Mother Reveals Iranian Teen Nafas Haji Sharif''s Violent Assault Over Hijab
New Age Islam News Bureau
21 Aug 2024
·
Mother Reveals
Iranian Teen Nafas Haji Sharif''s Violent Assault Over Hijab
·
Muslim Rights Concern To EDOGIS: Stop
Persecuting Muslim Woman Over Hijab
·
From Islam To The
Catholic Church: One Turkish Woman, Belkız, Shares Her Story Of Faith
·
In South Africa, Patriarchal Law Cuts Some
Women Off From Owning Their Home
·
Fifth Settler
Arrested On Suspicion Of Assaulting Arab Women And Child In West Bank Outpost
·
Bareilly, UP: Hindu Residents Protest Purchase
of House By Muslim Woman, Threaten Mass Exodus
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL:
Mother Reveals Iranian Teen' Nafas Haji Sharif''s
Violent Assault Over Hijab
AUGUST 21, 2024
The mother of a teenage Iranian girl who was
severely beaten for not wearing her headscarf has said her daughter was deeply
traumatized by the incident.
The 14-year-old Nafas Haji Sharif was beaten up by
Iran's notorious Morality Police tasked with enforcing strict dress codes on
women.
The teenager's mother, Maryam Abbasi, recounted the
incident saying, "The officers blocked my daughter's mouth and nose and
she could not breathe. A passerby shouted, 'Lady, leave her for God's sake, she
is just a child.' It was only then that the officer removed her hand and my
daughter was able to breathe again."
Abbasi emphasized her concern: "I never wanted
my child to lose trust in people around her. How can I ask her to wear her
hijab now, with so much anger in her heart?"
Speaking to Hammihan newspaper, Abbasi described her
daughter's ongoing fear and anxiety after the incident.
"She keeps replaying that day in her mind. When
we came home, I saw the extent of her injuries.
"Even now, she checks the camera behind the
apartment door every morning, afraid that the agents have returned.
"The agents had threatened her, saying they
would imprison her, and that fear remains.
"I want to ask those agents, how could they do
this? I still can't believe they treated a child this way."
Persian-speaking social media users have expressed
anger and dismay over the treatment of the teenager. Many called on President
Masoud Pezeshkian to honor his campaign pledges to end such confrontations.
During his presidential campaign, Pezeshkian
repeatedly criticized the Morality Police and its treatment of Iranian women
and girls for not adhering to mandatory hijab laws.
Since April 13, Iran's law enforcement agencies have
intensified the enforcement of hijab regulations under the national action plan
"Noor."
Across Iran, there have been numerous reports of
women being arrested and subjected to the use of force due to perceived
violations of dress codes.
Users across social networks are participating in a
spontaneous campaign using the hashtag "war against women" to
document their experiences and observations regarding the government's
crackdown on the opponents of mandatory hijab.
Source: iranwire.com
https://iranwire.com/en/women/133081-mother-reveals-iranian-teens-violent-assault-over-hijab/
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Muslim Rights Concern To EDOGIS: Stop Persecuting
Muslim Woman Over Hijab
AUGUST 21, 2024
The application form of a Muslim woman who applied
for a Certificate of Occupancy (‘C of O’) from the office of the Edo State
Geographic Information Service (EDOGIS) has been rejected because she wore
hijab in the passport photograph attached to the form. Meanwhile, an Islamic
human rights organization, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has called out
EDOGIS over the treatment of the Muslim lady.
MURIC describes the incident as another episode in
the pandemic of Islamophobia that has swept over Nigeria in recent time.
This was contained in a statement issued on Tuesday,
20th August, 2024 by the Executive Director of MURIC, Professor Ishaq Akintola.
The full statement reads: “The application form of a
Muslim woman, Khadijah Al-Hassan, who applied to the Edo State Geographic
Information Service’ (EDOGIS) for a certificate of occupancy (‘C of O’) has
been rejected on account of the hijab she wore in the passport photograph
attached to the form.
“MURIC strongly condemns the action of EDOGIS. This
is another episode in the pandemic of Islamophobia that has swept over Nigeria
in recent time. The stereotyping of Khadijah Al-Hassan over the issuance of ‘C
of O’ is egregious, repugnant and unacceptable. It is religious apartheid taken
too far.
