Today is the first anniversary of Iranian blogger Omid Reza’s death. For those of you who don’t know who Omid is, this is an excerpt from the entry we created on Wikipedia:

Omid Reza Mir Sayafi (also Omidreza Mirsayafi), a 29-year old Iranian blogger and journalist died in Evin Prison in Tehran on March 18, 2009. In December, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders, and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mir Sayafi was still awaiting an additional trial for insulting Islam. Some human rights groups that his death follows a pattern of Iranian authorities “denying urgent health care to prisoners of conscience, resulting in their death.”

Mir Sayafi’s blog is no longer accessible. But with some searching one can find an archive containing the blog posts that led to his imprisonment. Mir-Sayafi’s main area of expertise was traditional Persian music. He also wrote poetry and penned articles for Persian-language electronic art journals. He was apparently well known in Iranian intelligentsia circles.

Several citizen media groups have announced March 18 as “the day of solidarity with persecuted bloggers”. The March 18 Movement was created in his memory.

Counting for the Iraq elections may be more exciting than expected. In the present case only 20,000 votes Prime Minister Al-Maliki and the secular Allawi. Iraq’s former prime minister Iyad Allawi, who heads a bipartisan secular coalition, has greater support than the Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, according to the latest figures from the Iraqi election.
Around two-thirds of the roughly 12 million votes from the election 7 March is counted. It might take a long time to put a government if the results for solitaire is so smooth – and thus can be a dangerous power vacuum occurs in the unstable country.

Allawi leads with 9000 votes after 79 percent of the votes are counted, according to figures from Iraq’s election commission, which was announced Tuesday evening. But there is still a very close race, and it can not be ruled out that the situation is again changing.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki still has the lead, which he has had it since counting began immediately after the election of the National Assembly. In the capital Baghdad is about 60 percent of the vote counted.

This leads Al-Maliki’s alliance clearly, and the preliminary count indicates that he has gone up compared to the previous election. This leads his alliance with 65,000 votes over Allawis Iraqiya-block. Coalition of religious Shiite groups are number three. it is evident that the two major political blocs are very close to each other. But telling the last 21 percent can change the whole picture.

Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and his main rival lyad Allawi, are both out to get 87 seats in the country’s parliament.
The results of the election in Iraq is still characterized by great excitement about the results. At the same time lacks the votes of Iraqis abroad. Something that is many thousands of. These voices can change the whole picture and the outcome of the election.

Refrences:
1-sumaria news
2-alarabyia news
3-tamozz election mentoring organization
4-aftanposten news papers
5-ruteries

I was with them for almost 12 days. Regulated, disciplined, on time. In short, Japanese, very Japanese, conforming to all what I used to hear about and expect from them.

Nagoya Oceans Futsal Club represented Japan in AFC Futsal Club Championship 2010 which was held in Isfahan, Iran. And I was their liaison officer. Such an easy job, given their well-organized, reliable personal and team behavior.

Their tomorrow schedule was always ready the night before, detailed and practical. And when it came to act according to the schedule, they were on-time, or more exactly, caring about every simple minute. To them, 7:30 means just 7:30, neither 7:29 nor 7:31. And you know, to an average Iranian, 7:30 means a period as wide as 6:00 to 8:00. It took me almost a day to get accustomed to their systematic, timely behavior.

They were very conservative, and meanwhile very friendly. Only one of them, Murayama (supervisor), was a fluent speaker of English. Watanabe (club manager) and Miyazawa (interpreter of the Portuguese head coach) spoke decent English. And I made friends with all of the three English speaking ones, especially Miyazawa. And with the head coach, Jose Adil, who invited me to a delicious pizza on the last night I was with them. And with the photographer, who fixed my camera once I was absolutely frustrated. And with Muri, whose fantastic performance in the pitch and nice dance in the stadium won the hearts of spectators. And with everybody else, less or more.

I was excited when they won just to get sad when they lost. I was not only with them, but also somehow found myself a member of their delegation. Waking up everyday at the same time, exchanging ‘hello, good morning’ every day, walking together, and touring the city together. Even I practiced with them, though not physically. And when they failed to make it in the semi final against Al-Sad from Qatar, I was as sad as the Japanese. It was then that I told Miyazawa “when you are this sad and exhausted, I feel sad and exhausted as well.”

At the gate of Imam Khomeini International Airport where they were about to depart, when I said goodbye to each one, especially once someone took the last photo of me with Miyazawa, I was about to burst into tears.

Such a great experience. Such a near-Japanese experience. Such a great memory.

Murayama gave me a JFA T-Shirt and Miyazawa gave me his Nagoya Oceans sportswear. Such a nice, great, invaluable present and memory, to remain in my custody, in my heart, forever.

I miss you all, my friends.

22 years ago today, the former Iraqi regime ordered its air force to bombard the Kurdish town of Halabja with chemical weapons, instantly poisoning to death 5000 men, women and children. I went to Halabja for the first time in the spring of 2006 to pay my respects to the dead. I walked in the alleys of the martyred town where time seemed to have stopped on that bloody Wednesday. As I walked those narrow alleys, I remember thinking of the photo of Omar Khawer, the Kurdish man holding his infant son in his arms as they both lay lifeless at the doorsteps of one of those houses in one of those alleys.

5000 dead and there were no campaigns to find the missing, no effort to list the dead, no Le Monde article crying, “We Are All Kurds,” no eulogies for the the infant whose last breath was taken in his father’s arms and subsequently photographed so that his brutal ending could have shook the conscience of humanity. It didn’t shake anything. The next day, the news in Iraq were celebrating victories in the northern battlefields while Western newspapers were busy reporting on the indictment of Oliver North for the Iran-Contra affair and a Colombian airplane crash. And there was nothing about the Kurdish town along the Iraq-Iran border which had been turned into a mass grave.

The corpse-littered streets of Halabja were as if they were not part of the map of this earth.

When a Kurdish delegation asked a Kuwaiti official to condemn Saddam’s use of chemical weapons, his disgusting response was, “what did you expect to be sprayed with, rose water?” No, sir, not rose water, but not mustard gas, either! Two years later, Kuwait would be on the receiving end of Saddam’s brutality as he annexed and occupied the sovereign state of Kuwait.

This anniversary is especially memorable because the man who ordered the attacks, Ali Hassan al-Majid was executed this past January for, among other crimes, the genocidal attack on Halabja. But it doesn’t stop there, the garbage can of history still reserves spaces for those who supplied Saddam with the weapons, for those who helped his military industry, for those Western politicians who stood idly by, for those Arab politicians who should have spoken up, for the newspaper editors who ignored Halabja, for the clergymen who did not express disgust.

Because Halabja was a moment in humanity’s history when cruelty triumphed over goodness, when the promise of “never again” was broken and the international community watched, not long thereafter, how Slobodan Milosevic and his gangsters massacred civilians in Srebrenica, how Hutu warlords macheted Rwandans of Tutsi origins and now how the Janjaweed are massacring and displacing the innocents of Darfur.

So on this 22nd year anniversary of Halabja, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I ask that you please stop to take one moment of silence in honor of victims of genocide everywhere.

Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the Halabja poison gas attack which was carried out as part of the Al-Anfal genocide campaign to terrorize the Kurdish population and peshmerga rebels in northern Iraq. The attack, which was executed by airplanes on March 16th and 17th in a heavily populated area, away from the area of fighting on the outskirts of the city. Several sorties dropped multiple bombs each of various chemical weapons such as mustard gas and nerve agents like Tabun, VX and Sarin gas. 5,000 people died on the spot and many died later of complications. Around 10,000 were injured, and generations that followed were born disfigured. This is the largest chemical weapons attack on a civilian-populated area in history..

Le Monde Diplomatique described the scene the next morning this way:

The streets were strewn with corpses. People had been killed instantaneously by chemicals in the midst of the ordinary acts of everyday life. Babies still sucked their mothers’ breasts. Children held their parents’ hands, frozen to the spot like a still from a motion picture. In the space of a few hours 5,000 people had died. The 3,200 who no longer had families were buried in a mass grave.

Yet despite the high casualty rate, the merciless murder of Kurds in Halabja accounts to only 5% or even 2.5% of the Kurds who were killed during the Al-Anfal campaign carried out by Saddam’s regime between 1986-1989. The story of Halabja demonstrates not only how vulnerable the Kurds were in Saddam’s Iraq, but also the world’s inaction in stopping the ongoing genocide. The US, which was allied at the time with Iraq, continued to blame Iran for the attack until Saddam stopped being their ally in the early 1990s. Iraq’s western allies like France and Germany, which helped Saddam maintain his war machine, did not react strongly, the UN kept silent too.

It is important to remember Halabja because its story embodies the story of the Kurds throughout history – flagrant abuse of basic human rights in the face of inaction and politicking by the world community. We must remember the innocent victims of this attack, this assault on humanity. We must not let history repeat itself, at a time when Kurds face increased repression all across the Middle East.

Below is an illustration we created to commemorate this day:

* Link to a video the Kurdish Network created for the remembrance of the Halabja attack
* Link to our video – Stand up for Kurdish Rights

Originally posted on KurdishRights.org

Mideast Youth has proudly launched Mideast Tunes this morning – in other words, music for social change!

