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 لبني في المواقع الماليزية ....
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ستار هي الصحيفة الماليزييه الاولى ....تصدر بالانجليزيه
Sudanese women flogged for wearing trousers
CAIRO: Sudanese police arrested 13 women in a raid on a cafe and flogged 10 of them in public for wearing trousers in violation of the country's strict Islamic law, one of those arrested said Monday.
The 13 women were at a cafe in the capital, Khartoum, when they were detained Friday by officers from the public order police, which enforces the implementation of Sharia law in public places.
The force, which is similar to the Saudi religious police, randomly enforces an alcohol ban and often scolds young men and women mingling in public.
One of those arrested Friday, journalist Lubna Hussein, said she is challenging the charges, which can be punishable by up to 40 lashes.
"I didn't do anything wrong," Hussein said. Islamic Sharia law has been strictly implemented in Sudan since the ruling party came to power in a 1989 military coup.
Public order cases usually involve quick summary trials with sentences carried out shortly afterward, as was the case with 10 of the women arrested Friday.
They were flogged and fined 250 Sudanese pounds, or about $120.
Hussein and two other women chose to go to trial. On Monday, she was summoned for questioning and now she awaits a decision from the prosecutor on when the case could go to trial.
Women in northern Sudan, particularly in Khartoum, dress in traditional outfits that include a shawl over their head and shoulder.
Western dress is uncommon.
Still, the raid on a Khartoum cafe popular with journalists and foreigners was unusual. Hussein's lawyer, Nabil Adeeb, said action by the public order police is often arbitrary and aims "from time to time to let people know that big brother is watching you."
Hussein said she decided to speak out because flogging is a practice many women endure in silence.
She even sent printed invitations to the press and public figures to attend her expected trial.
"Let the people see for themselves. It is not only my issue," she said.
"This is retribution to thousands of girls who are facing flogging for the last 20 years because of wearing trousers," she said.
"They prefer to remain silent." - AP
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/7/14/ap...14152109&sec=apworld
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Re: لبني في المواقع الماليزية .... (Re: الصادق عوض)
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[URL]http://www.malaysianinsider.com/index.php/features/3398...oesnt-hurt-but-it-is-
Lubna Hussein: ‘I’m not afraid of being flogged. It doesn’t hurt. But it is insulting
KHARTOUM, Aug 2 — Sitting in the restaurant where her ordeal began, Lubna Hussein looks at the offending item of clothing that caused all the trouble and laughs softly. "In Sudan, women who wear trousers must be flogged!" she says, her eyes widening at the thought. The former journalist faces up to 40 lashes and an unlimited fine if she is convicted of breaching Article 152 of Sudanese criminal law, which prohibits dressing indecently in public.
What exactly constitutes "indecent" is not clear. Last month Lubna was among a crowd listening to an Egyptian singer in a restaurant in a swish area of Khartoum when policemen surged in. They ordered Lubna and other women to stand up to check what they were wearing, and arrested all those who had trousers on. Lubna, who was wearing loose green slacks and a floral headscarf, was taken to the police station.
"There were 13 of us, and the only thing we had in common was that we were wearing trousers," Lubna says. "Ten of the 13 women said they were guilty, and they got 10 lashes and a fine of 250 Sudanese pounds (about £380). One girl was only 13 or 14. She was so scared she urinated on herself."
[Lubna leaves the cafe where she was arrested in Khartoum. She faces 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public. — Reuters pic]
Lubna leaves the cafe where she was arrested in Khartoum. She faces 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public. — Reuters pic
Lubna asked for a lawyer, so her case was delayed. Despite the risks, she is determined that her trial should go ahead. Before her initial hearing last Wednesday, she had 500 invitation cards printed, and sent out emails with the subject line: "Sudanese journalist Lubna invites you again to her flogging tomorrow."
The court was flooded with women's rights activists, politicians, diplomats and journalists, as well as well-wishers. During the hearing, Lubna announced that she would resign from her job as a public information officer with the United Nations, which would have provided her with immunity, to fight the case. The judge agreed, and adjourned the trial until Tuesday.
