Archive for the 'fundamentalism' Category

Save Iranian Teen Prisoner on Death Row

Published by
Sarah
at April 24, 2007 in Ayatollah's Theocracy, Politics, World, fundamentalism, law and violence. 2 Comments
COURTESY OF LILY MAZAHERY- President of the Legal Rights Institute, Washington DC.
Approval of Delara’s Death Sentence in Distinction Branch of the Supreme Court

A source familiar with Delara’s case reports that Delara’s death sentence has been approved and the order will be soon issued to her lawyer.

Delara Darabi, accused of murder, has spent the past 3 years in prison. Recent beatings in prison have left her with a broken arm and she is not feeling well.

Yesterday, Delara’s father filed a letter with the head of the judiciary, seeking a transfer of prison for his daughter. In this letter, Delara’s father states: “Delara is in dire condition and is suffering greatly. She is only accused. We have reasons to show that she is not a murderer. However, even if she were guilty, she has a basic right to be treated fairly in prison, not to have her arm broken. If Delara is a murderer, she should be executed once, not a thousand times. Yet, in Rasht prison, she is executed a thousand times a day. I need your help to save my daughter.”

According to our reporter, given the approval of Delara’s death sentence by the Distinction Branch of the Supreme Court, the only person who can commute this sentence is the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Shahroudi. By finding fault in the case, he can issue a new trial.

Click HERE to view the original report in Farsi.

Please take immediate action to prevent the execution of Delara Darabi by taking the follwing steps:

1. Sign the petition objecting to the impending execution of Delara Darabi and encourage your friends, colleagues, associates, and family members to do the same.

2. Contact the office of Ayatollah Shahroudi by fax or mail to voice your objection:

Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Ministry of Justice,
Panzdah-Khordad Circle,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
(From United States, dial 0 first)
Phone: 98 (21) 391-1109
Fax: 98 (21) 390-4986
You can also send your appeals electronically via the judiciary website:http://iranjudiciary.org/contactus-feedback-fa.htmlNote: The fields are written in Persian. 1st line is for your Name; 2nd your Email; 3rd the Subject (which should read “URGENT LETTER TO AYATOLLAH HASHEMI SHAHROUDI REGARDING DELARA DARABI“); 4th is for your Comments.

Should you have any questions, please contact info@SaveDelara.com . For more information, visit: www.SaveDelara.com

Pregnancy counselling and our ‘post-feminist’ world

Published by
Anna
at January 15, 2007 in Politics, abortion, breeding, choice, christianity and fundamentalism. 1 Comment

Apologies to all readers about the lack of updateliness over the festive season. I’ve had a bit of a break but it seems the patriarchy hasn’t.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, Minister for Health, Tony Abbott is up to his old tricks [link above]; restricting Australian women’s access to abortion in granting the Government funded Pregnancy Helpline contract to a company called McKesson Asia Pacific. What’s interesting about this is that McKesson is a company with no obvious bias towards faith-based healthcare provision and yet they have sub-contracted the training of counsellors out to the Catholic organisations, Centacare and the Caroline Chisholm Society. Organisations and individuals with ties to abortion providers were exempt from applying for the contract and yet here we have two organisations involved in the helpline with a most open bias in the opposite direction.

The Catholic stance on abortion is well-known. It has also recently been reported that Catholic hospitals refuse to provide Emergency Contraception/ The Morning After Pill to rape victims. It’s really not that surprising but considering Emergency Contraception prevents conception before sperm meets egg, if the doctors at those hospitals don’t know this, I really think their abilities to provide healthcare should be called into question. But as we all know it has never been about saving the bay-bees but punishing Eve, that wench.

One anti-choice organisation, the Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services (formerly known as the Australian Federation of Pro-life Pregnancy Support Services), which trades under the name Pregnancy Help Australia, has already received hundreds of thousands of dollars of Government funding. The AFPSS received $240,000 in 2003-04, $245,000 in 2004-05 and almost $300,000 in the last financial year. Considering their government funding seems to be rising and genuinely pro-woman counselling services are losing funding it seems the anti-choicers have achieved a monopoly over pregnancy counselling services in Australia.

Abbott says, “I hope that the availability of this kind of support service might, in the end, have some downward impact on the number of abortions.” Abbott’s continues to cite the bogus figure of 100,000 abortions each year. This figure is actually derived from a Medicare figure of 73,000 (exaggerating much?) for D&C which is a medical procedure performed for reasons including miscarriage which makes up two-thirds of that 73,000. So the actual number of abortions is closer to 25,000.

The demand for abortions has actually been falling steadily in the under-25 group (12 per cent in the past decade) and probably would continue to fall if faith-based organisations released their tenterhooks from women’s bodies. I wonder how many rape victims who didn’t get EC in time due to going to a Catholic hospital then had to seek an abortion?

Research by the Guttmacher Institute shows that abortion figures are much much lower in countries where it is safe and readily available and where attitudes to gender, sex and sexuality are much more progressive:

Most recent rates per 1,000 reproductive-age women

Legal

Belgium 7

Germany 8

Netherlands 9

Switzerland 9

United States 21

Illegal
Dominican Republic 47

Peru 56

Philippines 27

Uganda 54
Sources:Guttmacher Institute and WHO Regional Office for Europe.

As you can see in the countries where it’s legal the US leads the way in the number of abortions carried out, it also happens to be where the anti-choice movement is strongest. Coincidence? Or are pro-lifers killing the bay-bees?!

