Amnesty International is ‘damaged’ by Taliban link
Amnesty International and Cageprisoners
This morning the Sunday Times published an article about Amnesty International’s association with groups that support the Taliban and promote Islamic Right ideas. In that article, I was quoted as raising concerns about Amnesty’s very high profile associations with Guantanamo-detainee Moazzam Begg. I felt that Amnesty International was risking its reputation by associating itself with Begg, who heads an organization, Cageprisoners, that actively promotes Islamic Right ideas and individuals.
Within a few hours of the article being published, Amnesty had suspended me from my job.
Support human rights defender: Gita Saghal
A round-up of articles on the Gita Saghal case
It is not often that my cynical jaw drops open at a story in the papers. But the piece on page 13 of the Sunday Times provoked just such a reaction. Congratulations to Richard Kerbaj for blowing the lid on Amnesty International’s relationship with former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg and his organisation Cage Prisoners, who act as apologists for the Islamist totalitarianism.
Violence against women is a global struggle
EIGHT YEARS ago, Nasreen (not her real name) walked into the office of the Daily Khabrain newspaper in Lahore, Pakistan, and demanded justice. She stripped off her clothes, revealing a black and blue body covered with wounds and cigarette burns. She’d been gang raped. With tears in her eyes, she said, "My husband hired three men and got me raped in front of him because I was tired of his abuse and demanded the divorce that Islam gave me a right to. He didn’t even respect me as the mother of his children. . .. I just want justice in the name of God."
Could Islam help us against honor killings?
Yet another horrible honor killing took place in the Southeast, the least developed part of Turkey. A 16-year-old girl was buried alive by her relatives simply for befriending boys. Forensic experts found soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that the poor kid was conscious while being buried into the ground.
May God have mercy on her soul. And may her killers face punishment in this world and the next. What they did was cruel, monstrous and evil.
Her brothers beat her up for talking on the internet
A teenager of 16 years risks losing an eye for using MSN Messenger. Caught on her computer in December, she was beaten and imprisoned in her homw in the Raguenets à Saint-Gratien estate in Val d'Oise. With her strict Muslim parents' encouragement, her two brothers 'punished' the victim. The four then held a family council to evade legal repercussions.
Yesterday, the brothers and parents were called before a magistrate in Pontoise in an open case of premeditated violence, deprivation of liberty and denial of medical care.
It was following a visit to an opthamologist, once she was able to leave the appartment around a month after the attack that the inquiry was lanuched. The teenager, who was having trouble with her eye, was able to consult a specialist who noticed signs of the attack. The youngster risks losing the damaged eye.
Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys
Death reopens debate over 'honour' killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country's murders.
Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an "honour" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.
The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.
At 12 years old, she will stay with a man in his 80s
To general surprise, a Saudi girl of 12 years old has renounced her request for a divorce from her husband in his eighties, to whom she was forcibly married by her father, the Saudi press reported today.
The girl and her mother withdrew the request before the court in the north of Riyadh, despite receiving support from activists and defenders of children's rights.
The girl stated in front of the court that the marriage had been conducted with her consent, according to the daily Okaz, while the Al-Riyadh paper added that she had only requested the ability to continue in her schooling. The girl's lawyer, Salah al-Dabibi, taking to Al-Riyadh, said she was 'devastated' by the reversal, and didn't rule out the possibility of pressure upon the mother and her daughter.
Children's award for detective combatting forced marriage
A DETECTIVE who has helped countless people escape forced marriages and honour-based violence has been shortlisted for a national award.
Hartlepool Detective Inspector Helen Eustace has been put forward for a Children's Champion Award by a young girl who she helped save from a forced marriage.
The girl became the inspiration for Cleveland Police's Choice Helpline, a phone service Det Insp Eustace helped set up and now runs for those worried about arranged and forced marriages, or honour-based violence.
Honor killing by any other name
To consider honor killing within Muslim communities a crime unto itself overlooks the patriarchal roots of much of the intimate partner violence perpetrated in the Western world.
When Sanaa Dafani, a young woman living in the small town of Pordenone, Italy, was murdered this past fall, local media were quick to label the crime a case of "honor killing."
Eighteen-year-old Dafani, who was born in Italy to Moroccan parents, was killed by her conservative Muslim father, who had been angered by her Western lifestyle. In Dafani's case, this meant wearing jeans and dating a man.
