Women's Rights in the News

This morning [7th Feb.] the Sunday Times published an article about Amnesty International’s association with groups that support the Taliban and promote Islamic Right ideas.

Amnesty International is being accused in a media article today of putting the human rights of some people above those of others.

The Supreme Court has admitted a bunch of Special Leave Petitions (SLP) filed by religious groups, including a Mumbai-based Muslim organization, against the reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that effectively decriminalizes homosexuality.

The French government is refusing to grant citizenship to a foreign man who forces his wife to wear the full Islamic veil, amid a fierce debate in the country about national identity.

At noon today a delegation of 200 women and men marched to Mhlahlandlela Government complex to deliver WOZA’s report on the education system in Zimbabwe entitled - Looking Back to look Forward.

Iranian judicial and prison authorities have refused to release any information about charges against women’s rights activist Somayeh Rashidi (24), who was arrested on 19 December 2009, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported today.

The SIS Forum (Malaysia) succeeded in throwing out the Home Minister’s order banning its 215-page book, Muslim Women and the Challenges of Islamic Extremism.

Australian Quakers, meeting in their annual meeting in Adelaide today [11th January], called on the Federal Government to amend the Marriage Act to give full and equal legal recognition to all marriages, regardless of the sexual orientation and gender of the partners.

A 45-year-old theatre actress was doused with petrol in an attack in Paris after weeks of receiving threats over a feminist play she wrote on Algerian women.

GMA News TV (Philippines) reported ... an alarming development in the case of a Filipino worker who was raped in Saudi-Arabia this August and jailed for it. After miscarrying the fetus, the woman now faces lashing before being released.

The role of religion will be under the spotlight in the House of Lords today (Monday 25 January), as peers debate amendments to the Equality Bill.

A second strong earthquake hit Haiti today, waking people from their beds and sending others running into the streets in panic.

Declaring that abortions "delay the redemption," Israel's chief rabbis have pledged to "strengthen" the work of an anti-abortion council in the rabbinate and urged state-employed rabbis to take other steps to reduce abortions.

More churches in Malaysia have been attacked amid tensions over a court ruling that a Christian newsletter could use "Allah" to refer to God.

Women’s rights activists are furious at a decision by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate to launch a public offensive against abortion.

Secular campaigners publish series of anti-religious quotes and say they will challenge law if charged with blasphemy

The wave of arrests following the protests and violence taking place on Ashura (December 27, 2009) has included over sixteen women journalists, women’s movement and civil society activists, according to The Feminist School and Change for Equality.

A representative of Iran's supreme leader has said opposition leaders are "enemies of God" who should be executed under the country's laws.

Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman, a 24-year-old Egyptian student, blogged under the name "Kareem Amer" starting in 2004.

Fifty-two unmarried couples could face charges of sexual misconduct and jail terms after being caught in hotel rooms by Malaysia's Islamic morality police.

The provincial authorities say it is alien to local culture and violates religious harmony. The descendants of Chinese respond that is only "a cultural show" to remember the victims of the tsunami. For decades the community - mostly Christian - is victim of discrimination and violence for religious or economic reasons.

Lawmakers in Mexico City have become the first in Latin America to legalise gay marriage.

The girls are outmanoeuvered. Out of nowhere, a group of policewomen in olive-green uniforms, swoop in and flag down their motorcycle.

Amnesty International has condemned the execution of an alleged juvenile offender in Iran on [17th December], at least the fifth such execution in 2009.

In an unusual display of female political activism, several hundred demonstrators demand that President Hamid Karzai purge those connected to corruption, war crimes or the Taliban.

Women in Arab countries are making human rights history as they break down barriers to being treated as full citizens in their own countries. In the past few years, women in Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco married to foreigners have won the right to convey their citizenship to their children. Algerian women can also now extend citizenship rights to their spouses.

Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, a women’s rights activist, was arrested [20th December] on her way to Qom to participate in Ayatollah Montazeri's funeral ceremony (Iranian Grand Ayatollah Montazeri passed away 19th December 2009).

French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling party should draft a law to ban the wearing of face-covering veils in certain public places, its parliamentary leader has said.

While climate change affects everyone, women bear a heavier burden – and gender activists say they should have a greater say in planning the response to climate change.

In a ruling that could reverberate across the Americas, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has taken the Mexican government to task for the murders of three young women in Ciudad Juarez.

Rwanda's lower house will reportedly vote today on a revision to the penal code which would criminalise homosexuality.

At least 200 senior religious leaders in Uganda have thrown their weight behind the government backing it not to “yield to pressure” from donor countries that are demanding the withdrawal of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament.

The National Commission on Violence Against Women urged the government to review a number of sharia-based bylaws deemed discriminative against women as part of its first 100-days program.

On November 9, 2009, a diverse group of nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions and activists across the Middle East, North Africa, and South and Southeast Asia carried out "One Day, One Struggle" events to promote sexual and bodily rights as human rights.

Ireland's ban on abortion faced one of its biggest challenges today when three women forced to travel abroad for terminations turned to the European court of human rights.