Lubna says she has no fear of the punishment she might face. "Afraid of what? No, I am not afraid, really," she insists. "I think that flogging does not hurt, but it is an insult. Not for me, but for women, for human beings, and also for the government of Sudan. How can you tell the world that the government flogs the people? How can you do that?"
She is determined to face prosecution in order to change the law. "It is not for me. It is my chance to defend the women of Sudan. Women are often arrested and flogged because of what they wear. This has been happening for 20 years. Afterwards some of them don't continue at high school or university, sometimes they don't return to their family, and sometimes if the girls have a future husband, perhaps the relationship comes to an end."
Lubna, a widow in her 30s, says women have faced similar punishments, mainly in silence, ever since President Omar el-Bashir seized power in 1989. For much of the time since then, Sudan has been at loggerheads with the west. It provided shelter for Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, and is still on an American list of countries that sponsor terrorism, although a senior US official said recently that there was no justification for this.
But Lubna says her concerns are not political. Her frustration stems from what she believes is an erroneous interpretation of her religion.
"Islam does not say whether a woman can wear trousers or not. The clothes I was wearing when the police caught me — I pray in them. I pray to my God in them. And neither does Islam flog women because of what they wear. If any Muslim in the world says Islamic law or sharia law flogs women for their clothes, let them show me what the Quran or Prophet Muhammad said on that issue. There is nothing. It is not about religion, it is about men treating women badly."
Since news of the case broke, Lubna has been celebrated in the western press. She is bemused by the thought of being seen as a heroine, and even more by the idea — suggested by some British newspapers — that she was targeted because she is a Christian. "I am a Muslim, and a good Muslim," she says.
In response to the articles about her case, the Sudanese embassy in London pointed out there had been next to no coverage of a recent landmark arbitration ruling on the region of Abyei, which is contested by the north and the south following two decades of civil war. Despite fears that it might spark renewed conflict, both sides announced they would respect the ruling.
"The floodgates of expert and non-expert comments on Sudan opened suddenly on July 29 in the wake of an indecency and anti-social behaviour case in Khartoum involving journalist Lubna A Hussein," the statement read. "The case is still ongoing and it wouldn't be appropriate to comment on it. The real question, which is relevant to the deep-rooted Islamophobic and anti-Arab prejudice, is the selective spotlight on Ms Lubna Ahmed Hussein and determined neglect of Abyei dispute's result for eight long days."
Sitting in the Khartoum restaurant as the fierce late-afternoon sun intrudes through the windows, Lubna dismisses the notion that western praise might be a drawback in a country like Sudan. "In Sudan, we like the west," she exclaims, apparently agitated by the idea that people might not realise this. "For many Sudanese, our dream is to go to the west." But the government doesn't always give that impression. "The government thinks differently to the people. The government hopes to be friends with the west, but sometimes they try to look tough, that's all."
Nevertheless, she is worried that the foreign attention on her case could lead to further cultural misunderstandings. "The west really doesn't understand Islam," she says. "Because as Muslims we know that, if the police catch girls and arrest and flog them, we know this is not Islam. But when the government of Bashir does that, the west says: 'Oh, that is Islam.' It presents a bad face of Islam."
Since her initial hearing, Lubna has been bombarded with messages and phone calls from all over the world. Her family has been supportive, she says, perhaps in part because they are used to it: she was first arrested 15 years ago as a campaigning university student, and has been called in by the police on many subsequent occasions, often after writing satirical articles for the newspaper her husband set up.
But one phone call from within the country touched her most. "I talked to my colleagues in the court, the 10 who have already been flogged. At the beginning they were very sad, and one of them was in a bad psychological state. But when she saw me on TV and in the newspaper, she called me to say that this was good. In the beginning, her neighbours and her family didn't believe she was flogged just for the clothes she was wearing. So she called me to say thank you."
