Parallel Legal Systems
Malaysia: Why Hudud Law Is Everybody’s Business
SEPT 23 — Once again the familiar argument has surfaced, or been desperately invoked, this time in the latest stand-off between the leading Pakatan Rakyat allies Karpal Singh and Anwar Ibrahim.
Hudud law, if implemented, will apply only to Muslims, Anwar Ibrahim again insists, so the question is one that concerns only Muslims, not Malaysian citizens of other faiths — or no conventional doctrinal allegiance at all. So non-Muslims have nothing to fear, no legitimate interest in the matter, and no right to express any opinion. The matter is for Muslims alone.
Iraq: Fight for Women’s Rights Begins All Over Again
BAGHDAD, Sep 13, 2011 (IPS) - When a middle-aged mother took a taxi alone from Baghdad to Nasiriyah, about 300 kilometres south earlier this year, her 20-year-old driver stopped on the way, pulled her to the side of the road and raped her. And that began a telling legal struggle.
"She is not a simple case," says Hanaa Edwar, head of the Iraqi rights-based Al-Amal Association, established in Baghdad after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Indonesia: Sharia police in Aceh dissolve lesbian marriage
Islamic police in the Indonesian province of Aceh have forced two women to have their marriage annulled and sign an agreement to separate.
The women had been legally married for a few months after one of them passed as a man in front of an Islamic cleric who presided over their wedding.
But suspicious neighbours confronted the couple and reported them to police.
Pakistan: No Tribal Justice for Women
MULTAN, Pakistan, Aug 9, (Reuters) - On April 14, two men entered Asma Firdous' home, cut off six of her fingers, slashed her arms and lips and then sliced off her nose. Before leaving the house, the men locked their 28-year-old victim inside.
Asma, from impoverished Kohaur Junobi village in Pakistan's south, was mutilated because her husband was involved in a dispute with his relatives, and they wanted revenge.
Her fate is familiar in parts of Pakistan's remote and feudal agricultural belts, where women are often used as bargaining chips in family feuds, and where the level of violence they face is increasing in frequency and brutality.
Proceedings of the CSW panel discussion on violence against women and girls justified in the name of culture
On March 3rd, a panel discussion on violence against women and girls justified in the name of culture was held by the Violence is Not our Culture (VNC) campaign during the 54th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).