Music is a powerful form of expression and is currently underrated, although it can be used in activism. Meanwhile, Free speech can be magnified through music. And this is exactly what inspired us with Mideast Tunes.

Mideast Tunes

Mideast Tunes, which comes with its official blog, is a new tool which will enable us to mix original music with our causes, and serve thousands around the world who’re searching for pure creativity. It’s the message of music, which is, other than writing, will help to spread our message of free speech.

The project, at which you can browse bands by genre or country, is the first in the region, as always. Our mission is that we want to create an interactive community of all kinds of regional musicians, which we felt was previously lacking, but not anymore with Mideast Tunes!

Mideast Tunes: Music for Social Change!

There’s a lot of underground talents in the Middle East which need to be discovered, and Mideast Tunes will try to help those original, yet underrated, talents by forwarding their music language to the world. Because these talented young musicians work hard producing their music, and they deserve all the support and publicity they can get!

Mideast Tunes will act as a great platform to encourage, inspire, and expose talented young artists across the Middle East and North Africa. And we’re sure that it’d prove essential by time.

The website, which enables users to submit bands if they’re not already covered on the website, will cover a wide range of genres, like Fusion, Electric, Hip-Hop, Rap, Experimental, Psychedelic, Jazz, Rock and Metal.

Our musician friends in the Middle East are struggling to be heard, and this site is dedicated to every artist out there.

The project, at which we worked hardly for the last 3 months to launch in time, doesn’t lack media coverage, as the CNN has talked about us.

Coming soon too, we’ll add an iPhone application! So that people abroad can also be exposed to this and understand the struggles faced in the region from the perspective of the youth.

Now you can join Mideast Tunes page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and connect with us on MySpace official Mideast Tunes page.

Mideast Tunes: Music Ahead!

Hypocracy^[1] is understood as a so called democratic government in which hypocrisy rule i.e. the ruling party/individuals does not keep on what is being promised and/or told.

Iran:

Hijab is not mandatory

A thirty years later people queued desperately at polling places (even outside Iran) to cast their votes with slightest glimmer of hope to elect a new president who made the promise of “Freedom”. The elections led to bloody clashes between people and security guards, police and Basidj paramilitary forces. A large number of opponents of the regime including many students had to leave the country and seek safety abroad. Those arrested faced harsh prison times, torture and even cases of sexual abuse were reported^[2].

United States:

2009: Barack H. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and at his lecutre he stated:

America’s commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan

Short after that more troops were sent to Afghanistan to secure the region and in hope of putting an end to this 9 year old war. A while after civilians were “mistakenly” killed by NATO troops.

Hillary Clinton in his speech on “Internet Freedom” in Jan. 2010 commented:

We are reinvigorating the Global Internet Freedom Task Force as a forum for addressing threats to Internet freedom around the world, and urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments’ demands for censorship and surveillance.

Without considering that “Deep Packet Inspection” (a technology which is claimed to be sold by Nokia-Siemens Networks to Iranian government) is being also used in U.S.A. (for more see here)
Forgetting about the Yahoo! scandal which led to imprisoning and torturing a number of Chinese activists. Ignoring the fact that the website of a group of Iranian hackers known as “Iranian Cyber Army” -which hacked Twitter, Baidu, and some politically motivated Iranian websites- is being currently hosted on Yahoo! servers.

A countless number of such speeches and promises can be found throughout the history and they all share one common characteristic: being successful in uniting masses of people -even with various opinions and point of views- however based on empty words.

We are all familiar with this trick, we don’t even listen to what is being said by politicians! nevertheless they are our politicians, they got our vote of confidence (one way or another) and these are the ones in charge of decision making.

Iran and United States were chosen here as examples of two countries which on one hand have very different governmental structures and on the other hand both follow populism^[3].

Civil Society

Political structures are nowadays so complicated which makes it hard to follow and understand and as side effect unattractive for majority of people. A presidential election every four years (or similar, depending on country of residence) would be the most political activity one may be involved in and a decision based upon empty words and promises and what is being broadcast by mainstream media would not be a correct one.

One way to be involved and to get others involved in politics is to join grassroots, NGOs and to empower a civil society. One may underestimate the influential and success of such organizations and movements but at this point a brief look at the history of “Amnesty International” highlights the importance of such social bodies. The goal is to inform and take action.

Another way would be Civil Disobedience, which is defined,inter alia, by John Rawls as:

civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies^[4]

For example Ghandi’s movement in India can be categorized as civil disobedience, which had great success and contributed to independence of India.

According to political climate of one country, different approaches may be chosen in order to make political changes. It is just a matter of readiness of people to take part in different forms of action.

[1]: Adapted from Urban Dictionary. ^

[2]: more stories on: ^

• Human Rights Watch
• Guardian
• BBC News

[3]: The word “Populism” doesn’t have a generally accepted academic definition. The definition of “Cambridge Online Dictionary” as political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary people’s needs and wishes can best represent of what is meant in this article. It is to consider that it is intended to represent wishes and it does not necessarily fulfill those needs and wishes. ^

[4] adapted from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ^

On March 16th, supporters of Kurdish and human rights will come together to commemorate the anniversary of the Halabja poison gas attack, which was carried out by Iraqi forces against Kurdish civilians in the Iraqi town of Halabja in March 16-17, 1988. This act of genocide ended the lives of up to 15,000 innocent men, women and children who’s only fault was being burn with the “wrong” ethnicity.

We thought that a good way to commemorate this day would be with an illustration. We worked very hard on it and hope you like it.

Originally posted on KurdishRights.org

President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu may soon embark on yet another round of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis. Each leader, in his own way, faces daunting challenges, in part because he must answer to ideological constituencies which are vehemently opposed to the concessions which are part and parcel of the peace process. Netanyahu, for example, will face an uphill fight convincing his right-wing coalition to compromise on Jerusalem. And in a similar vein, Abbas could be relegated “traitor status” for compromising on such contentious issues as the “right of return.” And yet, a successful outcome of these talks could be the spark that lights the fire of change in the region, and for that matter, in the world as a whole.

As difficult as it will be to contain dissent from within, so much more so will it be difficult to contain dissent from without. Due to a number of factors, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been accorded a symbolic significance way beyond the four corners of the conflict itself. Chances are good that if the conflict would have been limited to a territorial dispute between two peoples, an equitable agreement could have been reached long ago. But because so many other players forced themselves into the picture, players who were not and are not directly involved, the prospects for peace have remained dim at best. And thus, parties outside the conflict itself, including extremist elements, have helped to keep the conflict alive, for their own purposes, and for a whole host of reasons, including the desire to divert attention from internal problems of governance, and as a way of consolidating political support for governments and groups which may otherwise have failed to garner such support.

The question arises, therefore: Given this debilitating cocktail of internal opposition and external pressure, what will Abbas and Netanyahu need to do to maneuver through this politically charged ideological minefield, in an effort to broker a peace deal? The answer may be that the negotiations themselves will have to be strategically positioned within the context of a higher and brighter vision for the future, within a Vision of Hope, so as to rise above the political fray, and beyond the restraints that have been imposed by domestic and foreign players. In other words, because the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been manipulated to embody the ideological imperatives of so many diverse constituencies, Abbas and Netanyahu, if they are to succeed on peace, will have no choice but to sell a new vision to the man on the street, so as to elevate the negotiations themselves to a higher level, a level that rises above the crippling narrow agendas of the past.

What sort of vision would be required to give the peace talks a chance? Such a vision, a Vision of Hope, would have to be multi-faceted so as to address all the various impediments to peace. A Vision of Hope would include five parts, like the five fingers of your hand:

Ideology: If there are ideological forces at work which seek to impede the peace process, Abbas and Netanyahu should formulate and use a new ideology, a new framework for rational discourse, An Ideology of Common Sense, to speak to one another, and to the world for that matter, with common sense and with a sense of personal dignity. Words matter, and the right kind of words, used in just the right kind of way, can inspire a sense of hope, which will help raise the level of discourse to a much higher level. Instead of believing in what we want to believe, it may well be time to start believing in what makes sense. Instead of jumping to false belief and rationalizing why we’re right, why not use rationality in the fist place to arrive at what is worth believing in? In a more perfect world, common sense, the collective wisdom born of shared experience, will inspire our thinking and inform our speech. In our fractured world, common sense is the common denominator.

Investment: If extremist groups on both sides of the political fence use charitable handouts to consolidate political support, Abbas and Netanyahu should discuss, as part of the negotiations, using international investment dollars to create jobs: jobs which grow their economies, jobs which protect the environment, and jobs which help to weaken the hold of extremist thinking. The idea here is to win hearts and minds by giving everyone a place at the table, a stake in his or her future, in a sustainable world.

Hope: If the extremists in the region have worked to engender and sustain a sense of dread about the future, then Abbas and Netanyahu would do well to use An Ideology of Common Sense along with some well placed Investment Dollars to sell their people on a Vision of Hope, a vision of Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom. Luckily, the formula for world peace is not all that complicated: Ideology plus Investment equals Hope, and with hope all things are possible, even the impossible dream of peace.