The issue is rapidly becoming politicised. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement, which represents the mainly non-Muslim south in a coalition government, has called for the law to be changed. Under a 2005 peace deal, sharia law is not supposed to apply to non-Muslims, and not the least controversial among Lubna's statements is that several of the 10 women she says were flogged were non-Muslims.
But, for Lubna, the heart of the case goes beyond the north-south divide and its ramifications. She says nothing in Islam justifies flogging a woman for wearing trousers. "I am not a hero, I just don't have a choice," she says, fiddling with her pale gold headscarf.
When she spoke to the Observer, Lubna was wearing trousers again, this time blue jeans. Will her experience change the way she dresses? "I have trousers, I have dresses, I have traditional Sudanese clothes — I wear what I like. I won't change."
And what will happen if the judge decides, as is still possible, that she was indecently dressed, and sentences her to 40 lashes?
"I will take my case to the upper court, even to the constitutional court," she insists, measuring her words. "And if they find me guilty, I am ready to receive not only 40 lashes, I am ready for 40,000 lashes. If all women must be flogged for what they wear, I am ready to be flogged 40,000 times."
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Re: لبني في المواقع الماليزية .... (Re: الصادق عوض)
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http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/2009/8...aring%20The%20Nation
Brothers, be just to your sisters
By Zainah Anwar
Quote: Brothers, be just to your sisters
Islam itself means submission to the will of God, but the submission of the self to faith and belief must be attained through conviction and reason, not through coercion and duress.
SO, Malaysia makes international news again. And for the wrong reason again. This time for the Kuantan Syariah Court’s decision to flog Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno with six strokes of the rotan for drinking a glass of beer with her husband in a hotel in Cherating two years ago.
Sudan is in the news too with the arrest of a journalist, Lubna Ahmad Hussein, and 12 other women for wearing trousers, deemed to be “inappropriate dress and conduct” under that country’s Islamic criminal law. Ten of the women were already found guilty and flogged with 10 lashes each.
Then there is the news from the Maldives that almost 150 women face public flogging after being convicted for indulging in extramarital sex. Interestingly, only 50 men face the same punishment.
What is it about men who want to implement Islamic law that they pick on women to shame and defame?
As Kartika surrenders herself to her fate, I wonder how the Pahang religious authorities are planning to execute the six lashes. Will the Prime Minister who comes from Pahang and the Cabinet yet again intervene in the enforcement of the draconian Syariah Criminal Offences law in this country?
There is much public debate now along the usual divide. Islamists who support the punishment in the name of Islam and others who are outraged on several different grounds:
> That the punishment does not reflect the gravity of the offence;
> That as a first-time offender who also pleaded guilty as charged, Kartika should not have been punished with the maximum sentence;
> Flogging is a violation of human rights as it constitutes a cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment;
> Flogging women under Syariah law constitutes yet another form of discrimination against Muslim women in this country as women are exempted from flogging under civil law;
> Neither the Qur’an nor the Hadith prescribes any form of punishment for drinking alcohol;
> There is no consensus on flogging of women or for alcohol consumption. Only three states –Pahang, Perlis and Kelantan – provide for such punishment;
> Islamic teachings emphasise forgiveness, compassion and positive personal transformation. So why punish in the first instance?
What is distressing about all these stories of women being flogged for alleged transgressions of Islamic teachings is the seeming determination of those who rule in the name of Islam to project a misogynistic, punitive and vindictive God.
And yet, more than any other religion, Muslims invoke the name of God, the compassionate and the merciful, numerous times a day as we say our daily prayers, read verses of the Quran, and before we start any action. Alas, all too often, this invocation of God’s name has become meaningless and has no relation to how we live our lives and treat others in the name of religion.
As Karen Armstrong said in her public lecture here two years ago, we have become so obsessed about being right in our doctrine, instead of being just in our practice.
No amount of explaining – that Syariah caning is not supposed to cause injury, it is moderate, the caning officer is not supposed to lift his arm above his shoulder – is going to take away the pain and humiliation of such a cruel and degrading treatment.
