'Million woman' march hits streets of Iraq demanding end to violence

Thousands of women assembled on streets across Iraq on Thursday for large-scale marches against the staggering levels of violence waged against anti-government protesters by security forces and armed militia groups.

The unique all-women marches, which have been organised in key Iraqi cities including central Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriyah, Najaf and Karbala, also aim to highlight women's participation in the demonstrations - which have already brought down a government - and show solidarity with male protesters, organisers said on social media.

The Iraqi Women's League on Tuesday condemned the "excessive violence committed by the Iraqi security services".

Over 600 protesters have been killed and at least 18,000 others the four month period since the predominantly peaceful protests began. [The New Arab] Read more

Hundreds of Iraqi women defy cleric to protest authorities

Hundreds of Iraqi women of all ages flooded central Baghdad Thursday alongside male anti-government protesters, defying an order by powerful cleric Moqtada Sadr to separate the genders in the rallies.

Some were veiled, others not, still more wrapped their faces in black-and-white checkered scarves. Most carried roses, Iraqi flags or signs defending their role in the regime change demonstrations.

They marched through a tunnel and spilled out into Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the youth-dominated movement in a country where vast regions remain socially conservative.

"We want to protect women's role in the protests as we're just like the men. There are efforts to kick us out of Tahrir but we'll only come back stronger," said Zainab Ahmad, a pharmacy student.

.... On Saturday, the militiaman-turned-politician had alleged drug and alcohol use among the protesters and said it was immoral for men and women to mix there.

And a few moments before Thursday's women's march began, Sadr once again took to Twitter to slam the protests as being rife with "nudity, promiscuity, drunkenness, immorality, debauchery ... and non-believers". [AFP] Read more

Afghan sports coach says she will flee after dog shot dead

Sahba Barakzai, her family and seven-month-old husky Aseman, tried to get out into the mountains near their home in western Afghanistan every Friday.

But last Friday, the hike turned to tragedy after an unidentified group of men approached the family and shot Sahba's beloved puppy dead.

The attackers told her a woman could not own a dog.

But Sabha fears this may have been something more - that it may have been to do with her teaching girls sport.

"We still don't know about their goal but we think it is because of her career," her sister Setayesh told the BBC. "She was the first woman who has her own club and these things are taboo."

Sahba was used to threats - she had been teaching karate to children in Herat, Afghanistan's third largest city, for 10 years.

She had also set up a cycling club for teenage and young girls - a very public sport in a country where, less than two decades ago, women were banned from going to school, working or even leaving the house without a male chaperone. [BBC] Read more

Court in Pakistan Validates Forced Conversion, Marriage of Christian Girl to Muslim

A high court ruling in Pakistan validating the marriage and forced conversion to Islam of a 14-year-old Christian girl has heightened fears that it will encourage others to commit such crimes, sources said.

The High Court in Sindh Province on Feb. 3 dismissed a petition to have the marriage and forced conversion of a Catholic girl overturned, ruling that both were valid since a girl under sharia (Islamic law) can marry after her first menstrual cycle.

Huma Younus was taken from her home in Karachi’s Zia Colony on Oct. 10 while her parents were away and was forced to marry the man who abducted her, identified as Abdul Jabbar of Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab Province, her attorney said.

“The hearing on Feb. 3 lasted only five minutes,” the family’s attorney, Tabassum Yousaf, told Morning Star News. “The court, in just a few words citing the sharia, has justified the violation of the girl’s body since she has already had her first period.” [Morningstar News] Read more

Landmark Islamic funeral held for sex worker in Bangladesh

Activists in Bangladesh have welcomed the first ever Islamic funeral for a sex worker, breaking a long-standing taboo in the Muslim majority nation.

Hamida Begum, who worked at one of the world's largest brothels in the village of Daulatdia, died of illness last week at the age of 65.

A number of people gathered at her grave to witness the historic moment.

Sex work is legal in Bangladesh, but Islamic leaders have previously refused to perform funeral prayers for workers.

