Women's Views on News |
| Exhibition: Margaret Glover in Bradford Posted: 28 Jul 2016 05:32 AM PDT
And from 5 August until October 2016 the Bradford Peace Museum will be exhibiting work by artist and peace activist Maggie Glover with the title 'Painter of Honest Portraits'. A portrait painter, very active in the Labour party, the peace movement, and on environmental issues, she used her art as a tool for her witness, travelling in the ministry giving illustrated talks about the work of campaigners and peacemakers she had portrayed. Through her work Glover combined her passions of peace and art to create a fascinating socio-historical record of peace activism. She covered various meetings, peace vigils conferences, anti-war protests throughout her life, and these are depicted in her artwork. She also completed a mammoth PhD on Peace artists in which she investigated the rich range of images and outlets associated with pacifism, and considered the changing palette and motifs of peace, especially between 1900 and 1940. Following on from a successful exhibition showcasing her work in 2014, entitled 'Images of Peace', this new exhibition will feature artwork already held in The Peace Museum Collection, but will include newly acquired objects from her personal records. The exhibition will also include a 'behind the scenes' look at her artistic process, through documents and photographs from her archive. To celebrate the opening of the Maggie Glover exhibition, on 11 August 2016 there is a special evening event, starting at 5.30pm with a drinks reception and followed by introductions to the exhibition and a viewing. Entry is free, all are welcome. Please RSVP. The Bradford Peace Museum's exhibitions explore peace history as well as contemporary issues, local heritage, peacemakers' stories and the ways in which people have worked to make the world a better place to live. Its 'Bradford Room' chronicles Bradford's long affinity with peace, peacemaking and peacemakers, such as Kenneth and David Hockney and social campaigners Margaret MacMillan and William Forster. A room dedicated to the First World War tells the stories of those who opposed the war, including conscientious objectors such as the 'Richmond 16'. Other exhibits look at ‘Campaigning; then and now’. The 'Greenham Common: Common Ground, Uncommon women' exhibit details the tireless campaigning of the Greenham women. The Peace Museum also has a mini-exhibition 'What Story Will You Tell?' and covers the story of Sadako Sasaki, the Japanese girl who was two years old when an American atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, near her home. Sadako became one of the most widely known hibakusha — a Japanese term meaning “bomb-affected person”. She is best remembered through the story of the one thousand origami cranes she was determined to fold before her death, aged 12, and is to this day a symbol of the innocent victims of nuclear warfare.  |
| Sharia law inquiry failing women Posted: 27 Jul 2016 02:54 PM PDT
As we reported here, earlier this month an unprecedented number of women's rights campaigners and organisations from Britain and abroad submitted a letter to Theresa May, at that time Home Secretary, raising serious concerns about the government's 'independent review' into Sharia courts in Britain launched on 26 May 2016. The letter said that the limited scope of the review/inquiry and its inappropriate theological approach would do nothing to address the discriminatory effect and intent of the courts on private and family matters – areas where, arguably, the greatest human rights violations of minority women in the UK take place. They labelled the inquiry a whitewash and called for it to be boycotted until the government ensured that the terms of reference were broad enough for this to be a thorough inquiry into the full range of human rights concerns raised by all parallel legal systems; until a judge was appointed to head the inquiry with the powers to compel witnesses to appear before it; and that it dropped the inappropriate theological approach, where clerics and theologians are inquirying into their own attitudes, and was instead framed as a human rights investigation. Despite these serious concerns, the government has not responded to the open letter and is going ahead with the inquiry without making any changes. That was at the beginning of July. More than 200 women's rights campaigners sent a letter to the Home Secretary raising serious concerns about the government-appointed independent review into Sharia councils in Britain, but received no response. So several of the intial signatories – Diana Nammi, director of Iranian Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation; Gina Khan, women's rights campaigner; Gita Sahgal, director of Centre for Secular Space; Maryam Namazie, spokesperson of One Law for All; Nasreen Rehman, co-founder and chair of British Muslims for Secular Democracy; Pragna Patel, director of Southall Black Sisters; Rayhana Sultan, spokesperson of Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; and Yasmin Rehman, Centre for Secular Space board member – issued another appeal, this time to the signatories and others who had called for such an inquiry and to those who had been invited to attend, to boycott this inquiry as it stands to date. Elham Manea, Senior Fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Zurich University, and author of several books including 'Women and Sharia Law: The Impact of Legal Pluralism in the UK', was due to testify before the inquiry this week but instead made the following statement: ‘Elham Manea was to testify in London on Wednesday 27th July to the Independent Review into the application of Sharia Law in England and Wales. ‘With regret and after much consideration she decided not to provide evidence to the Sharia Review Panel meeting. ‘This is because of her concern about the terms of reference of the panel; the inclusion of a number of Islamic scholars on the panel, who are part of the system they are supposed to be investigating, rather than exclusively judges, lawyers and human rights experts to examine a human rights issue; the specific issues before the Inquiry, which did not include among others the type of law being implemented and the role of Islamic extremism in the promotion of this parallel legal system, as well as the implications for the scope and impartiality of the Inquiry. ‘While she welcomes the Inquiry and respects the Chairperson, Manea is of the opinion that the Inquiry in its current form and terms of reference will not be in a position to address the discriminatory nature of the law applied in the parallel legal system of Sharia law in the UK and the Islamist extremism that feeds it.’ The inital signatories to the first open letter have asked that instead of providing evidence to the inquiry, interested or invited parties write to the current Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, with further supporting evidence on the need to correct the terms of reference, and to push for a judge-lead inquiry. For only a judge-led inquiry would, they feel, examine what they see as the problems of legal pluralism rather than promote it. They also ask for interested or invited parties to send such supporting evidence to the Home Affairs Committee launched on 24 June 2016, which is examining how Sharia councils operate in practice, their work resolving family and divorce disputes and their relationship with the British legal system. The deadline for submissions to this committee was midday on 20 July 2016, but the Committee's webpage says submissions will be accepted after that date.  |
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