For women in Egypt, the general atmosphere is one of hostility and intimidation. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS

By Rana Allam
CAIRO, Feb 23 2015 (IPS)

In November 2013, a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey ranked Egypt as the worst of 22 Arab states with regards to women’s rights.

Several people argued that any country strictly following Islamic laws should rank lower, because Egypt and many other Arab and Muslim countries are not strict in following Islamic Sharia (religious laws), like in cutting off the hand of a thief, for example. In Egypt, if you are a man, you can literally kill your wife and get away with it.

However, Egypt – along with most Muslim countries – incorporates a list of laws based on Islamic Sharia. Some of these are indisputable Sharia laws while others are based on individual interpretations, and both are indeed discriminatory.

Suffice to say that in the second highest ranking Arab state in the survey, Oman, women inherit 50 percent of what men do, a man can divorce his wife for any reason while a woman needs grounds to file for divorce, and there are no laws against female genital mutilation.

The starkest examples of sexist laws in Arab and Muslim countries come in the personal status laws.

Regardless of whether these laws are Islamic Sharia compliant or not, they are presented as such and thus are non-negotiable.

With the many interpretations of Islamic text, it falls on the legislators and the (so-called) Muslim scholars to enforce what laws they “understood” from the text. These laws should be revised if we are to enforce gender equality, here are some examples:

–          Polygamy is legal for men only.

–          A man can divorce his wife with no grounds and without going to court, while a woman has to have strong reasons for divorce, must convince a court of law of some ordeal about her marriage, and the judge may or may not grant her divorce. A new law introduced in Egypt in 2000, called Khula law where a woman can file for divorce on no grounds, but then she has to forfeit her financial rights and reimburse her husband the dowry (and any gifts) paid when contracting the marriage.

–          A woman inherits half what a man inherits.

–          In some Muslim countries, like the UAE, a woman’s testimony is half that of a man’s in court. In most Muslim countries, if a contract requires a certain number of witnesses, a woman is counted as “half” a man.

–          There is no set minimum age for marriage in Islam, so some countries like Sudan can marry off a 10-year-old girl, and in Bahrain, a 15-year-old, however, in Libya the minimum age is 20.

–          A Muslim man can marry a non-Muslim woman, but a Muslim woman is not granted the same right.

–          In most Muslim countries, spousal rape is not recognised in the laws.

–          Abortion is illegal unless there is risk to the mother’s life and even this has to be with the husband’s consent.

It is one thing to fight culture and an intimidating environment and another thing to have sexist laws, where even in a court of law, a woman has no equal rights. For women in Egypt, the general atmosphere is one of hostility and intimidation, prevalent aggressions and complete impunity with regards to violence against women.

Amnesty International titled its latest briefing on the subject “Circles of Hell: domestic, public and state violence against women in Egypt.” Women in Egypt must not only fight such culture, but must also deal with discriminatory laws.

Muslim men have a unilateral and unconditional right to divorce, while women can only divorce by court action. A man need only say the words “I divorced you” and then register the divorce.

Actually, an Egyptian Muslim man may not even tell his wife he is divorcing her, he can register the divorce (regardless of her consent or attendance), and it is the duty of the registrar to “inform” her. On top of this, there is such a thing as a “revocable divorce” which means the husband has the right to revoke the divorce at his own accord during the waiting period and without having to sign another marriage contract.

Such a waiting period is only a woman’s burden. She has to remain unmarried for three months after she gets divorced, and such waiting period is nonexistent for men.

Adding insult to injury, Egypt has an “Obedience Law”. This law stipulates that a man may file an obedience complaint against his wife if she leaves the marital home without his permission.

The woman is this case has 30 days to file an objection detailing the legal grounds for “her failure to obey”, a judge may not be convinced of course. If she fails to file such objection, and does not return home, she is considered “deviant” and is denied her financial rights upon divorce – if she was ever granted one. Naturally, such proceedings delay her divorce lawsuit, and risk a just financial settlement.

Although legislators in Egypt have always cited Islamic Sharia when enforcing such strict personal status  laws, when it comes to adultery, Egyptian laws stray far from Islamic teachings and are outrageous.

The issue is such a taboo that no one even dares mentioning it. In Egypt, if you are a man, you can literally kill your wife and get away with it, if you catch her “red-handed” committing adultery.

Laws pertaining to the crime of adultery are an embodiment of sexism and discrimination:

–          A married woman would be charged with adultery if she commits the crime anywhere and with anyone. A married man would only be accused of adultery if he commits the crime in his marital house; otherwise there is no crime and no punishment.

–          The punishment for a married man (who committed the crime in his marital home) is imprisonment for six months, but women are given a sentence of two years in prison (regardless of where the crime took place).

–          If a married man commits adultery with a married woman in her marital house, he would merely be an accessory to the crime.

–          If both are unmarried, and the female is over 18, he receives no punishment, while she may face charges of prostitution.