In many Muslim countries, this flogging is done in public. The Indonesian National Commission on Violence Against Women submitted a report to the UN Committee Against Torture listing the abuses that occurred in Aceh and other districts in Indonesia which implement Syariah law where women were arrested and flogged for their dressing, for being out at night, for being with men not related to them.
The victimisation of women and the absence of rule of law are common trends in countries that implement moral policing laws.
That the prisons in the Maldives hold more women than men waiting to be flogged is no surprise. Men get away simply by denying they had sex with the women. But women could get pregnant and this is used as evidence of illicit sex, or the patriarchs in their family would have turned them in; while boys get away by just being boys.
The situation is similar in Pakistan, too, when the hudud law on zina was enforced. Over a thousand women are in prison for illicit sex and hardly any men. Even women who reported rape were detained as their police report was seen as confession of illicit sex because they were not able to produce four pious males who witnessed the rape.
Women’s groups in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore are jointly mobilising against Kartika’s sentencing, fearful of a precedent set that will have wide impact not just on Malaysian Muslim women, but also on the hundreds of thousands of Muslim women from neighbouring countries who travel, work or reside in Malaysia.
Once again, the questions arise. What kind of Malaysia do we want to live in, and project to the rest of the world? What kind of Islam do we want to practise? What kind of God do we want to envision? A God of kindness, compassion, beauty and goodness or a cruel, punitive and misogynistic God?
Does 1Malaysia include equality between men and women and equality between Muslim women and women of other faith?
The ever-so-often public outcry over arrests and abuses under the Syariah Criminal Offences laws show a clear disconnect between how the state views its role in controlling the lives of Muslims and how the citizens perceive their entitlements to privacy and personal choices.
If the Syariah Criminal Offences laws are implemented in full, Malaysia’s prisons would collapse. The vast list of crimes range from holding an opinion contrary to a fatwa, to possessing a book contrary to Hukum Syarak, and behaving in an indecent manner in a public place.
As religion is a state matter, different states have also added different offences. In Selangor, smoking is a crime. In Terengganu, it is a crime for a woman to reveal any part of her aurat that arouses passion in the public space or for a virgin woman to abscond from the guardianship of her parents without a reasonable justification valid under Hukum Syarak.
Is it the duty of the state – in order to bring about a moral society – to turn all “sins” into “crimes against the state”? Should the state extend the long arm of the law to what should be best left to the religious conscience of the individual?
We all know that faith comes from the heart. Islam itself means submission to the will of God, but the submission of the self to faith and belief must be attained through conviction and reason, not through coercion and duress.
Compelling obedience to God in this manner could suggest a failure in the way Islam is taught in this country. Is the solution then to turn to politicians to legislate on our lives and compel our obedience? Or is it for us to search for more effective ways to teach Islam, to imbibe Islamic values so that obedience to God comes from a genuine act of faith, belief and submission? Is it beyond our ability to lead the ummah to God’s way by love, beauty, kindness and compassion rather than through fear, coercion and punishment?
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Re: لبني في المواقع الماليزية .... (Re: sari_alail)
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العزيز/ ساري
سلامات
جماعات التخلف والهوس الديني هي التي تدعم قوانين الظلام والعصور الوسطى..
لو ملاحظ أن أحكام التعسف ضد المرأة ظهرت بكثرة في البلدان التي تسمى إسلامية..
لبنى السودان, كارتيكا ماليزيا, المالديف, اندونيسيا...
تهان المرأة بأحكام قوانين ما أنزل الله بها من سلطان..
ماليزيا دولة علمانية والمحكمة الدستورية لا تسند قوانين الظلام هذه التي تطبق في ثلاث من ولاياتها..
(راجع قضية أنور ابراهيم قديمها وجديدها)..
تحياتي
عبدالعزيز..
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الصادق عوض
sari_alail
Abdlaziz Eisa
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست