We wish to inform you that tomorrow you will be executed

Muhammad Haza’a is one of some 180 people facing death in Yemeni prisons for crimes they allegedly committed when they were under 18.

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He is due to be taken out of his crowded prison cell tomorrow morning and shot.

Those who supported our call last week to save him from execution appear to have bought him a precious extra week of life, but would have hoped that his case be reopened and dealt with justly, according to the law, not that he would be subjected to a cold-blooded killing.

We were shocked when we first received the phone call that Muhammad Haza’a was going to be executed within 24 hours.

Capital punishment is unfortunately common enough in Yemen, but the authorities would normally at least grant the prisoner a couple of days between formally telling them and ending their life.

Equally shocking was the fact that Muhammad had “proof” that he was under 18 at the time of his alleged crime.

We only had a few hours to do something. We had lists of alleged juvenile offenders on death row in Yemen, but Muhammad’s name was not on them. We knew nothing about him or his case. Yet we trusted our source and knew that the information he had provided us was highly likely to be correct.

Our source had himself been about to be executed a few years ago as a juvenile offender, when Amnesty International, with the help of other organizations, intervened; he felt that Amnesty International saved his life and regularly supports our work.

After we received the call, we urgently sent emails, made calls and issued appeals. At first we only received automated messages by email and were confronted with piped musical recordings by phone.

But one breakthrough here and another there soon created momentum. International and local organizations jumped in and phone calls to the Yemeni President and the General Prosecutor’s office brought the promise that the execution would be postponed and the case reviewed.

That was on Tuesday, 26 February. Less than a week later, the following Monday, two parallel events occurred.

In the city of Tai’zz, where Muhammad has been held, the head of the Appeal Court there filled in a form no longer than four lines and sent it to the prison authorities. It probably took him or his assistant less than a minute to fill in the blanks. The execution date is set for Saturday, 9 March 2013, it read. He added a line underneath: “We advise that security measures are taken on the above mentioned date of the execution.”

That last line was added in anticipation of protests. There were rumours that other death row inmates were planning to prevent the prison authorities from taking Muhammad to his execution.

Rumours were also emerging that a demonstration in front of the prison was being planned.

Local and international activists were making calls and noise about the unfairness and illegality of the sentence besides the inhumane nature of the execution itself. The head of the court apparently considered that all these calls warranted by way of response was a single sentence of warning at the bottom of an execution order.

In the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, meanwhile, the General Prosecutor signed a form ordering the prosecution in Ta’izz to refer Muhammad’s case to the relevant courts for review on the basis that there remained a dispute about his age at the time of the alleged offence.

Muhammad’s lawyer decided to personally take the form signed by the General Prosecutor to the relevant authorities in Ta’izz because he knew that if the document was faxed or sent by post, it would probably either arrive too late or mysteriously disappear.

It took him around four hours to drive the 260km south from Sana’a to Ta’izz. The lawyer was met, but the form was not accepted. Apparently the Ta’izz authorities were too unhappy with the attention Muhammad’s case had brought and so have simply refused to follow the laws of their own country and forward a case to the relevant courts when being ordered to do so by their superior.

It would surely be unconscionable for an execution to go ahead essentially because some officials had felt emboldened to flout instructions, but that seems to be the situation as things stand.

We continue to call on the Yemeni President, the General Prosecutor and the relevant authorities in Ta’izz to immediately suspend the execution of Muhammad Haza’a and to order a retrial that is fair and does not resort to the death penalty.

#Egypt: Time to address violence against women in all its forms

Violence against women in Egypt gained national and international attention following a series of well-publicized sexual assaults on women in the vicinity of Tahrir Square earlier this year during protests commemorating the second anniversary of the “25 January Revolution”.

Unfortunately, these instances of violence against women were neither isolated nor unique.

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Whether in the public or private spheres, at the hands of state or non-state actors, violence against women in Egypt continues to go mostly unpunished.

