Dear All,
I have made this short film about the plight of some people i know - about marriages of conveniences and I hope you pls vote for it.
Enjoy!
http://www.linktv. org/onenation/ films/view/ 321
Thanks!
From Human Rights Watch - http://www.hrw.org
For Immediate Release
Senegal: Free AIDS Activists
Eight-Year Sentences in Threatening Conditions for 9 Accused of 'Indecent and Unnatural Acts'
(New York, January 9, 2009) – The sentencing in Dakar on January 6, 2009 of nine men who were involved in HIV-prevention work, on charges of "indecent and unnatural acts" and "forming associations of criminals," shows how laws against homosexual conduct damage HIV- and AIDS-prevention efforts as well as the work of human rights defenders, Human Rights Watch said today.
"These charges will have a chilling effect on AIDS programs," said Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights program. "Outreach workers and people seeking HIV prevention or treatment should not have to worry about police persecution. Senegal should drop these charges and repeal its sodomy law."
HIV and AIDS advocates in Senegal report that the ruling has produced widespread panic among organizations addressing HIV and AIDS, particularly those working with men who have sex with men and other marginalized populations.
These nine men apparently were arrested merely on suspicion of engaging in homosexual conduct. In that case, international human rights provisions mandate their immediate release. So long as they remain detained – given the general climate of hostility against men perceived to engage in homosexual conduct and the risk of violence against them – Senegalese authorities should ensure their safety by separating them from other prisoners, if necessary. The authorities must also ensure that the men receive any necessary medical care, including antiretroviral therapy.
The men were detained on December 19, 2008, after several police officers burst into the private residence of an HIV outreach worker some miles outside Dakar at 11 p.m. and arrested all nine men in the house. The police confiscated condoms and lubricants – tools used for HIV-prevention work. The police forced several of the men to disclose family members' phone numbers and threatened to inform their families. Sources told Human Rights Watch that the men were beaten in detention, which would constitute a significant violation of Senegal's international human rights obligations.
The men were charged with violating article 319.3 of Senegal's penal code, which provides that "whoever commits an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex will be punished by imprisonment of between one and five years." Reports received by Human Rights Watch indicate that the men were not engaged in any activity considered criminal under Senegalese law.
At the trial, prosecutors apparently used the materials found in the house that are standard HIV-prevention tools used in outreach work as evidence of homosexual conduct, for which the men received the maximum five-year sentence. They were also found guilty of "criminal association" in violation of article 238 of the penal code, permitting the judge to add three years to their five-year term.
"Senegal's sodomy law invades privacy, criminalizes health work, justifies brutality, and feeds fear," said Long. "This case shows why it is time for the sodomy law to go."
The men's arrest and detention violates article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantees the right to liberty and security of person and rights against arbitrary detention. Senegal ratified the ICCPR in 1978, without reservations. Criminal trials under article 319.3 of the penal code violate Senegal's treaty commitments. Senegal should repeal article 319.3, which also severely hampers HIV/AIDS-prevention and education efforts, barring large populations from access to treatment and care.
The men were arrested only days after Senegal served as the host for the 15th International Conference on AIDS and STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in Africa (ICASA). Presentations at this conference pointed out the apparent contradiction in some countries, such as Senegal, which target HIV/AIDS-prevention efforts at populations of men of who have sex with men but continue to criminalize same-sex relations. Advocates working in HIV and AIDS prevention point out that such an approach necessarily drives the targeted populations underground and mitigates the efficacy of HIV intervention efforts.
Article 7 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders specifically provides that "everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to develop and discuss new human rights ideas and principles and to advocate their acceptance." The report of the special representative of the secretary-general on human rights defenders to the UN General Assembly specifically identifies human rights defenders from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex communities as being at particular risk and has called for greater state vigilance in protecting their rights.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee, which authoritatively interprets the ICCPR and evaluates compliance with its provisions, found in the 1994 case of Toonen v. Australia that laws criminalizing consensual homosexual conduct among adults violate the ICCPR's protections. According to UNAIDS data, at least 5 to 10 percent of HIV infections worldwide occur through sex between men, though this figure varies considerably by region. Laws criminalizing consensual sexual conduct drive these vulnerable populations underground and permit gross violations of the fundamental rights to life, freedom of expression and association, and health.