“The Muslim lady applied for her ‘C of O’ on 12th
December, 2022 and paid the required fee of N230,000. All her follow-up efforts
yielded no results until May 2023 (six months later) when she was told that her
application had been rejected because of the hijab she wore in the passport
photograph attached to the form.
“EDOGIS authorities have turned deaf ears to all
appeals from Muslim leaders in Edo State, including the Chief Imam of Benin
City, on the legal status of hijab.
“MURIC appeals to the Edo State Government for
intervention in this case. Edo State must not be allowed to become a home of
pain, anguish and horror for Muslims. Hijab is part of Allah-given fundamental
human rights of Muslims everywhere in the world, including Nigeria, but we are
forced to cringe, shiver and tremble before we can be allowed to identify
ourselves as Muslims in our land. Muslims are no longer free in this country.
Hate preachers have turned Nigeria into a large slave camp for Muslims. It is
worse than apartheid South Africa.
“The government of Edo State must not stand akimbo
while Muslim haters and islamopbhobic elements use their positions in public
offices to oppress law abiding Muslims by denying them the right to enjoy the
dividends of democracy. We remind the state government that Muslims are also
taxpayers in Edo state and ‘C of O’ is one of the rights of bona fide citizens
of the state.
“Besides, nothing in the laws of Nigeria or that of
Edo State forbids Muslims from owning landed property. Unless something is done
urgently to address the issue, we will be led to believe that Edo State has a
clandestine agenda to outlaw Muslims in the state from possessing landed
property, thereby unleashing a policy of deliberate impoverisation and
vagabondisation on the Muslim populace.”
Source: championnews.com.ng
https://championnews.com.ng/muric-to-edogis-stop-persecuting-muslim-woman-over-hijab/
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From Islam to the Catholic Church: One Turkish
woman, Belkız, shares her story of faith
Nathalie Ritzmann
Aug 21, 2024
Born 61 years ago into a Muslim family in Turkey,
Belkız was the first daughter after two sons. As a child, she went to the
mosque and read the Koran in Arabic but says she didn’t understand it. After
reading books on materialist philosophy in her youth, she became an atheist at
the age of 15.
Belkız (whose last name is being withheld for
privacy reasons) told ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, that after
graduating from university, she became a literature teacher and was constantly
reading books. When she was 28 years old, she read TuranDursun’s book “This Is
Religion.” (Dursun, a former Shia Muslim and scholar who became an atheist, was
murdered because of what he wrote about Islam and religion. His book criticizes
religious books — mainly the Koran.)
Belkız couldn’t believe what she read so she bought
a Turkish Koran and read it. The Bible was next — she bought one at the Izmir
Book Fair and was invited to watch a movie at a Protestant church about the
life of Jesus based on the Gospel of Luke.
Watching the movie completely changed the way she
thought about God. The biblical story that touched her the most was the prayer
of the tax collector and the Pharisee in the Temple. Here she saw her own sin.
Because, like the Pharisee, she was so confident in her own righteousness, she
experienced her first shame before God. “Love your enemies” became her guide.
At the end of the movie, Belkız prayed with all her heart: “Lord please come
into my life, I leave my life in your hands, do with me as you will!”
Afterward, she went to the Protestant church every
Sunday, read the Bible regularly, and always attended prayer meetings. She was
baptized and lived happily in a living relationship with God.
Then one Sunday at a church service in 2005, a young
person taking bread and wine at the Lord’s table took the bread, put the crust
in his mouth and squeezed the inside of the bread in the palm of his hand. When
Belkız saw this she felt uncomfortable because she felt as if the body of the
Lord had been hurt. She talked to a Protestant friend about it. She said he
told her it was okay because “it’s not really the Lord’s body, we do it in
remembrance; Catholics really believe that it is the body of Christ.”
After taking catechism classes, she was confirmed as
a Catholic on April 25, 2011, and changed the religion on her birth certificate
from Muslim to Christian.
“I did not choose God, he chose me,” Belkız said.
“What impresses me most about Christianity is the Lord Jesus’ infinite love for
us. I have found my best friend and my most beautiful lover.”
When asked if she was afraid of persecution as a
Christian, she smiled: “When Jesus was betrayed, his disciple Peter denied
Jesus three times. Because he was afraid. But the same Peter, after receiving
the Holy Spirit, spread the Gospel from Jerusalem to Italy and when he was
going to be crucified, he said, ‘I am not worthy to die, Lord,’ and was
crucified [upside down].”
