Murder and persecution of women and children accused of being witches is spreading around the world and destroying the lives of millions of people, according to United Nations officials, civil society representatives from affected countries and non-governmental organization (NGO) specialists working on the issue.
(Photo: An ojha, or witch doctor, in India’s northeastern state of Assam, 7 Sept 2006/Utpal Baruah)
“This is becoming an international problem — it is a form of persecution and violence that is spreading around the globe,” Jeff Crisp of the U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR told a seminar organized by human rights officials of the world body in Geneva.
Aides to U.N. special investigators on women’s rights and on summary executions said killings and violence against alleged witch women — often elderly people — were becoming common events in countries ranging from South Africa to India. And community workers from Nepal and Papua New Guinea told the seminar, on the fringes of a session of the U.N.’s 47-member Human Rights Council, that “witch-hunting” was now common, both in rural communities and larger population centres.
Following are three Reuters videos about children and women beaten and killed on suspicion of practicing witchcraft. These are disturbing documents but they provide background to the issue being debated at the United Nations in Geneva.
The first video (12 Sept 2008) shows the fate of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused of sorcerery and bringing bad luck to their families:
This video (22 May 2008) reports on eleven mainly elderly people suspected of being witches being burned to death in western Kenya:
In this video from Bihar state in India (28 March 2008), a woman accused of witchcraft is tied to a tree and beaten in her village:
(Photo:KAUST under construction near Jeddah, 19 Oct 2008/Asma Alsharif)
Saudi Arabia is launching its first co-educational high-tech university, but unless clerical influence is removed the state education system will not move into the modern age, analysts say. King Abdullah has invited heads of state, business leaders and Nobel laureates next week to the opening of a technology university which has attracted top scientists and is meant to produce Saudi scientists and engineers.
The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is the first institute in one of the world’s biggest oil exporters that is outside the reach of the education ministry, where clerics opposing cutting religious content have a strong say. Men and women will be able to mingle, a stark contrast to otherwise strict gender segregation in the Islamic kingdom.
Despite its immense financial resources, the parameters of Saudi school and university education are governed by religious strictures and many subjects are off-limits for women to study.
While KAUST enjoys almost unlimited funds, sophisticated equipment and is run by an independent board, most Saudi schools and universities have curriculums still dominated by religion, despite reform efforts begun after the September 11 attacks of 2001.
(Photo: Muslim women with Belgian flag protest against headscarf bans, 4 Feb 2004/Yves Herman)
A Belgian court is due to rule next week on a ban on the Muslim headscarf at two schools in Dutch-speaking Flanders, an issue that has led to a death threat for one school principal and graffiti sprayed on walls. The schools in Antwerp and nearby Hoboken introduced the ban at the start of the school year last week, arguing that Muslim girls were being pressured to wear headscarves by their families and peers.
Angry pupils have staged protests outside the school and one girl filed a complaint with the Belgian Council of State to contest the ban. The court will rule on the matter next week and one of its chief advocates has already advised it to overturn the ban. The advocate’s advice is followed in 90 percent of cases.
“The advocate said that such a ban is not lawful, and that only the umbrella organisation of state schools can decide on whether or not to introduce such a measure,” a court spokesman said.
The protests with banners reading “No headscarf, no pupils” and “Everybody free except us” have been headline news in Belgium. One of the schools was vandalised and had slogans sprayed on its walls and its director has received a death threat.
Neighbouring France passed a law in 2004 banning pupils from wearing conspicuous signs of their religion at school after a decade of bitter debate about Muslim girls wearing headscarves in class. Such a measure would be difficult to introduce across the region of Flanders, where most of the schools are private Catholic institutions. Those that have introduced headscarf bans are “community schools.”
UPDATE: School officials announced later on Friday that about one fifth of all schools in Belgium’s Dutch-speaking Flanders region would ban pupils from wearing Muslim headscarves. “This decision promotes the feeling of equality and prevents group formation or segregation on the basis of external symbols of life philosophy,” said a statement from the schools.