Most cases go unreported for a plethora of reasons that stem from discriminatory gender stereotypes, the lack of women’s awareness of their rights, social and family pressures to remain silent, discriminatory legislation and women’s economic dependence. Even when women do surmount these obstacles and turn to state institutions for protection, justice and reparation, they are often confronted with dismissive or abusive officials who fail to refer cases to prosecution or trial, and lengthy and expensive court proceedings if they want to get divorced. Women who do manage to obtain a divorce then face the likelihood that court orders for child support or spousal maintenance will not be enforced.

In recent weeks during an Amnesty International mission to Egypt, I met several women and girls who were assaulted by their husbands and other relatives. Many suffer in silence for years while they are subjected to beatings, severe physical and verbal abuse and rape.

Om Ahmed (mother of Ahmed) told me that her husband began drinking and beating her after three years of marriage. She recounted daily abuse, punctuated with particularly vicious attacks. In one instance, her ex-husband smashed a full glass bottle on her face, leaving her without her front teeth. She stayed with him for another 17 years, partially, she explained, because she had nowhere else to go, and partially because she did not want to bring “shame” on her family. She never considered approaching the police, shrugging:

“The police don’t care, they don’t think it is a problem if a husband beats his wife. If you are a poor woman, they treat you like you don’t even exist and send you back home to him after hurling a few insults.”

Eventually, Om Ahmed’s husband kicked her out of their home, and for the next year she lived with her three children in an unfinished building in an informal settlement without running water and electricity. After two years in family court, she was awarded a meagre 150 Egyptian pounds (approx. US$21) per month for her daughter’s child support (her other two children don’t qualify for it as they over 18). Her own spousal maintenance decision is still pending.

Unlike Egyptian Muslim men who can divorce their wives unilaterally – and without giving any reason – women who wish to divorce their abusive husbands have to go to court and prove “fault” or that their marriage caused them “harm”. To prove physical harm, they have to present evidence, such as medical reports or eyewitness testimony, in proceedings that are drawn out and expensive. Many women’s rights lawyers and lawyers working in family court cases told me that this is a very difficult task for many women because they don’t always report the abuse to the police, and neighbours, who are usually the only witnesses other than household members, are reluctant to get involved.

I met one woman who had a particularly striking case. She told me:

“We [my ex-husband and I] only lived together for a few months, but it took me six years to get a divorce, and I am still in court to get my full [financial] rights back. Problems started soon after we got married, and he would beat me. His mother and sisters were also abusive… After a particularly bad beating, I went to the police station to lodge a complaint, but I withdrew it under pressure [from my husband who threatened me]. The case took so long because he had good lawyers who knew all the loopholes in the law.”

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In 2000, a second option for women seeking divorce was introduced, whereby women can obtain khul’ (no-fault divorce) from the courts without having to prove harm, but only if they forego their right to spousal maintenance and other financial rights. These court proceedings can still take up to a year and put women who are financially dependent on their husbands at a severe disadvantage. Despite this, several divorcees told Amnesty International that they opted for khul’ after waiting for a court fault-based divorce for years.

Twenty-four-year-old Om Mohamed (mother of Mohamed) told Amnesty International:

“We have been separated for over four years, but I am still neither married nor divorced… I was trying to prove all this time in court that he didn’t spend any money on me or our son, and that [my husband] used to beat me with whatever he could find under his hands, including belts and wires. Every time I go to court, the hearing is postponed, and I need this or that paper. I spent a lot of money on lawyers, and got nowhere… Eventually, I gave up and in January [2013] I raised a khul’ case.”

During my visit to Egypt in May and June this year, I also met women and girls who suffered violence and sexual abuse at the hands of other relatives. A 17-year-old girl told me that she ran away from home after a particularly brutal beating by her brother, who stabbed her in the nose with a kitchen knife, and burned her with a hot iron. Her scars corroborated her story. She was too scared to report the incident at the hospital where she sought treatment, as her brother had accompanied her and threatened to kill her if she spoke out. She spent months wandering the streets before being admitted into a private shelter for children.

Another woman who fled home after her brother sexually assaulted her found temporary protection in a shelter run by an association under the Ministry of Insurances and Social Affairs. She fled from the shelter after the administration insisted that she give them her brother’s contact details, to try to set up a “reconciliation meeting”.

