Where is Obama's condemnation? There is none. Instead, just days before the protests, the Obama administration asked the Coptic Pope
to urge the Copts in Egypt not to protest -- supporting sharia subjugation
of Christians.
And yet when Muslims allege they are being persecuted, Obama jumps at their back and call (ie in Burma, where the Buddhists are fighting back against jihad). Obama has all but abandoned religious minorities living under the sharia. It is despicable.
As the Morsi supporter said in this video:
"I am a religious Egyptian lady. I tell the Christians one word. You
live by our side! We will set you on fire! We will set you on fire!"
"Update: 23 houses belonging to Copts burned down," from DPA,
The situation has heated up in Naga Hassan village, west of
Luxor, after the killing of a Muslim man and the injury of a Copt on
Friday.
The number of houses belonging to Copts that have been burned is now 23.
Police fired teargas bombs to stop the clashes.
Police are protecting dozens of Copts at the police station near the
area where the clashes are taking place. Security has been enhanced
around Dabe’iya church, for fear of an attack. The police and military
troops have exerted a huge effort to end the clashes.
Shocking footage has emerged of Egyptian
children being dressed in white ‘death shrouds’ in preparation for
their ‘martyrdom’ by pro-Morsi families in a large demonstration at
Rabaa al-Adaweya.
The children were heard chanting
pre-rehearsed lines and were seen carrying posters that say “I am ready
to die!” during a short march.
This is not the first time that such
images have emerged, however media and government attention over the
issue remains spotty, as debates over politics have quickly overshadowed
social problems plaguing Egypt.
Under both international and local law,
using children under 18 years as a tool for politics and placing these
children at severe risk of death or injury is illegal.
With an impending dispersion by the
government of the pro-Morsi demonstration at Rabaa al-Adaweya, it is
evident that the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of children will
be put at severe risk.
The National Council for Childhood and
Motherhood (a government department) has expressed concerns over the
issue and has even labelled the use of children as a political tool
“human trafficking.”
However, with a budget of 48 million
Egyptian pounds ($US 6.85 million) and just 193 employees and due to
current turmoil, the council lacks the necessary resource, and ability
to take necessary steps to ensure that this child abuse is tackled.
As of yet, it does not appear that
non-governmental organizations have attempted to tackle the use of
children as a tool for politics by Morsi supporters. The United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Egypt, however, is well-equipped and has
previously provided necessary humanitarian and technical assistance to
ensure children and mothers in Egypt are well-cared for.
Meanwhile, the media (both local and
foreign press) appear to be enamored by recent political unrest, and
have largely avoided tackling social issues.
Foreign governments meanwhile are still
debating on whether to label Egypt’s latest unrest as a “coup” or a
“revolution,” with the US Government deciding to not decide at all.
Though Egyptian Streets cannot
independently call on government, UNICEF, or others to help ensure that
Egyptian children are kept safe form such abuse, concerned citizens of
Egypt and the world can, by ensuring that this child abuse is reported
to relevant authorities, including local and foreign government
representatives, NGOs, and the media.
Update: UNICEF acknowledges reports of child exploitation by political groups
The following statement was released by UNICEF in response to outrage over ‘child abuse’ at demonstrations:
“UNICEF is deeply concerned
by reports that children have been killed or injured during the violent
confrontations in Egypt over recent days. Disturbing images of children
taken during street protests indicate that, on some occasions, children
have been deliberately used and put at risk of witnessing or becoming
actual victims of violence. Such actions can have a long-lasting and
devastating physical and psychological impact on children. We call on
all Egyptians and political groups not to exploit children for political
ends, and to protect them from any potential harm.”
Brave Little Girl Flees Forced Marriage, Records Powerful Testimonial
The longstanding severity of Yemen's child marriages
is gaining some much needed sunlight this week after a young survivor
of this shocking custom took it upon herself to speak out on behalf of
the untold many who can't.
Nada al-Ahdal, an 11-year-old from Sana’a, had been promised by her parents to an adult suitor not once, but twice.
The "gifted
singer" had been raised by her uncle Abdel Salam al-Ahdal since
practically birth, and had been given the opportunity to go to school
and learn English.
Abdel
Salam, who was also raising a nephew and his aging mother, attempted to
guard young Nada from any attempt by her biological parents to marry her
off to a rich groom, having experienced the death of his sister by
self-immolation over an arranged marriage.