Public Diplomacy: If the extremists continue to use their propaganda machine to disseminate hate, then Abbas and Netanyahu should not only sell a Vision of Hope, but should sustain a sense of hope by launching a series of public diplomacy programs which are specifically designed to prop the vision up, and to carry it forward, such as: a program to Empower Women, a Student Exchange, a Cultural Exchange, an expanded version of the Peace Corps, a Media Campaign, and a set of International Conferences. Take, for example, the program to Empower Women by financing female entrepreneurs and promoting women’s rights. Empower Palestinian and Israeli women in ways that they deem appropriate, and you will have changed the dynamics of the conflict. Who are women? They are the givers of life and the caretakers of life and as such are uniquely qualified to reconstitute their societies consistent with a Vision of Hope.

The Willingness to Fight: If the extremists, on both sides of the fence, use terror to impede peace, then Abbas and Netanyahu would do well to collaborate militarily, perhaps as part of a regional military and economic alliance, to stave off the threats from extremist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and even groups in Israel which lean toward violence. If we already have to fight against the forces of extremism, and we do, then we will fight, and fight hard, but we will also position the fight within a Vision of Hope. We will raise the fight on the ground to a higher moral plain by giving the fight a moral clarity of purpose. People will fight harder if they know what they’re fighting for. We are not fighting a “war against terror.” We are fighting a war to realize a Vision of Hope. There’s a big difference.

If the upcoming negotiations are to succeed, there is no choice but to win the war for hearts and minds. Abbas and Netanyahu can maximize the chances for success on the peace front by daring to embody a Vision of Hope, and selling the vision to the man on the street. In fact, given the heavy weight from within and without, that attaches itself to the peace process, and the ideological extremism that has prevented any success in this regard, these two leaders will have to develop strategies to beat the odds, by beating the extremists at their own game. If they play their cards right, they can co-opt the extremists’ strategy and thereby marginalize them in the eyes of their own people. So, for example, if the extremists are ideological about Jihad, or a Greater Israel, or what have you, we will be ideological about Common Sense. If they invest in charity, we will invest in jobs. If they sell a vision of hope for martyrdom, or paradise, or additional settlements, we will sell a Vision of Hope for Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom. At every turn we will cut them off at the pass and beat them at their own game. In the final analysis, the ideological extremists on both sides will not be able to capture the public’s imagination, once people begin to imagine a better life for themselves. Some will say that all this may be a bit naïve or over the top. But as we are fond of saying: This may well be the time, before time runs out, to dream the impossible and to make the impossible come true.

For more information please visit our website www.sellingavisionofhope.org Your comments there would be greatly appreciated.

Aujourd’hui, nous savons que la lutte pour l’égalité, la justice, la paix, la démocratie, le sécularisme et le développement de la société n’est pas séparée de la lutte contre l’islam politique qui est le berceau de la misogynie dans le monde d’aujourd’hui. La journée internationale des femmes est un symbole des femmes en tant qu’associées à aux hommes. C’est un démenti aux discriminations religieuses, sur tôt celles de l’islam, qui considèrent les femmes moins dignes que les hommes. Ce jour est enraciné dans la lutte historique contre les jours noires de l’église européenne, c’est une demande de « liberté, égalité, fraternité » comme durant la Révolution française.

La journée internationale des femmes a emmené une nouvelle dimension pour des femmes dans les pays développés et en voie de développement. Mais l’islam politique international, à l’ambition croissante, est une nouvelle barrière sérieuse à la liberté des femmes. Aujourd’hui, en dépit des efforts coordonnés dans le monde, la communauté internationale à travers l’ONU ignore le destin des centaines de millions de femmes qui sont les victimes consentantes de la misogynie islamique.

Alors que le 8 mars était un symbole de laïcité contre l’église catholique, il devient maintenant plutôt une lutte mondiale contre la misogynie des mosquées islamiques. Aujourd’hui, l’ombre affreuse de l’islam politique déploie ses ailes au-dessus d’une grande partie du monde musulman.

Pour les femmes iraniennes un changement du régime islamique est un préalable à leur liberté et l’égalité de droits sociaux. Si nous voulons repousser les principes religieux qui mettent les femmes dans une position inférieure dans toutes les sociétés islamiques, nous devons faire disparaître le régime islamique en Iran qui est aujourd’hui le berceau de l’islamisme international.

Selon l’organisation mondiale de la santé, 85 à 115 millions de filles et des femmes ont subi des mutilations génitales. Ces pratiques archaïques sont toujours en cours dans beaucoup de pays musulmans malgré le fait qu’elles soient critiquées par la communauté internationale.

Dans certains pays musulmans, des femmes qui ont été violées sont parfois tuées par leurs propres familles pour préserver l’honneur de la famille. Des massacres de telle « honneur », en tant qu’un legs des traditions islamiques, ont été rapportés en Jordanie, au Pakistan, au Liban, en Syrie, en Irak et d’autres pays du Golfe Persique.

Le viol en tant que moyen d’humiliation, de pression, et de torture a été employé contre des femmes dans les prisons politiques iraniennes. Le viol des femmes « non musulmanes » avant leur exécution est systématique par les autorités islamiques.

Depuis 1979, une majorité toujours croissante de femmes iraniennes identifiées comme « mal voilées », souffrent quotidiennement de l’obligation du port du voile islamique. Depuis l’existence du régime islamique, pas un jour ne s’est écoulé sans attaque, agression physique, arrestation, jet d’acide, harcèlement et pression psychologiques sur les femmes.

La république islamique d’Iran a clairement indiqué que pour les femmes aucune autre sorte de vêtement n’est acceptable sauf le voile islamique– un vêtement long et sombre qui voile entièrement le corps.

La croissance écoeurante de la violence contre des femmes en Iran a rigoureusement limité les conditions d’accès au travail, à l’éducation, aux arts, au sport, au divertissement et à la liberté générale dans les toutes les branches de la vie sociale.

La raison pour laquelle l’islam insiste sur le port du hijab est pour éviter les contacts « inutiles » entre les femmes musulmane et les « non mahrams » (hommes hors du cercle de famille). Cette raison a formé un dogme qui consiste des « mahram »(membre masculins de famille) et « non mahram ». Ce dogme est à la base de ségrégation sexuelle ou bien l’apartheid de sexe. Sa « croix gammée » est le hijab islamique qui symbolise cet apartheid de ségrégation sexuelle–voire mes articles (Hijab Islamique) ainsi qu’en anglais, (Non-Mahram) et (Gendre Division).

Bien que certains musulmans « modérés » proclament que les femmes et les hommes ont l’égalité des droits, les faits quotidiens sont contraires. Les problèmes des influences religieuses, particulièrement dans les sociétés islamiques, n’ont pas été résolus depuis long temps.

Au fil des années, des conférences, des manifestations et des commémorations de toutes sortes se sont tenues pour réfléchir sur les progrès accomplis. Il est maintenant temps de réclamer ce qui n’a pas été fait. La journée internationale des femmes devrait être l’occasion de rassembler des efforts efficaces et communs contre la misogynie islamique qui demeure le principal obstacle à la réalisation des droits des femmes dans les pays musulmans.

Bien que la charte des Nations Unies propose l’égalité des sexes comme un des droits fondamentaux de l’homme, elle ne peut pas fixer des normes, des programmes, et des buts pour avancer le statut des femmes dans le monde musulman. Par exemple, l’ONU évite de condamner le voile obligatoire qui est le joug le plus symbolique de la misogynie par les régimes islamiques dans leurs pays.

LONU, signée en 1945, était le premier accord affirmant le principe d’égalité entre hommes et femmes. Cependant, la charte a été préparée avant l’arrivée de l’islam politique international. Aujourd’hui, la communauté internationale doit exiger l’ONU d’adopter de nouvelles résolutions défendant le statut des femmes dans les sociétés islamiques. Les femmes, souvent inconscientes, prises par les traditions de misogynie islamique ont besoin d’appui international. L’ONU doit maintenant réagir en vue des rapports sur la misogynie permanente contre les femmes nées accidentellement dans les pays, dits musulmans.

L’ONU qui a été capable de condamner l’Apartheid doit maintenant condamner l’apartheid sexuel des états islamiques en y imposant des sanctions adéquates. La violation des droits fondamentaux des femmes dans le monde islamique est un fait qui a été trop longtemps ignoré. La sauvegarde des droits des femmes est maintenant essentielle pour redonner un sens à cette journée commémorative.

Beaucoup d’exemples quotidiens de misogynie en Iran prouvent que la république islamique bafoue le statut des femmes en réduisant leur statut à un simple moyen de reproduction et l’objet de sexe. Ainsi avec de telles interprétations islamiques, la république islamique de façon démagogique et publicitaire a fait émerger des organisations féminines proches au régime misogyne. Ces organisations n’ont d’autre but que d’officialiser les comportements les plus abjects et les plus misogynes sous couvert du respect de l’islam.

La communauté internationale doit prendre des actions adéquates pour l’égalité des genres en condamnant tous les régimes et institutions islamiques qui sont responsables actifs et officiels de la misogynie. Au vingt et unième siècle, le monde ne peut pas accepter que les droits des femmes soient conditionnés par une doctrine misogyne. Il est temps de cesser d’ignorer une telle doctrine qui considère les femmes comme des « demi hommes » avec des « demi droits » sociaux !