Belkız also said what she has gained in her faith
journey is right in the Bible: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).
“God offers us all a treasure. All we have to do is
accept it,” Belkız said. “And God proves his love for us in this: while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
Source: catholicnewsagency.com
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/258815/from-islam-to-the-catholic-church-one-turkish-woman-shares-her-story-of-faith
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In South Africa, Patriarchal Law Cuts Some Women Off
From Owning Their Home
By NkatekoMabasa
21 Aug 2024
Johannesburg, South Africa – For more than a decade,
Johanna Motlhamme has been fighting to get her family home back after it was
sold from under her, leaving her and her four children without their rightful
inheritance.
The 74-year-old’s plight is one that has its roots
in the racist laws that prevented Black people from owning land in apartheid
South Africa, housing activists have said – a plight inadvertently worsened at
the start of democracy when legislation seeking to repair the racial injustices
created gender barriers instead.
“Thirty years after the end of apartheid, hundreds
of thousands of Black families living in South Africa’s urban townships are
facing the same tenure insecurity and the threat of homelessness as they
fiercely contest the ownership, occupation, control and rights to access
so-called ‘family homes’,” legal rights group the Socio-Economic Rights
Institute (SERI) said in a recent report (PDF).
Motlhamme’s story goes back to 1977, when the
then-27-year-old married her husband in community of property, meaning spouses
share everything equally.
They moved into a small two-bedroom house in Soweto,
a sprawling township southwest of Johannesburg, where Motlhamme lived until
their divorce in 1991.
At the time, Black people in cities could at most
secure long-term leases of their homes as the law sought to keep the country’s
majority population landless.
By the time apartheid was defeated in 1994, the
government had introduced new legislation, the Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights
Act 112 of 1991, which “aimed to provide a more secure form of land tenure to
Africans who, under the apartheid regime, had precarious land rights”,
according to SERI.
The act upgraded the property rights of Black
long-term leaseholders, allowing them to finally own their homes. But there was
a caveat. “By legislative provision, only a man, considered the head of the
family, could hold the [property] permit,” SERI said. In a decision housing
activists have said was rooted in “patriarchal customary succession norms”, the
new law effectively pushed wives, sisters, mothers and daughters out of
inheriting.
For Motlhamme, although she owned 50 percent of her
township home by right and according to the terms of her divorce, the Upgrading
Act did not enable a way to reflect that. So when her ex-husband registered the
house in 2000, sole ownership went to him.
Three years later, he remarried and his new wife
moved in. Motlhamme, who had not lived in the house since the divorce, did not
manage to discuss the ownership details with him before he died in 2013. Then
everything changed.
“My three siblings and I were kicked out when our
father died. His second wife later sold the house,” Motlhamme’s eldest son
Elliot Maimane, 50, told Al Jazeera.
“When it first happened it caused a commotion.”
As a result of the property laws, Motlhamme did not
have the title deed and the property permit did not list her as an owner – so
the family could not stop the sale.
“[Motlhamme] was excluded from being the bearer of
occupation rights in terms of the permit on the basis of her sex,” court papers
filed by SERI said.
The legal group, which is helping Motlhamme fight
for her home in court in Johannesburg, believes “discrimination was
perpetuated” by the adoption of the Upgrading Act.
In 2018, South Africa’s Constitutional Court came to
a similar conclusion when it ruled over a separate case regarding women’s
insecure land rights in the townships.
The Court declared section 2 (1) of the Upgrading
Act relating to gender and property inheritance to be “constitutionally
invalid” and “without government purpose”.
It noted that when the legislation first came into
force in 1991, it assumed a man headed any household and therefore had a right
of ownership – which is a violation of women’s rights – and it ordered
amendments to the act.
The Court also ordered parliament to add an
adjudication process whereby affected women or people already living in a house
could make submissions even if their names were not on the property permit or
title deed.
As a result, on the eve of this May’s general
election, the government gazetted the Upgrading of Land Rights Tenure Amendment
Act of 2021, to come into effect a week after the polls. But people who have
lost their homes still face a long road to justice.
In Johannesburg, social services continue to be
inundated by people struggling with housing issues.
BusisiweNkala-Dlamini, the head of the School of
Human Community Development at the University of the Witwatersrand, which
offers free social work and therapy services in the city, said most clients
seek out their services for housing disputes in the townships.
