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Shariah & Women and Children
Schoolgirls in Afghanistan Continue to Face Threats, Attacks
Girls are threatened, brutally attacked, and killed each day in Afghanistan simply for going to school. Schools are torched or bombed, and teachers are also targeted. This article (while calling Shariah-adherent terrorists “conservative”) does include meaningful ways in which you can take action to help girls stay in school, and to help these schools stay in operation.
Fifty-nine Afghan schoolgirls and 14 teachers were hospitalized this morning after an apparent gas poisoning, CNN reported. The attack occurred at a girls' high school in Kabul.
Ultra-conservative elements in Afghan society oppose female education and have a history of setting fire to girls' schools, threatening teachers and attacking students. Some even earn money for doing so. Although these extremists aim to terrify girls back into isolation and ignorance, many young women refuse be intimidated.
In 2001, only 1 million Afghans were enrolled in school, all of them boys, The New York Times reported. Today, approximately 7 million Afghan children attend school, of which 2.6 million are girls. However, schools for girls still remain closed in Taliban strongholds, particularly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
“The ‘Basij babies’ program suggests that some in the Islamic republic believe that children should be indoctrinated not at elementary schools but even before that -- as soon as they're born, in order to prevent them from turning into potential critics or independent individuals who want to decide about the way they live themselves and not based on the rules set by the Iranian establishment.”
A female commander of the pro-government Basij militia, Zohreh Abbasi, has said that her unit has introduced a special program that allows baby girls to be registered as members of the force and receive training.
Abbasi, who heads the Hossein Haj Mousaee unit, said that in the past six years 23 baby girls had been trained as Basij members through "Koranic, cultural, educational, and military" classes.
"In this regard Basij mothers register their baby girls 40 days after they were born at the Hossein Haj Mousaee unit by presenting documents and IDs," Abbasi was quoted as saying by Iranian news websites.
She said 420 women are currently members of the Hossein Haj Mousaee Basij unit. She added that two babies have recently been born and that work is under way to prepare a dossiers for the new "Basij babies" and enroll them in the special program.
Iranian Facing Stoning Speaks: 'It's Because I'm a Woman'
"The answer is quite simple, it's because I'm a woman, it's because they think they can do anything to women in this country. It's because for them adultery is worse than murder – but not all kinds of adultery: an adulterous man might not even be imprisoned but an adulterous women is the end of the world for them. It's because I'm in a country where its women do not have the right to divorce their husbands and are deprived of their basic rights."
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the woman whose sentence of death by stoning triggered an international outcry has accused the Iranian authorities of lying about the charges against her to pave the way to execute her in secret.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but it was commuted to hanging after an international outcry. Her initial sentence was for "having an illicit relationship outside marriage" but Iranian officials have claimed that she was also found guilty of murdering her husband and should still face death by stoning.
Islamic extremism is growing in India, this according to Syed Ali Mujtaba, an Indian journalist and founder of the South Asia Contact Group. He spoke to AsiaNews about a recent incident in which the student union at an Islamic university prevented a woman lecturer from speaking unless she wore a burqa.
Shirin Middya, 24, was recently hired to teach at Aliah University, West Bengal’s first Islamic university, in Kolkata. Back in second week of April, students told her to wear a burqa; otherwise, they would not allow her to teach. News about the incident surfaced only last week. The university does not have any dress code, and wearing the burqa is not required.
Ms Middya said that she would wear the full-face garment but only of her own free will. Still, she concerned that the “students are forcing us to wear the burqa”.
Syed Ali Mutjaba, writer and peace activist, said that he is concerned about incidents of this sort. The “increasing radicalisation of Indian society is extremely worrisome,” he said.
British Girls Undergo Horror of Genital Mutilation Despite Tough Laws
500-2,000 British schoolgirls will be “cut” or genitally mutilated and “sewn” over the summer holiday. This is a Shariah-driven ritual that often results in severe infection and death. Thought to help girls appear “virginal and clean”, women in Western countries, including the U.S., are holding “cutting parties” to mutilate many young girls at once.
Like any 12-year-old, Jamelia was excited at the prospect of a plane journey and a long summer holiday in the sun. An avid reader, she had filled her suitcases with books and was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when her mother came for her. "She said, 'You know it's going to be today?' I didn't know exactly what it would entail but I knew something was going to be cut. I was made to believe it was genuinely part of our religion."
She went on: "I came to the living room and there were loads of women. I later found out it was to hold me down, they bring lots of women to hold the girl down. I thought I was going to be brave so I didn't really need that. I just lay down and I remember looking at the ceiling and staring at the fan.
"I don't remember screaming, I remember the ridiculous amount of pain, I remember the blood everywhere, one of the maids, I actually saw her pick up the bit of flesh that they cut away 'cause she was mopping up the blood. There was blood everywhere."
Some 500 to 2,000 British schoolgirls will be genitally mutilated over the summer holidays. Some will be taken abroad, others will be "cut" or circumcised and sewn closed here in the UK by women already living here or who are flown in and brought to "cutting parties" for a few girls at a time in a cost-saving exercise.