There are only nine official shelters across Egypt, which are severely under-resourced and in need of capacity-building and training. Most survivors of domestic violence don’t even know they exist. The idea of shelters is not widely accepted, because of the stigma attached for women living outside their family or marital homes.

A staff member at a shelter recounted to me how, after an awareness-raising session in a village in Upper Egypt, a village leader got up and – in front of all those gathered – threatened to “stab to death” any woman who dared to leave an abusive household and run to a shelter. In another instance, the husband of a woman living in a shelter threatened to set it on fire.

In May, the authorities announced the establishment of a special female police unit to combat sexual violence and harassment. While this may be a welcome step, the Egyptian authorities need to do much more to prevent and punish gender-based violence and harassment, starting by unequivocally condemning it. They also need to amend legislation to ensure that survivors receive effective remedies. They must also show political will and tackle the culture of denial, inaction and, in some cases complicity, of law enforcement officials who not only fail to protect women from violence but also to investigate properly all allegations and bring perpetrators to trial.

Egyptian women were at the forefront of the popular protests that brought down Hosni Mubarak’s presidency some two and a half years ago. Today, they continue to challenge the prevailing social attitudes and gender biases that facilitate violence against women, in all its forms, to continue with impunity – while they continue their fight against marginalization and exclusion from the political processes shaping the country’s future.

Meanwhile, with the help of human and women’s rights organizations, seven women who were sexually assaulted around Tahrir Square lodged a complaint with the prosecution in March 2013 calling for accountability and redress. Investigations were started, but have since stalled.

One of the lawyers for the women was told by a prosecutor that the case was not that “important” compared to other cases on his desk. But the plaintiffs are not giving up. As one of them told Amnesty International: “Even as I was being abused, I felt that I will not stay quiet, I will not back down. They have to be punished.”

By Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Egypt researcher

أمة متدينة

نحن أمة متدينة .. ولكننا نحتل المركز الأول على العالم في البحث عن كلمة SEX في جوجل

نحن أمة متدينة .. ولكن نسبة التحرش الجنسي لدينا هي الأعلى على مستوى العالم

نحن أمة متدينة .. ولكننا نُكفِّر كل من يخالفنا الرأي متناسين حرمة التكفير في ديننا
...
نحن أمة متدينة .. ولكننا عندما نشتم بعضنا البعض نسب الرب ولا ننسى المحصنات

نحن أمة متدينة .. ولكننا لا نعتبر المرأة إلا أداة للمتعة والانجاب

نحن أمة متدينة .. ننظر للغرب على أنهم كفار ولكن في نفس الوقت نتسابق على أبواب السفارات للهجرة

نحن أمة متدينة.. ولكننا ننظر لأي امرأة تتزوج من شاب أصغر على أنها لعوب واستغلالية .

نحن أمة متدينة.. ولكننا نخشى العباد .. أكثر من خشيتنا لرب العباد !!!!

نحن أمة متدينة.. ولكننا لسنا أمة مؤمنة

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A Shameful Neglect

 Afghanistan's iniquities are grotesque. At Kabul University last week, zealots -- all men -- protested a law that would abolish child marriage, forced marriage, marital rape, and the odious practice, called ba'ad, of giving girls away to settle offenses or debts. Meanwhile, in jails all over the country, 600 women, the highest number since the fall of the Taliban, await trial on charges of such moral transgressions as having been raped or running away from abusive homes. 

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It is tempting to wring our hands at such obscene bigotry, to pity Afghanistan's women and vilify its men. Instead, we must look squarely at our own complicity in the shameful circumstances of Afghan women, billions of international aid dollars and 12 years after U.S. warplanes first bombed their ill-starred land.

I have been traveling to Afghanistan since 2001, mostly to its hardscrabble hinterland, where the majority of Afghans live. Over the years, I have cooked rice and traded jewelry with Afghan women, cradled their anemic children, and fallen asleep under communal blankets in their cramped mud-brick homes. I have seen firsthand that the aid we give ostensibly to improve their lives almost never makes it to these women. Today, just as 12 years ago, most of them still have no clean drinking water, sanitation, or electricity; the nearest clinic is still often a half day's walk away, and the only readily available palliative is opium. Afghan mothers still watch their infants die at the highest rate in the world, mostly of waterborne diseases such as bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis, and typhoid.

