News and Views
Domestic violence growing in Saudi Arabia
Abeer Mishkhas |
A father brutally beats his 17-year-old daughter with a piece of wood. She is taken to a hospital where she subsequently dies. The reason? She got in touch with her mother who was divorced from the girl’s father. Thus ended the story carried in Al-Watan newspaper. The tragedy, however, opens the door onto something bigger and much worse — the trend to violence in Saudi society. And not just violence but violence against close family members.
Mozambique: Civil Society Steps Up Fight Against Domestic Violence
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
1 July 2008
Posted to the web 1 July 2008
Maputo
Mozambican civil society organizations are planning to intensify their actions to prevent violence against women and children by increasing the period of advocacy for such cases from a mere 16 day campaign to 365 days a year.
Gap in the law fails to protect victims of domestic violence
By Stefanos Evripidou
THE STATE services have failed to protect a victim of domestic violence, citing gaps in the law preventing them from helping non-Cypriot spouses who suffer abuse.
A 30-year-old woman from Eastern Europe has been seeking refuge from her abusive husband for the last two weeks but has been left to fend for herself after being repeatedly told by state services that they cannot help a non-Cypriot.
Her appeals for money and refuge failed, giving the woman no choice but to stay in the family home where she was allegedly beaten on two occasions this week.
Barbados Approves Protocol on Domestic Violence
May 12, 2008 -- The Cabinet of Barbados has given the green light to the recently developed data collection protocol on domestic violence and stakeholders are expected to begin using it by August, 2008.
This disclosure has come from Acting Director of the Bureau of Gender Affairs, John Hollingsworth, who said the instrument was approved on March 18 this year, and over the next few weeks, key personnel in some agencies would be trained to use the form.
PAKISTAN: Five women buried alive, allegedly by the brother of a minister
ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME
Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-182-2008
PAKISTAN: Five women buried alive, allegedly by the brother of a minister
ISSUES: Honour killing; violence against women; impunity; no investigation; abduction; murder
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Dear friends,
Pakistani Taliban: wear hijab, or be disfigured
By: Raquel Evita Saraswati
Good news: Congratulations to The Hijab Blog and Hijab Style on their feature story in the Toronto Star. I’m excited about the additional coverage being given to women who are pushing the envelope. In challening expectations about Muslim women, they’re not only educating the West - but also empowering Muslim women worldwide.
توقف اجرای نه حکم سنگسار، دو هفته پس از ابراز نگرانی وکلا؛ ساناز الله بداشت
تاریخ: 16 مرداد 1387
Iran: Death by stoning suspended…but still legal!
Press Release from the Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women!
Subject: Iran: Death by stoning suspended…but still legal!
The Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women! (SKSW Campaign) welcome the news that the sentence of four Iranians to die by stoning has recently been commuted by the Iranian judiciary. The news was announced by the spokesman of the judiciary, Alireza Jamshidi, who also announced that the sentence of all other cases are also under review.
Iranians suspend death by stoning
Iran's has suspended the punishment of death by stoning, state media say.
A judiciary spokesman said four people sentenced to die by stoning had had their sentences commuted and that all other cases had been put under review.
Lawyers and human rights campaigners have said at least eight women and a man are awaiting the punishment.
Stoning is the penalty for crimes such as adultery under Iranian law, but it is rarely carried out. The last such execution was reportedly last year.
Recognising 'gendercide'
The intentional mass killing of any one gender demands recognition, regardless of the motivation behind it
Heather McRobie
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday July 30 2008
Call on Mali Government to Pass Law Against FGM
Equality Now has just issued an Update in its campaign against FGM in Mali, renewing its call on the Malian government to support the passage of a law criminalizing FGM as a matter of urgent priority. The Action also provides an update on the remarkable health and educational progress of Fanta Camara, whose case was highlighted in Women's Action 25.1. For the Update, please click on the following link:
Violence against women in Africa: from discrimination to impunity
Press Release
African Women’s Day
Violence against women in Africa: from discrimination to impunity
A call for ratification and implementation of the Maputo Protocol
Husbands who kill wives can no longer claim they were provoked
Husbands who kill nagging wives will no longer be able to claim they were provoked, under a radical shake-up of the murder laws.
By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:31AM BST 22 Jul 2008
Suspects will also be prevented from pleading not guilty to murder by claiming it was a "crime of passion" because their partner was having an affair.
The reforms are designed to ensure domestic violence is treated as other forms of homicide.
Iran: Kobra Najjar Faces Imminent Execution by Stoning for Prostitution
IMPORTANT: This Women’s Action is current and you are encouraged to send appeals to the authorities listed in the action. For background on particular cases, please see the Women’s Action Archive, which contains information on completed campaigns and earlier versions of updates.
