Category: Tradition, Culture, Religion

OURs - News piece

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

OURs - News piece

A Year Later, Still No Justice for Farkhunda

On March 19, 2015, Farkhunda Malikzada was murdered by a mob of angry Afghan men because a local religious cleric had falsely accused her of burning the Quran. The crowd threw stones at her, drove over her body, and set her on fire. On the day she died, Farkhunda had no protection from the state or those around her. The struggle to achieve justice for her has become a sign of the struggle to protect the rights of women throughout Afghanistan.

Like many Afghan activists, I have spent the last year attending protests and writing about and working with local organizations to advocate for justice for Farkhunda. When we began speaking out along with thousands of Afghansaround the world, we hoped that Farkhunda’s murderers would be brought to justice and that her case would set a precedent for the legal system to protect the safety and rights of Afghan women. But a year later, the lack of justice has had significant implications for women’s rights in Afghanistan, where the majority of perpetrators of violence against women never face legal repercussions. The government’s failure to maintain justice has emboldened criminals and left Afghan women more vulnerable to violence.

A year ago, following public demonstrations, the government moved fast to arrest those involved. President Ashraf Ghani promised a full investigation of the case and the Ministry of Interior announced that 50 suspects had been arrested. A trial of 49 of the arrested followed. No explanation was offered as to the fate of the other suspect. This swift action gave people hope. For the first time, it seemed the law was finally protecting Afghan women. This was especially important because videos showed police officers assisting the angry murderers or standing by idly as they tortured Farkhunda. Holding those police officers accountable would be a powerful sign that women can count on the state for their safety and security.

These hopes quickly disappeared during the initial trial when the public saw that many of the killers were met with benevolence by the court. Only 12 of the 49 men charged were convicted. While it was expected that at least the cleric who instigated the violence against Farkhunda would receive the death penalty,he did not. Of the 19 police officers arrested for participating in the violence or for not intervening to protect Farkhunda, eight of them were not penalized.  The remaining 11 were punished with restrictions on their ability to travel while on the job. Even more infuriating to the public was that some of the men who were filmed participating in the violent attack, and later boasted about their involvement on social media, did not even face arrest. The Ministry of Interior argued that some of those involved could not be found and the degree of their involvement could not be proven.

Read the full article at Foreign Policy.

Orchestrated assault: Rights NGOs condemn reopening foreign funding case

Seventeen rights organisations issued a joint statement on Monday condemning the reopening the case 173/2011, publicly known as the foreign funding case, referring to it as an “orchestrated, escalating assault” on civil society in Egypt.

The rights organisations include the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), El Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture and Nazra for Feminist Studies​.

The groups condemned recent move, targeting advocacy groups in particular, as well as the deployment the judiciary as a political and security weapon to achieve objectives that inflict “grave harm” to justice and human rights in the country.

Nazra is the latest rights organisation to be targeted by the new investigations in the case, as three of its workers received official summons to undergo an interrogation session on 22 March. No reasons were specified in the summons, according to the women’s rights organisation.

Read the full article on Daily News Egypt now. 

Malawi – Pastors call for arrest of homosexuals

A coalition of young pastors in Malawi have threatened to drag the government to court to force it to arrest 4 000 homosexuals living in northern Malawi’s city of Mzuzu.

The Young Pastors Coalition of Malawi (YPCM) has accused the government of encouraging homosexuality through its failure to arrest gays and lesbians.

The call comes after a local human rights grouping Centre for the Development of the People (Cedep) released research findings which indicate that northern Malawi’s city of Mzuzu has a population of 4 000 homosexuals.

The survey by Cedep was conducted to establish HIV/Aids and socio-behavioural characteristics amongst men who have sex with men.

Despite same sex relations being outlawed, Malawi government has been reluctant to arrest and prosecute homosexuals.

The survey results have irked the pastors who argue that the research was conducted as part of advocacy to promote homosexuality in Malawi.

Read the full article on News 24.

Blasphemy cases rise in Egypt and Christians bear the brunt

In the video, the Egyptian Christian teens laugh playfully as a couple of them kneel down, imitating Muslim prayers, then another slides his hand under one boy’s neck, imitating the trademark beheadings of the Islamic State group.

The boys were playing around, satirizing the extremist group, and their school supervisor just happened to be videoing them, their defenders say. The result has been catastrophic: they were sentenced to prison under Egypt’s blasphemy laws — they were mocking Muslim prayers, prosecutors said — and have fled into hiding, leaving behind shattered families.

“My son was sentenced to five years for a laugh,” Iman Aziz, weeping, said in the teens’ home village of Nassariya in southern Egypt. Her son, Muller Atef, was seen in the 32-second video laughing but not joining in the “prayers.”

The verdict last month points to an irony in Egypt. Two years ago, the military ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power, and since then the government has been waging a harsh crackdown on Islamists.

Yet in the past three years, prosecutions on charges of insulting Islam have risen dramatically. From three such cases in 2011, there were 21 cases in the courts in 2015, around half targeting Christians, according to Ishaq Ibrahim, a researcher with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

Read the full article from the Associated Press. 

Nigerian lawmakers voted down a women equality bill citing the Bible and Sharia law

Nigerian lawmakers on Tuesday, voted against a gender and equal opportunities bill. The bill, which did not pass a second reading, was aimed at bridging the gap between the rights of men and women in Nigeria. It also sought to end questionable and unpleasant stereotypical practices that drive discrimination based on gender.

While the bill garnered support from some lawmakers, male and female, it ultimately failed to progress on the senate floor as a majority voted against it. Before voting, various senators who opposed the bill, spoke about the incompatibility of the bill with religious laws and beliefs.

As a whole, the bill focuses on eliminating discrimination based on gender in the fields of politics, education and employment. It also prohibits violence—domestic and sexual—against women.

Read the full article at Quartz Africa.