Such disputes have become “very common” and usually
involve “women who face evictions” and prolonged court disputes, she said.
Nkala-Dlamini often refers her clients to the legal
clinic at the university for assistance.
“Women’s property rights are not sufficiently
recognised by the state for both single or married women in family homes,” said
Nerishka Singh, a gender specialist and legal researcher at SERI Women’s Spaces
project.
hirty-nine-year-old Lebo Baloyi was also blindsided
by the loss of her family home more than a decade ago.
The property – a government-issued two-bedroom home
in Soweto – was previously registered to her father.
aloyi was expecting to inherit the house from her
mother, who should have shared ownership with him.
“My husband, Paul, and I had even started renovating
the house. We had added back rooms to live in the time we were living with my
mother,” she told Al Jazeera.
But when her
mother passed away in 2009, “my half-sister moved into the house and later, we
fought”, about who legally gets to inherit the property, she said.
After a series of what seemed like endless court
litigations, Baloyi decided to bow out. “I decided to leave rather than fight
with my sister,” she added, now living some 20km (12 miles) away in the
Johannesburg suburb of Melville.
Motlhamme’s son Maimane bemoaned the change of the
law decades ago, which, despite giving Black people more rights, has caused
many problems in families and communities, he feels.
“When the law changed, then people started having
issues with title deeds,” he said.
“If you walk around Soweto, you’ll see houses
written ‘Not for Sale’ because of the title deeds issue. The system caused this
era we are living in where family members fight about a house.”
SERI’s August report, A Gendered Analysis of Family
Homes in South Africa, highlighted cases where customary law succession is in
dispute with the right to equality.
“Women and children are disproportionately at risk
of losing their tenure security or being rendered homeless in evictions,” the
report said.
The Upgrading Act essentially “subjected black
families to a ‘crude version of customary succession’ in terms of which inheritance
in black people was determined largely through ‘a blanket rule of male
primogeniture’,” it added.
The result of this has been a system that “edified
and bolstered the rights of men over family homes, largely to the detriment of
women”, the report said.
‘We want our childhood home’
he Land Rights Restitution Act of 1994, which
legislated a Land Commission to adjudicate land claims, has been the
government’s major policy lever to redistribute land.
In a government newsletter, the newly separated
Department of Agriculture and Department of Land Reform and Rural Development
reported 3.8 million hectares (9.4 million acres) of land to have been returned
to beneficiaries between 1998 to 2024.
MzwaneleNyontso, the Land Reform and Rural
Development minister, announced in a recent budget speech that the government
had processed 83,205 land claims, benefitting more than 2 million people.
According to the minister, the department has spent
58 billion rand ($3.2bn), between land transfers, financial compensation and
grants, affecting more than 465 000 households.
However, rights groups, like civil organisation
Lamosa (the Land Access Movement of South Africa), have previously taken the
Land Commission to court over delays in processing land claims.
Confronted with historic restitution claims for
marginalised groups who were displaced decades ago, the government now also
faces gendered land tenure claims in the townships.
According to CarlizeKnoesen, the chief registrar of
deeds at the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, the Deeds
Registries Amendment Bill, which is waiting to be signed into law by the
president, will resolve current challenges.
The bill, which proposes an online deeds recording
system, will assist people “who simply want their property rights recorded down
somewhere before they pass,” she said.
“We already have a transformative policy but it
takes time,” added Knoesen, highlighting that on average it takes five years
for a bill to become law in South Africa.
Al Jazeera contacted the Department of Human
Settlements for the City of Johannesburg and the Gauteng Province to comment on
the challenges, but they did not respond.
Meanwhile, while the government and the courts
deliberate, families who have lost their homes are disheartened and growing
impatient.
Maimane wants the court to settle the matter of
Motlhamme’s ownership of the family house as soon as possible.
“The system was not fair, it was one-sided. It gave
all authorisation to my dad and excluded my mother,” he said. “If it had been equal,
then things would not have turned out this way.”
As for his mother, Mainmane says that “she wants to
see her kids living in the house and for the house to be returned to its
rightful owner.”
