Mandatory religious dress codes at school and in the workplace have been forbidden. Exclusion of women from sports and cultural activities also challenged.
Yousafzai said the militants had destroyed 170 schools in the valley where about 55,000 girls and boys were enrolled in government-run institutions.
MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban insurgents blew up four schools in the northwestern Swat region Monday hours after a cabinet minister vowed that the government would reopen schools in the violence-plagued valley.
The scenic Swat Valley was until recently one of Pakistan's prime tourist destinations but Islamist militants aiming to impose a harsh form of Islamic law began battling security forces in 2007.
Residents say the militants are now virtually in complete control of the valley, which is 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad and not on the Afghan border, including its main town of Mingora, where the schools were destroyed early Monday.
"Militants blew up two girls schools and two boys schools," a top government official in the valley, Shaukat Yousafzai, told Reuters. "Attacks on troops are understandable but why are they destroying schools?"
Schools are closed for a winter break and no one was hurt in the attacks.
As with Afghanistan's Taliban, their Pakistani counterparts oppose education for girls and they recently banned female education in Swat altogether.
The militants also see schools as symbols of government authority and they say the army posts soldiers in them.
Yousafzai said the militants had destroyed 170 schools in the valley where about 55,000 girls and boys were enrolled in government-run institutions.
'Girls, their parents, teachers and even drivers transporting students to and from schools are frightened while the owners of buildings have also asked us to vacate their property in view of fear of damage due to bombing.'
Some 200 Taliban fighters used electric drills to vandalize the face of a massive 7th century Buddha sculpture, according to locals in Pakistan's Swat Valley. (John Moore/Getty Images)
PESHAWAR: About 400 private schools in Swat have announced to abandon girls' education in their institutes in the wake of the deadline (Jan 15) given by the militants to discontinue the practice, depriving more than 40,000 students of their basic right to get education.
In addition, 84,248 girl students of state-run schools are unlikely to attend schools due to the fear of militants despite the resolve by the local administration to reopen the schools on March 1.
Maulana Fazlullah-led militants had asked all the government and private schools on December 24 to stop imparting female education by January 15. The announcement triggered an outcry from all and sundry, prompting the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's central spokesman, Maulvi Omar, to distance his movement from the decision of the Swat militants and said they would ask them to withdraw the threat.
Also, the private schools' management appealed to the militants in black and white to take back their decision in the interest of thousands of girl students and hundreds of female teachers, most of them lone breadwinners of their families.
The Swat TTP reviewed the decision a couple of weeks ago at a meeting held at its headquarters in Peuchar with Maulana Fazlullah in the chair. They did not withdraw their threat, but softened their stance and allowed girls to attain education up to the fourth grade. However, the chief of the terrorists renewed the threat of bombing educational institutions if any school continued higher education for girls.
The expiry of the deadline would have no immediate repercussions due to the winter vacations at present. However, the private schools' management, a body of 400 educational institutions including 20 colleges, has decided to discontinue the female education after the vacation despite assurances from the administration to provide security to their schools.
"The district coordination officer offered security to our schools during our meeting with him but we think it will not work," the owner of a chain of institutes told The News. He said that security to schools could not ensure female education until complete peace was restored to the valley, now almost under the control of the militants, who have also entrenched in Barikot, a militant-free Tehsil. "Girls, their parents, teachers and even drivers transporting students to and from schools are frightened while the owners of buildings have also asked us to vacate their property in view of fear of damage due to bombing.
"Thus, posting a few personnel at schools is of no use. So, we have decided to close female sections in private institutes to avoid the militants' wrath," he said and hastened to add that they would restart female education only after the militants allowed them to do so.
Taliban leaders in Pakistan's troubled northwest Swat valley have banned girls from attending school, threatening to kill any female student, officials said Thursday.
The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local officials told AFP.
"You have until Jan. 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls," one official quoted the commander as saying.