One moment everything was quiet on the streets outside the Khartoum courtroom where Lubna Hussein was on trial this morning, charged with indecency for wearing trousers.
The next, a three-way fight had exploded between riot police armed with crackling electric batons, women's rights protesters waving banners and posters, and Islamists fuelled with righteous indignation and pious chants.
You couldn't have asked for a better illustration of the opposing forces that have come piling down on Sudan's government since the start of the case -- opposing forces that also compete for influence at the heart of the Khartoum regime.
Women's rights campaigners and other activists were the first to get involved after Sudan's public order police barged into a party in the capital in July and found Lubna and 12 other female guests wearing trousers.
The activists saw it as a test case for the hundreds of women who get picked up every year in Khartoum, and face flogging for a range of for public order offences, mostly related to dress. Punishments aside, may women also complain about the sporadic way the law is applied and the lack of a clear definition of indecent dress.
The human rights protesters had a powerful case to make to a Sudanese government that is currently keen to cosy up to the West, in the hope of getting some of Washington's crippling trade sanctions lifted. A highly publicised flogging would have been particularly bad news for Khartoum on Monday, two days ahead of an expected visit from the U.S. Sudan envoy Scott Gration.
The next group to make their presence felt at today's protests were the Islamists who infiltrated the crowd, shouting religious slogans and tearing up women's posters. They also had influence to wield. Sudan's government, which once played host to Osama bin Laden, has its roots in the Islamist movement.
The next people to pile in were the police, a group with their own strong power base in a regime built on its security services. Lubna's case in a way was a challenge to the authority of a brother force, questioning the right of the public order police to arrest at will.
So what's a judge to do with so many conflicting pressures piling up around him? No doubt he would insist his ruling today was based purely on the law. But his final judgement -- a $200 fine, way below the maximum penalty of 40 lashes -- certainly felt like a compromise.
For the Islamists, the law was upheld and a guilty verdict given.
For the campaigners, Lubna had her chance to publicise her case and got off with a relatively light sentence. For the police, order in the streets was restored As the last riot police moved off in their caged vans, and the last protesters dispersed, two southern Sudanese women stood no more than 100 yards away from the site of the demonstration, buying oranges from a pavement stall. Both wore tight blue jeans and close-fitting t-shirts. No-one batted an eyelid.
Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese woman arrested in Khartoum for wearing trousers despite the country’s Islamic decency regulations, was found guilty of indecency on Monday and ordered to pay a fine or go to jail for a month. She was spared the possibility of 40 lashes for wearing trousers at a party in July with 12 other women. Ten of the other women arrested with her have pleaded guilty and have been whipped.
Hussein’s case was seen as a test of Sudan’s Islamic decency regulations, which many women activists say are vague and give individual police officers undue latitute to determine what is acceptable clothing for women.
After the verdict, Hussein said: “I will not pay the money, and I will go to prison.”
Scuffles erupted at a protest before the court session even began between women supporters and Islamists, who shouted religious slogans and denounced Hussein and her supporters as prostitutes and demanded a harsh punishment for Hussein.
The photo above, by Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah, shows Hussein leaving the court wearing her trousers. Do these seem indecent to you?
UPDATE: Sudan’s conviction of Hussein for indecency violates international law and is emblematic of wider gender discrimination there, the United Nations human rights office says.
Following is a short video of Hussein surrounded by supporters shouting “freedom, freedom” as she enters the court:
Beer, which as an alcoholic beverage is forbidden in Islam to its believers, has long had it easy in mainly Muslim Malaysia. The country’s population of 27 million is made up of about 55 percent Malay Muslims and mainly Chinese and Indian ethnic minorities who practice a variety of faiths including Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism. The personal right of the non-Muslims to drink alcoholic beverages is legally recognised, a sign of tolerance despite the special status of Islam under Article 11 of the Malaysian constitution. So beer is not difficult to find in convenience stores, supermarkets and entertainment outlets.