When Nada
turned 10, Abdel Salam learned that Nada's mother and father had indeed
sold her off to a Yemeni expat living in Saudi Arabia.
He phoned the groom in a panic, desperate to get him to rescind his offer.
"I called the groom and told him Nada was no good for him," Abdel Salam told the Lebanese publication NOW.
"I told him she did not wear the veil and he asked if things were going
to remain like that. I said ‘yes, and I agree because she chose it.’ I
also told him that she liked singing and asked if he would remain
engaged to her."
The man was persuaded to call the whole thing off, leaving Nada's parents "disappointed."
Months
later they arrived in Sana'a, ostensibly to visit their daughter, but in
reality were there to kidnap her and attempt another arranged marriage.
Nada asked to be returned to her uncle, but was told she had already been promised to someone.
She reunited with her uncle, who took her straight to the authorities.
After an
investigation was opened into the forced marriage allegations, Nada's
dad suddenly backed off the idea, and permitted her to continue living
with her uncle.
"I managed to solve my problem, but some innocent children can't solve theirs," Nada said in a confessional released yesterday by MEMRI-TV.
"[A]nd they might die, commit suicide, or do whatever comes to
mind...It's not our fault. I'm not the only one. It can happen to any
child."
In November 2011, after I joined a protest
on Mohamed Mahmoud Street in Cairo with a friend, Egyptian riot police
beat me – breaking my left arm and right hand – and sexually assaulted
me. I was also detained by the interior minister and military
intelligence for 12 hours.
After I was released, it took all I had
not to cry when I saw the look on the face of a very kind woman I'd
never met before, except on Twitter, who came to pick me up and take me
to the emergency room for medical attention. (She is now a cherished
friend.)
As I described to the female triage nurse what had had happened to me, she stopped at "and they sexually assaulted me" to ask:
how could you let them do that to you? Why didn't you resist?
-->
It
had been about 14 or 15 hours since riot police had attacked me; I just
wanted to be X-rayed to see if they had broken anything. Both arms
looked like the Elephant Man's limbs. I explained to the nurse that when
you're surrounded by four or five riot police, whacking at you with
their night sticks, there isn't much "resisting" one can do.
I've
been thinking a lot about that exchange with the nurse. Whenever I read
the ghastly toll of how many women were sexually assaulted during last
week's protests against Mohamed Morsiin Tahrir Square, I have to wonder about such harshness after brutality.
Activists
with grassroots groups on the ground who intervene to extricate women
from sexual violence in Tahrir said they documented more than 100 cases;
several were mob assaults, several requiring medical attention. One
woman was raped with a sharp object. I hope none was asked "why didn't
you resist?"
This isn't an essay on how Egyptian regimes like
Mubarak's targeted female activists and journalists as a political ploy.
Nor is it about how regimes like Morsi's largely ignored sexual
violence, and even when it did acknowledge it, blamed women for bringing
assaults upon themselves. Nor is it an article about how such assaults
and such refusal to hold anyone accountable have given a green light to
our abusers that women's bodies are fair game. Nor will I tell you that –
were it not for the silence and denial surrounding sexual assault in Egypt – such assaults would not be enacted so frequently on women's bodies on the Egyptian streets.
I
don't know who is behind those mob assaults in Tahrir, but I do know
that they would not attack women if they didn't know they would get away
with it and that the women would always be asked "why didn't you
resist?"
From the ground up, we need a national campaign against
sexual violence in Egypt. It must push whoever we elect to govern Egypt next, as well as our legislators, to take sexual assaults more
seriously.
If our next president chooses – as Morsi did – to
address the nation from a stage in Tahrir Square for the inauguration,
let him (or her) salute the women who turned out in their thousands upon
thousands in that same square, knowing they risked assaults and yet
refusing to be pushed out of public space. The square's name literally
means "liberation", and it will be those women who, in spite of the risk
of sexual violence, will have helped to enable his (or her) presence
there as the new president of Egypt.
Undoubtedly, the Egyptian
interior ministry needs reform, especially when it comes to how it deals
with sexual assault. The police rarely, if ever, intervene, or make
arrests, or press charges. It was, after all, the riot police themselves
who assaulted me. Their supervising officer even threatened me with
gang rape as his conscripts continued their assault of me in front of him.