For more of Human Rights Watch's work on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/category/topic/lgbt-rights
For more of Human Rights Watch's work on HIV/AIDS and human rights, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/topic/health/hiv/tb
For more information, please contact:
In New York, Scott Long (English): +1-212-216-1297; or +1-646-641-5655 (mobile)
In New York, Joseph Amon (English): +1-917-519-8930 (mobile)
In Brussels, Reed Brody (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): +32-2-737-1489; or +32 -498-625786 (mobile)
| Islam and intellectual resurgence |  |  |
| Written by Macharia Munene | |
 Macharia Munene Carnegie's pronouncements carry weight in influential circles with some people trying to ensure that its supposed assessments become reality. In 2008, Carnegie turned to examining public intellectuals. These are people whose play with ideas is often in the public arena thereby influencing what the informed general public thinks and policy makers do. After selecting 100 intellectuals of its choice, Carnegie requested readers to rank them after which it announced that the top ten public intellectuals in the world were Muslims. At the top was Fethullah Gulen of Turkey, a Sufi cleric currently living in Pennsylvania. He promotes the idea that science and Islam complement each other and are not in conflict. The decline of Islam, he argues, was because Muslims "lagged behind in science and technology for the last few centuries." He advocates "intellectual endeavour … scientific knowledge, and spiritual illumination." Among his probable followers is Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's foreign policy mastermind, who wants Turkish influence felt world wide. Subsequently Turks have been setting up elite Turkish educational institutions world wide which, while not ignoring religion, stress top quality that competes effectively with any school in the world, in any system. In Kenya, the Turks are under the rubric of 'Light Academy.' Power of ideas When in December 2008 Turks in Kenya organised a ceremony in Nairobi to honour Gulen, one of the guest speakers was Farar Maalim Mohammed, Deputy Speaker of Kenya's National Assembly. Fitting into the Gulenist mood, Farar insisted that Islam had spread world wide through the power of ideas enshrined in the Koran rather than through the force of arms. Yet he was in anguish because many Muslims were behaving badly by not being realistic. Lack of realism, Farar lamented, was because Muslims ignored the power of the intellect and ended up engaging in activities that are counterproductive to Islamic interests. This would explain why Muslims shoot other Muslims inside and outside the Mosques. It was ridiculous, he felt, for some Muslims to consider him a kafir because he serves in a parliament that is not wholly Islamic. He reminded Muslims that they are part and parcel of the Kenyan political entity which requires give and take instead of exclusionary tendencies. The solution, he argued, was to invest heavily in education in order to sharpen the intellect in all fields. He wants Muslim intellectuals to participate fully in the making of a new Kenyan constitution. Farar's lamentations are similar to those of Prime Minister Mahithir Mohammed of Malaysia. In what amounted to his farewell address, Mahithir claimed that Islam declined when it ignored intellectual pursuits and allowed other people to think for Muslims. Because Muslims were not thinking, he asserted, they ended up being misguided into acts of terrorism that did not advance the interests of Islam. The real battle, he argued, was in the power of the mind to persuade other people to see and understand Islamic reasoning, rather than in throwing Molotov cocktails and acquiring military hardware. There appears to be a resurgence of intellectualism to recapture the Islamic glory that existed before the fall of Alhambra in Granada in 1492. After liberating itself from Muslims, Christian Europe tried to wipe out anything positive about Muslims and succeeded for at least 500 years. Munene is professor of History and International Relations, USIU, Africa. |
First Published 2009-01-12, Last Updated 2009-01-12 11:55:52
God is Great: Faith and Public Diplomacy at Work
On January 10th 2009, about hundred Delawareans shared a unique spiritual and cultural experience. They participated in a dialogue on the role of faith in Middle Eastern and American communities. A delegation of Islamic and social science scholars from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, joined with twelve leaders of various faith communities – Catholic, Jewish, Methodist, Muslim, Hindu, Presbyterian and Christian Fellowship – to engage in a conversation that neither focused on the commonalities of their faiths nor on its differences. They instead celebrated the role that their faith played in their lives and in the life of their communities. The event was hosted by the Westminster Presbyterian Church, a community of believers which is taking a lead in understanding Islam and reaching out to Muslims. I had the honor of moderating this event and I can testify without hesitation that it was indeed a stirring experience. The citizen