(Photo: Beer drinkers, 20 July 2009/Nguyen Huy Kham)
But this easygoing attitude towards beer has hit the rocks of late amid what some suspect has been a growing religiosity of the country’s Muslims. Last month, 32-year old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarnor very nearly became the first woman to be caned in Malaysia for drinking alcohol under rarely enforced Islamic criminal laws. Caught drinking beer in a hotel lobby in the eastern state of Pahang by religious enforcement officers, she was sentenced to six strokes of the cane and a fine. This was possible because Malaysia practices a dual-track legal system. Muslims are subject to Islamic family and criminal laws that run alongside national civil laws.
(Photo: Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 21 Aug 2009/Zainal Abd Halim)
This was not the first time beer has run foul of Malaysia’s Muslims. The opposition Islamist party grabbed headlines last month when it insisted on full implementation of an alcohol ban for Muslims in the country’s most developed state of Selangor ,which it governs. The call by the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) did not amuse its die-hard secular partner, the mainly ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party. A war of words erupted between the two parties.
Anger towards beer has in fact been known to have turned literally explosive. In 2000, a cult group known as Al Maunah raided a military armoury, then mounted grenade attacks against a Hindu temple and a Carlsberg brewery.
Beer has been a major target, but not the only subject drawing the wrath of some Muslims in the country. The Islamist PAS last month protested against a planned concert by the band Michael Learns To Rock, believing it an insult to allow the act to perform during the fasting month of Ramadan.
The government has also employed regulations to similar effect, namely in the recent ban against Muslims from attending a concert by U.S. hip hop band The Black Eyed Peas. The government later did a U-turn on the restriction.
Malaysians can watch music videos on satellite television with any problem. It is not impossible to spot Muslims in pubs and nightclubs drinking alcohol despite strict Islamic laws. These contradictions are difficult to explain. Some feel it’s part of a natural and continuing struggle among Muslims trying to balance faith and modernity. Others believe the majority of Muslims in the country are turning towards greater conservatism, which bodes ill for tolerance in this mainly Muslim but still multi-religious country.
(Photo: The Black Eyed Peas, 6 July 2009/Denis Balibouse)
Add to that an increasingly intense political battle between the ruling United Malays National Organisation and the opposition PAS for the support of the majority Malays ahead of the next election due by 2013. With each party trying to outdo the other on who is the better champion of Islam, Malaysian beer lovers could be forgiven for wondering whether the taps will one day run dry.
What’s needed is for Malaysians of all religions to sit down and talk to each about these issues more often and honestly. Thirsty work, but nothing that cannot be resolved over several pints of orange juice.
It’s Ramadan and on a bustling shopping street on the fringes of northern Paris, the holy month is in full swing. Bearded men in long robes collect alms, women in headscarves sell sweet pastries. But the period of fasting and charitable acts has little impact on the work of activist Christine Jamaa, whose office is in a secret location not far from the busy street market.
Jamaa, who heads the Voix de Femmes (Women’s Voice) group helping victims of forced marriage, met me there last week for a interview for my feature “New school year puts French on forced marriage alert.” In the feature, another activist, Fatou Diouf (pictured above in a photo by Jacky Naegelen), told of her family’s attempt to kidnap her and force her into marrying her uncle in Senegal at the age of 18.
While I was in Jamaa’s office, her phone was constantly ringing with emergency calls from threatened girls and women - most of them Muslims of Africa, Asian or Middle Eastern descent. Jamaa herself is a Muslim, like many of the activists who help victims of forced marriage here, and she keeps telling the families and the women at risk that Islam bans forced marriage.
In her experience, however, the families don’t care. “They just pick the parts of Islam that are convenient to them,” she told me. A few years ago, Jamaa worked with an imam to try and use religion to fight the practice. But they had to stop after the imam himself was threatened by angry families.
For now, she believes religion can play a marginal part in dealing with marriage conflicts. Once the girl has fled the family, and the parents show some regret, an imam may be able to smooth the reconciliation process. Faith can also reassure the victims, who almost always feel terribly guilty about running away. And Jamaa believes a strong stance among Muslim leaders could help: “I’m still waiting for a fatwa saying forced marriages are haram (forbidden),” she said with an air of resignation.
