Women's Views on News |
- Football’s governing body overturns ruling on headscarves but France maintains its stance
- Afghan women find freedom in rock
- Co-founder of women’s rights foundation in Pakistan shot dead
- Art fair causes religious riots in Tunisia
- Pioneering African-American female bishop dies at age 92
- Saudi Arabia to send all-male team to Olympics
Football’s governing body overturns ruling on headscarves but France maintains its stance Posted: 11 Jul 2012 11:00 PM PDT Penny Hopkins On 7 June, WVoN reported that the governing body of football, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), was holding firm over its 2007 ban on women wearing headscarves at senior competitive level. The objections were due to worries over potential injury, and, although no reports of injuries had been received, the ruling still had its effects. In 2011, the Iranian women's football team failed to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games after forfeiting a qualifier against Jordan when some of the team refused to remove their headscarves before kick-off. They were given a 3-0 defeat as a penalty, which meant that qualification was impossible. FIFA's Medical Committee chairman, Michel D'Hoohge, told a press conference at the end of May that new velcro-fastening designs were still not sufficiently safe and could cause neck injuries. A very vicious and public campaign to overturn the ruling, led by Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussain of Jordan, ensued. The new designs were scheduled for debate again at a meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in Zurich on 5 July. Michel D'Hoohge removed his objections prior to the meeting and IFAB deemed the designs acceptable. It was unanimously agreed that the hijab would be allowed for a trial period. In a statement, FIFA said: "Currently there is no medical literature concerning injuries as a result of wearing a headscarf, and therefore the decision taken will be reviewed at the IFAB Annual General Meeting in 2014." Prince Al-Hussain heralded the judgement as "unanimous and historic.” However, in a statement on 6 July, the French Football Federation (FFF) said that it would "not authorise players to wear a veil" while playing football for France or in competition. In a statement, the FFF went on to say that it "reiterates its duty to respect the constitutional and legislative principles of secularism that prevails in our country and features in its statutes." There has been a similar demand for a firm stance from French MP, Gerald Darmanin, who has written to the French Sports Minister, Valerie Fourneyron, asking that the government denounce the ruling "in the name of universal and republican values.” He also called for a "clear signal to ban headscarves in football fields in our country." He ended his statement by saying that sport "must continue to promote equality of the sexes." It is in this last sentence that the problem lies. No one can take issue with its sentiment, but is the banning of the hijab the way to go about it? Surely, the fact that these women can take part in the sport they love is progress. The question of whether they want or do not want to wear a headscarf to do it is something else entirely. |
Afghan women find freedom in rock Posted: 11 Jul 2012 09:00 AM PDT
Freedom is sounding for a group of young women in Afghanistan who are plugging in guitars and pounding on drums at the country's first school of rock. The Sound Centre music school, which opened in May, gives Afghan youth the rare opportunity to play instruments and form bands. And while the majority of its students are men, a handful of women are also attending classes, which take place in the sound-proof rooms of a small restaurant in Kabul. Here they have a safe space to play and enjoy a freedom of expression often denied them. Unlike most schools in Afghanistan, which segregate the sexes, the founders of the music school – US cellist Robin Ryzek, former Pakistani refugee Humayun Zardan and Australian guitarist Travis Beard – let their female students learn alongside their male peers. In a Reuters video report, budding guitarist Sahar Fetrat, 16, who attends the school with her older sister, said: “I always wanted to learn to play rock music and tried to learn in other courses, but they were taught by men and had all male students, so they used to harass us. “The teachers at this school are used to being around women. The students too. They don’t make it uncomfortable." The female students are also allowed to perform in public and take part in the mixed-sex performances the school puts on each week. But this new-found freedom does not extend far. Many Afghan women’s rights are steadily being stripped back as the Taliban seek to re-gain power in the run up to the proposed withdrawal of foreign troops in 2014. Girls' schools have been shut down and violence against women is on the rise. Just this weekend a video emerged which showed the execution of a woman accused of adultery. Afghan politician Shah Jahan Yazdanparast said such attacks "will only increase our fear and concern as women in Afghanistan." But women at the Sound Centre school are relishing the chance they have been given to rock out and cast off the confines of religious conservatism. "I want to learn to play rock because I’m a very active and hyper person, and rock is wild and I can be wild playing it,” said Fetrat. |
