Naureen Shameen, Author at OURs - The Observatory of the Universality of Rights

Liberal Bangladeshi blogger killed by machete-wielding attackers

Attackers in Bangladesh wielding machetes killed a liberal blogger, police said on Thursday, the latest in series of murders of secular activists by suspected Islamist militants.

Postgraduate law student Nazimuddin Samad, 28, was attacked as he was returning from a class at his university in the capital, Dhaka, late on Wednesday, police said.

Last year, suspected militants killed five secular writers and a publisher, including a Bangladeshi-American activist. A banned Islamist militant group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, claimed responsibility for some of the attacks.

Police officer Tapan Chandra Shaha said three or four men attacked Samad with machetes and then shot him after he fell to the ground.

People heard the attackers shouting “Allahu akbar” (God is Greatest) as they fled, he said.

Imran H. Sarker, convener of the BOAN online activist group, said Samad was an outspoken critic of injustice and militancy.

“We found him always a loud voice against all injustice and also a great supporter of secularism,” Sarker told Reuters.

Bangladesh has seen a wave of militant violence over the past year or so, including a series of bomb attacks on mosques and Hindu temples.

Read the full article on Reuters now.

Colombia high court rules in favor of same-sex marriage

Colombia’s highest court on Thursday ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry.

Colombia’s constitutional court issued its 6-3 ruling nearly nine months after it held a hearing on whether to extend nuptials to gays and lesbians.

Colombia Diversa, a Colombian LGBT advocacy group, in a press release said the ruling “established that marriage is the only legal institution that addresses the lack of protection for same-sex couples and there is no basis to deny it.” The landmark decision also says that judges and notaries must perform civil marriages for same-sex couples who request them.

“Same-sex couples can access the institution of civil marriage with the same rights, benefits and the same responsibilities that this institution affords to heterosexual couples thanks to the Constitutional Court of Colombia,” said Colombia Diversa.

Angélica Lozano, a lesbian who was elected to the Colombian Congress in 2014, also celebrated Thursday’s ruling. “Equality is unstoppable,” she said in a tweet she posted to her Twitter page.

Read the full article on the Washington Blade now.

Experts unite to end human rights violations based on SOGI

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people across the world often face grave human rights violations, including torture, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, even killing – all because of who they are.

In an unprecedented dialogue, regional and UN human rights experts joined forces to look at their human rights situation, and to call for an end to violence and other human rights violations on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

A report, launched today during the 58th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the Gambia, summarises the historic dialogue that took place in November 2015 between the African Commission, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and UN human rights experts.

The report also highlights the impact that human rights violations have on the health of LGBTI people and their access to HIV prevention and care.

“Violence and other human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity constitute universal challenges that require concerted responses by national, regional and UN human rights institutions,” said Pansy Tlakula, Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Read the full article on the OHCHR site now.

LGBT Advocates to Protest ACL Conference at Wesley Mission

The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) is set to host its national conference at the Wesley Mission on April 23 and LGBTI advocates are planning a protest of the event which will host guest speakers including members of right wing US anti-gay group the Alliance Defending Freedom.

The ACL were instrumental in the recent gutting of the Safe Schools program – spearheading a campaign and lobbying politicians to shut down funding to the anti bullying program.

Cat Rose, Co-convener of Community Action Against Homophobia said:

“The Australian Christian Lobby successfully tore shreds off the Safe Schools program through a campaign of bigotry and fear mongering. They may like to pose as moderate Christians but this conference shows exactly who’s in bed with who. We want to give the ACL and Scott Morrison the protest they deserve.”

The ACL’s conference will present both local and international speakers including Eric Metaxas, US author, public speaker and radio host who is outspoken in his cricticism of LGBTI people and a proponent of ex-gay therapy. Also speaking at the conference is Jeffery J Ventrella, a prominent US lawyer from the Alliance Defending Freedom and Blackstone Legal Fellowship who argue anti-gay marriage cases. Australian treasurer, MP Scott Morrison – an opponent of same-sex marriage is a guest speaker as is Daily Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine.

Patrick Wright, co-convener of CAAH said the ACL is giving a platform to a posse of hard right extremists.

Read the full article at Gay News Network now.

Words of Burma’s Religious Affairs Minister Too Serious to Ignore

A public official giving an interview in which he calls members of an entire religion less than citizens of his country. And a celebrated and overwhelmingly elected champion of the people remains silent as many of those people are persecuted. The circumstances sound like Nazi Germany but they describe today’s Burma.