Even if such a fatwa were issued, most of these families would probably ignore it. For Fatou Diouf, a French woman of Senegalese descent, the practice is not about religion anyway, but about tradition. Her own ordeal began when she dated a non-Muslim Cameroonian in France at the age of 18. Her family lured her to Senegal, then told her they had already married her off to her 36-year-old uncle in a religious ceremony that did not require her presence.
(Image: Voix de Femmes poster — the text says “Forced marriage … a one-way ticket? The girls refuse.”)
“I had my father on the phone, and he said, I’m fed up with you fooling around in France, you’re going to stay down there,” she told me. Later on, after she escaped, Jamaa travelled back to France and eventually confronted her parents about their betrayal. Her father justified himself - but not by invoking religion. “He said friends had started asking why I was always out, where I was, he said I would be treated like a whore,” she said.
The activists and victims I spoke to cited many different motives for forced marriage in migrant communities here. But the strongest factor seems to be a fear of daughters becoming too independent, too rebellious, “too French”. And even though activists say some of the victims are from Christian, Hindu or Jewish immigrant backgrounds, the majority — based on their accounts — does seem to be Muslim. There are unfortunately no reliable official statistics to give a clearer picture.
One interesting insight the activists gave was that the most fervent young Muslim women - the kind who wear the full veils that have sparked such a lively debate in France - tend to pick their own partners rather than submit to their families’ will. Most fully veiled women say they have chosen to wear the niqab themselves, often against the wishes of their parents. So if their parents try to arrange a union with a man not pious enough for them, they reply by saying Islam forbids forced marriage and then choose a similarly devout spouse.
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the author’s alone. Sughra Ahmed is a Research Fellow at the Policy Research Centre, which isbased at the Islamic Foundation in Leicestershire and specialises in research, policy advice and training on issues related to British Muslims.
By Sughra Ahmed
It may seem well and good to think children should be seen and not heard - there’s nothing wrong with a touch of Victorian, especially true during a good movie! But what if the censored are not young children at all? What if they are flashpoints in our conversations on not so trivial subjects, you know, things like national security, integration and democracy. And what if, instead of listening, we systematically speak on their behalf, saying what they are thinking and how they fit into the whole social and political spectrum.
(Photo: Woman at “Muslims Against Terrorism” rally in London, 11 Sept 2007/Toby Melville)
Enter young British Muslims, but please sit down over there in one group, and mind you don’t speak - we have interpreters for that: a choice of representative institutions, community spokespersons, experts on what young people think, and media sound bytes. Yes, much is said and written about young Muslims, not only in black ink but leapfrogging from blog to blog and showing no signs of tiring. Rarely though, is it the young voices themselves. Commentators of many persuasions seem keen to tell us how and what a silent majority from British Muslims think. If it’s not the majority then certainly a large proportion .
Let’s take a look at the basics: nearly half of British Muslims are under 25 and overwhelmingly British born, about a third are 16 or under. Half are women (I feel a need to state the obvious) and most are not in northern former mill towns (less than 5% of British Muslims actually live in ‘popular imagination’ Bradford).
We are used to hearing about young Muslims in the context of radicalisation of Muslim opinion, but their lives are far more complex. There is an untold story of intergenerational challenges, the role of community leadership and its short comings as well as alienation from institutions of wider society. But the picture is not all bad - young people feel a strong sense of national pride and really want to do things to make their lives better.
These were some of the considerations surrounding my report released today called Seen and Not Heard: Voices of Young British Muslims, published by the Policy Research Centre. Here’s the Reuters news story on it — “Young British Muslims angry with police and media.” Interestingly 45% of the young people I spoke with were female; hearing their thoughts, feelings and aspirations was enlightening. Young women are often sidelined from mainstream debates both within Muslim organisations and wider British society. Hearing their audible views and concerns alongside and with their male counterparts reflects the invaluable contribution they have to make - they had a lot on their minds.
