Saudi
Arabia: men and women can pray together
Suntanned women face arrest in Iran
Istanbul: Islamic clothing - modesty with high
fashion
The Seismic Impact of the Boobquake
Movement
'Boobquake' triggered Taiwan tremor?
A Jihad for gender equality
Veiled threat of a secular society
My Talk with Mary Apick -- Iran, Women's Rights and
More
French PM Announces Anti-Niqab Law for July
Muslim says mistresses are the French way of
life
Siddiqui: Picking on Muslim women smacks of
hypocrisy
Sudan not abridging women's rights
The Pakistani woman’s crusade against the
system
M'sia's women-only trains
Let Muslim women wear head scarves
Woman prof shot dead in Pak
Nawaz slams killing of woman educationist in
Quetta
BLA claims responsibility for killing professor in
Quetta
Palestinian girls get ticket to Intel science
fair
Photo: Shabana Azmi
Saudi Arabia: men and women can pray
together
Suntanned women face arrest in Iran
Istanbul: Islamic clothing - modesty with high
fashion
The Seismic Impact of the Boobquake
Movement
'Boobquake' triggered Taiwan tremor?
A Jihad for gender equality
Veiled threat of a secular society
My Talk with Mary Apick -- Iran, Women's Rights and
More
French PM Announces Anti-Niqab Law for July
Muslim says mistresses are the French way of
life
Siddiqui: Picking on Muslim women smacks of
hypocrisy
Sudan not abridging women's rights
The Pakistani woman’s crusade against the
system
M'sia's women-only trains
Let Muslim women wear head scarves
Woman prof shot dead in Pak
Nawaz slams killing of woman educationist in
Quetta
BLA claims responsibility for killing professor in
Quetta
Palestinian girls get ticket to Intel science
fair
-------
Shabana Azmi: star of India
By Paul Kendall
28 Apr 2010
Things are not what they appear to be in the new film by Gurinder
Chadha, the director of Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and
Prejudice.
A plump Punjabi housewife from Ealing, who fusses over her children
and spends most of her time in the kitchen making curries and pakoras, is
actually a serial killer, using her culinary know-how to bump off people who
have refused to help find a suitor for her single
daughter.
That’s the central joke in It’s A Wonderful Afterlife and if you know
any plump Punjabi housewives from Ealing, it’s a pretty funny
one.
But, even more surprising than the identity of the murderer is that
of the actress who plays her: Shabana Azmi. For, in India, Azmi is an absolute
megastar.
The winner of five National Awards, the subcontinent’s answer to the
Oscars, and a pioneer of the New Wave cinema of the Eighties that challenged
many of India’s most deeply held prejudices, 59-year-old Azmi is a revered
figure among the general public and India’s political
elite.
She’s a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, a former member
of parliament and a recipient of the International Gandhi Peace Prize, which she
won for a 20-year campaign on behalf of slum-dwellers.
She is, in other words, a million miles from a middle-class housewife
living in the suburbs of Greater London and now she is playing that role in a
low-budget British farce. How did this happen?
‘I agreed to the film as soon as Gurinder asked,’ Azmi says from her
home in Bombay. ‘I’d watched Bend It Like Beckham and had liked it very much and
I really wanted to work with her.’
What’s more, Azmi is now at a Meryl Streep stage in her career where,
having done more than 140 films and won every major award going, she no longer
has to be strategic about her choices. It’s A Wonderful Afterlife is Azmi’s
Mamma Mia!.
Which doesn’t mean she didn’t take the role
seriously.
Azmi went to astonishing lengths to transform herself into a typical
British Punjabi woman, first asking Chadha to introduce her to some of her
family (the director comes from a large Punjabi family in Southall) and then
spending several days at their houses observing everything from how they dressed
and walked to their turns of phrase and facial
expressions.
Azmi also brushed up on her cooking so that she would appear
comfortable in a kitchen (in reality Azmi admits to being a terrible cook) and
donned a variety of cheap salwar kameez and acrylic cardigans picked up from
market stalls in Southall, old-fashioned glasses and a navy blue coat from
BHS.