The theme for the next issue of Wo! is ‘Choice’ so if you have something to add to the discourse send to editor@wo-magazine.com . Features and articles don’t have to be focused on reproductive rights, the theme can be interpreted as broadly or creatively as you like.

Lily Mazahery on the Ayatollah’s theocracy

Published by
Sarah
at December 21, 2006 in Ayatollah's Theocracy, Islam, fundamentalism, law, religion, violence against women and women in power. 0 Comments

A transcript of an awesome speech made by an Iranian-American attorney Lily Mazahery, Head of the Washington-based Legal Rights Institute, on the human rights situation of women and girls under the Iranian legal system. 

These are the type of women that western feminists need to get behind. This links to my earlier thread about the powerful potential of western muslim women to instigate change via non-violent means through the power of ideas.

This kind of global grassroots movement by people who are deeply rooted and have a genuine passion and knowledge of the societies they are attempting to reform makes them powerful agents for change.

Such awe-inspiring women include figures such as  Iranian activist Mehrangiz Kar and Shirin Ebadi- winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize and a personal hero of mine.

This ‘insider’ status gives these women a unique mandate- A free pass from the ‘imperialist’ tag of those who speak without such ‘insider’ status or use human rights atrocities and feminist arguments as a cover for racist agendas.

 

 

 

Abortion and control: Debunking myths about the “pro-life” agenda

Published by
Anna
at October 9, 2006 in abortion, breeding, choice, christianity, fundamentalism and sex. 14 Comments

One thing that deserves reiteration in the whole pro-choice v. anti-choice dichotomy is the true intentions of “pro-lifers”. What they claim as their main aim (i.e. stopping abortions) rarely, if ever, correlates to their actions. To you and me, the idea of reducing abortions has a simple solution: stop unwanted pregnancies. And how? By thorough, comprehensive and accurate sex education and available contraception on demand.

The anti-choice movement’s actions belie their true agenda, and that is control of women’s lives. It is a myth that they are “pro-life”. They could be considered “pro-foetus” I guess, but the foetus isn’t the only “life” that is on the line, especially when abortion is outlawed as I’ve explored before .

Exhibit A: Anti-contraception

The anti-choice movement rails against contraception. They view pregnancy and STIs as a punishment for “fallen” women, that she should be forced to endure as punishment for having sex. Their true agenda here? Stopping women from being independent and sexual human beings- that is the domain of men, and women should only have sex when the pleasure of their husband is wont to be met (and for the sake of pro-creation of course). Their “abstinence-only” education is a fast-track to increasing abortion rates, not to mention how psychologically damaging this virginity fetishisation can sometimes be to young girls.

Restricting contraception, including emergency contraception (the morning-after pill) results in higher instances of unwanted pregnancies and thus abortion. This isn’t hard to figure out so those out there who consider themselves “pro-life” surely realise this to be the case. So I will repeat: Their agenda is restricting sexual and reproductive freedom not saving babies. It is about hating women. It is about relegating women to their “proper” sphere, which to the downfall of society, they have departed from in the past few decades.

Exhibit B: The rape exemption

Many “pro-lifers” concede an abortion exception to rape and incest victims. Even the most fundie Christian variety of pro-lifer concede some sort of exemption for “pure women”. As one US fundie put it an exemption in abortion criminalisation could be:

Continue reading ‘Abortion and control: Debunking myths about the “pro-life” agenda’

Afghan women protest reintroduction of vice and virtue police

Published by
Anna
at September 14, 2006 in World and fundamentalism. 0 Comments

Via Reuters AlertNet

Women’s groups in Afghanistan want an urgent meeting with Afghan ministers and MPs to protest against a plan to reintroduce the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice which was first set up by the Taliban.

The Taliban’s brutal ‘vice and virtue police’ enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law and beat women for ‘offences’ such as showing their wrists or ankles, wearing nail varnish or going outside their home without a male relative.

Women were also stopped from attending school, working, or being seen by a male physician, while women doctors and nurses were banned from working.

Men did not escape punishment and were beaten if they trimmed their beards.

A proposal by the Afghan Ministry of Religious Affairs to reinstate the department was considered by the cabinet on July 16 and has now been referred to parliament, which is likely to pass it into law.

Sad day for Pakistani Women

Published by
Sarah
at September 12, 2006 in World, fundamentalism and rape. 1 Comment

You don’t get to use the words “subjugated”, “patriachy” or “mad bad religious establishment” very much any more.

However the case of Pakistan’s rape laws allows the use of such startling adjectives to be used in full force with little irony.

The failure of the Women’s Protection Bill in Pakistan is a loss for every woman fighting for her right to safety, to justice and to a life that is free from violence.

The proposed bill was aimed at repealing the “Islamic laws” instigated by Pakistani dictator Zia-Ul-Haq in 1979 which stipulate a woman must provide four male witnesses to an act of rape for prosecution.

The failure to provide these witnesses can lead by default to a conviction for “zina”- or “illegal sex”. However under classical Islamic jurisprudence it was “zina” that warranted such impossible evidentiary standards. The idea being that “zina” though morally disapproved of, was not the concern of the state, but a private matter for individual conscience.

The hodge podge application of streams of secular and sharia law in Pakistan which collude together in impossible illogic has led to tragic and almost farcical circumstances like the prosecution of a blind girl Safia Bibi for “zina” after she failed to prove rape.

The 2002 case of Mukhataran Mai a woman who spoke out after being subject to a gang rape on the order of village elders also received international attention and highlighted the struggle for the rights of women in Pakistan.

Continue reading ‘Sad day for Pakistani Women’