The voices of young British Muslims - and especially those of women - are increasingly valuable when we speak of intergenerational challenges within Muslim communities. These are exacerbated by the different cultural environments and influences in which generations have grown up. Some young Muslims, from both sexes, tend to face two different worlds in their lives - one inside and one outside the home - as a way to negotiate the intergenerational gap that evidently is due to a communication divide on the basis of language, but also ideas of modern life and ways as well as cultural taboos.
Young Muslims often see such taboos in terms of what they can or cannot speak to their parents about, how concepts such as respecting your elders is a key influence in how they engage with older people and interestingly the way they operate in their social circles outside the home. These illustrate some of the difficult challenges young British Muslim are negotiating on a daily basis. These challenges are even greater for young women as the traditional norms restrain them from making choices for themselves and their own lives in relation to education, social activities and who they spend time with.
Then we have the role of religion in their lives. Young British Muslims often feel perturbed at suggestions of friction or even conflict between their religion and their national identity. Instead, young people argue there is a sense of synergy between their faith and their British (or in some cases Scottish and Welsh) identities. The role of faith for many young people is a peripheral aspect of who they are. Over time, as they grow into ‘older young people’ it becomes an aspect some focus on more, all the while in the context of growing up as young Brits.
(Photo: Central mosque in Birmingham, 31 Jan 2007/Darren Staples)
If we are to make effective social connections, we need to invest in young people and their development, for example through the creation of more mentoring schemes, development of leadership and work to facilitate role models. Voluntary sector organisations can reach a sizeable number of young women. Whilst the space they provide and mix of projects they run is admirable, they would benefit from specialised youth skills training and long-term investment to let young people speak for themselves. Surely it is the voice of young British Muslims that will enable the rest of us to better engage the very audience we seek to understand - let them tell us with their own voices and let us listen!
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the author’s alone. Sarah Sayeed is a Program Associate at the Interfaith Center of New York and a board member of Women In Islam, Inc.
By Sarah Sayeed
As an American Muslim woman who adheres to religious guidelines on modest dress, I find it ironic that such remarkably different nations as Sudan and France seem similarly preoccupied with legislating Muslim women’s dress. The Sudanese government recently arrested and whipped women, including Christian women, for wearing trousers. The French banned a woman wearing a head-to-toe Muslim bathing suit (a “burkini”) from entering a town pool.
(Photo: Australian lifeguard Mecca Laalaa in her burkini, 13 Jan 2007/Tim Wimborne)
Even if we were to give credence to an argument that pants are immodest for women, there is no injunction in the Quran or any example from Prophet Muhammad which demands corporeal punishment for “inappropriate” dress. Such a harsh practice completely contradicts the justice and compassion that Islam mandates.
Likewise, the French ban on burkinis is outrageous. Wearing the burkini has given me the freedom to enjoy water sports with my son; it has not limited me, but rather enhanced the quality of my life. But now, I worry that other public pools will follow suit. In recent years, France banned religious symbols in public schools, including the headscarf, and denied citizenship to a Muslim woman who wears a face veil. Will this disturbing trend spread across other democratic nations?
France and Sudan are miles apart geographically, politically, and culturally. Yet both countries have imposed on the personal freedom of Muslim women to dress as they choose, and ultimately, to participate in the public sphere. Sudan’s choice to impose corporeal punishment is far more egregious, relative to banning a woman from entering a pool. For the average person, Sudan’s actions seem barbaric, but in a way, unsurprising because they conform to a prevailing stereotype about Islamic law as harsh and oppressive to women.
But because French laws are enacted in a context which purports more openness, plurality and freedom, they could be more harmful to the cause of global freedom and democracy. France perceives itself as a free country that allows its citizens to practice the religion of their choice. France, like other Western European countries or the United States, would want Muslim nations to “look up to it,” to learn from its example how to separate religion and state. However, the French ban on head covers, face covers, and now on pool attire suggests that religious freedom is bounded, even within a democratic context.