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Instead of fixing women's lives, our humanitarian aid subsidizes Afghanistan's kleptocrats, erects miniature Versailles in Kabul and Dubai for the families of the elite, and buys the loyalty of sectarian warlords-turned-politicians, some of whom are implicated in sectarian war crimes that include rape. Yet, for the most part, the U.S. taxpayers look the other way as the country's amoral government steals or hands out as political kickbacks the money that was meant to help Afghan women -- all in the name of containing what we consider the greater evil, the Taliban insurgency. In other words, we have made a trade-off. We have joined a kind of a collective ba'ad, a political deal for which the Afghan women are the price.

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To be sure, a lot of well-meaning Westerners and courageous Afghans have worked very hard to improve women's conditions, and there has been some headway as far as women's rights are concerned. The number of girls signed up for school rose from just 5,000 before the U.S.-led invasion to 2.2 million. In Kabul and a handful of other cities, some women have swapped their polyester burqas for headscarves. Some even have taken jobs outside their homes. But here, too, progress has been uneven. A fifth of the girls enrolled in school never attend classes, and most of the rest drop out after fourth grade. Few Afghan parents prioritize education for their daughters because few Afghan women participate in the country's feudal economy, and because Afghan society, by and large, does not welcome education for girls or emancipation of women. To get an idea about what the general Afghan public thinks of emancipation, consider this: the post-2001 neologism "khanum free" -- "free woman," with the adjective transliterated from the English -- means "a loose woman," "a prostitute." In villages, women almost never appear barefaced in front of strangers.

Doffing their burqas is the least of these women's worry. Their real problem is the intangible and seemingly irremovable shroud of endless violence. It stunts infrastructure and perpetuates insecurity and fear. It deprives women of the basic human rights we take for granted: to have enough food and drinking water that doesn't fester with disease; to see all of their children live past the age of five. The absence of basic necessities and the violence that has concussed Afghanistan almost continuously since the beginning of recorded history are the main reasons the country has the fifth-lowest life expectancy in the world. The war Westerners often claim to be fighting in the name of Afghan women instead helps prolong their hardship -- with little or no compensation. And now, as the deadline for the international troop pullout approaches, the country is spinning toward a full-blown civil war. A handful of hardline men shouting slogans at Kabul University fades in comparison.

How to help Afghan women? The road to their wellbeing begins with food security, health care that works, and a government that protects them against sectarian violence. Right now, none of these exist. I wish I could offer an adequate solution to the tragic circumstances of the women of Afghanistan's back-of-beyond. There does not appear to be one. Hurling yet more aid dollars into a intemperate funnel that will never reach their villages is not the answer: there is little reason to believe that we can count that such funding would be spent on creating enough mobile clinics to pay regular visits to remote villages; build roads that would allow the women and their families easy access to market; facilitate sanitation projects that would curb major waterborne diseases. The impending troop withdrawal means that women's security will likely go from bad to worse.

Is it possible to ensure that some of the funding we now hand to Karzai and Co. -- an estimated $15.7 billion in 2010-2011, according to the CIA (and that's not counting the infamous ghost money) -- is distributed among the small non-profits that actually are trying to make life in Afghanistan livable, organizations that create mobile clinics to pay regular visits to remote villages, build roads that allow villagers easier access to market, facilitate sanitation projects that curb major waterborne diseases? This could be a start, but only if these organizations continue to work in Afghanistan after NATO troops leave. That, too, is in question now: this week an attack against the International Committee for Red Cross led the organization to suspend its operations in the country for the first time in almost 30 years. But wringing our hands at Afghan women's abysmal state and shaky social status is not a way out. It is a navel-gazing conversation that avoids looking squarely at our role in perpetuating the very dire condition we condemn

#Egypt withdraws annual financial support for Jewish community

Egypt has revoked annual grants of LE100,000 (US$14,000) allocated by former President Hosni Mubarak to the Jewish community in the country, an Egyptian cabinet official said Wednesday.

