http://www.uq.edu.au/events/event_view.php?event_id=3371

Tuesday, 24 July 2007, UQ

Sohaila will speak on the realities of women’s lives in Afghanistan’s ongoing climate of insecurity, poverty and misogyny; she will also detail the ongoing courageous work of the women of RAWA. RAWA is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women`s rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 29^th, 2007 at 1:51am:



Its a good day to kill a muslim..lets.

Classic Liberal wrote on Jul 29^th, 2007 at 6:34pm:



I dont hate muslims pender....my words had another meaning!!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Saudi-defends-gangrape-victims-verdict/2007/11/21/1195321818789.html

Saudi Arabia has defended a court's decision to sentence a woman who was gang-raped to 200 lashes of the whip, after the United States described the verdict as "astonishing".

The 19-year-old Shi'ite woman from the town of Qatif in the Eastern Province and an unrelated male companion were abducted and raped by seven men in 2006.

Ruling according to Saudi Arabia's strict reading of Islamic law, a court had originally sentenced the woman to 90 lashes and the rapists to jail terms of between 10 months and five years.

It blamed the woman for being alone with an unrelated man.

Last week the Supreme Judicial Council increased the sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison and ordered the rapists to serve between two and nine years in jail.

The court also took the unusual step of initiating disciplinary procedures against her lawyer, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, forcibly removing him from the case for having talked about it to the media.

It berated media for not specifying that three judges, not one, issued the recent ruling and reiterated that the "charges were proven" against the woman.

It also repeated the judges' attack against Lahem last week, saying he had "spoken insolently about the judicial system and challenged laws and regulations".

A series of erratic verdicts have focused attention on the Saudi legal system, which is dominated by clerics who adhere to the kingdom's austere Sunni form of Islamic law. Personal status law remains uncodified and the system does not recognise the concept of precedent.

http://news.smh.com.au/saudi-arabia-eases-rules-for-women/20080121-1na2.html

Saudi authorities, breaking with religious codes that require women to be accompanied by a male guardian, have decided to allow women to stay in hotels on their own, a newspaper reports.

A royal decree allowed the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to lay down new regulations simply requiring women to show personal identification including a photograph, which hotel managers must register with local police, al-Watan said.

Tribal custom and hardline religious strictures limit women's movement in the conservative Islamic state, the only country in the world where women are forbidden from driving.

Saudi women can face harassment from the religious police if they are not accompanied in public areas by a male relative who acts as her "guardian". The rules are less strictly enforced for foreigners and in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's most liberal city.

The paper said the rules, set out in last month's decree, were worked out in coordination with the Ministry of the Interior and the religious police organisation, two bodies who rights activists say stand in the way of improved women's rights in Saudi Arabia.

Concern over the country's image abroad and a desire to integrate women into the national economy have driven liberal voices within government to advance more freedoms for women.

King Abdullah has said he supports reforms, including lifting the driving ban, but only when "society" accepts it.

A Saudi delegation faced tough questioning before a panel of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in Geneva last week.

http://news.smh.com.au/afghan-journalist-facing-death-sentence/20080123-1npa.html

An Afghan court sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for distributing a paper he printed off the internet that three judges said violated the tenets of Islam, an official said.

The three-judge panel sentenced Sayad Parwez Kambaksh to death for distributing a paper that humiliated Islam, said Fazel Wahab, the chief judge in the northern province of Balkh, where the trial took place on Tuesday. Wahab did not preside over the trial.

Wahab said he did not immediately have the details of the paper that Kambaksh circulated, other than that it was against Islam.

Wahab said only President Hamid Karzai can forgive Kambaksh because he had confessed to violating the tenets of Islam.

Rhimullah Samandar, the head of the Kabul-based National Journalists Union of Afghanistan, said Kambaksh had been sentenced to death under Article 130 of the Afghan constitution. That article says that if no law exists regarding an issue, a court's decision should be in accord with Hanafi jurisprudence.

Hanafi is an orthodox school of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence followed in southern and central Asia.

You mean they think it is disappointing, or they think he should be killed?

http://news.smh.com.au/three-little-pigs-book-offends-muslims/20080124-1nyg.html

A children's book based on the classic tale of the Three Little Pigs has been rejected for an award amid fears it could offend Muslims.

Judges for the Bett Awards criticised the animated virtual book, The Three Little Cowboy Builders, saying its use of pigs as the main characters raised "cultural issues".

They also believed the book could offend builders.

"Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs," the judges wrote.

Ann Curtis, whose company Shoo Fly Publishing produced the book, branded the judges' criticisms unjustified.

"To be told that we cynically set out to alienate minority groups is a very narrow-minded view."