ambassadors are on a three week tour of the United States, coordinated by the University of Delaware, to engage American scholars, religious leaders, policy makers, and students to explore the increasing role of faith in our societies. They seek to share and explain the importance of Islam in their lives. Islam constitutes Muslim individual and collective identity. It underpins their social and political norms and in general it frames the purpose of their lives. This was apparent from the remarks that the visitors made. But they also emphasized the diversity of opinion and practice within the Muslim community. They recognized the presence of a vitriolic and radical strain within Muslim society today but they also reminded the audience that the majority of Muslims followed a moderate middle path. Two of the scholars are from the holy city of Mecca and they talked about the cultural diversity, theological multiplicity and moderation in religion that is so characteristic of Mecca. They lamented that it is now being overshadowed by a harsher and intolerant interpretation of Islam, known widely as Wahhabism. Their overriding message was simple – there is only one God, every faith recognizes this, and that God is Great. The Egyptian scholars emphasized the importance of justice and equality in US-Muslim relations. They expressed anguish over the difficulties with US foreign policy, condemned extremism and intolerance everywhere and called for Americans to not just aim for tolerance but for mutual respect. The scholars met with several groups in the Delaware valley. At the University of Delaware they met with a large group of students and discussed the economic and social realities of the Muslim World. They met a diverse cohort of University faculty who challenged them about the rise of extremism and intolerance in Arab culture. In Philadelphia they met with members of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where an intense discussion ensued on various topics including Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism in the Arab World, Arab hatred in Israel and Islamophobia in the West. The scholars also had an exposure to a heady combination of grace, wealth, and power when they were hosted by the Wilmington World Affairs Council. The conversations at the council started with an intimate tête-à-tête during dinner and culminated with a frank and occasionally moving conversation on US-Muslim relations. Later one of the visitors remarked that he was now getting a better understanding of what made America such a power in the world. The last stop was at Masjid Ibrahim, the biggest mosque in Delaware. Here the visitors tried to lecture the Delawarean Muslims on the importance of inclusiveness and suddenly found themselves in a passionate debate on how to interpret scripture. A non-Muslim graduate student who witnessed the dialogue summarized it as an unusual encounter that demonstrated how much the community members cared for each other while passionately disagreeing among themselves. After each of these dialogues, I and the team of students working with me on this project sought the feedback of the participants of and on camera. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. People found the dialogues informative, enlightening and experientially rewarding. They did not come out reassured that all was well with the world. But they did come out with a better understanding of what was happening in the hearts and minds of the other. Most importantly, both visitors and hosts felt that they had shared their thoughts and feelings, their fears and hopes about the other directly. Their experience was cathartic and a triumph for public diplomacy. We live in a multicultural, multiracial and multi-religious society. Differences, small and profound, exist and we celebrate them. But in order to maintain a vibrant, productive and peaceful society, to prevent conflict and eschew dysfunctionality, we have to inculcate respect and tolerance for these differences and that can only come from mutual understanding and mutual acceptance. Muqtedar Khan is Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and a Fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. Read more about the dialogue at www.ijtihad.org/FC-dialogue.htm.
A delegation of Islamic and social science scholars seeks to share and explain the importance of Islam in their lives on a three week tour of the United States, says Muqtedar Khan.
KABUL, 12 January 2009 (IRIN) - Mohammad Tawasoli, an imam at a mosque in Wardak Province, central Afghanistan, tells the local community to maintain a two-year gap between pregnancies and avoid child marriage - to help mother and infant remain healthy. 
Photo: Ahmad/IRIN 
Religious leaders receive training in Kabul on the impact of birth gaps and child marriage on maternal and infant mortality
"Islam does not allow the killing of the foetus but it also does not want mothers to face health risks because of… constant pregnancies," Tawasoli said.
"Islam does not oppose delayed pregnancies if this helps the health and well-being of mothers," he told IRIN in Kabul, adding that those who think otherwise believe in superstition rather than true Islamic principles.