It is true that the ban on headscarves emerged out of a debate among French Muslims. Specifically, one group of Muslims felt that their freedom of choice and conscience were imposed upon when other Muslims insulted and physically harassed girls who were not wearing a scarf. The former turned to the government for assistance. Out of its sense of responsibility to maintain public order, the government banned all religious symbols in public schools. But preserving the freedom of conscience of one party need not come at the expense of freedom of religious practice of another. There are other methods of resolving such conflicts, including prosecuting harassment and attacks as hate crimes, imposing strict penalties on perpetrators, and even community mediation.
(Photo: Palestinian girls play beach volleyball at Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, 20 \june 2009/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
French authorities also voiced a concern that loose fitting swim gear that “can be worn in public may carry molecules and viruses that can be transmitted to other bathers.” Even though most Muslim women are unlikely to wear the burkini anywhere else, surely a shower before entering the water and the chlorine of a public pool can be counted upon to take care of these dangerous “molecules and viruses!” A deeper mistrust of Muslims emerges in Mayor Kelyor’s statement that to permit the burkini is to “go back in civilization.” Muslim women’s practice of modesty poses a threat to French notions of progress just as Sudanese Muslim women’s choice to wear pants was also deemed threatening.
Ultimately, authorities in Sudan and France conveyed a parallel message. To democracy’s nay-sayers in the Muslim world, France communicated that those who practice Islam will be marginalized. To Islam’s nay-sayers Sudan confirmed the interpretation that Islamic law is an oppressive and restrictive. Both have infringed upon the rights of minority groups within their respective contexts.
Governments and political movements worldwide, from Turkey to Afghanistan, from France to the U.K, from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, all are inappropriately focused on controlling Muslim women’s dress. It is surprising that even within nations that uphold individual freedom, democracy and the separation of religion and state, governments seem to be anxious about Muslim women’s attire. Would governments ever legislate that men who wear beards may not become citizens and those who wear fitted pants should be whipped? I say to these governments: get out of our hair, and stay away from our pants! Instead, what government must do is to protect the freedom of Muslim women to choose our dress. Protecting choice guarantees human dignity and maintains fairness. Ultimately, the preservation of democracy as well as the practice of Islam depends on it.
Sometimes we Afghan photographers joke that an Afghanistan without burqas, would mean no more good images.
I was with Yannis Behrakis when he shot his version (top). It was the day after the Northern Alliance took over Kabul and the Taliban fled the city. Yannis wanted to shoot some images which could show a change after the fall of the Taliban. We came across a number of women who were waiting to receive some alms from a rich local businessman. Yannis stopped to take some pictures.
For my version (below), I went to cover President Hamid Karzai's election rally in the south of the country on August 4. There were thousands of men but some females who were mostly covered in burqas, as usual. I wanted to show the women's participation in this mainly male-run country.
One could draw the conclusion that years after the fall of the Taliban, women are still under burqas and pictures look the same. This is because the situation of women may have changed in the cities but not across the country. The reason is not that international communities failed to help women liberate but it is because that is how they live. The life style in most parts of Afghanistan is a unique one, it is an Afghan one. It is clear from the start that men work outside and women work inside the house, that is how centuries past by. This is how they choose to live, one can not just take their burqas off, put them in jeans or short skirts, tell them to go out and work and then say your situation has improved. With all due respect to the Western media, they are painting the wrong picture on the situation of women here. Let's leave the Taliban era out of this, this is now eight years of "Operation Enduring Freedom".
You still see the same picture. The Afghan women and burqas make a damn good picture so they make a good story too, it is colorful. It is hard for me to believe a story written by a journalist who come for a short visit to Afghanistan and made reports about women or anything in Afghanistan. It takes time, knowledge and above all understanding of the Afghan way of doing things. This may be wrong according to the outside world but right according to Afghans.
Murder and persecution of women and children accused of being witches is spreading around the world and destroying the lives of millions of people, according to United Nations officials, civil society representatives from affected countries and non-governmental organization (NGO) specialists working on the issue.
