Mission & Justice

M. Ghazanfar Ali Khan; 21/9/08

The Australian ambassador to Saudi Arabia told Arab News yesterday that the mission is “rendering all possible consular assistance” to a woman who is unable to leave the Kingdom due the messy repercussions of a divorce. The woman, who has complained that the Australian government isn’t helping her, also claims that she has been threatened by arrest for showing her face to a neighbor. “Embassy officials will be meeting her later in the day with a view to provide her full support,” said Australian Ambassador R. Kevin Magee. “I can’t confirm or deny the report of her possible detention by the local police, but our consular staff are committed and are extending all necessary support to the woman.” Australia’s Foreign Affairs Department reportedly told the woman two months ago it could not help her in winning custody of her children. The husband, also an Australian citizen, has reportedly filed for custody of the four children in a Saudi court. The woman claims he has also taken her passport and may have left Riyadh for an unknown destination inside the Kingdom. According to the Adelaide Advertizer, the woman was denied shelter at the Australian Embassy.

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Stephanie Nebehay; 20/9/08

More than half a million women still die each year in pregnancy and childbirth, often bleeding to death because no emergency obstetrical care is available, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says. Despite modest progress, particularly in Asia, the global maternal mortality toll remains stubbornly stable due to a lack of financial resources and political will, it said. More than 99 percent of the estimated 536,000 maternal deaths worldwide in 2005 occurred in developing countries, half of them in sub-Saharan Africa, it said in a report entitled “Progress for Children: A Report Card on Maternal Maternity”.

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Brad Norington; 20/9/08

Sanie; Hales says talking to his neighbours would help dispel negative perceptions about the Exclusive Brethren straight away. “If you went up and down our street,” Hales says, “they would say, ‘oh yeah, they’ve got some funny beliefs, but gee, they’re nice people, they’re good people’.” From the modest comfort of his home in Epping, a quiet, conservative, leafy suburb in Sydney’s north, a senior elder from a very private fundamentalist Christian sect has taken an extraordinary step. Despite the Brethren doctrine of separation from the outside world, Hales has granted access to The Weekend Australian. In public relations terms, it’s called damage control.

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Brendan Nicholson; 18/9/08

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has declared violence against women “the great silent crime of our time” and warned that the attitudes of men must be changed. In a speech to the White Ribbon Foundation’s annual dinner, Mr Rudd said that from birth, it must be drilled into the conscious and the subconscious of all men that there were no circumstances in which violence against women was acceptable. The foundation highlights such violence. Mr Rudd announced last night that the Government was putting up to $2 million into research and analysis of community attitudes towards violence against women.

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Yoav Stern; 18/9/08

“Instead of it being a month of abstinence, asceticism and breaking the fast with dates, it has turned into a month of cooking, fat paunches and frying. The month of Ramadan is the month of sycophantism, hypocrisy and lies, the month of squandering and appetite, a month of slavery for women.” These words were written around a month ago by Ala Hlehl, the editor in chief of the Balad party newspaper Fasal al-Makal. They forced him to resign and provoked a stormy debate about freedom of expression in Arab society. Hlehl, a playwright and translator, is one of the most prominent artists in Israeli Arab society, an important Balad activist. He is considered loyal to the party’s founder Azmi Bishara, and is well known for his courageous stands.

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Dina Abdel-Mageed; 17/9/08

When a US-based television network introduced Ro’ya Zanaty, a veiled Egyptian woman, as part of its “21 and the World is Yours” programme, it portrayed her as a “combination of contradictions”. Western audience may find it an interesting - if not novel - story that a veiled Muslim woman listens to pop music and is willing to approach a man and ask him out. But for many in Egypt and the Middle East, a veiled woman mixing eastern and western traditions is nothing new. In the past two decades, young veiled women have been increasingly active in society - they can be seen in universities, cafes, sports clubs, and mixed social gatherings, hosting talk shows and commenting on everything from contemporary politics to sex education and the latest fashion sense. And though they appear to share a common adherence to the hijab, they have been expressing themselves in different ways even to the point where the veil itself has now become a symbol of distinct religious and social meanings.

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16/9/08

The appointment of the first two Emirati female ambassadors in the UAE’s history has been approved by the Cabinet on Monday. Meanwhile, President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan yesterday received His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

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Nasser Arrabyee; 15/9/08

Incidents of domestic violence against women at the hands of family members are higher than violence outside the home, said a recent report. About 54.3 per cent of cases of violence against women in 2007 occurred at home, said the report, which was issued by the High Council for Women, an organisation supported by the government. The report revealed that the main reasons behind the increase were illiteracy, poverty and scant respect for the law. About 35 women were raped, 13 of whom were juveniles, 33 women were about to be raped, 18 of whom were juveniles and of 36 women who were subjected to honour harassments, 10 were juveniles, the report said.

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Nermeen Murad; 15/9/08

Almost two years ago I wrote my first column at The Jordan Times and expressed my incredulity at my family being denied membership of the Jordanian family. My husband and children have not only been denied citizenship, they have also been subjected to a series of what I would call xenophobic legislation and directives that certainly ensure they could never claim that they belong here. Two years on, I have become resigned to the fact that Jordan, with its current social and political mindset, will resist any attempt from my side to add my small family’s imported name to the list of Jordanian family names. This I do with regret for my children who will never comprehend why their mother’s country rejected them outright and without compromise. But this doesn’t mean that I will give up the fight, at least for reduced bureaucracy in dealing with the affairs of the spouse and children of a Jordanian woman, regardless of their nationality. Hence, here I go again.

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Peter Alford; 15/9/08

For Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Yasuo Fukuda’s sudden, ignominious resignation has produced probably the best range of prime ministerial alternatives in many years, including the first female leadership candidate on the conservative side of Japanese politics. But it may be all too late. The party that has governed Japan for all but 30 months of the past 53 years has lost its footing and is slithering towards disintegration. Failure in the early general election expected to closely follow the vote for party president, bringing with it the prime minister’s post, would probably tear apart the party. However, the man most likely to succeed, Taro Aso, or the woman who just might upset his run, former environment minister and national security adviser Yuriko Koike, would return a sense of purpose and even, temporarily, optimism to the LDP.

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