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Muslim "judge" rules kidnapped Christian girls "converted to Islam ...
The district of Muzaffargarh rules in favour of the Muslims, rejecting the request from the family that wants to bring home the two sisters - 13 and 10 years old - kidnapped last June 26. Christian associations charge that they could end up as prostitutes.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) - District judge Mian Muhammad Naeem, of the section of Muzaffargarh, has ruled that the two Christian sisters "have converted in a legitimate manner to Islam", and for this reason they cannot be "restored to their family of origin". Setting aside the request from their father to regain custody of his daughters, the judge also admitted the "validity" of the marriage of the girls to two Muslims.
Saba Younas, aged 13, and her sister Anila were kidnapped last June 26 in the village of Chowk Munda, in the province of Punjab, where they had gone to visit their uncle, Khalid Raheel. This is the same uncle who in recent days reported their kidnapping, asking for help from news organisations and human rights groups. According to Raheel's account, a Muslim fruit vendor named Muhammad Arif Bajwa kidnapped the girls, and then handed them over to a friend, Falak Sher Gill, who then organised the marriage between his own son and the older of the Christian sisters, Saba. In court, moreover, father and son both stressed the "complete willingness of the girl to contract marriage".
The girls' uncle does not conceal his preoccupation, and denounces to AsiaNews that the Muslims involved in the kidnapping are acting as a "gang", recruiting the girls in order to "make them work in a bordello". This alarm has also been heard by the Catholic commission for justice and peace (NCJP) in the country, which confirms the words of Khalid Raheel: the kidnappers are believed to be human traffickers linked to prostitution, known to the police and under the protection of some local politicians. "For these unscrupulous people", charges Naeem Asghar, local coordinator of the NCJP, marriage is a pretence in order to control the girls, run their lives and exploit them for their own business purposes".
The Catholic community continues to uphold the cause of Saba and Anila, and promises that the family will not be left to itself. Expressing the hope that the girls will be brought back home, the coordinator of the NCJP emphasises that "an appeal will soon be presented to the high court of Multan, to contest the decision of the district judge" and have the girls "restored to their parents". The district of Muzaffargarh rules in favour of the Muslims, rejecting the request from the family that wants to bring home the two si... more -
Islamist protests after mass death-row amnesty on Bhutto birthday
Pakistan has pardoned 7,000 death row inmates and changed their sentences to life imprisonment to celebrate the late Benazir Bhutto's birthday.
The gesture, which constitutes one of the biggest amnesties in modern history, was approved by the Cabinet this week. According to Amnesty International, the reprieve will affect almost one third of the world's death row population, which is estimated to be around 24,000. The prisoners sentences will be changed to imprisonment for life. According to a Pakistani official, prisoners sentenced for drug offenses and terrorism charges might not be offered a pardon.
However, radical Mullahs are encouraging Muslims to protest against the amnesty, arguing that it is against Sharia law and, as such, "un-Islamic." Furthermore, Mullahs draw attention to Islamic laws according to which only relatives of murder victims can pardon the murderer. Islamic leaders have announced that a meeting of religious groups is to be held at the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad on July 6 to make a plan to protest. Pakistan has pardoned 7,000 death row inmates and changed their sentences to life imprisonment to celebrate the late Benazir Bhutto�... more -
Iran's unlikely hit- drama symapethic to Jews !
On Iran's state-owned tv, Channel One milions of Iranians are tunning into the hit weekly drama, "Zero Degree Turn," that centers on a love story between an French Jewish woman and a Iranian-Palestinian Muslim man.
But this aint no ordinary love story because it shows a heart-wrenching tale of European Jews during World War II. Over the course of the 22 episodes, the hero saves his love from Nazi detention camps, and Iranian diplomats in France forge passports for the woman and her family to sneak on to airplanes carrying Iranian Jews to their homeland.
"Iranians have always differentiated between ordinary Jews and a minority of Zionists," says Hassan Fatthi, the show's writer and director. "The murder of innocent Jews during World War II is just as despicable, sad and shocking as the killing of innocent Palestinian women and children by racist Zionist soldiers," he says.
According to the wsj: Iran's Jews -- along with Christians and Zorastrians -- are guaranteed equal rights in the country's constitution. Iran's Jews are guaranteed one member of parliament and are free to study Hebrew in school, pray in synagogues and shop at kosher supermarkets. Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements, it isn't government policy to question the Holocaust, and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hasn't endorsed those views. On Iran's state-owned tv, Channel One milions of Iranians are tunning into the hit weekly drama, "Zero Degree Turn," th... more -
BBC launches series on Muslim women in veils
"Women in black" explores life for Muslim women behind those veils etc.
The first episode Amani Zain travels from London to Yemen to see life behind the veil inside the Muslim women's quarters of her family home. On her way she performs a Muslim makeover on the plane, replacing her jeans with her traditional Yemeni abaya. Amani gets herself smoked in frankincense, gives us an abaya style guide, and lets us in on the secrets of all over body hair removal. Forget the Hollywood wax, Muslim women have been at it for centuries.