Co-founder of women’s rights foundation in Pakistan shot dead Posted: 11 Jul 2012 07:00 AM PDT Sarah MacShane Fareeda Afridi, an activist for women's rights in Peshawar, Pakistan, founded the Society for Appraisal and Women Empowement in Rural Areas (Sawera) in 2004 with her sister Noorzia. According to Safeworld, the sisters, Noorzia and Fareeda Afridi, had set up Sawera in one of the most conservative and patriarchal regions of Pakistan, less than 50 miles from Afghanistan. Sawera focuses on women's and children's rights and education. Safeworld partnered with Sawera because of the sisters’ “sense of hope, energy and optimism, their sensitivity to local cultural issues, and the obvious respect and admiration shown to them by many in the local community,” according to their website. This sense of hope was dashed last week when Afridi was brutally murdered. She received three gun shots on her way to work. According to the local political administration, she was shot by militants who followed her on her way to the office and opened fire from a motorbike. Even though her death has devastated her local community, friends and colleagues, they were aware that Afridi had received death threats a month before her death which had forced her to change her mobile number. She even believed she could be killed in Peshawar, the online edition of Pakistan’s Daily Times reported. Her friends and colleagues believe the local Taliban militants were behind this intimidation. Unfortunately, news of her death was barely covered by international mainstream media, even though they covered news of an unknown man being beaten to death by a mob in a different region of Pakistan. What makes his death more important than Afridi’s? That is the question Myra McDonald, a Pakistan blogger on Reuters.com, is asking. Afridi, along with other women who work in women’s rights, was determined to remain defiant and continued to criticise the government, the Taliban and the patriarchal nature of Pakistani society, which she saw as one of the main obstacles to women’s empowerment. News of her murder has saddened the women's rights community as it demonstrates the risk that many women put themselves through in order to empower their gender in their own community. Why does the work they do and the values they are trying to promote have to end in bloodshed? Let us hope that Afridi did not die in vain and that the incredible work Sawera does continues and spreads throughout the region. |
Art fair causes religious riots in Tunisia Posted: 11 Jul 2012 05:00 AM PDT Emma Caddow Thousands of Salafi Islamists broke into the Printemps des Arts fair in Tunis, Tunisia last month and destroyed artworks they deemed insulting to Islam, according to Reuters. One piece addressed the stoning of adulteresses, showing a veiled women in a pile of stones. Another installation depicted veiled women dressed as punching bags. The artwork that caused the most outrage involved the use of insects to spell out “Glory to God.” Thousands of the religious fundamentalists broke into the Abdeliya Palace on June 10 and then went on to riot through the capital in protest, hurling rocks and petrol bombs at police stations, offices and a court house. It is reported to be the largest revolt since the ousting of former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, raising tension in the country once again. The government said that 65 members of their security forces had been wounded trying to quell the riots, and 162 people have been detained. With Tunisia’s current political transition, secular intellectuals thought there would be more opportunity for freedom of expression such as art. Yet the fear of the police has now been replaced with fear of religious extremists who are dictating how far this new found freedom can go. Salafis follow a puritanical interpretation of Islam and want to live in an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law. A Tunisian cleric initially suggested the offending artists be killed, and the artists’ names and pictures were soon listed on Facebook alongside death threats. An Imam of the Zitouna mosque – one of the most famous places of worship in Tunisia – spoke out against the artists: "The people who drew these paintings are not Muslims. They indeed assaulted the Muslim community by provoking it. They assaulted the religion and the earth… the religion of Islam and Islamic symbol… Then there was the assault on our hijabi girls by accusing them of adultery… This is an assault. Whoever did this is an infidel in plain terms, whose blood needs to be spilled and should be killed." One artist, who begged for their identity not to be revealed, commented: “They are targeting the people who ask questions, the intellectuals… anyone who can think and make others think. Journalists, students, artists. Maybe we represent a danger and will push others to refuse something or maybe we don’t correspond to their model of the Tunisian.” Officials of the Islamist-led government have condemned the art works, saying they were intended to insult and provoke, and have since shut the exhibition down. Mehdi Mabrouk, Tunisia’s Culture Minster, stated: "Art's role is to provoke. But there is a huge difference between provocation and attacks on religious symbols." The head of SMAP (Tunisia’s Artists Union) Amor Ghedamsi, responded by saying: "Even though [Mabrouk] has not yet censored artwork, he presented an ideology that paves the way for censorship. This is a conspiracy to brainwash public opinion against artists." One of the exhibition’s