"We also warn schools not to enroll any female students; otherwise, their buildings will be blown up."
Rashida Tlaib: Expected to win a seat as a Democrat in the Michigan house.
MIAMI -
Many things have changed for Muslim Americans in the seven years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: Interrogations from FBI and immigration officials. Additional screenings from airport security. The feeling of being targeted by the contentious Patriot Act.
And then there's this: More Muslims, particularly women, are running for political office, spurred by the perceived erosions of their civil liberties.
The soul searching that followed 9/11 prompted more woman to step into leadership roles, a trend encouraged by the community, said Agha Saeed, founder of the American Muslim Alliance, which has been tracking Muslim candidates since 1996. Before Sept. 11, less than 5 percent were women, Saeed said. Now about one in three are.
Dozens of Muslim Americans of both genders have seats on city councils and work on Capitol Hill, Saeed said, though few hold statewide office. Only two Muslims - Democrats Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Andre Carson of Indiana - serve in Congress.
"9/11 had a big impact," Ellison said. "We kind of came to the conclusion that sitting on the sidelines ... was not going to be a successful strategy, and that people needed to get involved."
Jamilah Nasheed, an African-American convert to Islam and Missouri Democratic state representative, is one of just nine Muslim Americans in state legislatures nationwide, and the only woman, according to the alliance. She is almost certain to win re-election this year, and Muslim American women in California, Michigan and Minnesota are vying to join her.
Among them is Democrat Ferial Masry, who faces a tough race in her bid to represent a heavily Republican general assembly district near Los Angeles. The 59-year-old high school government and history teacher was born in Mecca but moved to Egypt when she was 10 so she could attend school, not an option for girls in Saudi Arabia at the time. She was a write-in candidate for the seat four years ago after the Democratic Party approached her.
She said no one expected the unknown "woman from Saudi Arabia with an accent" to do well, but she got almost 35 percent of the vote.
No matter how she does this time, she believes she's already won by challenging stereotypes about her faith.
"They have this perception of Muslim women - veiled, oppressed and depressed," says Masry, who doesn't don a scarf. "I'm giving a different picture."
Representatives of women from across Afghanistan have called on President Hamid Karzai not to undermine their position by talking to the Taleban.
The president's brother recently sat with former Taleban leaders at a religious meal hosted by the Saudis.The meeting was regarded as a possible prelude to talks between the Afghan government and the Islamist movement.
Mr Karzai told a conference of about 400 women that any talks with the Taleban would respect the constitution.
'No compromises' The women fear that the talks could lead to a reversal of the gains they have made since the overthrow of the Taleban in 2001.
They called on President Karzai to make sure their rights are guaranteed.
The Minister for Women's Affairs, Hasan Bano Ghazanfar, said that women were against "any political compromises" that did not take into consideration their constitutional values and human rights.
President Karzai said nothing would be agreed with the Taleban which threatened the rights of women.
The Maldivian Democratic Party's (MDP) stated goal being the promotion of human rights and democracy in the Maldives.
Salaam writes: I've previously posted about the Maldives here. In August the MDP withdrew its first choice for vice president under pressure from Islamists because she was a woman. Wrote one critic:
The party's Islamic consultative council, headed by Adam BA Naseem, declared the nomination un-Islamic but failed, as usual, to provide any evidence for the pronouncement. Naseem and fellow-misogynists from the Adhaalath Party have a history of openly hurtling anti-women rants on the populace in the name of Islam, without necessarily furnishing a supporting argument.
In fact Islamic scholarship is producing a number of academics who are successfully challenging conventional positions. But when people like Dr. Afraasheem Ali and, belatedly, Dr. Hassan Saeed, try to present alternative interpretations, BA Naseem and co are unable to argue convincingly against them and, as a result, resort to name-calling.
In some cases, hardline 'scholars' have even called for the death of people's whose views they're incapable of debating.