To complete the look, the actress put on almost two stone in
weight.
‘Of all the women I met, I didn’t meet a single slim one,’ she
explains. ‘Also, I had to be plump because my daughter in the film is overweight
and it wouldn’t look believable if I was thin.’
Throughout the story, Roopi, the daughter, is the butt of endless
jokes about her size, which is said to be the main reason for her unhappy (read
single) life.
That and her audacious decision to have a proper career (she works in
a shelter for abused women). One suspects there is more than a slice of Chadha’s
own lifestory in here, but Azmi relates to it, too.
‘I have many, many friends who are going bananas about getting their
daughters married and many of the girls are slightly overweight,’ she
says.
‘All of them are made to lose their weight to get a husband. Once
their daughters turn 30, that seems to be the age after which Indian mothers
suddenly go crazy.’
The whole point of their existence, in the eyes of their parents, is
to get hitched and have children. But that is changing
fast.
‘Lots of girls are putting their foot down and saying: “We are not
going to be rushed into marriage. We are going to carry on with our career.” And
that means the age of marriage is getting later and later.
'On one level that is good – it helps stabilise the population. But
on the other hand, by 32, all the eligible boys are taken. Then what do you do,
except worry about it incessantly?’
The fact that young Indian women enjoy more freedom today is thanks,
in no small way, to Azmi.
The daughter of bohemian parents – her father was a famous Urdu poet,
her mother, an acclaimed actress – she learnt at an early age to believe in the
power of art to bring about social and cultural change.
After university she studied at the Film and Television Institute of
India and in her first major film, Ankur (The Seedling), in 1974, she played a
peasant woman who sleeps with her landlord and finds herself
pregnant.
Her lover jilts her and she retaliates by calling for the overthrow
of the feudal system. The performance won her the first of her five Best Actress
awards.
The second, eight years later, was for Arth (The Meaning) in which
she played a suburban wife whose husband has an affair.
Again, she is abandoned, but in this film, the man returns home,
apologises for what he has done and asks her to take him back. But she refuses;
a sensational choice for an Indian woman at that time.
Arth turned Azmi into a figurehead for the country’s nascent feminist
movement and she soon became involved in political
campaigning.
Three years later, she came face-to-face with the plight of India’s
underclass. A slum-dweller whom she was using as a role model for a part she was
playing in a film invited her to her house and Azmi was shocked by the woman’s
living conditions.
As she recalled years later: ‘There was no water, no electricity, no
air. I was completely amazed that somebody who was living in such torturous
circumstances had the generosity to become my friend.’
The experience changed her life. She joined a group called Nivara
Hakk (The Right To Shelter) and in 1986 Azmi and four other campaigners staged a
five-day hunger strike in the middle of one of Bombay’s busiest
streets.
The protest, which made headlines around India, carved her name into
the hearts of rich and poor alike.
Since then, she has campaigned relentlessly for better conditions for
slum-dwellers and established herself as a moderniser, speaking out against
religious extremism and the rigid dictates of gender, caste and
class.
‘You can’t play a person who is fighting injustice from nine to five
and then go home to air-conditioned comfort and not concern yourself with the
life of the person you’ve just played,’ she says.
Some have been cynical about Azmi’s campaigning. She enjoys the
material benefits of fame and wealth and can be rather grand and
diva-ish.
But Azmi’s dedication to her causes over so many years and her stint
as a politician (she was an independent in the Upper House of the Indian
Parliament for six years) suggest there is substance behind the public
proclamations.
She has also had her principles tested in the face of some
frightening zealotry, from both Hindu and Islamic
fundamentalists.
The Hindu attacks came after she starred in Fire, a film about a
woman who has a lesbian relationship with her sister-in-law. The first Indian
film to explicitly portray homosexual relations, it was passed by the censors
but was condemned by extremist Hindu parties.
Mobs attacked a cinema and Azmi was accused of being ‘wicked’ and
‘criminal’. Two years later, they struck again while Azmi was making a
follow-up, Water, in the city of Varanasi.