Newly appointed Minister of Religious Affairs, a former military general, Aung Ko, told Voice of America that while Buddhists are “full citizens” of Burma, Muslims and other minorities count only as “associate citizens”. This statement implies that Muslims are foreigners who do not deserve the full rights accorded citizens of Burma, or even that they are sub-human.

The Minister of Religious Affairs then followed up with a visit to U Wirathu, the firebrand extremist leader of Ma Ba Tha, the leading extremist group that isblacklisted in a 2015 US budget bill. The minister offered the extremist monk acash donation while bowing to him. The newly elected government will be better off asking this minister of “religion” to resign.

Sadly, the new minister is following the old “solution“ as offered by the former President of Burma who officially asked the United Nations to resettle all Rohingya Muslims in a third country. Rohingya are indigenous people living in their ancestral land who have always been citizens, and have always voted and elected their representatives in Burma until the racist and Islamophobic policies of the military regime took away their citizenship.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighboring countries after their homes were burned down and thousands of them were killed. Almost 125,000 are living in what the New York Times describes as the 21st-Century Concentration Camps.

Read the full article at the Huffington Post.

Debunking Stereotypes: Which Women Matter in the Fight Against Extremism?

Violent extremism is the topic du jour, as government officials are busy developing plans of action on “preventing or countering violent extremism” (P/CVE). In these plans there is dutiful reference to engaging “women”. The more progressive mention gender sensitivity.

But scratch the surface, and it is clear there is widespread misunderstanding of what this means or how to do it. So they tend to slide back into an age-old axiom: women are victims, perpetrators, or mothers.

But this perception misses some of the most important women involved in P/CVE: women human rights defenders and peace activists working in Iraq, Pakistan, Syria not only countering extremism but providing positive alternatives and challenging state actions.

The simplification of women to victims and perpetrators is akin to the virgin/prostitute dichotomy that has littered history for centuries. The Yazidi girls epitomize the horrendous victimhood of women, while the teenagers in the UK joining ISIS, and the girls implicated as Boko Haram ‘suicide’ bombers, personify the perpetrator. It seems that, in the male-dominated world of security experts, men determine which women matter.

Their real fascination is with the women fighters especially ‘jihadis’. They are either evil because they have transgressed unsaid but deeply riven norms of femininity and joined ISIS. Or they are the ultimate symbols of self-empowerment, brave enough to fight, and heroic, like the women in the Kurdish militias. Yet women becoming fighters is neither news nor shocking.

Throughout history, a minority of women have joined armed liberation movements (and national armies). Like many men, they are attracted by the larger cause or vision, or for revenge and justice (as with some Kurds and now Yazidis), to feel the sense of belonging and protection. Daesh promises respect, agency and responsibility for women feeling stifled in traditional homes.

There is little discussion of the complexity of women’s experiences who may be simultaneously victims and perpetrators. For example, research on young women (many under 18) traveling to Syria, reveals a strong dose of online sexual grooming in the communications between them and their recruiters.

Read the full article on the IPS News Agency now.

Iraq: Women Suffer Under ISIS

The extremist armed group Islamic State should urgently release Yezidi women and girls they abducted in 2014, Human Rights Watch said today, following new research with recent escapees who were raped and traded between members before they fled. Islamic State (also known as ISIS) also routinely imposes abusive restrictions on other Iraqi women and girls and severely limits their freedom of movement and access to health care and education in areas under its control.

In January and February 2016, Human Rights Watch interviewed 21 Sunni Muslim Arab women from the Hawija area of Iraq and 15 women and girls from the Yezidi minority ethnic group, all of whom had fled ISIS-controlled areas, most in late 2015. Several of the Yezidis,abducted by ISIS in mid-2014, had spent more than a year in captivity. They described being forcibly converted to Islam, kept in sexual slavery, bought and sold in slave markets, and passed among as many as four ISIS members. Human Rights Watch first documented systematic rape of Yezidi women and girls in early 2015.

“The longer they are held by ISIS, the more horrific life becomes for Yezidi women, bought and sold, brutally raped, their children torn from them,” said Skye Wheeler, women’s rights emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Meanwhile, ISIS’s restrictions on Sunni women cut them off from normal life and services almost entirely.”

The Sunni women Human Rights Watch interviewed had fled areas under ISIS control since June 2014 in western Kirkuk governorate and had arrived in areas controlled by forces of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). All of the Sunni women and girls reported severe restrictions on their clothing and freedom of movement in ISIS-controlled areas. They said they were only allowed to leave their houses dressed in full face veil (niqab) and accompanied by a close male relative. These rules, enforced by beating or fines on male family members or both, isolated women from family, friends, and public life.