curators, Meriem Bouderbala, comments: “After the revolution, artists had a feeling of freedom… They produced very powerful art. The artists were not expecting this reaction. That is why they feel so fragile. They turned to the government but it is not supporting them so they feel they have hit a wall.” A woman who asked not to be named, said: "Art has never been accessible to the public. How do you think the public can understand art when we don't even have a proper museum? In Tunisia, art has never had precedents to flourish and even our ministers of culture don't know anything about the role of art." SMAP is circulating an online petition to support Tunisian artists and is threatening to sue the government ministers. But many ordinary people have little sympathy for the artists. “The secularists should stop provoking Muslims because it will cause a reaction, even among people who don’t pray,” said Moncef Isaimy, who runs an Internet cafe in a working-class part of Tunis where some of the worst rioting took place. The violent reaction against the Printemps des Arts fair has been compared with reactions to the Egyptian artists of the 1930s and 40s, who were heavily criticised and whose work was labelled as ‘degenerate’ art. |
Pioneering African-American female bishop dies at age 92 Posted: 11 Jul 2012 03:00 AM PDT Emma Caddow Leontine Turpeau Current Kelly, the first African-American woman elected as bishop by a major religious denomination, died June 28, 2012. Elected as an American Bishop by the United Methodist Church in 1984, Kelly is remembered as an incredible leader and source of inspiration. Born in Washington on March 5, 1920, to prominent preacher David D. Turpeau, Kelly was said to have vowed never to marry a minister — yet she ironically felt called to become one. Kelly was a public school teacher for eight years in Virginia, a southern US state. She began pastoring a Methodist Church in 1969. In 1972, she was ordained as a deacon in 1972 and an Elder in 1977, before the United Methodist Church elected her to the episcopacy in 1984. The African-American Bishop served as the President of the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops, and became the spiritual leader of more than 100,000 United Methodists in California and Nevada. Bishop Judith Craig, elected a Methodist bishop soon after Kelly in 1984, called the Kelly’s life “audacious.” She was considered a pioneer in her field. "She never ran from challenge or controversy, and she also stood fast in her convictions," Craig said. She faced criticism regarding women’s roles in ministry, to which she replied: "We must recognize the kind of culture in which Jesus and the disciples lived. It was a very male-dominated culture. However, Jesus did violate the customs of the culture in that he talked with women, shared with women. God calls whomever God would call." When three more African-American women were elected as Bishops by the United Methodist Church in 2000, Kelly was quoted as saying, “Praise God, I’m no longer the only one.” Her mother, Ila Marshall Turpeau, was an outspoken advocate for women and black rights, which no doubt influenced Kelly's activist work. Kelly opened dialogues and advocated on many progressive and controversial issues, including the end to nuclear armaments, opening up the church to gays and lesbians, and ministry to AIDS victims. She played a significant role in the development of Africa University, a United Methodist-related institution in Zimbabwe. She was involved with the United Methodist Council of Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty and served as a leader of an interreligious effort to improve access to health care. Her work for social justice has been recognised with numerous awards, including ten honorary doctorate degrees, the Martin Luther King, Jr. “Drum Major for Justice” and “Grass Roots Leadership” awards from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Bishop Kelly was awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 2002, given to "national and international individuals struggling for justice.” In 2000 she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Bishop Kelly, widow to the Reverend Dr James David Kelly, is survived by her three children from her first marriage. |
Saudi Arabia to send all-male team to Olympics Posted: 11 Jul 2012 01:00 AM PDT No Saudi women qualified for the Olympics, the daily newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported today. This announcement comes as little surprise to those who have been following this story unfold over the past few weeks. In June, WVoN covered the announcement made by the Saudi Embassy in London that they were lifting the ban on female competitors in the Olympic Games. This was swiftly followed by a number of restricting conditions that would be placed upon any competing women. Today’s report has left some wondering if this was all just empty promises to evade the sanctions on the only country to have an all-male Olympic Team. The countries of Brunei and Qatar are sending their first female contenders to the Olympics this year. The report quoted an unidentifed Saudi official, claiming that no female athletes had taken part in the qualifying events in Saudi Arabia. One woman, Dalma Rushdi Malhas, a 20-year-old showjumper, was an Olympic hopeful, but her horse was injured. Could this be due to concerns about a backlash for any women who do compete? |
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