Religious scholars such as Tawasoli wield strong influence among people in rural communities where high rates of illiteracy and lack of awareness about health issues contribute to the deaths of thousands of mothers and children every year.
Every year 17,000 women die due to pregnancy-related complications and one child in four does not reach his/her fifth birthday, largely owing to curable diseases, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Food insecurity and lack of access to health services are weakening the health and nutritional status of women, and multiple and short-spaced pregnancies often cause early deaths, according to health specialists.
The common practice of child marriage is also a major factor in early deaths among mothers.
"Child marriage and forced marriage are in contradiction with Islam," said Abdul Karim, an imam in Kabul.
Ending ignorance
The ministries of women's affairs and religious affairs, backed by a few aid agencies, have been working to involve religious leaders in a strategy to reduce pregnancy-related maternal mortality.
Over the past year, dozens of imams participated in training workshops in Kabul at which gender experts tried to convince them to spread the word on birth gaps and legal-age marriage.
"Some people wrongly think birth gaps are not Islamic. We want to tackle such ignorance with the help of mullahs [imams]," Hosai Wardak, a gender specialist working with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Kabul, told IRIN.
In the northeastern province of Badakhshan, which reportedly has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, such efforts have borne fruit.
However, in the volatile southern and eastern provinces, where Taliban insurgents have assassinated dozens of pro-government religious leaders, preaching about family planning seems to be a risky and unattractive job.
The government and its partners may need to adopt alternative approaches in areas where imams are wary of encouraging people to ensure birth gaps, and wed under-age girls, experts said.
From Hurriyet Daily News - January 3, 2009
A new mosque styled for the new millennium
by Mustafa Akyol
ISTANBUL - Created by one of Turkey's most stylish designers, Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu, the Şakirin Mosque, on the Asian side of Istanbul at the entrance to the city's largest cemetery, will soon welcome believers to a space of not just traditional faith but also contemporary aesthetics.
Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu is a Turkish designer known for creating some of the most stylish lounges and nightclubs in Istanbul. As a winner of the Andrew Martin International Designer of the Year award, her fame, and that of her husband, restaurateur Meto, has gone beyond Turkey.
"For almost 25 years, this glamorous pair have been creating sophisticated hot spots that are the number-one destinations for Turkey's glitterati," wrote The Independent in 2004, in a review of the couple's then newly opened restaurant in London. "Zeynep manages to make her passion for all things Oriental and European sit together in easy, informal arrangements."
Yet, probably none of the projects Fadıllıoğlu has undertaken before were as passionate as her current one in terms of combing the Orient and Europe: the design of the most modern mosque that Istanbul, and Turkey, has ever seen.
This ongoing construction is at the entrance of the Karacaahmet Cemetery, the oldest and largest in Istanbul. Located in the Üsküdar district of the Anatolian side, this burial ground is the eternal home of at least a million souls, including many prominent figures ranging from Ottoman bureaucrats to modern day artists. And now, among the tall cypress trees that grow above them, there also rise two minarets and dome whose style is new, not only to the dead, but also the living.
The project was commissioned by a London-based wealthy Arab-Turkish family in the memory of their deceased mother, Semiha Şakir, whose name is recognized by Turks from the quality schools she founded. Her children, Ghassan, Gazi and Gade, have decided to name the mosque "Şakirin."
It obviously is a reference to their family. But it also has the literal meaning, "Those who are thankful (to God)."
The Şakirin mosque seems to be a combination of traditional elegance and modern austerity. It has a dome; but unlike those on traditional mosques, this metal sphere looks like a space ship. The architect, Hüsrev Tayla, built Ankara's magnificent Kocatepe Mosque before, which is in the old Ottoman style. This time, in collaboration with other artists such British designer William Pye, he has taken a whole new direction.
Fadıllıoğlu's job is to design the interior. Different artists are working for her on the altar, calligraphy and pool in the courtyard. Every detail, from the carpets to tiles, is designed anew. She is also planning a system by which the worshippers, after taking their shoes off to enter the mosque, will wear galoshes. Hygenie, she notes, is as important as aesthetics.