Instead, sex workers who die are usually buried in unmarked graves, without formal prayers, or dumped in rivers. [BBC] Read more

Iran chess champion ponders next move after slip of the hijab

When she was nine years old, Shohreh Bayat’s father took out a chess set and taught her how to play. He picked it because it was one of the few sports where he could watch his daughter compete: swimming, even football, would have been out of the question under the laws of the Islamic Republic.

She excelled. Within a few years Bayat was ranked No 1 in Iran for her age. Soon afterwards she joined the national team — representing her country across the world. She loved the mental gymnastics of chess, the depth, the endless combinations of moves.

Today, at 32, she is the highest-ranked female chess arbiter (referee) in Asia. With her well-cut suits, loosely slung headscarf and red lipstick, she seemed the ideal of the modern Iranian woman. But two weeks ago her life collapsed when a photographer at the women’s world chess championships in Shanghai published a picture that appeared to show Bayat without her headscarf. [The Times (£)] Read more

Would most Iranians vote no to an Islamic republic?

The shooting of a passenger airplane in Iran on January 8th and the initial denial of firing rockets, shattered the Iranian regime’s credibility. When the evidence quickly piled up, exacerbating international pressure, the call for the truth swelled up across all of Iran.

Two television news presenters working for the state broadcaster IRIB resigned. A third apologized: “forgive me for the 13 years I told you lies.” Never in the past forty years was the regime forced and humiliated to acknowledge its crimes so publicly in this way.

The people’s aversion to lying and deceit in politics remind of the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo.

In 2006, he spent four months in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. A state-run television program aired his forced confession to having operated to the benefit of Iran’s enemies. He has ever since defended the “Right to Truth,” inspired by Gandhi, in exile, as the proper response to political persecution and the entrenched culture of lies in the Iranian political system.

.... The survey, published by GAMAAN, reveals that around 80% of the Iranian people would vote NO in a free referendum on the Islamic Republic as such. This unprecedented poll confirms years of qualitative research in the social sciences and the humanities regarding Iranians’ demand for democracy. [openDemocracy] Read more

Why Muslim-majority countries need secular citizenship and law-making

Recently, people have taken to the streets again in several Middle Eastern countries. From Algeria and Sudan, to Iraq, Lebanon and Iran, among others, they have protested authoritarian and sectarian governments, who have failed to solve their problems.

In and beyond the Middle East, not only Islamists but also conservative Muslims have argued that Islam would solve their countries’ problems. During the last four decades, several countries have experienced the increasing role of Islam in the public life.

In some cases, such as Iran and Sudan, Islamists captured the power. In such cases as Pakistan and Egypt, Sharia was constitutionally declared as the source of law and Islamic courts became influential. In other cases such as Turkey and Malaysia, Islamic discourses dominated the public sphere and Islamic teachings became influential in public education.

Yet, almost none of these various levels of political, legal, and ideological Islamization helped these countries reach better conditions regarding justice, freedom, and development. [openDemocracy] Read more

Pakistan Delays Decision on Movie That Offended Islamists

Pakistan's government on Monday postponed its decision on whether to lift a ban on a movie that had offended hard-line Islamists in this Muslim-majority country, after asking a high council of clerics to weigh in on the film.

The Islamists had raised allegations of blasphemy over the film, "Zindagi Tamasha,” or “Circus of Life," by Pakistani director Sarmad Khosat, which was to be released in late January. Its debut was scrapped by the Punjab provincial government's information office, following objections from the Tehreek-e-Labbaik party and its followers.

Their claims drew attention again to Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law, which carries an automatic death sentence for a conviction of insulting Islam. There have been widespread complaints that the law is used to settle scores and intimidate religious minorities. [The Associated Press] Read more

Indonesia recruits female ‘flog squad’ for women offenders

A female squad of floggers will mete out punishment to women convicted of crimes under Islamic law in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

The authorities admit they have struggled to recruit the eight women, whose job is to use a rattan cane to beat offenders convicted of crimes including homosexuality, drinking alcohol, and “close proximity” to a member of the opposite sex.

Until recently, the punishments were dispensed by men. Now the province is training female floggers, one of whom demonstrated her skills at the caning of a young woman found guilty of close proximity.

“I think she did a good job,” Zakwan, a male police officer in the city of Banda Aceh, said. “Her technique was nice.”