Activists claimed (wrongly) that the film was depicting widows as
prostitutes and denigrating the Hindu religion. Filming was abandoned. (The
project was finally made six years later with different
actors.)
The most vociferous Islamic attack upon Azmi came after 9/11. Invited
to take part in a live television debate, the actress was appalled to hear a
Muslim cleric call on Indian Muslims to join the jihad in
Afghanistan.
Azmi turned to him and said: ‘Fine. Why don’t we airdrop you into
Kandahar now and you can wage holy war yourself?’
He replied: ‘I won’t respond to singing, dancing whores.’ After that
she was advised to double her security.
But she won’t be cowed. Although it’s safe to say that her appearance
in It’s A Wonderful Afterlife won’t put her in any danger, the same cannot be
said for her next project – the lead in a film about the late prime minister of
Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, which is unsettling the current Pakistani
government.
‘I don’t look for controversy,’ she says. ‘But if I believe something
needs to be said, then I will say it. Some might be shocked, or angry or
confused, but they start asking questions and that is the first step on the road
to progress.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/bollywood/7635157/Shabana-Azmi-star-of-India.html
------
Saudi Arabia: Head of the religious police in Mecca, men and women
can pray together
28 Apr 2010
Riyadh - The Saudi official news agency, SPA, had reported his
dismissal only to delete all reports a few hours later, a fatwa says "he should
be killed," the Grand Mufti has denied his authority to speak about Islamic law.
He, Ahmed al Ghamdi (pictured), head of the religious police in Mecca, the first
holy city of Islam, confirms his convictions: men and women can pray together
and meet freely, even if only in public.
The episode has been strictly censored by Saudi Arabia, monitored by
the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the official
name of the muttawa, the religious police. Of which Ghamdi is a senior
official.
The question of the possibility of men and women “mixing” - in
public, never in private - has for weeks been at the centre of a debate between
scholars and politicians. Thus, the Saudi newspaper The National, has devoted a
long article to the story, recalling the words of the Justice Minister Muhammad
al Issa who warned against confusing public promiscuity, which he believes is
allowed by Islam, with meetings in private between men and women who are neither
married nor related by kinship, which is prohibited.
The problem is not merely one of religious tradition, it also has
economic implications. The ban has in fact heavy negative influences on women's
employment and foreign investment since it requires gender division even in the
offices of international companies.
So, since December, when Ghamdi first spoke out on the issue, the
question has occupied newspapers and television programs. A debate which is due
to the climate of moderate reforms that King Abdullah is introducing into the
country in an attempt to modernize it.
But the reaction of conservatives has been very hard. If Ghamdhi
argues that the division did not exist at the time of Mohammed his opposers cry
of violations of Sharia and apostasy. Sheikh Abdulrahman Al Barrak has issued a
fatwa which says that promiscuity "as supported by modernists" is prohibited
because it allows "the sight of what is forbidden and prohibited conversations
between men and women." Anyone who facilitates such promiscuity is an infidel",
and if not retracted "should be killed".
And finally, anyone who allows his daughter, sister or wife to work with
men or to attend a mixed school is guilty of "a kind of
prostitution".
On Sunday, the case seemed closed. The Commission's website published
a statement from its Chairman Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Humain according to which
Ghamdhi had been replaced. The statement was picked up and reported by SPA. Soon after, however, the agency wrote that
the news was to be "deleted and not used".
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=31722&t=Saudi+Arabia:+++Head+of+the+religious+police+in+Mecca,+men+and+women+can+pray+together
-------
Suntanned women face arrest in Iran
28 Apr 2010
LONDON: Suntanned women and girls who are like "walking mannequins"
will be arrested in Iran, Tehran's police chief has warned.
The warning comes close on the heels of a hardline Iranian cleric
claiming that immodestly dressed women disturbed young men and caused
earthquakes.
"The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social
misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of
north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like
walking mannequins.
"We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn
those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them," The Telegraph
Wednesday quoted Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran's police chief, as saying.