–          If a married man catches his wife red-handed in the crime, and kills her and her partner, he does not face intentional murder charges or even manslaughter, he only gets a sentence as low as 24 hours. If a wife catches her husband red-handed and kills him, she immediately faces murder charges with its maximum sentence as the judge sees fit.

Not only do we have to fight taboos, sexist culture, violence on the streets and at home, gender-bias in every police station, court of law or place of business, but we also have a long way to go to at least have equality in the eyes of the law.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Students at the NED Engineering University in Karachi, Pakistan, argue about “conservative” versus “secular” dress. Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Apr 19 2013 (IPS)

From the local butcher, to the pavement fruit vendor, to the cobbler sitting beside his tools on Elphinstone Road, a busy street in the heart of Karachi, one question is on everyone’s lips: Who will win the upcoming elections on May 11?

In Pakistan, a country that is reeling from the Taliban’s militancy in the north, rampant corruption in the government and an armed force that has a life of its own, few have the answer to this question.

But one thing is certain: for the first time in Pakistan’s history, young people between the ages of 18 and 29 – who currently comprise well over half of the country’s population of 170 million people — will play a pivotal role in determining the election outcome.

"Sharia law comes closest to the socialist values to which I subscribe"
Of the registered 85 million voters, 25 million fall into the “youth” category; 13 million of these will be first-time voters.

A nationwide survey of 4,450 young people, carried out by the Islamabad-based Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) back in January, showed that only 48 percent of voters aged 18 to 25 intend to vote, putting them far behind other age groups: in contrast 68 percent of those between 26 and 35, and 84 percent of those above 55, said they would cast their ballots.

Many young people, like filmmaker Abida Sharafat, are jaded. “I don’t want to elect people who will come (into power) for five years to oppress and exploit us,” she told IPS, referring to the number of politicians who have been exposed as major loan defaulters and tax evaders.

Mohammad Shafi, a barely literate 27-year-old domestic helper working in an upscale Karachi neighbourhood, says the government of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) “emptied our pockets and increased violence” over the last five years.

A recent poll conducted by the British Council (BC) on Pakistani youth found that more than half of 5,000 respondents between 18 and 29 years believed that “democracy” – a term that has been bandied about by the centre-left PPP – has not been a good form of governance here.

Sixty-four percent of male responders and 75 percent of female responders described themselves as “conservative” or religious.

Echoing what appears to be a growing trend among the youth, Shafi told IPS he would “prefer the country to be governed by Sharia law”, adding quickly: “But not the Sharia the Taliban wanted imposed in Swat (an administrative district of the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province) but one which promotes equity and justice.”

Sharafat insists that the tenets of religious law come “closest to the socialist values to which I subscribe”. For instance, Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam, prescribes the giving of a percentage of one’s wealth as “tax” to the government or the needy.

The widespread existence of similar opinions among the youth is borne out in the BC study, whose findings, according to Lahore-based senior defence and political analyst Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi, come as “no surprise”.

“The Pakistani youth’s conservative and Islamic orientation can easily be detected (in) their idiom and historical references,” he told IPS, adding that Arabic phrases like “Allah Hafiz” (“may God protect you”) have come to replace Persian-language expressions like “Khuda Hafiz” in the daily spoken language.

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and renowned peace activist with over three decades of teaching experience, blames this shift on the Islamisation of Pakistan’s education system, which was imposed by former dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s.

Over the generations, he says, students have “forgotten how to sing, dance, or act – the fear of having their heads cracked open by violent fundamentalists has worked well”.

Few of his students at the Quaid e Azam University in Islamabad have a thorough command of any language and few read anything beyond newspapers. Today’s texts are devoid of references to early recorded history, the Nile Valley Civilisation and Greek and Hindu mythology, he added.

Even when the government has tried to offset religious extremists in the education sector, they have been forced to make a U-turn. When the government of Punjab commissioned a new Urdu language textbook for the 10^th grade a few months ago the conservative media relentlessly attacked the book for having “expunged” Islamic teachings.

To the contrary, Hoodbhoy found that the very first chapter in the offending book was a “hamd” (a poem in praise of God) and the second was a “naat” (a poem in praise of Prophet Muhammad).  Also included were letters from Ghalib (a famous Urdu poet), and a fairytale.

But under intense pressure from right-wingers, the state “retreated and promised to reinsert essays on jihad and Islam”, Rizvi said.

This Islamised education has tipped young people towards a “pro-militant” and “anti-U.S.” mindset, he added.

“They tend to see themselves more as Muslims than as Pakistanis; most see the West as being responsible for their problems.”

Clothing has now begun to reflect the increasingly conservative values of the youth. Sharafat, who wears traditional Pakistani dress but does not cover her head, noted, “The number of long, untrimmed beards and black abayas (robes) have multiplied enormously among young people.”