He added: “We train them to make sure they’re physically fit and teach them how to do a proper whipping. It’s kind of an indoctrination that we give to them so they have a better understanding of their role — have no mercy for those who violate God’s law.” [The Times (£)] Read more

'Finally free': Asia Bibi breaks silence after Pakistani death row hell

Recounting the hellish conditions of eight years spent on death row on blasphemy charges but also the pain of exile, Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi has broken her silence to give her first personal insight into an ordeal that caused international outrage.

Bibi was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges by a Pakistani court in 2010 but then dramatically acquitted in 2018. She now lives in Canada at an undisclosed location.

French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, who has co-written a book about her, was once based in the country where she led a support campaign for her.

She is the only reporter to have met Bibi during her stay in Canada. [France24] Read more

Hijab Limits Women, Says Iranian Chess Master Sacked From National Team

The Iranian female chess grandmaster Mitra Hejazipour who was sacked from the national team for boldly removing her headscarf (hijab) during the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow, has said that hijab is "limitation" not "protection" as official regime propaganda claims.

In an Instagram post on January 28, the 27-year old grandmaster said the hijab is a clear symbol of an ideology in which women are "the second sex". "It creates many limitations for women and deprives them of their basic rights. Is this protection? I say definitely not, it is solely and merely a limitation," she wrote.

Hejazipour who says she was bullied by a relative at the age of six to wear a headscarf, even at home, now insists after years of wearing the hijab at all times and being "an example to others", she has decided "not to have a share in this horrendous lie and not to play the game of 'We love the hijab and have no problem with it' anymore". [Radio Farda] Read more

Iran Jails Christian Convert For Insulting Islam

Iranian Christians want prayers for a former Muslim who has been jailed for embracing Christianity; his supporters told BosNewsLife. Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, 64, received a three-year prison term on charges of “insulting Islamic sacred beliefs,” said advocacy group Middle East Concern (MEC).

The Christian convert was sentenced a year after being detained in the southwestern city of Shiraz. He was charged initially with “propaganda against the state and insulting the sacred Iranian establishment,” MEC confirmed to BosNewsLife.

However, “at a hearing on October 22, the judge further accused Ismaeil of ‘apostasy'”, or abandoning Islam, MEC explained. And the court increased bail demands from 10 million to 100 million tomans (US$9000), according to trial observers. Friends reportedly provided pledges to cover the bail demands. [BosNewsLife] Read more

Runaway Iranian athlete wants to compete for Germany in Tokyo

Iran’s only female Olympic medallist, Kimia Alizadeh, wants to compete for Germany as soon as the next Games in Tokyo, but regardless of whether she achieves that ambition, she never expects to return to her home country.

Alizadeh, who won taekwondo bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics, announced earlier this month that she had defected to Europe because she felt she had been used as a propaganda tool by Iran.

“The Olympics is a great challenge for every athlete,” the 21-year-old told reporters in Luenen, northwest Germany, speaking through a translator.

“But it is still not clear at all whether I’ll be able to start in this one (Tokyo Olympics this summer). If it isn’t possible, then I’ll start in 2024.”

Alizadeh is one of several prominent Iranians to clash with the authorities in recent months. [Reuters] Read more

Christian refugee charged with blasphemy beaten by radical Muslims in grocery store

A Pakistani Christian asylum seeker in hiding in Thailand says he was attacked by a group of radical Muslims at a grocery store two days before Christmas as his family has faced years of hurdles in their quest for resettlement.

Faraz Pervaiz, a ministry leader who often posted criticisms of Islam online, fled from Pakistan in 2014 after radical Muslims grew enraged by videos he and his father posted. Following pressure from Muslims groups, the Pakistani government filed a criminal blasphemy case against Pervaiz in 2017.

Although Pakistan is known for imprisoning more people for blasphemy than any other country, Pervaiz told The Christian Post that his case is the first instance in the history of Pakistan’s blasphemy law that the state itself registered a blasphemy case against someone.

Additionally, Pervaiz is the subject of two bounties that have radical Muslims in Bangkok eager to cash in on the reward. [The Christian Post] Read more

Nigerian pastor who praised God in ransom video beheaded after refusing to deny Christ

A pastor who made headlines earlier this month for praising God in a ransom video has been executed by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria.