Read the full article from Human Rights Watch now.

Malaysia: Transgender individuals in pageant to be charged with encouraging vice

The Federal Territories Islamic Department (JAWI) is planning to charge a trans woman with encouraging vice and with defying religious authorities after she allegedly organised a purported beauty pageant, a group said.

Lalita Abdullah, exco member of transgender rights group SEED Malaysia, said the religious authorities had informed Ira Sophia, after detaining her for almost 24 hours, that she would be charged next month under Section 9 and Section 35 of the Shariah Criminal Offences (Federal Territories) Act 1997.

“She has to appear in court on 5th of May,” Lalita told Malay Mail Online after Ira was released late last night.

The activist said JAWI officers did not specify Ira’s alleged actions that prompted the prosecution, but merely stated the sections of the law they planned to charge her under.

Section 9 of the Shariah Criminal Offences (Federal Territories) Act states that “any person who acts in contempt of religious authority or defies, disobeys or disputes the orders or directions of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as the Head of the religion of Islam, the Majlis or the Mufti, expressed or given by way of fatwa, shall be guilty of an offence”, punishable by a fine of not more than RM3,000, or imprisonment of not more than two years, or both.

Section 35 prohibits anyone from promoting, inducing, or encouraging another person to indulge in “any vice”, an offence punishable with a fine of not more than RM5,000, or imprisonment of not more than three years, or both.

Read the full article at MalayMail Online now.

Counter-terrorism: Egyptian-led resolution sends wrong message at wrong time

A new counter-terrorism resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council is not a green light for states to widen the scope of law and policies to target and shut down civil society space in the name of preventing terrorist activity. States must ensure full consideration and respect for international human rights laws when adopting measures to combat terrorist groups and engage with NGOs and human rights defenders who have a key role in preventing violent extremism.

Introduced by Egypt, and co-sponsored by states including Algeria and Saudi Arabia – states often leading the hostile global crackdown on civil society space and human rights defenders – UN resolution A/HRC/31/L.13/Rev.1 ‘The effects of terrorism on the enjoyment of all human rights’ was adopted on the final sitting day of the 31^st session of the Council, with 28 states voting in favor and 14 voting against, with 5 states abstaining.

The resolution has been critiqued by leading NGOs such as ARTICLE 19 as ‘providing potential justification for abusive “counter-terrorism” measures’. The resolution ‘fails to meet the needs of the victims of terrorism, and instead instrumentalises their suffering to distract international scrutiny from the deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt and elsewhere,’ ARTICLE 19 said in a statement.

Read the full article from ISHR now.

ISIS Central Asian Recruitment Drive A Family Affair

Faced with growing competition and rising battlefield casualties, the Islamic State (IS) militant group has taken a family-friendly approach to its efforts to draw fresh recruits from Central Asia.

Two videos released last week by the extremists’ Russian-language propaganda wing make use of fatherly — or grandfatherly — militants to sell recruits on fighting for IS.

One 30-minute video, in Uzbek with Russian subtitles, features a veteran Uzbek militant in his 60s urging Uzbeks of all ages to come to IS-controlled territory.

A second, shorter, clip shows two Kazakh militants and their sons calling on Muslims to leave Kazakhstan and join them in Syria.

Recruitment Drive

The videos produced by Furat Media are part of an intensified drive by the IS group to recruit Central Asian militants.

This move is likely an attempt to replenish numbers after heavy battlefield losses in both Syria and Iraq.

It is also likely a response to increased competition in the recruitment of Central Asian militants from Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front.

Though IS and Nusra share similar ideologies, they have demonstrated different strategies in Syria: while IS has declared a “caliphate,” Nusra has focused on cooperating with other groups to defeat Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The focus on fighting Assad is a powerful recruitment message for Central Asians, including those already in Syria. Nusra absorbed a major Uzbek militant group, Katiba Tawhid wol-Jihod, in September 2015.

The drive also comes as IS recruitment of Central Asians is getting tougher amid security crackdowns, including one in which a group of 16 Uzbeks allegedly involved in recruiting for IS were arrested in Moscow on March 30.

Uzbeks living in Turkey, meanwhile, have reported being interrogated after flying home to Uzbekistan as part of heightened counterterrorism measures.

A Family Affair

Each of the new videos emphasizes that families can and should move to IS-controlled territory.

The Kazakh recruitment video opens with shots of militants with their children: a young teen, a toddler, and a baby. Both militants featured in the video say they moved to Syria with their families.

Read the full article on Radio Free Europe now.