Update: Women's Action 29.2
July 2008
Iran: Kobra Najjar Faces Imminent Execution by Stoning for Prostitution
Saudi Arabia: Academic gets 600 lashes for 'phone relationship' with female pupil
Riad, 30 July (AKI) - A Saudi court has sentenced a chemistry professor to 600 lashes and 8 months in jail for a 'telephone relationship' with a female student.
The student, whose marriage allegedly broke down as result of the relationship got 350 lashes and 4 months in prison.
The academic, who worked in a teaching hospital in the south of the country was convicted on the basis of the student's husband's testimony, according to Arabic satellite TV station Al-Arabiya.
Violence against women has no country
Can Stifled Women Talk?
Dr. Basma Al-Mutlaq, Arab News
Violence against women has no country; it is a plague that is known to breed in the stench of poverty as well as behind the closed doors of the most affluent homes.
Domestic violence or violence against women is a global issue that is not limited to a particular ethnic or religious group.
Husbands who kill wives can no longer claim they were provoked
Husbands who kill nagging wives will no longer be able to claim they were provoked, under a radical shake-up of the murder laws.
Suspects will also be prevented from pleading not guilty to murder by claiming it was a "crime of passion" because their partner was having an affair.
The reforms are designed to ensure domestic violence is treated as other forms of homicide.
As a result of the changes, battered wives who kill their abusers will be able to defend themselves against a murder charge by claiming diminished responsibility.
Following several years of consultation, the Government will next week announce the end of the "crime of passion" defence of provocation used by virtually all male defendants pleading not guilty to murder of a female partner.
Around 100 men a year kill their former or current partners, and provocation - such as failing to cook a meal, or persistent nagging - is the main form of defence used by barristers.
Relatives have complained that they have found it upsetting when murder suspects invoke lurid allegations about the victims' private lives.
In contrast, it is comparatively difficult for lawyers representing the 30 women a year on average who kill their partners to argue that they were provoked, as the crime tends not to take place in the heat of the moment, but is typically pre-planned.
While provocation is likely to remain on the statute book as a defence, it will be limited to the most serious instances, and will not include adultery or nagging.
The reforms are based on a 2006 review of the homicide laws by the Law Commission, and are backed by groups ranging from the Association of Chief Police Officers to Justice for Women.
At the time, the Commissioners complained that the murder laws were "a mess" and said that while appeal judges often did in practice free battered women who killed their abusive partners, this was not available as a straightforward defence in the first place.
One of the Commissioners, Prof Jeremy Holder, told The Telegraph: "The provocation laws have been a constant source of problems for the courts. To a large extent, there is a desire to be more lenient in the sympathetic cases, such as battered women, but the courts lack the laws to address this."
The proposed changes were welcomed by women's groups and law reformers.
A spokesman for Justice for Women said: "We welcome a change in the law. The women we deal with kill in desperation after suffering broken limbs, rape and constant fear. In contrast, at the moment men can get off a murder charge just because their wife is considered a nag."
Emma Scott, spokesman for Rights of Women, said: "Rights of Women has long had grave concerns that the current law continues to discriminate against women who kill and that the defence of provocation in particular is entirely inadequate in dealing with these situations."
In 1997, Joseph Swinburne was sentenced to 200 hours community service after he stabbed his wife 11 times when she told him she was leaving him for another man.
Kiranjit Ahluwalia was jailed for life for killing her violent husband in 1989 by setting his feet on fire following years of abuse. She was freed on appeal three years later, and her story made into a film.
The changes will also make it easier to prosecute gang members who join in an attack which results in murder, even if they did not wield the knife themselves.
By:Rosa Prince
22 July 2008
Source: The Telegraph UK
Eight women and a man face stoning in Iran for adultery
By: Robert Tait and Noushin Hoseiny
The Guardian,
Monday July 21, 2008
Nine people in Iran - eight women and one man - have been sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of adultery in verdicts lawyers blame on a resurgence of hardline Islamic fundamentalism.
The sentences have been imposed in courts across the country despite a supposed moratorium on the punishment, which Iran says is justified under sharia law.
Lawyers say most of the nine have been victims of violence and are mostly too ill-educated to understand the charges against them.
Activists: 9 Iranians Convicted of Adultery Set to Be Stoned to Death
FOX News:
TEHRAN, Iran — Eight women and one man convicted of adultery are set to be stoned to death in Iran, activists said Sunday.
Lawyer and women's rights activist, Shadi Sadr, said the nine were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.
"Their verdicts are approved, and they may be executed at any time," she told reporters.
Nine face stoning death in Iran
At least eight women and one man are reported to have been sentenced to death by stoning in Iran.
The group, convicted of adultery and sex offences, could be executed at any time, lawyers defending them say.
The lawyers have called on the head of Iran's judiciary to prevent the sentences from being carried out.
The last officially reported stoning in Iran last year drew strong criticism from human rights groups and the European Union.