A preacher has also told the residents of Iran's capital Tehran to
leave the city.
"Go on the streets and repent for your sins. A holy torment is upon
us. Leave town," said Ayatollah Aziz Khoshvaqt during a recent sermon in
northern Tehran.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Suntanned-women-face-arrest-in-Iran-/articleshow/5867055.cms
-------
In Istanbul, Islamic clothing for women combines modesty with high
fashion
By Monique Jaques
28 Apr 2010
At an Istanbul fashion show befitting Paris or Milan, Islamic
clothing designers show off apparel for women that combines modesty with high
fashion.
At a large convention center here, models prepare for the annual
Islamic fashion show. While this type of dress may be commonplace in
conservative areas in this country, it is definitely new to the
models.
Amid the backstage chaos, Venezuelan model Christina says that while
she doesn’t really understand all this, as she comes from a much more liberal
place, it’s a job and she’s happy to work. Most of the models here are hired on
three-month contracts from around the world and brought to Istanbul - many for
the first time. A South African model remarks that she’s never even seen a head
scarf before as a cluster of tiny women from the design company engulfs her to
help her dress.
Full report at:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0427/In-Istanbul-Islamic-clothing-for-women-combines-modesty-with-high-fashion
-------
The Seismic Impact of the Boobquake Movement
Jessica Ramirez
28 Apr 2010
Jennifer McCreight did not mean to make the Internet freak out over
boobs and earthquakes. In fact, what we now know as the Boobquake movement
started out as a boob joke. Last week, amid college homework, McCreight came
across a comment by Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, who was quoted as
saying, “Many women who do not dress modestly...lead young men astray, corrupt
their chastity, and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes."
That’s right, bad girls literally make tectonic plates shift in discomfort,
causing the earth to quake. (And here I thought earth-shattering was supposed to
be a good thing.)
Full report at:
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/techtonicshifts/archive/2010/04/27/the-seismic-impact-of-the-boobquake-movement.aspx
-------
'Boobquake' triggered Taiwan tremor?
Apr 28, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO: Breasts were big on Facebook on Monday as a female
blogger called on women to prove wrong an Iranian cleric who preached that
cleavage causes earthquakes.
As a cyber-organized event dubbed "Boobquake" got underway, a temblor
measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale hit Taiwan prompting playful online banter
about whether there was merit to the cleric's contention.
More than 55,000 people were backing the official "Boobquake" page of
Jennifer McCreight, a self-described "geeky, perverted atheist feminist" putting
her D-cup breasts where her mouth is.
Full report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Boobquake-triggered-Taiwan-tremor/articleshow/5866184.cms
-------
A Jihad for gender equality
By Kashif-ul-Huda
28 Apr 2010
Nasiruddin Haider Khan is in Hindi journalism since 1992 and
currently work as Deputy Resident Editor of Dainik Hindustan in Agra. He has
been working on gender issues especially Muslim women issues for the last 16
years. Mr. Khan has a diploma in Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass
communication and MA in Womens studies from Lucknow
University.
In 2005 he got the opportunity to look closely into Muslim women and
reproductive rights issues under Health and Population Innovation Fellowship
(HPIF). He has traveled to various parts of India, Egypt, Malaysia, Bangladesh,
and Pakistan for an in-depth study. As a result of his research he has launched
a website called GenderJihad.in. He talked to TwoCircles.net about his
work.
Why Gender Jihad? The word "jihad" has got violent images attached to
it these days; why did you choose this word?
Gender Jihad!!! Yes, Gender Jihad! Jihad for gender equality.
Precisely, a struggle to end gender discrimination.
Full report at:
http://twocircles.net/2010apr26/jihad_gender_equality.html
-------
Veiled threat of a secular society
By Emma Alberici
28 Apr 2010
One of the privileges of being a journalist is that you're routinely
invited into people's homes and get the opportunity to glimpse into a way of
life you might otherwise have never been witness to at such close range. That's
certainly how I felt as we journeyed to the south of Paris to meet Soraya
Khedrouche.