The second episode airs Thurday 7:30pm on BB2. "Women in black" explores life for Muslim women behind those veils etc. ... more -
Mogadishu Madness
After 15 years of anarchy, Current's Kaj Larsen and Christof Putzel venture into Mogadishu, Somalia to explore how the city is adjusting to the new self-proclaimed government, the Islamic Court Union. After 15 years of anarchy, Current's Kaj Larsen and Christof Putzel venture into Mogadishu, Somalia to explore how the city is ad... more
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Why do you believe that being female is a crime?
When the official site of Iran's Security Force posted an article regarding an unruly boy charged with "endangering public safety," for which he received the punishment of being paraded around town in women's clothing, I thought of something that Hashemi Shahroudi (Iran's head of judiciary) had said – a sentence which has arguably become his most famous expression. When the official site of Iran's Security Force posted an article regarding an unruly boy charged with "endangering public s... more
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Five women facing execution
According to the newspaper E'temad, at least two women are scheduled to be executed in Evin Prison in Tehran on 5 March. Three others are at risk of imminent execution. All five women were convicted of murdering their husbands and sentenced to qesas (retribution in kind). The Head of the Judiciary has the power to order a suspension of their executions at this stage According to the newspaper E'temad, at least two women are scheduled to be executed in Evin Prison in Tehran on 5 March. Three ot... more
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International fury over Saudi Arabia's plans to behead woman accused of being...
Saudi Arabia's religious police plan to behead a woman accused of being a witch
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Top court upholds maid's death penalty
A Kuwaiti appeals court upheld on Tuesday the death sentence for a Filipina housemaid, convicted of killing her employer's seven-year-old son, the woman's lawyer said. A Kuwaiti appeals court upheld on Tuesday the death sentence for a Filipina housemaid, convicted of killing her employer's seven-... more
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Gay Iranian deportation reviewed
The home secretary is to review the case of Iranian homosexual teenager Mehdi Kazemi, who has said he will be executed if forced to return to Iran. The home secretary is to review the case of Iranian homosexual teenager Mehdi Kazemi, who has said he will be executed if forced to re... more
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Spate of Executions and Amputations in Iran
Iranian newspapers on Thursday reported the hanging of seven men convicted of murder and drug smuggling in different cities this week. In the first 10 days of January there have been 23 publicly disclosed executions.
Iran has been an active user of the death penalty, usually hanging, and is one of several countries that opposed its abolition last month during a vote on the United Nations General Assembly resolution, joining in an unusual alliance with the United States. Officials argued that the abolition of the death penalty would be an infringement on Iran's sovereignty. Iranian newspapers on Thursday reported the hanging of seven men convicted of murder and drug smuggling in different cities this week.... more -
Iranian hanged after verdict stay
An Iranian man has been hanged for rape despite his alleged victims withdrawing their accusations and a judicial review being ordered into the sentence. An Iranian man has been hanged for rape despite his alleged victims withdrawing their accusations and a judicial review being ordered ... more
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Iranian child victim of prostitution
Sold into prostitution aged nine, condemned by an Iranian judge to hang at 18, Leila was saved by a group of human rights activists.
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Afghanistan's next top model
A model strutting the catwalk is hardly revolutionary in most countries, but Afghan television's answer to "America's Next Top Model" is breaking boundaries and revealing the beauty under the burqa.Nearly six years after the overthrow of the strict Islamist Taliban government, almost all women in deeply conservative Afghanistan still only appear in public wafting past in the burqa's pale blue, their dark eyes only occasionally visible behind the bars of its grille.But in the relatively liberal northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a local television station has started to show a different image of Afghan women with an extremely low-budget take on the hit "America's Next Top Model," a reality TV show in which judges choose prospective models from a group of contestants over several weeks. A model strutting the catwalk is hardly revolutionary in most countries, but Afghan television's answer to "America's N... more
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Dubai Prostitution
Beneath the shimmery, prosperous surface of the city of Dubai lies one booming business that most people won't talk about. Conor Knighton checks out the bustling prostitution scene at a popular local club. Beneath the shimmery, prosperous surface of the city of Dubai lies one booming business that most people won't talk about. Conor ... more
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Cartoon Martyrs
At first glance, it looks like any other children's cartoon. But this animation which aired on Iranian public television tells the story of a young Palestinian boy who seeks to become a suicide bomber after his family is brutally murdered before his eyes. At first glance, it looks like any other children's cartoon. But this animation which aired on Iranian public television tells t... more
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"The World's Stupidest Fatwas"
This edition of "The List" from Foreign Policy magazine discusses some of the world's dumbest fatwas, or religious edicts from Islamic scholars. Comparable in the US to some of our loveable far-right socially conservative Christians like Fred Phelps ("God Hates Fags"), these most conservative scholars of Islam have denounced everything from Salman Rushdie, to naked sex between married people, to, yes, Pokemon. Well, maybe they weren't wrong on all points. This edition of "The List" from Foreign Policy magazine discusses some of the world's dumbest fatwas, or religious edic... more
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This is Islamic Law
Indonesia's Aceh region implements Islamic law.
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