Suurce: aljazeera.com
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/8/21/in-south-africa-patriarchal-law-cuts-some-women-off-from-owning-their-home
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Fifth settler arrested on suspicion of assaulting
Arab women and child in West Bank outpost
EMANUEL
FABIAN
A fifth Israeli settler suspected of assaulting four
Arab Israeli women, plus a three-year-old, in the West Bank outpost of Givat
Ronen earlier this month has been detained by police.
The suspect was detained overnight and is currently
being questioned by police and the Shin Bet security agency.
Earlier today, a court extended the suspect’s
detention until Friday.
Four others have been detained in the past week,
although one has since been released to house arrest.
The victims, residents of the Bedouin city of Rahat
in southern Israel, were on their way to the West Bank city of Nablus.
They had accidentally driven into the outpost, in an
area that has seen repeated clashes between extremist settlers and
Palestinians.
The five were taken to Beilinson Medical Center in
Petah Tikva after being attacked by the settlers.
Source: timesofisrael.com
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/fifth-settler-arrested-on-suspicion-of-assaulting-arab-women-and-child-in-west-bank-outpost/
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Bareilly, UP: Hindu Residents Protest Purchase of
House By Muslim Woman, Threaten Mass Exodus
Madeeha Fatima
21 Aug 2024
New Delhi: On Monday (August 19), residents of a
predominantly Hindu locality in Bareilly, Punjab Pura, locally known as
VakeelonWaaliGali, protested after a Muslim woman purchased a house in the
area. The protest erupted after Vishal Saxena, a prior inhabitant of the
locality, sold his house to Shabnam, a Muslim woman, who is now residing in the
property.
Protestors at the locality, home to many of the
town’s lawyers, demanded annulment of the property’s registration. Some of the
Hindu residents of Punjab Pura threatened a mass exodus if their demands were
not complied with. Additionally, locals also put up posters declaring
“samuhikpalaayan” (‘mass exodus’) on the doors of their houses.
Speaking to local media, Arvind Srivastava,
ex-secretary of the Bar Association of Bareilly, claimed that the purchase deal
involves an Assamese maulana who is engaged in the illegal possession of a
local mosque.
“Our prime minister and chief minister have said
that Bangladeshis and Assamese shall not step forward,” he said. “Who will be
responsible for the ‘love jihad’ that this may lead to?” Srivastava asked.
‘Love jihad’ is the term used by Hindu communal
organisations to describe an imaginary Muslim conspiracy to seduce Hindu women
as part of a plot to reduce Hindus in India to a minority.
Some Hindu women in the neighbourhood said that if
“Mohammedans” enter their area, it will be difficult for them to even sit
outside.
“We sit here till 1 am, … but since they [Muslims]
have come, they run errands in the area and talk on the phone while walking
around,” a Hindu woman said to a local reporter.
“They [Muslims] eat meat while we strictly follow
the satvik nature of life,” said another female resident.
“We have been living here since childhood and if
they [Muslims] start coming here, our children’s future will be disturbed,” a
lady added, claiming that Muslims have the habit of interfering in their (i.e.
Hindus’) religious practices and festivals.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Naseem Bashiri, Shabnam’s
brother, who sells flowers at a nearby dargah, spoke to the local media of his
disappointment with the residents.
“Had they informed us before, we would have left the
house for them to buy,” he said, stating that he had no ill motive and was
looking for a resolution. He said that he had stated the same when called by
the inspector of the local Qila police station.
Some residents claim that the locality is home to an
‘educated class of citizens’ and that they detest both the idea of a
flower-seller moving into the area as well as the “kind of people that will
start coming” to the neighbourhood.
When reached by The Wire, Naseem Bashiri said that
Saxena, the seller of the house, went to the district magistrate’s office on
Tuesday and said he was prepared to sell the house to whoever wanted it. He
said he would pay back the current buyers if somebody from the locality wished
to purchase the property.
Asked by The Wire about what he felt about
allegations by local residents that he was the “mastermind” of the 2010 riots
in Bareilly, Naseem Bashiri said that he had been selling flowers for more than
a generation and that the local police station knew all about him.
Asked if his customers included Hindu residents, he
said, “Yes, many of them came in the morning to buy flowers for ritual use.”
The Wire tried to contact Saxena but he did not
respond. This report shall be updated if any response is received.
Source: thewire.in
https://thewire.in/communalism/hindu-residents-bareilly-protest-muslim-sale-threaten exodus
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/mother-iranian-violent-hijab-haji-sharif/d/133000