Mission & Justice

11/5/08; http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=109781&d=11&m=5&y=2008

A group of tribesmen in the southern Taif area have rallied together and developed a novel way of ensuring that spinsters find grooms. In order to encourage men to take second wives, the tribesmen, who belong to one of the largest tribes in the area, have decided to offer SR20,000 to anyone who takes a second wife. Awad Al-Lahiby told Al-Madinah newspaper that he and a couple of his cousins are funding the award, which will be given two months before the wedding. He added that the purpose of the award is to make marriage easy in order to reduce the number of single women in their tribe.

Nadav Shragai; 10/5/08

Some 100 settlers on late Thursday infiltrated the ruins of the evacuated West Bank settlement of Sa-Nur, in a stated attempt to rebuild it. Protesters were evacuated by security forces shortly after they entered. This was the first time that settlers have staged such a move at Sa-Nur since Israel’s 2005 pullout from the Gaza Strip and part of the northern West Bank, in which the settlement was evacuated. The Israel Defense Forces was preparing to evacuate the group, who belonged to an organization called “Homesh - the beginning.” Over the past year, Homesh - the beginning activists have mounted repeated bids to resettle Homesh, another settlement also evacuated in the 2005 pullout, which was titled the “Disengagement.”

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Bonnie Miller Rubin; 10/5/08

The effect of marriage breakdown on children may not be as harmful as once thought. For years, social scientists have believed that children of divorce have had more behaviour problems than those growing up in two-parent homes. But research suggests the impact may not be as damaging as believed. Instead of comparing these youngsters with those from intact families — the usual methodology — a more accurate assessment would be to evaluate them before and after the marital dissolution, says Alan Li, of policy think tank RAND Corp.

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Tomer Zarchin; 6/5/08

The High Court of Justice issued an order Tuesday requiring the state to explain within 60 days why it refuses to overturn the citizenship law, which prevents Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from gaining Israeli citizenship. The petition on the matter was submitted by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and several individuals who were personally penalized by the law. Among the petitioners was also Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On.

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Muriel Porter; 6/5/08

Predictably, the Australian Christian Lobby has praised the Rudd Government for deciding to override the ACT’s planned gay marriage legislation. Most Christians will be grateful, the lobby’s managing director, Jim Wallace, has said. Yes, the mainline churches will openly or tacitly agree with him, and I imagine many individual Christians will, too. But not all Christians will be happy with this backdown and some of us feel quite dismayed. Not many will speak up, however, because they have been effectively silenced by the recent concerted conservative push that has made homosexuality the great taboo in the churches. My own church, the Anglican Church, stands on the brink of an international schism over the issue. Conservative forces, fuelled by right-wing American money and led by pugnacious African bishops spoiling for a fight with the West, have declared war on the Episcopal (Anglican) Church in the US and the Anglican Church of Canada.

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Paul Maley & Samantha Maiden; 6/5/08

The ACT Government has accused Kevin Rudd of pandering to the “extreme Christian Right” in its threat to scuttle the territory’s controversial civil partnerships bill. Yesterday, the ACT’s federal Labor members and senators were labelled hypocrites for failing to condemn the commonwealth after it threatened to disallow the bill on the grounds that it would mimic marriage. ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell accused the Prime Minister, a devout Christian, of “kow-towing” to the Christian lobby.

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Paul Maley & Siobhain Ryan; 5/5/08

A furious ACT Government has backed down from its plan to allow gay couples to enter into civil partnerships, accusing the Rudd Government of hypocrisy after it threatened to override the legislation in exactly the same way John Howard did. ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell announced yesterday the Territory had abandoned its civil partnerships legislation and would instead settle for a system of relationship registers virtually identical to the ones operating in Tasmania and Victoria. The ACT decision comes as the deeply religious Mr Rudd faces growing attack from Christian groups over his Government’s decision to remove discrimination against gays from all other federal laws.

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Nina Muslim; 30/4/08

Doctors and activists working with thalassaemia patients called for earlier screening for the genetic blood disorder, saying pre-marital screening has failed to prevent the birth of new patients. Thalassaemia, characterised by the breakdown of oxygen-rich red blood cells, affects about one in 15 UAE nationals. When carriers marry each other, they have a 25 per cent chance of producing a thalassaemia-major patient, who requires frequent blood transfusions to survive. Dr Fatima Sajwani, a haematologist at Al Qasimi Hospital, told the press after the launch of World Thalassaemia Day commemorations that earlier screening would help prevent marriage between carriers.

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Sian Powell; 26/4/08

Mortally wounded and bleeding profusely, Pela Atroshi covered her head with her hands, pleading “please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me”. As her sister and her mother screamed, her uncle Rezkar Atroshi raised his gun and killed her. The family’s honour had been cleansed. Rezkar had already shot Pela twice in the back in the upstairs room. Helped downstairs by her mother and her younger sister, the 19-year-old Kurdish Swede was confronted by four resolute men - her father and his three brothers. The men pulled the women apart. Her youngest uncle then finished the job, shooting Pela in the head. The bullet went through one of her fingers and into her brain. The decision to kill her was made by a council of male relatives, led by Pela’s grandfather, Abdulmajid Atroshi - a Kurd who lived in Australia.

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Nasser Arrabyee; 23/4/08

Human rights activists and lawyers should put pressure on the government to ban marriage of young girls, said a Yemeni lawyer. Lawyer Shatha Nasser, who defended an 8-year-old girl who was divorced last week in a Yemeni court, called all civil society organisations and human rights activist to form a coalition for amending the current law which allows marriage of children under 15. “Our next step now is to do all that we can to make the minimum marriage age in Yemen 18 years,” Shatha told Gulf News. “But this cannot happen if there is no cooperation between lawyers and human right groups,” she said.

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