When she opened the door to her home, she was wearing a burka. Even
though I was expecting to see her like that, it still shocked me. This imposing
black apparition gliding across the parquet floor seemed out of place in the
small three bedroom council flat she shares with her husband and five children.
The 34-year-old wouldn't normally wear the burka at home nor would she wear it
for an audience of women but I was accompanied by two men (cameraman David
Martin and producer Greg Wilesmith) and revealing herself to them is strictly
forbidden according to her version of Islam.
There are only vague references to the burka in the Koran. In the
Penguin English translation it says that a woman must be discreet and cover her
hair. During our interview, Soraya points out that the Muslim holy book also
asks followers to lead their lives as the Prophet Mohammed did. The Prophet's
wives all wore the full veil. She wants to live a life like
theirs.
Full report at:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/28/2884491.htm?site=thedrum
-------
My Talk with Mary Apick -- Iran, Women's Rights and
More
Alex Geana
28 Apr 2010
Mary Apick at The National Arts Club to explore her Islamic culture,
the fall of the Iranian Shah and the brutal quashing of the budding green
movement.
She takes the stage this Sunday April 25th at Alice Tully hall in
Lincoln Center for the 19th production of, "Beneath the Veil", the play she
wrote. It comes to New York from the Kennedy Center and has taken six months to
mount.
Like many historical fashion pieces, the veil is steeped in tradition
and symbolism, originally meant to hide the haram from prying eyes and keep them
safe from wiley stable hands. Mary explains that because of the many wars of
yesteryear in the Middle East, many men died in combat leaving women and
daughters uncared for. The system of marriage evolved to protect these widows
and outcasts. But like most things, turned into a system that was used to
subjugate and control.
Full report at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-geana/my-talk-with-mary-apick_b_546663.html
-------
French PM Announces Anti-Niqab Law for July
By Aurelien Girard
28 Apr 2010
PARIS—French Prime Minister François Fillon announced to Parliament
on April 27 that by next July his government would push for a new law
prohibiting full head-coverings. The Muslim face-veils, called the niqab or
burqa, are described by women's right defenders as “walking
prisons.”
Fillon did not say whether the law would follow an “emergency
procedure” that would allow it to be passed by a single vote in Parliament
before being reviewed by the Senate. Such a decision would be unwelcome, claim
Parliament and Senate Presidents Bernard Accoyer and Gerard Larcher, who wish
both chambers examine the law twice so as to ensure due
process.
President of the French Socialist Party Jean-Marc Ayrault, currently
in opposition, initially criticized the law but finally said he would not oppose
the vote, under two conditions: that the “emergency procedure” would not be
used, and that the advice of the Council of State, a high-level legal advisory
body to the government, would be taken into consideration.
The Council stated on March 30 that such a law could very likely
betray the spirit of the French Constitution, and finds only weak legal
support.
Full report at:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/34261/
-------
Muslim says mistresses are the French way of
life
April 28, 2010
A Muslim Frenchman at the center of a firestorm over polygamy said
Monday that keeping mistresses is the French way of life.
The man's case came to light after his wife was fined for driving
with a veil covering her face, and his comments are an ironic riposte to those
in French President Nicolas Sarkozy's government who want to push immigrants to
better integrate into French society.
The 31-year-old Frenchwoman drew nationwide attention last week to a
driving fine she received for apparel that hinders her vision. But it soon
emerged that her husband may have four wives _ although it was doubtful the
marriages were made official under French law.
The situation appeared to be a boon to Sarkozy, who is trying to rush
through controversial legislation forbidding burqa-style Islamic veils that
cover the face, on the grounds that they don't respect French values or women's
dignity. But it has stoked debate and may backfire on legal
grounds.
Full report at:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/apr/28/muslim-says-mistresses-are-the-french-way-of-life/
-------
Siddiqui: Picking on Muslim women smacks of
hypocrisy
By Haroon Siddiqui
28 Apr 2010
I do not like the niqab/burqa. It makes me uncomfortable. But that's
not a good enough reason to argue that it be banned or, worse, that those
wearing it be denied public services, including education and even health care,
as Quebec is proposing.