La promotion de l’égalité des sexes est non seulement de la responsabilité des femmes, mais une responsabilité sociale de toutes les personnes démocrates et laïques. Les droits égaux de femmes dans une société moderne non seulement sont un indicateur de croissance nationale dans la vie sociale et économique, mais aussi un facteur du développement normal pour tous les individus de cette société.

Socio psychologiquement, la séparation des sexes crée des perversités et de l’agressivité. Elles sont le résultat de frustration sexuelle. Politiquement, une telle séparation est favorable pour les régimes totalitaires parc que selon W. Reich les effets secondaires démontrent sous l’aspect de l’obéissance aveugle qui historiquement caractérise toutes les sociétés opprimées.

Dédiions-nous cette journée international des femmes aux centaines de millions de femmes qui sont des victimes conscientes ou inconscientes de la misogynie islamique. Il y aura beaucoup à accomplir pour jeter les bases légales pour inviter la communauté internationale à se rappeler qu’il est de notre responsabilité de défendre les droits de l’homme dans l’égalité, la dignité, et la liberté pour les deux sexes.

Sunday’s election for a new National Assembly has been a bloody start. At least 24 people have died in various attacks. Several rockets, grenades and bombs hit Baghdad as early as the morning hours on election day. The death toll is rising steadily.

Most attacks were directed against Baghdad, but there have been reports of violence elsewhere in the country. At least four people were killed and eight were wounded in an explosion in a residential area in the capital, and one was killed in an explosion in another building nearby. Twelve people were killed and eight were wounded in an explosion in a building somewhere else. The 200,000 security guards who are stationed only in the capital have failed to halt the attacks.
Also in Falluja, Baquba and Samarra’s people have been killed in various attacks Sunday. In the village of Baiji, 180 km north of Baghdad, was at least three people were wounded when shells struck at a polling station, . Despite the bloody start of the election, is not all deterred from voting.

“We are in a war situation. We operate in a battlefield and the warriors of our fear the worst, “said the security spokesman in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, according to Reuters. “If we have to crawl to get to the polls, so we crabs, “said Ali Abdul Wahab, according to the Los Angeles Times. “We are Iraqis. We are not afraid”, said Abdul Azak to the New York Times.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the attackers too much noise to impress. Also Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr urged his countrymen to use the voting rights: “even if a choice in the shadow of an occupation is not legitimate, I urge Iraqis to participate in order to prepare the ground for a termination of the occupation,” said al-Sadr at a news conference in Tehran.

Nearly 19 million Iraqis have the right to vote in the election of new parliament. Around 6,200 candidates and a wealth of political parties and election alliances competing for the 325 seats and many fear that the election will have the sectarian violence in the country to flare up again.

Al-Qaida has threatened to sabotage the election, but has no support. A large part of the Sunni Arab minority, which boycotts previous elections, expected this time to participate, even though hundreds of Sunni candidates refused to stand for election as a result of ties to Saddam Hussein’s old regime.

Election campaign has been marked by violence, and Saturday was four people were killed and over 50 wounded by a car bomb in Najaf.

Rumors of manipulating of elections especially in outside Iraq elections,There are 30,000 Iraqis in Denmark, which has since Friday been able to vote for the election of the new National Assembly in their home country. Several irregularities and shows that several were voting for just having shown up copies of identification papers. The commander of the winding up of the Iraqi elections in Denmark, Hara Nihad, denies that it may be invalid ballots in the ballot box.

The morning attacks and bombs in Baghdad targeted areas known of there loyalty to list that will stand against major governmental lists ,many reports of people afraid to go because of the bombs and rumors of fraud
The future of Iraqi is on the rocks for the next few hours

Many Iraqi people today who had been living in European countries since they war in Iraq and went to vote in the Iraqi elections of 2010 where face with the fact they can not vote ,as the employs of the Iraqi election commission explain to them that they had no enough papers to prove they are Iraqi people ,the requirements for voter identifications in the elections is Iraqi passport type G and another Iraqi ID ,personal ID ,birth certificate or rational card ,no copies are accepted.

The problem is that most people who live outside Iraq are refugees who escaped Iraq war and had lost everything ,most of them left in 2006 and they had S type passport ,this is a knowledge passport by Iraqi government and by the countries that issued them resident permits ,but not acknowledge by the employs of the Iraqi higher commission ,they don’t accept any ID from European countries that acknowledge that the holder is Iraqi like driving car licenses of bank cards.

Many Iraqi in UK and Finland demonstrate in front of the election polls calling for there rights to vote ,several Iraqi powers start to talk about the commission being under control of Kurdish and Iranian powers to prevent Arabic Sunnis from voting ,some European cities witness Iraqi embassies sending busses to bring Kurdish voter to voting centers a service they did not provide for Arabic voters ,a witness in Netherlands swear that he went to voting center and did not find any employs who can speak Arabic ,most of them speaks Farsi and Kurdish.

2 commission employs in Jordan catch as they added voting cards to the polls ,monter agents were forbid from checking the boxes that are transferred from the elections posts.

In Iraq the big parties broke the role of stopping any campaign advertising today and a rumor of the Iraqi PM will address a speech to the voters ,made many other leaders announce they will follow his step allot of Iraqis start to feel afraid that the results will be fixed ,they hope tomorrow will pass in peace with no clouds of doubt circling the sky of democracy in Iraq

Refrences
Baghdadia tv
Shargia tv
Silent majority program, callers depositions

Since the morning and polling operations started for displaced Iraqis located outside of Iraq, after the first phase of the elections ended Thursday, Which included the employees of the security services, army and police, prisoners, the sick and continue for three days.
The early voting for the army and police took place amid violence that left 17 dead and wounded
Iraqis in 16 Arab countries and in Europe and America went to elect their representatives , when there are no official statistics of the number of Iraqis abroad, estimated by the High Commissioner for Refugees, as hundreds of thousands while according to the Iraqi government the numbers around two million, while sources confirm in humanitarian organizations that they exceed five million spread over Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, United Arab Emirates and the European countries, as well as America, Canada and Australia.
There have been rumors about attempts by influential parties in the government of Iraq to keep them away from the elections and the accusing the of being Baathists and opponents of the political process and allowing them to vote for the election means they will support people who will effect the political process
This lead to rumors of attempts to deprived many Iraqis of elections in Yemen, Belgium, Malaysia, Indonesia
several attempts by some political Iraq to draw attention to the outside and carrying Iraqi by the Election Commission to open stations to vote for Iraqis abroad and visits from some politicians, including Tareq al-Hashemi, Iyad Allawi, and others, which organized rallies in order to gain their votes and making promises to improve their conditions
The election Commission announced the opening of centers in both Syria and Jordan, Iran, Egypt, UAE, Lebanon and Turkey, as well as Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, Austria and Denmark, to the United States, Canada and Australia.

The Commission has allocated to the voters more than 1000 stations, spread over 45 cities were selected according to the intensity of Iraqis in these countries.
Rumors of many people in Iran were not able to vote and in Syria after the commission ask them to bring new Iraqi passports and refuse to acknowledge old passports

fears of fraud marred the vote of which is still subject to the direct administration of the Iraqi government. private polling stations abroad were without observers or from the Arab League or international observers
many complaines from the candidates about not being able to censorship by a vote of the armed forces.
According to the law, the vote took place with the presence of the agents of the candidates , while the voting stations of the armed forces fall within the security zones was difficult to access, lead to increasing uncertainty and the possibility of election fraud.
With rise of many complaining from agents to monter the elections not being able to access to such centers surrounded by the guise of security. With frequent loss of information on the closing of ballot boxes in Najaf and Karbala. Rumors of an Iraqi ink used in the vote of the electorate that the worst kinds of ink can be removed from the voting forms easily.
For its part, showed the Shiite authority in Najaf Wednesday concern about the Iraqi government’s attempts to rig the elections through the use of pens can erase ink on the voting papers before the special voting coalitions amid warnings of fraud in the absence of control of Parliament

, also the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari,accussed the neighboring countries of trying to influence the results of the elections held next Sunday,

Zebari did not speak for the actions of specific, but said that the intervention included financial support for certain parties

According to the candidate from the Iraqis list, lead by former PM alawy, they will challenge the results of the special ballot, pointing to the monitoring list for many “irregularities” in the special ballot.
And talked About the incident of helicopters droppeing leaflets in different parts of Baghdad, the latest in Adhamiya, in the Mansour district, against the Iraqi Listand asking people not to vote for it
The deputies of al-tawafiq and Iraqi list announced that the process of voting in legislative elections that took place today, was marred by significant breaches,
As Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday,accussed one of the political figures he declined to name, to compromise the electoral process by trying to storm into the polling station after closure, while it detects that the security forces in Anbar province, detained a number of officers attempted to practice fraud in the voting sector.

