic texts to justify restrictions on women's mobility, legal rights and access to the public sphere, including health care, education and the workplace. Extremists among them use violence to impose their views. Moderate Muslims, on the other hand, find plenty within the Qur'an to support a full role and equal rights for women.

5/5/2010

Kuwait: Appeal to ban driving with niqab

A famous political online community forum is pushing for liberal MPs to submit a question to the Minister of Interior Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabah on why women wearing niqabs are allowed to drive without being fined. According to a law passed in 2006, women covering their faces are not allowed to drive cars in Kuwait, but this law has not been put into practice. The posted announcement on the online forum quotes driving safety as the reason for this incentive, and says that since other MPs are submitting questions which demand that the law be practiced and followed thoroughly, this is one of the laws that has been ignored for a while and, it insists: "It is about time that it is put into practice."

5/5/2010

France: Some profit from wives despite polygamy ban

The burqa, or face-covering veil, is getting all the attention in the debate over Muslim immigrants in France. But another controversial tradition among some immigrants is less noticed and far more widespread: Polygamy. The issue resurfaced last week after a woman received a traffic citation in the western city of Nantes for driving with a veil over her face. Officials then accused her husband of having at least three other wives, and said he may be profiting from them financially while the state pays the bill.

2/5/2010

Georgia: New equality law not enough to stop violence in the home

The Parliament of Georgia passed a Gender Equality Law on 27 March. The legislation provides for the establishment of a national women’s machinery, the enhancement of women’s security, equality in the labour market and the strengthening of women’s political participation. The law also introduces gender-responsive planning and budgeting on the part of the government.

30/4/2010

UN: Iran kept off Human Rights Council but elected to Commission on Women's Rights

Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest." Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.

30/4/2010

UPDATE: Israel/Palestine: AIPAC's lobbying of student senators prevented override vote at UC Berkeley

A surgical strike on Israel's wallet could end the occupation, writes Matthew A. Taylor in Haaretz: What on earth will it take to persuade Israel to leave the occupied territories? Sometimes it seems as if nothing will work. For eight years now, the Arab Peace Initiative, which early Zionist leaders would have seen as a dream-come-true, has been collecting dust. Its terms include two states based on the pre-1967 borders, a mutually agreed-upon solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis, and normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the entire Arab world. What once would have appeared to many to be Israel's salvation now seems impossible given Israel's entrenched colonial position in the West Bank and the settlers' political power. Update on Israel/Palestine: Endorse UC Berkeley bid to divest from companies linked to Israeli occupation