Based on even majority public opinion, a democracy cannot
discriminate because of dress – religiously dictated or otherwise. It couldn't
do it in the same way that it wouldn't sanction lynching, should the masses be
baying for it. The rule of law wouldn't have it.
What if society collectively decided to change the law to permit
lynching? It could. But citizens would retain the right to argue that such a law
would be an ass.
That's the stage we are at vis-à-vis Quebec's bill on the niqab.
Hence the myriad arguments.
• The niqab is just another manifestation of multiculturalism gone
mad.
No, it is a case of freedom of religion, which includes "the right to
show it," as Quebec's own commission on reasonable accommodation said in its
2008 report.
Full report at:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/789267--siddiqui-picking-on-muslim-women-smacks-of-hypocrisy
-------
Sudan not abridging women's rights
By Juma Kwayera
28 Apr 2010
Khartoum, Sudan - Journalist Lubna Hussein elicited unprecedented
international attention when she allegedly challenged traditional African and
Islamic religious edicts on women's dressing, painting her society as
conservative, unprogressive and unresponsive to individual liberties and
rights.
Lubna, who in the eyes of Western human rights activists is a martyr,
lost her job at the United Nations, where she was a communications officer,
after she was arrested and charged with 'unbecoming dressing' for wearing tr
ousers
The controversy earned her an invitation to the French Elyse Palace
for a meetin g with French President Nicholas Sarkozy for challenging Islam on
women's rights.
Although she does not speak a word of French, since her being
subjected to 40 st rokes of the cane, she has published a book in the language
on the suppression of women's rights in her country.
Full report at:
http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/sudan-not-abridging-women's-rights-2010042748396.html
-------
The Pakistani woman’s crusade against the
system
By Sadef A. Kully
28 Apr 2010
KARACHI: Although, it has been twenty something odd years since Dr.
Kauser Saeed Khan has been participating in and witnessing women protest for
equal rights, there still seems to be some fight left in her…probably more than
just some.
“We are not going to be quiet, or give up,” said Dr. Khan, one of the
founding members of Women’s Action Forum (WAF), who is an Associate Professor at
the Department of Community Health in Aga Khan University.
The women’s movement in Pakistan started with one woman, who married
a young man against her parents’ wishes. She had committed Zina (adultery)
according to the Hudood Ordinance, and her punishment was to be flogged in
public.
“[WAF] actually started when a colleague called a meeting and said
enough is enough, what is happening here,” said Dr. Khan. “We got women together
from various organizations including individual women and from that group came
WAF.”
Full report at:
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/21-The-Pakistani-womans-crusade-against-the-system-sk-06
-------
M'sia's women-only trains
28 Apr 2010
KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA has launched pink women-only train coaches to
prevent sexual harassment and to give Muslim women the option of travelling
separately from men, officials said on Wednesday.
Malaysian Railway offers the special service on a route between Kuala
Lumpur and the western port city of Klang, and plans to expand it to another
route in two weeks' time, acting general manager Mohamad Hider Yusof told
AFP.
'We can improve the comfort and the safety of female passengers with
this implementation and at the same time prevent sexual harassment,' he
added.
'We are a multiracial nation and the majority of the population are
Muslims, so this initiative is also giving Muslim women an option to be
separated from men while travelling.' 'This is not a mandatory policy as women
are still allowed to travel in the other coaches,' he said, adding that reported
sexual harassment cases on the train service was minimal.
More than 60 per cent of Malaysia's 28 million population are Muslim
Malays, and the population includes large ethnic Chinese and Indian
minorities.
Full report at:
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_520145.html
-------
Roundup: Let Muslim women wear head scarves
Salma Ahmad
28 Apr 2010
I was perturbed to read letters in USA TODAY about Muslim women's
head coverings that suggested the hijab is just a trivial piece of clothing
("Controversy over 'hijab' involves safety, not discrimination," Letters, April
20).