Many of the employees of the security forces in the various governorates of Iraq did not cast their ballots due to the absence of names in the voter registers for the private ballot.
The Electoral Commission acknowledged that there was a shortage of the names of the employees of army , but attributed this to lack of cooperation and defense and interior ministries with it, and indicated that the two have delayed sending the names until yesterday, and most of those names ware not clear,
However, they said it would equip the centers securities and tools required to sign at the same time that those who were unable to vote in the special ballot may vote in the suffrage on Sunday.

A source in the Electoral Commission in Rusafa side of Baghdad, Friday, said that 75 thousand to 80 thousand observers and an agent of a political entity registered to monitor the voting process on 7 March
While on Friday the preachers in the city of Mosul, urged people to participate in the elections and choose the best, as well as to scrutinize the candidate’s curriculum vitae and his achievements, and not there propaganda and slogans.

Refrences:
Iraqi media network
Sumaria news
NCCI.ORG
Independent observers

If you want to know the plot of this post, you will have to read every word of it.

You know there are sometimes things that you hear or see and you just never forget. Things that immediately make it into your permanent memory and pop out as flying-by thoughts every now and then. They don’t have to be major events. Just small clips of events you lived to witness.

Since I was a child, I have noticed there was a major difference between the East and the West in the way women are viewed, and therefore a difference in the way women in the two directions express themselves. The very small details always caught my attention and stayed in my memory. The way they dress, the way they wear make-up, the way the walk, the way they talk (this one needs a separate article), and the way they view the world and themselves.

I have those short memory-clips of some Egyptian women walking like an Egyptian — If you know what I mean — and talking like one: as a weasel in a porn, and using those cliche words like: “Ma3sha Alloooooo, you look like a mooooon.. M3erci3 A3wi, R3abben Ykhal333eeeeky, h3e h3e” (with a weasel tone, get the picture?).

On the other hand, needless to say that Western women always seemed more free and self-assured to me. They could do whatever they wanted, in a good or a bad way, since men often saw them as equals.

Sometimes I really wondered how far those Western women would go..

One evening I was among a group of people, I can’t recall where or who or how, all I can remember is that a Dutch guy (with a stress on *Dutch*, coming from a place where you can be as rude as you want and get away with it) suddenly said: “I would forgive everything, but if I find out that my girlfriend poops, I will immediately break up with her”.

I have absolutely no idea why this sentence is engraved in my memory.

A-HA! So there ARE differences like the ones we have.

But I once had a roommate who insisted on having red wine every evening for dinner.. And to my bad luck we had a morning schedule for using the toilet and the shower, in which I used the toilet after her.

MAN! What can a glass of red wine in the evening do to the odor of your morning-after poop!

I was just sitting there *crying* while turning blue every morning.

A memory clip of me entering the toilet and being overwhelmed with this “HABW” of smell is still saved in my hemispheres.

On the other hand, I have a sister who didn’t do a number two for three months after her wedding out of fear of her husband hearing her fart or find any post-Kaka odeur.

I recalled all this this morning.. As I was sitting on my “throne”, something occurred to me: How do cultures differ considering women and pooping?

As an Egyptian and as a woman, do I poop like others? I wonder.. Has there ever been any research on trans-cultural pooping styles and smells?

There are many options.. You can sit with your knees close together when you squeeze, or have the legs wide open, sit up straight, lean back, or lean forward. Rest the head on your fists during those long poops, or on the tip of your toes as opposed to having your feet flat on the ground; you can sit long enough to have sleepy legs, or to have toilet seat marks on the back of your thighs and two elbow-imprints just above your knees..

Do you read on the throne?

Do you take your time? Or are you always in a hurry?

Is the mission often impossible?

Do you try to be quiet in public toilets? Do you feel any sense of obligation towards other people’s feelings? Do you get the guts to go uninhibited if and only if your neighbor broke the taboo and started an orchestra?

Do you go nuts when a drop of water jumps back to hit you in the butt like a stray bullet?

How would you feel/react if you found out there’s no toilet paper left?

And as an Egyptian, when you go abroad, how disgusted do you feel if there’s no shattafah in da hood?

And afterwards,

Do you ever say goodbye to your poop? Do you ever look back and check on it, taking into consideration that your poop tells books about your health? Dutch toilets have this great feature of a poop scoop, where there’s a platform that receives the stools and keeps them on display until you decide to flush farewell.

Do you try to hide the smell like a maniac?

How would you feel if you found out that the toilet won’t flush?

I wonder. Do pooping rituals say something about us? Are there cultural styles in the way we poop? Does it have to do with our personality?

And one last thought: Old-fashioned French toilets are the BEST invention for the constipation nation. The lower the toilet, the better. Did you know that? If you are constipated, just 2arfas, or put a box under your feet so they would become as high as possible. Satisfaction is guaranteed.

So what exactly is the plot of this post?

All my life I wanted to be famous. For something.. Anything..

And now that the memory of this post, and hence me, will pop out in front of you every time you use the toilet, then it is making me famous enough.

Mission accomplished.

Today the election started with 800,000 Iraqi participation in the especial poll for army forces and prisoners and hospital patients and personals, in Kurdistan the election started at 10 am in the morning showing very normal and smooth operation with no curfew and only check point restricting admitions on cars coming from mousl and Arabic regions
according to source in the Department of the Ministry of Peshmerga, in the Kurdistan Regional Government, , a number of elements of guards “Peshmerga” in the city of Arbil were not allowed to vote because of the absence of their names in the records of voters, pointing out that those who did not find their names to file a lawsuit against the Commission, the commission explain that all the members who had been registed in the polls had voted.

The source in the Kirkuk office of the Independent High Commission for Elections, said the 17 polling stations had opened since eight o’clock in the morning, Thursday, to receive covered by the Special vote in the province, while many complained that members of the army 12 regiment due to the absence of names in the records of voters ..
While the number of candidates complained from Basra fears of forging cases of exploitation of public money by working in the candidate lists, where the government resorted to fully exploit the power outlets to promote their campaigns
While Tamooz Organization for observe of the elections, announced , the registration of more than 20 violations in thi Qar province through the process of voting on who said that the percentage of participation of more than 60% of the electorate.

And as the polls closed to vote for in the Iraqi elections, a bombings took place with 14 people, half of the Iraqi army and 25 injured in 3 attacks, two suicide bombers targeted two election ad litem for the security forces in northern Baghdad and west.

Baghdad election monitoring were hard cause no one was allowed to bring mobiles phone to the elections polls making it hard to call on any case of violation. Inspite of the curfew Baghdad has seen number of vehicles violating the campaign that she toured with slogans of candidates, while not seen Mosul and Anbar, although certain problems the inability of a number of observers access to polling centers due to security situation

References:
1-iraqi higher commission of election
2-tamouze monitoring organization
3-sun network for monitoring
4-aswat al-Iraq web

Salahadin, Erbil – Reports from Mosul indicate that hundreds of Christian families are fleeing the city after a series of terrorist attacks directed at them. The local government of Mosul has never, not even once, not even for a little bit failed to disappoint their constituents.

One of my earliest memories of interacting with Christians involves going to our Christian neighbors’ houses on what I later would learn was Easter to get colored eggs. A group of us, Muslim boys would get together and go to Christian houses, every year in a trick-or-treat (minus the costumes) style of collecting candy and colored eggs. That was before I even went to school. At school, I had a number of Christian friends, we had a class called, “Islamic Education” and Christians were asked to leave the classroom for that period, that was the “secular” Saddam’s way of saying that Christians don’t have to learn about Islam if they choose not to, but I don’t really remember it to be a choice, I think they had to leave. I am speaking from memory and not as an expert on education curriculum.

In 1991 Iraqi Kurdistan was freed from Saddam’s regime and in the almost two decades that followed, the Christians of this region have thrived politically, culturally and economically. Let me back this up. Kurdish law dictates that amongst the 11 quota seats of the 111-member parliament, 6 must be filled by Christians, one of which is for Armenians. The proposed constitution of the Kurdistan region lists all of the Christian communities of the region as major components of the Kurdistani society.

The Syriac language whose immediate parent language is Aramaic is taught in Kurdistan’s public schools, students don’t merely take one language class in their mother tongue, the whole curriculum is in Syriac. This system applies to all Christian students for all pre-collegial levels of education. TV and radio stations, magazines and newspapers as well as tens of Chaldo-Assyrian cultural centers criss-cross this region.

Nearly all Christian churches have been renovated and tens of new ones have been built, some of the churches in Kurdistan and in the immediate disputed territories date back to the 7th century AD! According to AINA, 66 churches have been bombed in Iraq since the start of combat operations in 2003, far more than 66 churches have been built in the Kurdistan Region since 2003! Zero have been bombed by the terrorists.

The Christian villages that were demolished by the former regime have all now been rebuilt, thousands of housing units have been built by the KRG for Christian villagers across the Kurdistan region. Additionally, large sums of money have been invested by the KRG in Christian areas in the disputed areas of the Nineveh plains.

While Christians are targeted in the rest of Iraq simply for being Christian, the Kurdistan region has opened its arms for thousands of Christian families who now call Kurdistan home. Not only are they welcomed here and enjoy all the rights as the native Kurdistanis, they are also given financial assistance, in the form of monthly stipends, thanks to the KRG-established Christian Affairs Committee headed by Sarkis Aghajan.