Mubarak supported the Jewish community through a confidential measure in the budget, head of the central department for financial and administrative affairs Soad Mekky said during a meeting for the Shura Council's Human Rights committee on the state budget, as reported by Anadolu Turkish news agency.  Mubarak secretly allotted the sum to the Jewish community starting in 1988, she added.

The annual grant was apportioned to the Jewish community from 1988 to 2012, Mekki said. The grant was suspended in 2003 under former Minister of Social Affairs Amina al-Gendy, but was later reinstated upon her request 

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Egypt had a flourishing Jewish community of more than 50,000 in the first half of the 20th century. Some say that there are now less than 200 Egyptian Jews still living in the country.
 

Saudi Arabia executes 5 Yemenis in Jizan, displays bodies in public

 

Saudi Arabia executed five Yemenis  on Tuesday and displayed their bodies in public for killing a Saudi national and forming a gang that committed robberies across several towns in the kingdom, the interior ministry said.

The five were executed in the south western town of Jizan, bringing the number of people executed in the kingdom this year to 46, according to  AFP stats. The five men in the above picture are seen hanging from a rope tied to their waists on a horizontal bar between two cranes. It is uncertain whether  they were beheaded or shot.

The ministry said that Khaled, Adel ,Qasim Saraa , Saif Ali Al Sahari and Khaled Showie Al Sahari had formed a gang which committed “several crimes in various regions in the kingdom and robbed stores.”

The Ministry added that the five had killed Ahmad Haroubi, a Saudi, by beating him up and strangling him.

Under Saudi Arabia’s strict version of Sharia law, rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death.

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The number of people executed in Saudi Arabia this year reached 46, according to news agency AFP.

Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry said that Khaled, Adel and Qassem Saraa, Saif Ali al-Sahari and Khaled Showie al-Sahari had formed a gang which committed “several crimes in various regions in the kingdom and robbed stores”.

The gang had killed Ahmed Haroubi, a Saudi, by beating him up and strangling him, the ministry said.

Murder, apostasy, armed robbery, rape as well as drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia’s strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.

The death penalty in the world. Map by euronews

Domestic violence in Saudi Arabia made headlines worldwide

 domestic violence in Saudi Arabia made headlines worldwide

Saudi Arabia, a country not exactly known for progressive attitudes toward women, has launched its first major campaign against domestic violence  — its latest effort to embrace, at least superficially, some women’s rights reforms.

The ads in the “No More Abuse” campaign show a woman in a dark veil with one black eye. The English version reads “some things can’t be covered.” The Arabic version, according to Foreign Policy‘s David Kenner, translates roughly as “the tip of the iceberg.” A Web site for the campaign includes a report on reducing domestic violence and emergency resources for victims.

Exact figures on domestic violence are hard to come by. The State Department’s most recent human rights report cites estimates that 16 to 50 percent of Saudi wives suffer some kind of spousal abuse. Saudi law does not criminalize domestic violence or spousal rape, and social repercussions can make reporting violence of any kind difficult. Both rape and domestic violence “may be seriously underreported,” according to the State Department report.

The Saudi government has begun to address the problem, at least in name. In 2008, a prime ministerial decree ordered the expansion of “social protection units,” its version of women’s shelters, in several large cities, and ordered the government to draft a national strategy to deal with domestic violence, according to the United Nations. Several royal foundations, including the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue and the King Khalid Foundation, have also led education and awareness efforts.

None of this changes the fact, of course, that Saudi Arabia remains an often difficult place to be a woman. The World Economic Forum ranks the country 131st out of 135 for its record on women’s rights, citing a total lack of political and economic empowerment.

The country has a strong record on women’s health and education, however: On metrics such as enrollment in higher education, Saudi Arabia actually scores well above the global average.

Some of those well-educated women are leading the fight against domestic violence now. Maha Almuneef, a pediatrician, directs the National Family Safety Program, an anti-violence effort that has also benefited from the patronage of Saudi Arabia’s Princess Adela.

“Reporting violence and abuse should be compulsory, and there should be a witness protection program,” Adela said at a 2009 conference on ending the country’s domestic abus