I fail to understand the logic behind harassing Muslim women to take
off the hijab, which is a part of their identity. Women who wear head scarves
are content and comfortable with who they are and what they choose to
wear.
People who impose bans on the hijab— as has happened in Europe —
escalate the situation by targeting the innocent members of a religion for
actions and deeds committed by others. If a minority of extremists tarnish the
name of Islam, then why punish the vast majority of innocent members of the same
religion?
Full report at:
http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Roundup:+Let+Muslim+women+wear+head+scarves+-+USATODAY.com&expire=&urlID=425628753&fb=Y&url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/letters/2010-04-28-letters28_ST2_N.htm&partnerID=1660
------
Woman prof shot dead in Pak
28 Apr 2010
Quetta, April 27: Gunmen on Tuesday shot dead a woman university
professor in southwest Pakistan, where targeted killings blamed on tribal
insurgents, sectarian groups and militants are increasing, the police
said.
Nazima Talib, 48, had just stepped into a rickshaw at the gate of
Baluchistan University in Quetta city when gunmen riding a motorbike sprayed her
with bullets, senior police officer Tariq Manzoor said. “She received multiple
bullet wounds and died before she could be taken to hospital,” Mr Manzoor told
AFP.
Talib came from Pakistan’s central province of Punjab that regional
insurgents in Baluchistan accuse of siphoning off their resources and denying
them independence, the police said. She was a senior teacher in the mass
communications department.
Violence has recently surged in Baluchistan, which borders both
Afg-hanistan and Iran. About two dozen people died in targeted killings in the
province in March.
The oil and gas rich province is rife with Islamist militancy,
sectarian violence and regional insurgency. Hundreds of people have died since
Baluch rebels rose up in 2004 demanding political autonomy.
http://www.asianage.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10527:un-shuts-mission-in-kandahar-&catid=36:international&Itemid=61
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Nawaz slams killing of woman educationist in
Quetta
28 Apr 2010
LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim
League-N leader Nawaz Sharif has strongly denounced the killing of Professor
Nazima Talib Mehdi in Quetta, saying the murder of an educationist is tantamount
to playing with the future of entire nation.
In a statement issued from Lahore on Tuesday, Nawaz said teachers are
the guarantors of nation’s future.
He said the growing incidents of target killings and open killings of
teachers in Balochistan are a matter of concern for the entire nation.
The PML-N chief urged the provincial government to take effective
measures to prevent such incidents and ensure that such untoward incidents don’t
happen again.
http://www.thenews.jang.com.pk/4-27-2010/63945.htm
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BLA claims responsibility for killing professor in
Quetta
By Saleem Shahid
28 Apr, 2010
QUETTA: A woman professor of Balochistan University was gunned down
here on Tuesday.
Nazima Talib was travelling in a rickshaw when two masked men on a
motorcycle opened fire on her on the Sariab road.
Police said Ms Nazima received two bullets in her head and was taken
to the Civil Hospital in critical condition, but she died before getting any
medical treatment.
CCPO Shabbir Sheikh said it was probably a case of target
killing.
The body of Ms Nazima was sent to Karachi for
burial.
A spokesman for the Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for
Ms Nazima’s killing. He told reporters on phone that it was a reaction to the
killing of two Baloch women in Quetta and Pasni and torturing of women political
workers in Mand and Tump.
Full report at:
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/03-university-professor-killed-in-act-of-target-killing-ss-03
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Palestinian girls get ticket to Intel science
fair
28 Apr, 2010
NABLUS, West Bank - Watching her blind aunt and uncle struggle to
navigate the steep slopes and scant sidewalks of this hilly city, one
Palestinian girl decided to reinvent the stick.
Armed with spare parts that are hard to find in the West Bank, Asil
Abu Lil and two classmates patched together an obstacle-detecting cane that has
won them a trip to San Jose, California, for Intel Corp.'s international youth
science fair.
The three girls are the first Palestinians to participate in the
prestigious event.
"Of course, I want to go to America, but this project is important
for the blind and we want it to help them," Asil said.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article47806.ece
11:12 PM
Sultan Shahin
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