(CNN) -- A former political prisoner unseated Maldives longest-serving president in the island nation's first multi-party elections, according to the tiny Muslim nation's Election Commission.
Mohamed Nasheed of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party won 54 percent of the votes to President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's 46 percent, the commission reported Wednesday. Nearly 180,000 voters turned out.
Nasheed, among Gayoom's fiercest critics, has been arrested as a journalist several times over the past 15 years and held as a political prisoner in Maldives.
Gayoom, 71, who had won six previous elections as the only candidate on the ballot, ended up in a runoff with Nasheed after failing to clinch the seat in the October 9 election.
Nearly all American women-especially office workers-said they like or love their computer and admit to spending more time with it than their significant other, a study showed Monday.
Office workers spend nearly triple the amount of time with their computer as they do with their significant other -- 9.3 hours with the disk drive and keyboard compared with 3.6 hours with their human partner, an online poll of more than 2,600 U.S. adults conducted by Harris Interactive showed.
Only one in five of the women said she wished she could spend more time with her partner than with her computer, even if the latter caused them pain, often in the form of carpal tunnel syndrome, according to the poll.
Scene from U-Wei Shaari's "Perempuan, Isteri, dan Jalang" (Woman, Wife, and Whore, 1993). Cycads writes, "In the beginning of the film, she is dragged into marriage to Amir who does not desire her. After taking her back to his village, he allows her to prostitute herself, and she soon becomes the object of sexual favours for men of the village. Far from feelings of guilt and shame, Zaleha relishes in her own sexuality while remaining in control of their gaze; in one scene she knowingly showers in the eyes of a voyeuristic neighbour. In this respect, Zaleha turns the table on the male gaze/female sex object model, and even challenges masculinity by choosing to have sex with the village idiot."
Portrayals of liberal Muslim women in film is groundbreaking on many levels. In a time where the veil is a symbol of subjugation, films about Muslim women like 'Caramel' (2007) by Nadine Labaki, with a narrative composed of universal themes like love and sex can stunningly shatter stereotypes. It is an anomaly amongst the more mainstream media imagery of women from Islamic countries; it revolves around a beauty salon in which its characters tackle issues of virginity before marriage (by way of hymen reconstruction), disappointed love, and even lesbianism. More commonly, the sexuality of Muslim women is a mystery. Often she is portrayed as sexless and submissive, covered from head to toe, even though in reality only a small proportion of Muslim women actually do so.
'Caramel' offers a rare glimpse into the private lives of Muslim women and that their lives can be no different from women living in more liberal societies. However, one can argue that Lebanon has a reputation of being more progressive than its regional neighbours, but their differences are often cosmetic. In ultra conservative post-revolution Iran, the subject of romantic love and even sex is carefully depicted; often symbolically and abstract- imbued with Persian philosophy, and flying white doves. Even the adoring gaze between lovers was deemed too hot for mullahs: the first love story to come after the revolution was about a pair of blind lovers! While the Muslim world constructs sex and womanhood around some well-defined limits, Western popular culture re-hashes over and over again the image of the belly dancer.
Salaam writes: I post this because I think it makes some provocative points about such topics as the increased costs (green card fees tripled last year) and the obvious lack of consideration for what immigrant women may think of this, but overall I believe all women in the US should be required to be immunized against the human papillomavirus.
This July, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced new requirements, including five new vaccinations for individuals seeking adjustment of immigration status. One of these vaccinations is Gardasil, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Gardasil, manufactured by Merck, is the only HPV vaccine in the U.S.--also the most expensive vaccine on the market and the only vaccine to be approved for use in only one sex. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is the only federal body that makes recommendations about immunizations; the committee's recommendations serve as the template that USCIS uses to determine immunization requirements for immigration procedures. These new requirements put increased barriers and additional burdens on women's access to adjustment of immigration status and applications for visas to enter the U.S. and stoke the already reverberating anxieties among communities of color about the HPV vaccine.