A women-friendly mosque
One thing that is notable in the Şakirin Mosque will be the women's area. In traditional mosques, this is often a very small, dark and apathetic place at the back. Although many believe that this is what "Islam" ordains, it is actually a relic from the culture of the medieval Middle East. No wonder ultra-Orthodox Judaism has a similar tradition of male-favoring seclusion. In Fadıllıoğlu's design, women will still be separate, but the upper-level designated for them will be open, lighted, and beautifully decorated. A mosque designed by a woman, as she proudly noted, will be more welcoming to women.
The mosque, which is plans to open in May, will also have a small museum showcasing works of Islamic art. Among these might be the overlay of the Ka'aba of Mecca, the holiest Muslim shrine, which the Şakir family recently bought at an auction at Sotheby's for about a million dollars. The total expense for the mosque is unknown - but it is estimated to be very, very high.
This overtly upper-class initiative to introduce an example of modern aesthetics into Turkish Islam seems very timely. For quite sometime, the Turkish intelligentsia has been debating on the rural and unsophisticated character of the Islamic culture in their society. An analytical story written by senior journalist Sefa Kaplan and published by daily Hürriyet two weeks ago was titled, "The Analysis of Villager Islam."
"The secularization effort during the Republican era included the struggle with the symbols of Islam," Kaplan said. "Consequently, Islam was pushed to the rural areas; it soon lost its urban heritage and was filled with superstition and ignorance." When these devout villagers started to pour into secular cities, Dr. Süleyman Seyfi Öğün, a political scientist, says they brought not just religion but also rural culture - and hardly made a distinction between the two.
The result was a deepening tension between the bourgeois seculars and the ex-rural but not-yet-fully-urban religious. The living spaces of the former centered on well-groomed cafes, restaurants, and bars of rich neighborhoods such as Nisantaşı or Bebek. The latter's neighborhoods were rather characterized by the hastily built mosques, which presented very little, if any, sense of aesthetics.
In other words, the much-debated secular-religious conflict in Turkey is, to some extent, also a class conflict. What the secularists despise is not Islam as such. It is the Islam of the villagers that they find crude and distasteful. That's why the mosque might be a good step to change some established prejudices. "This mosque has all the Western and Eastern values nicely blended," she said. Apparently, it will also nicely blend the values of urban and rural Turks.
From the Deccan Herald - December 29, 2008
Wearing jeans un-Islamic'
From Sanjay Pandey, DH News Service, Lucknow:
After terming love as "un-Islamic", the Darul Uloom Islamic seminary in Deoband has said that Muslilms wearing jeans is a gunah (sin).
The seminary recently issued a fatwa (religious decree) against the wearing of jeans and transplanting and dyeing of hair in black.
These fatwas have been issued in response to three different queries, according to the Darul Uloom's Darul Ifta (department of fatwa). In response to a query on wearing of jeans by women, especially in cold countries in Western Europe, the seminary has made it clear that "jeans pants and shirts are against the shariat (Islamic rules)". "The physical structure (curves) of the body is reflected if one puts on a jeans. Wearing them by a woman is a sin", the fatwa said adding that it should not be put on by the menfolk also. "It is barred for men as well. Women, who want to look as men, are cursed", the fatwa went on to say.
On a query on dyeing one's hair in black, the fatwa said that any other colour other than black is permissible. "Use of black hair dye is un-Islamic", it said.
On another query pertaining to hair transplant, the Darul Uloom said transplanting artificial hair amounted to "cheating" and is therefore is "illegal". The clerics say that Islam very clearly separates what is right and what is wrong. "He, who does even after knowing that it is wrong, is the sinner", said a senior cleric. "Fatwas should only issued on religious matters and not social issues", said Maulana Yasoob Abbas, the spokesman of the All India Shia Personal Law Board. All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board chairperson Shaista Amber also echoed similar sentiments. "The clerics should confine themselves only to religious matters", she told Deccan Herald.
Bequests by Islamic decree … Hina Bhimani and Shazia Haque have already made
their wills in accordance with the Koran.
Photo: Tamara Dean
To gather together as a community of individuals who identify as Muslim culturally, religiously, ideologically and/or politically and also as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), while reconnecting with our faith, our community and with ourselves.