-->
Any
woman who ends up in the ER room deserves much better than "why didn't
you resist?" Nurses and doctors need training in how best to care for
survivors of sexual assault and how to gather evidence.Female
police units are said to have been introduced at various precincts, but
they need training. They also need rape kits – in the unlikely event any
woman actually gathers herself enough to report rape in Egypt. When I
was reporting on sexual violence in Cairo in the 1990s, several
psychiatrists told me their offices were the preferred destination for
women who had survived sexual violence, be it at home or on the streets,
because they feared being violated again in police stations.
While
that fear is still justifiable today, something has begun to change:
more and more women are willing to go public to recount their assaults. I
salute those women's courage, but I wonder where they find comfort and
support after their retelling is over. PTSD therapy is not readily
available in Egypt. We need to train more of our counsellors to offer it
to those who want it.
We need to recruit popular football and
music stars in advertising campaigns: huge, presidential election
campaign style billboards across bridges and buildings – addressing men
with clear anti-sexual violence messages, for example – as well as
television and radio spots. Culture itself has a role to play in
changing this culture: puppet theatre and other arts indigenous to Egypt
can help break the taboo of speaking out; and we need more TV shows and
films that tackle sexual assaults in their storylines.
There is
an innate and burning desire for justice in Egypt. Revolutions will do
that. We need to coordinate efforts and aim high to ensure such a
campaign meets the needs of girls and women across the country, not just
Cairo and the big cities.
In January 2012, I spent a few days
with a fierce 13-year-old girl we'll call Yasmine, for a documentary
film, on which I was a writer, called Girl Rising. The film paired nine
female writers with girls each from their country of birth whose stories
they recounted to illustrate the importance of girls' education.
Five
months before we met, Yasmine had survived a rape. My arms were still
broken and in casts when we met and I naively considered removing the
casts and pretending I was OK in order to "protect her". I did not want
her to think that 30 years down the line, at my age, she could still be
subject to such violation.
She certainly did not need my
protection and I'm glad I kept my casts on, because as soon as we met,
she simply and forthrightly told me:
I'm going to open my heart to you and you're going to open your heart to me, OK?
She
then went on to recount what happened to her. I admired her courage and
her insistence on going to the police with her mother to report the
rape. She was lucky she found an understanding police officer who took
her complaint seriously.
When I told her what had happened to me,
she was shocked that it was police who'd attacked me. "Have you reported
what happened to you? Have you taken them to court?" she asked me.
Yasmine has not had a single day of formal education. She believed she deserved justice. We all do.
Twitter was notably missing from a leaked list of Internet giants reported to be cooperating with The National Security Agency and the FBI on the surveillance program dubbed PRISM.
Those agencies are siphoning data from the servers of nine U.S. Internet companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple, according to news reports about the documents. The cloud storage device Dropbox was described as "coming soon," along with other unidentified firms.
Google and Apple have both denied any knowledge of PRISM. Apple stated "any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order." Google said "we disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully.
There may be two explanations for Twitter's absence.
Twitter has a history of noncompliance and fighting information requests against its users. That may, in part, explain its absence from the list of companies disclosed Thursday. The leaks were reported by The Washington Post and The Guardian.
-->
The microblogging service notably defended Malcolm Harris last year. He was being prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office on allegations of disorderly conduct related to an Occupy Wall Street protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.
In that instance, Twitter filed a motion in state court in New York in an effort to quash a court order asking it to turn over his communications on Twitter.
"As we've said many times before, Twitter users own their Tweets. They have a right to fight invalid government requests, and we stand with them in that fight. We appealed the Harris decision because it didn't strike the right balance between the rights of users and the interests of law enforcement," said Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser.
-->
-->
Twitter is also currently embroiled in another legal skirmish to uphold the rights of user privacy. It's fighting a battle in France to not turn over information about users connected to complaints from a private French Jewish students group regarding anti-Semitic content.
Twitter's Prosser points out that the company tries to be transparent with its semi-annual Transparency Report on government requests.
Another explanation for Twitter's absense is that the bulk of its data — aside from direct messages — is publicly available in the form of tweets. That separates it from the likes of Yahoo and Google, which house years of personal emails and data on people.
Muhammad Haza’a is one of some 180 people facing death in Yemeni
prisons for crimes they allegedly committed when they were under 18.
-->
-->
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.
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.
-->
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.”
-->
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
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 !!!!
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.
-->
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.
-->
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.
-->
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 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 communitystartingin 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
.
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.
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
.