Most immigration applicants are currently required to undergo a medical exam by a certified "civil surgeon." These civil surgeons complete an I-693 medical examination and vaccination record. The new regulations that require the HPV vaccine apply to female applicants between the ages of 11 to 26. This is the only sex-specific vaccination requirement, putting particular burden on immigrant women applying for a visa or adjustment of status, further marginalizing a group that already has reduced access to health information and services that are affordable, accessible and culturally and linguistically competent.
Instead of mandating vaccines for immigrant women's bodies, the U.S. government should increase access to health information and services that are unbiased, age-appropriate, culturally-competent and non-coercive. Mandating a vaccine that specifically targets young non-citizen women is both sexist and xenophobic. It will only add to the current anxieties among many communities of color about the vaccine and the government's interest in vaccinating a particular community, in this case, immigrant women.
Saudi radio journalist Samar Fatany writes: Yes, we the people who inhabit this land are privileged. Should not this make us all the more responsible to honor the holy places and to save Islam from those who distort it or misinterpret its teachings? My thoughts were running along these lines when three ladies wearing the niqab (full veil that left only the eyes uncovered) walked into the ladies lounge.
There were a few pamphlets on the table about Haj and Umrah and one of the ladies reached for one pamphlet and started reading it aloud. Apparently, they were going to Makkah for Umrah and wanted to know as much about the rituals of Umrah as possible. I could not help but listen to their conversation, with great interest at first and with a little bewilderment later. I guessed that the woman who was reading was the mother of the other two. She was eager to inform her daughters about the important rulings for women performing the Haj and Umrah. She stressed that one of the essential guidelines mentioned in the pamphlet was the need for women to cover their faces completely during Umrah and not to wear the niqab that shows their eyes through slits.
WHEN I heard that, I could not keep quiet. I interrupted to say that this was not true and it is a clear distortion of all the religious teachings that I was taught and raised with and I indicated that I was born in Makkah and my uncle was one of Saudi Arabia's prominent judges and a scholar who taught in the Holy Mosque. As a little girl I used to accompany him in many Umrahs. I know for a fact that women are forbidden to cover their faces during Haj and Umrah. However, the mother pointed out that the author of one of the pamphlets too was a prominent religious scholar in Saudi Arabia.
TORONTO, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- A Muslim Canadian woman claims she lost her job scanning boxes at United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE:UPS) because she refused to hike up her long skirt to her knees.
Nadifo Yusuf, 35, told the Canadian Human Rights Commission she had worked at the Toronto delivery plant as a temporary employee for two years wearing a traditional hijab, headscarf and skirt with no problem -- even tucking in her hijab and raising her skirt to mid-calf for safety reasons.
But around April 2005, when her job was changed to a full-time unionized position, she was told to hike her skirt to knee-length or face losing her job for safety reasons, The Toronto Star reported.
"I was working two years and I became unsafe?" she testified before the tribunal.
Six of the eight women provided UPS with a letter from a Toronto mosque stating that "the religion of Islam requires all Muslim women to cover her entire body inclusive of the legs, arms, head, ears and neck."
UPS then requested Liberty Mutual Underwriters Canada to conduct a job hazard analysis and risk assessment. Liberty concluded that "for health and safety reasons" workers' skirts should not be longer than knee-length.
Yusuf and seven other Muslim women were fired July 13, 2005.
BAGHDAD - Ghania Jassim moved out of her Baghdad apartment in 2003 when her husband had to choose between paying the soaring rent after the U.S. led-invasion or feeding their five children and her.
The family set up a makeshift home in the former Iraqi air force headquarters. There were no government services, sewage ran through the streets and the children's toys were scraps of metal, rubble and garbage. Times seemed grim, but now Jassim looks back on those days as carefree.
About four years ago, bandits stopped her husband and demanded his car, his most valuable possession. He refused, and he paid with his life.
Alone, Jassim supports her children by selling fuel that she buys on the black market. For just over a gallon, she makes a $1.50 profit.