International human rights activists have condemned the killing of Rev. Lawan Andimi, the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria’s chapter in the Michika Local Government Area of Adamawa State.

Andimi was declared missing on Jan. 3 following a raid by the Islamic extremist group in Michika. Video posted online appears to show Andimi being forced into a vehicle by his captors.

Days later, Andimi was seen in a video released by his captors calling on fellow Christian leaders and state government officials to secure his release. [The Christian Post] Read more

Iran's only female Olympic medalist moving to Germany

Iran’s only female Olympic medalist Kimia Alizadeh, who has said she had left her homeland because she had had enough of being used as a propaganda tool, is moving to Germany, her Dutch coach said.

Alizadeh, who won taekwondo bronze at the Rio 2016 Olympics, had been training in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven, after leaving Iran several weeks earlier.

“Kimia has decided to continue in Germany,” Dutch national taekwondo coach Mimoun el Boujjoufi told Reuters on Monday.

German newspaper Bild this weekend reported that Alizadeh wished to continue her career in Germany and had moved to Hamburg, after having also received offers to compete for the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium and Bulgaria.

“After the explosion (of interest) many fought for her attention,” El Boujjoufi said.

She had written on Instagram this month she was prepared to accept the “hardship of homesickness” because she “didn’t want to be part of hypocrisy, lies, injustice and flattery”. [Reuters] Read more

HALAL HOLIDAY Holidaymakers at all-inclusive hotel shocked to find resort was taken over by Islamic company who banned booze

HOLIDAYMAKERS booked a hotel only to find it had been taken over by Islamic owners who banned booze.

They were scrambling for refunds after the Ova Resort on the Turkish Riviera was bought by Zehra Hotels.

The new owner enforces segregated male and female pools and hot tubs, offers halal food and does not serve alcohol.

It boasts of offering an alternative holiday that is “good for your Islamic lifestyle” and asks women to cover up when swimming.

But the dry policies have forced regulars at the resort to look elsewhere.

Brit Sam Taylor, 51, of Slough, Berks, told The Sun: “I am absolutely gutted. This place was like a second home for a lot of us.

“But now they’ve banned booze we can’t go back. You can’t expect a Brit to take their holiday without a few pints by the pool.”

Travel giant Tui offered all- inclusive packages at Ova Resort when it was owned by Turkish company Ovacik Turism Isl. [The Sun] Read more

LIVING IN FEAR Iranian chess referee will not return home after she was pictured without hijab over fears for her safety

A CHESS referee has admitted she won't return home to Iran after images of her not wearing a hijab were circulated online.

Shohreh Bayat was attending the first leg of the Women's World Chess Championship in Shanghai when she was seen without her headscarf on - which has now made her fear for her safety.

Headscarves are compulsory in Iran, with punishments including public admonishment, fines or even arrest.

The 32-year-old claims she wasn't attempting to protest when she didn't wear her hijab during her time as a chess official at the World Championships.

She told the BBC that she doesn't feel safe returning to her home country of Iran, despite saying she had covered her head at international tournaments, following Iranian rules.

She said: "I turned on my mobile and saw that my picture was everywhere. [The Sun] Read more

Afghan religious clerk warns to punish women who disregard Islamic Hijab

An Afghan religious clerk in western Herat province has started a widespread campaign, urging women to wear Islamic Hijab – a large headscarf – and has ordered his followers to punish those who disregard it.

Mujeeb Rahman Ansari, a popular Islamic extremist and a religious clerk in the western Herat province installed dozens of billboards and signboards around the city, targeting Afghan women, urging them to wear Islamic Hijab.

During several public speeches, Ansari called on his followers to apply Sharia rules on anyone who disregards the rules determined by him and his followers and ‘not to wait for the government’ in such instances.

Abdul Qayoum Rahimi, the governor of Herat was earlier questioned by a local media outlet about Ansari’s movement in Herat province, wherein Rahimi said he is not going to confront Mawlavi Mujeeb Rahman Ansari as they are being good friends. [Khaama Press News Agency] Read more