Mr. Aghajan is an Assyrian Kurdistani whose contributions to the enhancement of Christians’ living standards in Iraqi Kurdistan have earned him international recognition, including having been knighted by the sitting pope with the award of knight commander in the order of St. Gregory the Great (rarely given to non-Catholics). Once KRGs finance minister, Sarkis, 48 is now retired and last week at his residence in Ainkawa, he told me that he wants to write his memoirs and complete his mission, hoping that ultimately, other governments in the Middle East would look after their Christian minorities.

Alas, so little of this is reported. On the contrary, last fall, Human Rights Watch released a report on the minorities of the Nineveh plains titled, “On Vulnerable Ground” where they shamelessly ignored the Christians’ golden era under the KRG.

KRG officials are not angels, they are politicians, they do not do it because of the “black eyes” of Christians, they do it for votes and popularity, but the end result is that a generation of Christians are now fluent in their mother tongue, that their villages are built, that their political rights are protected, that their culture is thriving and that their golden age in modern Iraq is now, here in Kurdistan.

Just last week, the region’s President, Mr. Massoud Barzani ordered Kurdish universities to accept 2000 Christian college students from Mosul to continue their education here in Kurdistan. Atheel al-Nujaifi, Mosul’s governor was unable to even comment on the Presidents move, mainly because he knows that he cannot protect his Christian citizens, because in Mosul, the terrorist continue to be active and their motto continues to be, “be a Sunni Arab or be dead.”

As a proposal of the Socialist International, Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated for the first time in many industrial nations in 1910, 03,08. March 8th was the day women demanded the right to vote and hold public offices, their right to work, vocational training, and an end to discrimination in jobs.

Since then, the International Women’s Day is commemorated on March 8 and is a national holiday in several countries around the world. It symbolises a long-standing struggle of women of all continents and ethnic, religious, cultural and social backgrounds.

IWD is a symbol of women as an integral part in the making of history. It symbolises a denial of all forms of religion- and culture-based gender-discriminations, which consider women less worthy than men. The day is rooted in the historical struggles against the Dark Ages of European Church and in the demand for “liberty, equality, fraternity” during the French Revolution.

IWD has today assumed a new global dimension for the establishment of women’s rights in developed and developing countries alike. Nevertheless, the growing international political Islam, strengthened by the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a serious barrier in the way of achieving this goal. Despite many coordinated efforts globally, the international community, including the United Nations, practically ignore the fate of hundreds of millions of Muslim women, who are conscious or unconscious victims of Islamic states or dominant Islamic traditions of misogyny.

According to the World Health Organisation, 85 to 115 million girls and women have undergone some form of female genital mutilation in many Islamic countries, including 28 African nations, despite the fact that it has been outlawed and condemned by the international community. More than 90% of women in Egypt are the victims of this barbaric genital mutilation.

While March 8th was historically a secular symbol against the dominance of Catholic Church in the West, it should now become a worldwide struggle against the misogyny of Islamic sates, traditions, and the influence of Islamic mosque all over the world. Today, the horrendous shadow of Islamic misogyny has spread its wings over a great sphere of the globe, where hundred of millions of women have fallen into its clutches. The house of this bird of prey is the occupied territory of Iran ocuupied by an anti Iranian clique of criminal Islamists whose bloody clutches are today a new sword of Islam to rape, torture, kill the “infidel” Iranian men and women.

In many Islamic countries, women, fallen victim to rapes, are often killed by their families to preserve family honour. Honour killings as a legacy of Islamic traditions have been reported in Jordan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey and other Persian Gulf countries. Rape as a means of humiliation, confession, and torture has been used against women in Iranian political prisons. Rape of girls before execution is systematically committed, interpreted as an Islamic principle that “it is a sin to kill a virgin”.

Since the installation of the Islamic regime in Iran (IRI) in 1979, a fast-growing majority of the Iranian women, identified as “bad-hijab” (mal-veiled), have been suffering from the atrocity of the IRI fanatics in their day-to-day life, and under President Ahmadinejad, from nationwide cruelly organised Islamic “Morality Police”.

Since 1979, physical assaults, arbitrary arrests, acid-throwing, harassment and psychological pressure have become the part and parcel of women’s life in Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran has clearly specified that, for women, no other sort of dress is acceptable except the Islamic hijab. Hijab, as an Islamic code of female dress, was officially imposed under Mr. Mousavi’s era as prime minister short after the revolution.

The first public demonstration of Iranian women after the Iranian revolution was short-lived. On 7 March 1979, on the eve of the IWD, Khomeini decreed that all women employed by the government must wear the “chador” (an all-enveloping black veil), an extension of the four walls of home. Thousands of women filled the streets in protest. For three days, they marched and rallied; on the third day, they staged a sit-in protest at the Palace of Justice, demanding a legal guarantee for their right to choose what to wear and where to work, at home and in society at large.

Khomeini’s supporters, armed with knives, attacked the women; they cursed them, yelling “Wear your head or get your head rapped.” They stood at windows along the parade-route and exposed their genitals, saying, “This is what you want, you whores!”

These examples of women’s rights violations in Iran make it clear that the International Women’s Day is not tolerated by the misogynistic IRI. Quite contrary to the demagogical claim of some “reformists” of the regime that men and women enjoy equal rights, opportunities, and responsibilities in all aspects of life in Iran, a growing gap in the women’s rights from that of men always remains a cruel reality.

Over the years, conferences, demonstrations and commemorations have been held globally to reflect on the progress made in women’s right. It is now time to call for what has not been made. International Women’s Day should now be made a rallying point against Islamic misogyny, poised to damage the achievements gained in the history of women’s rights. Although the Charter of the United Nations proposes gender equality as a fundamental human right, the organisation is reluctant to create standards, programmes and goals for advancing the status of women equally worldwide. For example, the UN avoids condemning the enforcement of hijab on women in Iran.

Of course the UN Charter, signed in 1945, was the first agreement to affirm the principle of equality between women and men. However, the Charter was prepared before the advent of the international political Islam. Today, the global community is affected by political Islam. Consequently, the UN needs to adopt new resolutions to defend the rights of women in Islamic societies. Women in Islamic societies need international support. In the light of many conclusive reports of misogyny in Islamic countries, the UN must react effectively without delay.

The UN, which condemned the Apartheid regime fairly in the past, is now expected to condemn the gender apartheid of Islamic regimes in support of women’s full and equal right. It is time for the international community to challenge the misogynistic Islamists across the globe. Confrontation of the widespread violation of basic rights of women in the Islamic world has been long overdue but ignored. Safeguarding the women’s rights is now essential to regaining the sense of International Women’s Day.

Many daily examples of misogyny in Iran show that the IRI by imposing different status for men and women has reduced the women’s role to a means of procreation. Today, the struggle for equality, justice, peace, democracy, secularism, and development is not separated from the struggle against misogyny.

Concerned of backlash from women against ongoing misogyny and outside scrutiny, the Islamic regime responded by forming its own women’s group. This group produced a newspaper, “The Moslem Women” , the main task of which was to inculcate misogynistic norms and pseudo scientific arguments into mind of women. Through the twisted sense of women’s freedom and origin of women’s rights, its real role is to promote the regime’s misogynistic policy, especially for imposition of hijab on women. In this light, Mr. Abolhassan Banisadr, the first Iranian President, who had lived in France for 15 years, was asked by a television interviewer if it was true that women’s hair emits sexually enticing rays and if this is why Islam requires the veil. “Yes, it is true” was his reply.

The international community must reject and denounce these kinds of state-run women’s organisations in Iran. These “yellow” organisations are a greater threat than the governing male fanatics to the liberation of women. The real activists, working to defend women’s rights and to bring about real change in Iran, risk their safety: IRI authorities have been harassing, detaining and intimidating them in the last three decades.

In the 21st century, the international community should not accept that women’s rights be crippled by Islamic laws “Shari’a”, a 14-century-old legal code. It is time to outlaw Shari’a internationally, because it reduces women to second-class citizens in a male-dominated society. It is time for the global community to condemn any archaic belief system that is based on gender apartheid by officially reducing women to a subhuman entity.

Promotion of gender equality is not only a responsibility of women, but of all humanity. Not only is it an important factor for women’s participation in social and economic development, but also a necessity for a healthy development of the society as a whole. Gender discrimination creates frustrations, perversities and aggressiveness with blind obedience, all of which are typical traits of oppressed societies.

On this International Women’s Day, let us re-dedicate ourselves to the hundreds of millions of women who are conscious or unconscious victims of Islamic misogyny. Much should be accomplished to put into place legal foundations to urge the international community to remember that it is the responsibility of all of us to defend the democratic and secular right to live in dignity, freedom and gender equality.

I’ve been an author here at MEY when I felt I have something to share with Middle Easters since three years ago. After awhile I engaged with many discussions and many engaged with mine, vice versa. At that time, Nissim Dahan was an author there and we had great discussions regardless of what our beliefs were and what we were doing. I always liked his articles and also his idea on selling a vision of hope.

Today I was thinking to myself that where this feeling of convenience is coming from. I’m an Iranian and our government and its doctrine is against Israel’s. Also Israel knows Iran as its worst enemy. Where does this feeling come from?