Three months ago, Iraqi Security Forces ordered her to leave her makeshift home. She begged for money to pay rent and time to find another place to live, but they refused. Now she floats among the homes of friends and family. She and her five children sleep in a different place almost every night.
Jassim is among the tens of thousands of Iraqis who found shelter in government and public properties after the U.S.-led invasion but were ordered out of their temporary homes by the Iraqi government earlier this year. In some cases, it was to take back buildings for government use; in others, to build apartment complexes for government employees.
Sex writer and educator Violet Blue has this to say about the problems that come when anonymous men and women argue on the Internet:
I just write and talk about sex. But every woman on the Internet gets called slutty and ugly and fat (to put it lightly) no matter what; all we have to be is female. In dinner conversation, my friend Lori reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote, "Give a man a mask, and he'll tell you the truth." I restated it for the Internet, replying, "Give a man a mask, and he'll slit your throat." The application here is, "Give a man (or a woman) an anonymous account, and he'll eviscerate your self-esteem."
The problem is, with so many women I talk to, the trolling is effective. The number of times I've talked down a crying girlfriend after she's been trolled in her comments about being fat, ugly, skanky, slutty or stupid is higher than I can count (no matter what she writes about). Trolls watch too much mainstream porn and TV, and believe stereotypes are real; they slap us with it and then we believe it, too. We compare ourselves to overly thin models, actresses, and porn stars, and it messes with our self-image and our ability to express ourselves sexually, and especially to enjoy sex. Story here.
Have you heard of Godwin's law? Perhaps we could call this Violet's law.
Please don't tell me that muslims don't have these problems in our community. Anecdotally, I've heard a few pretty bad stories about interactions on muslim dating sites--which shouldn't detract from the many good stories with happy endings (there will always be a few bad apples). Ultimately, the best response to trolls, anonymous or otherwise, is to toughen up and shrug them off.
Flashing anger and giving them a taste of their own medicine may not be adab, but it may feel like a fair, in-kind response. One Malaysian sister came across another non-Muslim Asian blog that was making fun of pictures of women with their faces covered on a muslim dating website, and wrote:
Hello there,
Have a little respect for Muslims. You think this is funny, your community is even worst. At least good Muslims cover their modesty. Your community on the other hand show p****** to everybody. :-)
Remember what I have said. Have a little respect for good Muslims.
(FYI--For those of you who don't watch US television, Ugly Bettie is a character on a show.)
A feminist response to "purity balls" as described in Time Magazine:
I nearly lost my mind when I read this gushing piece from Time Magazine about purity balls.
What was amazing to me about the reporting of this article was despite hearing all of these creepy anecdotes - and admitting that girls as young as four are participating in a ceremony about their virginity - writer Nancy Gibbs still managed to be smitten over the whole shebang. (One of the subheads actually reads 'A Delicate Dance')
I'm reminded of when my former muslim stepdaughter met my (younger) nonmuslim daughter from a first marriage and asked her if she was worried about being boiled in a lake of fire for wearing a skirt that was above her knee. It's an anecdote that tells me that some-maybe many-muslim parents fill their childrens' lives with threats of metaphysical violence and torture. I suppose the idea may be to teach them to fear Allah (swt) now and the love for him will come later. But isn't it also damaging to teach them that Allah (swt) is the torturer in chief, an omnipotent savage (if you agree with me that violence is savage behavior)?
Americans let their children watch thousands of hours of violence on TV thereby desensitizing them to it, but I don't see where it's qualitatively better childrearing to raise them with the threat of shocking divine violence, especially for minor transgressions of dress and childish conduct. The constant imaginings of the infernal punishments have to be just as desensitizing as the TV representations. As with the American children, young muslims will likely have a decreased threshold to initiate violence when they grow up since violence has been a constant presence for them too.
We should raise our children to do right by god out of love for him, not to flinch away from his violence.