“I feel I am now among the minority,” said Sharafat, adding that her decision to leave her head uncovered “graphically” exposes her secular and liberal thoughts. “I often have to explain to my friends that I am as much a practising Muslim in my private life as they are in their public ones.”

But not everyone is convinced this trend is so easily quantifiable. Mohammad Shehzad, an Islamabad-based writer and researcher, believes the BC survey was conducted with certain objectives in mind, which might have compromised its objectivity.

“The survey has been used by Islamists to support their outrageous claim that the majority needs Sharia,” Shehzad told IPS.

Salima Hashmi, an artist and interim minister in the Punjab caretaker government, is inclined to agree. A former principal of the National College of Arts in Lahore, she insists that “free thinking and liberal aspirations” among fine art students have not completely been quashed, adding that the “spirit of inquiry” is alive and well.

However, she fears that when institutions are left rudderless, like the NCA has been over the last four years, with no governing body, the “chaos” prevailing outside is all the more likely to creep in.

Churches in Diabaly, central Mali, were looted and destroyed during the Islamist occupation. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Marc-Andre Boisvert
MOPTI, Mali, Feb 11 2013 (IPS)

At the entrance to the Evangelical church in Mopti, central Mali, military soldiers stood on either side of the door as Pastor Luc Sagara greeted his parishioners for Sunday mass.

The presence of the soldiers were a stark reminder that less than three weeks ago the town was under threat by Islamist extremists committed to the imposition of Sharia law in this West African nation.

“We feel safe now. With the French intervention, we are hopeful that the Islamists will not attack us,” Sagara told IPS.

France launched a military intervention in Mali on Jan. 11 at the request of the country’s interim President Dioncounda Traoré after extremists advanced on the town of Konna, 60 kilometres northeast of Mopti. As the Islamists occupied town after town, intent on seizing the capital Bamako, Sharia law was imposed, and Christians and moderate Muslims were persecuted.

Since April 2012, northern Mali has been taunted by a coalition of armed groups composed of Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, and Ansar Dine, an Islamist group among Mali’s Tuareg population that live across the country’s southeast.

The rebels reportedly destroyed religious shrines and church buildings, and imposed extreme Sharia law – engaging in public floggings, executions and amputations.

International rights group, Human Rights Watch, said that the rebels engaged in extensive looting, pillage, the recruitment of child soldiers and the rape of women and young girls. “Armed groups in northern Mali in recent weeks have terrorised civilians by committing abductions and looting hospitals,” Corinne Dufka, senior Africa researcher at HRW, said in April 2012.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, the recent conflict has led to the internal displacement of 250,000 people. Mopti was one of the towns that people from the north sought refuge in.

Many of the minority Christians, who constitute five percent of the country’s 15.8 million people, either fled Mopti or were living here in fear of Islamic occupation

A local Imam from the town, Abdoulaye Maiga, told IPS that no one had been safe from the extremists, regardless of their religious affiliations.

“We are all victims of those terrorists. We are all Malians and we all fled together,” he said. Members of his family had taken flight from northern Mali’s largest town of Gao.

“When my family came here, they brought with them a Christian family, and we loaned them some of our (traditional) clothes so the terrorists would let them travel without problems.”

In Diabaly, a liberated central Malian town, Pastor Daniel Konaté prepared for his first Christian service since the Islamists were ousted. The graffiti on the church wall that read, “Allah is the only one”, and the bullets scattered on the floor served as a reminder of the Islamist occupation.

“They made my church a military base,” Konaté told IPS. During the occupation he and his family fled to a village 20 kilometers away, returning only after Malian and French forces successfully repelled Islamists here on Jan. 21.

But Konaté still wonders how the extremists had known that this plain unassuming building, which has no signs to indicate that it is a place of worship, was a church.

“We think some people might have told them that this is a church,” said Konaté as 30 parishioners gathered and the service began with the singing of “It is not God who betrays us. It is men that betray God.”

Ever since locals recognised two former high-ranking Malian military soldiers who used to be posted in Diabaly among the Islamist forces, community members believe the Islamist fighters had local support. Now, neighbours who once lived peacefully together are suspicious of one another.

During the town’s occupation Pascal Touré’s small four-bedroom house on the outskirts of Diabaly hid 27 Christian refugees terrified of being singled out for persecution by the occupying Islamists.

“It seems obvious that some locals reported where the Christians were. Among the locals, everybody knows each other,” he told IPS.

But Touré, a Christian who also teaches catechism, is adamant that seeking revenge is not a solution.

The refugees have left Touré’s house and returned to their own homes in Diabaly “but life in the town will not be the same for Christians.”

Though there are some here who hang on to the memories of a peaceful past, optimistically believing that life will return to what it had been before the conflict. Bakary Traoré, a Muslim and a retired teacher, is one of them.

“Christians were targeted. But all of Diabaly has been a victim. The Islamists did not have the time to impose Sharia, but if they did, everyone would have suffered. They did not succeed. And now we can all live in harmony like we were before. As one people.”