The answer is that we have discussed here just as two authors without any prejudgments. I think when two persons, two nations and two friends have any discussions and with prejudgments simply call the other one, enemy; they can’t understand the other’s viewpoints and here is the misery.
I really dont care about what he believes in and how his life has been. I see him as a righteous man who likes to sell his visions of hope.
I think a good reciprocity is always the solution. What do you think?

There is nothing more fearful and frustrating than the IOF night raids, that are very similar to those of the Nazi Gestapo. I have known them and know how they come at the quietest hour of the night, full armed and accompanied by intelligence agents, to turn the lives of the Palestinian villages and neighborhoods into a constant nightmare; this is what happened to my Christian friend, Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, whose jewish friends are probably more than his Palestinian ones. A Human rights activist’s family is terrorized !!!
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The Israeli army invaded our neighborhood at 1:30 AM Tuesday morning waking up my mother, wife and sister. Heavily-armed soldiers blocked roads during “the operation”. When my family opened the door, they demanded to see me. They were told I have already left to the US. After many more questions, they left a paper that states I am to appear at the military liaison office next Monday. My sister and wife told them I will not be back by then. Clearly the warning from that military officer at Ush Ghrab that I mentioned in my last email, was based on knowledge of this.

I guess I am a wanted man now for engaging in nonviolent protest! Those who were at that event and have video, please contact me. What disturbs me is not the risk to me; any action against oppression is taken knowing there are personal risks. What disturbs me is that this has an effect on my family and thousands of friends around the world who care (and some of it unpredictable). My 76 year old mother asks on the phone that I not go back and that I work in the US for a while, a very painful suggestion for a mother to make about her only remaining son near her! I try to assure her that I have done nothing wrong and will not leave her…but she brings up many examples of people who also did not do any violence and were arrested, imprisoned, and their families had to go through a lot.

A friend who heard about this stated I have nothing to worry about, that this was to hassle me to get us to stop being active. Another lost sleep trying to figure out what we can do. I assure her that I will carry on with my speaking tour as planned and that this will blow over one day. (the song “we shall overcome someday” comes to mind).

But I am not different from hundreds of others. Israel is cracking down on all popular/civil resistance activities in Palestine because: 1) there is no armed resistance now, and 2) Civil resistance is escalating and portending a new powerful uprising. Israel’s repression of dissent reinforces in our minds the importance of civil resistance and that there is a price to pay for it. Over 30 activists were arrested in Bilin over the past year, many others in Ni’lin, Al-Ma’sara and elsewhere. The repression reveals the bankruptcy of the Zionist regime and its excessive paranoia that will IMHO eventually lead to its demise.

It is paranoia inherent in the philosophical underpinnings of the ideology. That ideology embraced by a subset of Jews (Zionism) simply teaches that “we are God’s chosen people, He gave us this land, we cannot go wrong when behaving against the Goyim especially those who happen to be here when we arrived to reclaim and cleanse our lands, and International law and human rights laws do not apply to us.” It is self-destructive delusions that are inculcated during early education and perpetuate the myths of uniqueness. It leads to the kind of behaviors that are now difficult to hide (the ethnic cleansing of 1948 was only a beginning). But even some Israelis are shedding these mythologies and joining the struggle. In the end, we will live together despite all this repression.

I have to consider various options in terms of responding to this particular event. If you have any advice, I would appreciate it. My initial thought is that we should intensify our work for peace and human rights in this critical and historic period: write to the media, the politicians, neighbors and anyone who would listen. Below is an action call for March 30th (Land Day) which I urge you to heed. We can’t be neutral on a moving train and there are times whether in the US in the 1950s and 1960s or in South Africa under apartheid, when silence was indeed complicity in crime.
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Action: Land Day to be marked with Global BDS Day of Action Statement,
Palestinian BDS National Committee, 1 March 2010. The BDS National Committee (BNC) is calling on you to unite in your different capacities and struggles for a Global BDS Day of Action on 30 March 2010 in solidarity with the Palestinian people and for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel… http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11107.shtml

Good and relevant reading: The Goldstone Report and the Israeli “Right of Self-Defense” By Jerome Slater – Professor Emeritus of political science, SUNY Buffalo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-slater/the-goldstone-report-and_b_479945.html

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

A Bedouin in cybersopace, a villager at home

http://qumsiyeh.org

The fear is increasing ahead of elections in Iraq next month which could result in political vacuum and chaos, as many analysts fear. A major Sunni group boycotted the election last week, to return after few days to enter again after preventing their candidates from running.

Five years have passed since Iraqis last time Iraq chose a new National Assembly. Previous elections ended with a deep rift, months of government negotiations and a prime minister from a party with 0.2% of the vote in his faovr.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari did not spend much time as prime minister, as a party colleague Nuri al-Maliki took over all the years after. Since then, Maliki ruled the country.

7th of March will see elections for a new national assembly in Iraq, where sectarian violence has decreased significantly since the last election and U.S. forces are now on the way out.

Although Maliki has clear ambitions for re-election, and last year’s local elections in this respect was encouraging for him, has an increasing number of supporters turned their backs on him.

Iraq’s Supreme Islamic Council (ISCI) and Moqtada al-Sadr Shi’ite movement have both left the former government coalition and formed the National Iraqi Alliance (NIA).

Parts of Maliki’s Dawa party has turned up with the powerful Shi’ite groups, and so have the Iraqi reform movement (NRT).

The only agree to run together to prevent Shi’ite voices from splitting, but still think that Maliki must go. It can be a recipe for election victory, but is not a good recipe for government negotiations.

Nuri al-Maliki set himself for election at the head of law state Coalition, which did well in local elections in January 2009, primarily in Baghdad and Basra. When the situation was relatively calm, but in recent months, a number of powerful bombs demonstrated the strong differences that hides beneath the surface.

Maliki’s sudden witch hunt on the secular Shi’ite politicians and former members of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated Baath party has also attracted reactions both in Iraq and internationally.

A government-appointed commission has banned nearly 500 politicians ahead of elections, and only 26 of these have since been converted into the decision.

Analysts accuse Maliki for wanting to whip up the secular differences to prevent corruption, lack of security and government inadequacy becomes issue in election campaign.

U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, recently accused the commission leaders to run Iran’s errand, and claimed to sit on the evidence of the close ties to the regime in Tehran.

A Sunni Muslim group that they will boycott the election. A party spokesman says the decision is a result of Iran’s influence in the election process.

The national front for dialogue is led by Saleh al-mutlaka, a sitting member of parliament who has been barred from the election, they return after they saw they had better chance to run than not to become part of any future deals.

The front has joined the Iraqiya, a secular block led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Kurds in northern Iraq are eagerly forward to the election, knowing that the chances of a Kurdish state will increase as the divisions in the south.

The ownership of oil fields around Kirkuk is still controversial, as are the contracts that the Kurdish self-rule government on its own has signed with foreign oil companies.

If Iraq really survive this extremely difficult year, I am extremely optimistic about the future. But there is a real risk to the contrary, that things will unravel completely. People feel hopeless and they want change but to whom, every party is using money in large amounts crushing young and small candidates, also no one know if at last minute who will show the faith card and ask people to vote for them or go to hell.

Future holds either hope or fear, what will happen?

March 7th will tell.

Karin meets Prince Hassan of Jordan at a water security conference in Switzerland last week.

It was a meeting of minds, water minds. Water consultants, ambassadors who’ve built water treaties, and government specialists and negotiators from around the Middle East and Europe gathered in Montreux, Switzerland for a two-day workshop on Water Security in the Middle East last week. Green Prophet was invited to attend. The object was to explore sustainable and cooperative solutions to water security, and to use the problem of water and turn it into an instrument of peace.

Organized by the Strategic Foresight Group, the same India-based firm that brought us the Cost of Conflict to the Environment in the Middle East report, the event included a gala supper, and meeting with the Prince of Jordan, sponsored by the Swiss and Swedish governments. Both peace-loving and humanitarian nations are eager to ease future conflicts in the Middle East, with all fingers pointing to water conflict being the fuel for the next big one, many believe. But how can it be done?

The second day workshop, which I was invited to attend (and presented my interviews with Israeli water experts), included a panel of Palestinians, Turks, Israelis, and Jordanians, and officials from Ireland, Switzerland and Sweden, India and Syria who helped moderate.

Before the long day of talks, we met for cocktails and supper at the Montreux Palace Hotel. We were in great company: previous guests to the hotel include Deep Purple (whose fans burned down the Montreux Casino), Led Zeppelin, Freddie Mercury, and and Dostoevsky. It was a venue fit for a king, or at least a prince.

After some small talk with that day’s workshop (from Iraq, Lebanon and more), we all greeted Prince Hassan bin Talal, the Prince of Jordan, and a voice for global sustainability, reconciliation and interreligious understanding, graced us with his presence, along with his wife Sarvath last Monday.

He talked about the problems of global warming, and the impact it will have on humanity.

“When Al Gore talked about global warming, I talked of human warning,” said Prince Hassan, who pointed to the Balfour Declaration signed 90 years ago, as the as the start of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arab people. In the context of water, “Territory migration is the conflict we face,” he said.

Possible solutions?

Prince Hassan talked about developing the earthquake prone Jordan Rift Valley, and how the region needs a “master plan for water management. We need to go from concept building to a new concept,” he addressed, adding it was time to mobilize the “silenced majority.”

“War does not make additional water, but regional cooperation can… There is an urgent need for developed countries to provide technical assistance and support to water poor countries to reach a better level of water safety,” he said.

“Our challenge in this part of the world is to come to terms with the international inconsistency and double standards to which we find ourselves subjected year after year. We have had enough of being the subject of development policies. We would like to become the object of development,” he added.

Jordan is one of the most resource-poor countries in the Middle East, but a moderate that can help broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The Prince sees the following avenues open to explore new channels in fulfilling water supply and demand in the region:

He mentioned the significance of Desertec – a pan-European, pan-African solar project that will collect solar energy from North Africa and pipe it to Europe, and the need for other countries in the Middle East to be involved in the project.

He talked about the potential of freshwater reserves from the Nile region in Egypt, and reminded us about the Dead-Red canal, and the project’s potential to bring water and energy to the resource strapped region.

Prince Hassan pointed out the value of surface water, especially for the Palestinians in Gaza, as a means for obtaining more freshwater, explored Jordan’s advancing technologies in nanotechnology to remove pollution from water; and Jordan’s interest in turning the clay-based deserts into arable farmland while pointing out the role the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, should play in the Middle East.

When I met him I promised to make sure that Jordan gets even and fair coverage of its environment news and breakthroughs; and he said he’d be happy to help in any way he could.

Facing the waters of Lake Geneva, held by mountains on both sides, the night provided a safe and secure meeting ground for us to listen to Jordan’s concerns, which were all of our concerns; we later heard from Swiss and Swedish governments; and how the Swiss and French worked to turn Lake Geneva into a clean cross-boundary water resource now enjoyed by millions.

We went to bed with our bellies full of Swiss delights –– chocolate and cheese –– with high hopes for the next day’s workshop. Stay tuned for my updates.

::Strategic Foresight Group

(This post first appeared on the Green Prophet blog.)

Today I am happy, as an Iranian, as a human. Today Abdolmalek Rigi, an Iranian Sunni rebel was arrested by Iranian Ministry of Intelligence.

Abdolmalek Rigi, militant leader of the Jundallah (Soldiers of God) which had claimed a series of attacks against civilians and soldiers in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province from bases in Pakistan, was shown by Iranian state TV being led off a small plane by masked police.
Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi claimed that Rigi had been on a US military base in Afghanistan less than 24 hours before the plane he was traveling on was forced to land in Iran during a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan.

I hope one day our world be free from Religious Fundamentals. I hope one day humanity be free from all alleged “God’s Soldiers”.

Here watch the Reuters video
And learn more Here.

Today BBC broadcasts newly released video shot by one of the plain clothes militia. This video shows the violent attack on the Tehran University Dormitory and the brutal beating and arrests of the students who were protesting to the results of the election two days after it was announced on June 15th. According to official reports more than 100 students were arrested on that night and based on the reports of the students those arrested were transferred to the basement of the Interior Ministry and were brutally tortured. According to the Unity Consolidation Bureau (Tahkim-Vahdat, the main Reformist Student Alumni Organisation) on that night at least 5 students were killed. Here is link to the video

Now, if you have watched Muslim Driving School you will have to agree that the BBC has not been doing a good job with their documentaries about Muslims these past months. Muslim Driving School is a series which follows the stories of a group of Muslim women who are taking driving lessons. The sort of stuff on telly George Bush would probably watch. The documentary begins with the narrator saying “There’s a quiet revolution taking place in Britain today” and then clips of Pakistani women driving cars. A revolution? Did they seriously have to call it that. Pathetic. If Bush did watch it, then I am sure he is proud.

Generation Jihad is a two part documentary aired on BBC2 on the 8^th and 15^th February. BBC journalist Peter Taylor investigates the threat of radicalised young Muslims in the UK.  He looks closely at the reasons behind why they may have become radicalised and how they are able to form terrorist cells across the globe.

I thought I’d give you a description of the documentary in the way that the general British public sees it. Now, to be honest I no longer watch documentaries about Muslims, as a young Muslimah you can probably guess why. Although the title of this documentary sounds like typical anti-Islam propaganda, I gave it a chance. Peter Taylor may be a  journalist whose views I do not always agree with but unlike a lot of Western journalists he has a fair stab at making his documentaries unbiased and factual. Experienced in the industry, Taylor has spent more than 35 years reporting on terrorism and political violence, covering conflicts in Northern Ireland; Spain; the Middle East and Africa.

The opening scenes show young Muslim men protesting, some wearing thobes while most are bearded, shouting and waving placards as police officers arrest –cough-disperses the crowds.  There are a few shots of women in niqab (I guess that is supposed to be a hint that niqab adds to the terror scare). A typical opening of a documentary about Muslims, as a matter of fact, this is the ideal recipe for a thrilling heart stopping documentary. To make your own frightening documentary about extremists just include the following; clips of angry Muslim men with beards; scary music; scenes from previous terror attacks; women in niqab; more scary music.

“Generation Jihad is smart, well-educated, living in places like Bradford, West Yorkshire” says Kohlman, a terrorism expert. By well educated one immediately imagines an individual with perhaps one or more university degrees, possibly from a respected institution. However Peter Taylor interviews two young lads, who seem to have pretty humble jobs, and from what I remember they’d dropped out of higher education. This leads me to pose a question, why is the media so reluctant to portray Muslims who hold degrees as a threat? At the end of last month, The Times published a story which was titled “UK students recruited for Somali jihad”. This infuriated a lot of Somali students and at Kingston University they planned to sue The Times. I was jealous in a way, because I wasn’t part of condemning the story nor was I using my time to write pages and pages of complaint letters. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t understand why everybody was fussing, shouldn’t young Muslims be used to the media already? In my university prayer room, the sisters at times get into all sorts of discussions from Religion to politics, and when we do get into political arguments, usually another sister jokingly mentions that there are cameras recording us. Generation Jihad could be any young Muslim really, especially if you possess a degree.

I enjoy watching Peter Taylor’s documentaries but this was by far the most disappointing. BBC, we are not getting on this month. If you havent seen it, I still advice you to watch it. As you can see, I have given up writing a review. Laziness is a disease.

Book of Law is the latest movie of Maziar Miri, the young, promising Iranian director. The story begins with an Iranian scholar, Rahman Tavana, traveling with his colleagues to Lebanon to meet a group of representatives of Lebanese NGOs. There he meets a young, Christian interpreter, Juliet, who also owns a café in Beirut. He falls for her. In his next trip to Lebanon, he finds out that Juliet converted to Islam. In his third trip, he marries Juliet and they together come to Iran to live with Rahman’s family.

Almost all members of Rahman’s family (save a sister of Rahman, Kobra, who is the second good-guy of the movie next to Juliet) as well as the people around the neighborhood play an important role in the movie. They constitute a traditional Muslim society which is, in some respects, far away from original Islamic norms. The newly converted Juliet, who chose the name Amena, tries to educate them, challenging the traditional Muslim community to put aside what she finds non-Islamic. The salesman who sells expired dairies, the Muslim women who talk behind others’ backs, etc. do not hesitate a second to accuse Juliet of being naïve and unaware of ‘True Islam.’ Rahman’s family even use Juliet’s personal album including her old, not-properly-dressed photos to prove that they are better Muslims for their hair and body was never seen by a stranger. Indeed, they can’t bear numerous, harsh criticisms she makes based on the Book of Law, i.e. the Quran. Due to its long-standing experience of Islam, the traditional Muslim society believes in its authenticity to prescribe Islamic version of things. This is the most important theme of the movie.

The story of Book of Law indeed presents a cliché of contemporary art forms dealing with self-diagnosis of Muslim society. A non-Muslim converts to Islam only to find out that the Muslim society is not that Islamic at all.

The movie is idealist in the sense that it repeats an old theme, that ‘the original Islam is all good.’ And the storyteller gets pragmatist in one of the last scenes, when a Lebanese taxi driver preaches secular ethics according to which being good doesn’t have anything to do with the religion one chooses to follow. (No wonder that these statements were not translated in subtitles, probably a consequence of editorial pressures.) And maybe this idealism-pragmatism conflict is another indication of today Iran’s tough situation, symbolizing a transient nation which is still hesitant to give up on its traditional values despite all the setbacks such values brought about, the nation which still hopes to cure all the problems through radical reforms, getting back to True Islam.

Juliet can not tolerate all the inhospitality she faces in the family, in the society. In a so-called Muslim nation, she can’t adhere to original values of the Book of Law. She returns to Lebanon just to find Rahman getting there to find her. They are still in love with each other.

The last scene of the movie pictures an airplane taking off, carrying both Rahman and Juliet on board. But going where?

To Iran? Or to a dreamland in which one can be a true Muslim and enjoy all the benefits of original Islam, even if this dreamland happens to be a non-Muslim country? Rather a tough question, as tough as the choice some devout Muslims have to make.