Women’s Space

I am posting this as a sort of recap or review of my blogging over the past two years of issues around women who are suffering under fundamentalist regimes of various kinds throughout the world.  This has been a subject of specific and particular interest to me for 14 years, because I, too, have suffered as a one-time member of a fundamentalist community.  — Heart

Following is an excerpt from the First Carnival of Radical Feminists, authored and edited by me, posted May 14, 2007:

Women As a Colonized People

The links which follow offer examples from recent news of the many ways the lives and bodies of girls and women are colonized overtly and egregiously: woman leaders are imprisoned, sometimes after being beaten and tortured, or girls and women are tortured and murdered outright for the sake of the “honor” of the men in the family – father, brothers, husbands, suitors, ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands – for falling in love with the wrong man, for being unable to love the man chosen for her, for being raped, for having a baby because of rape, for remarrying nearly two decades after the death of a husband, for attempting to divorce or separate from an abuser, for seeking basic human and civil rights. In ongoing acts which amount to colonization, women are forced, under penalty of torture and death, to live with men against their will, to have sex with them, bear children for them, serve them for the rest of their lives.

For nearly a year now, the government of Iran has been brutalizing and jailing woman activists, and I have been following these events as they have been unfolding. A list of my own posts (which include links to other blogs and information) can be found here .

Click on the image above for photographs and information about Iranian women in prison.

Iranian Woman Can’t Keep Quiet reports that in late April, Iranian national security laws were used to sentence the six women’s rights activists above to prison (click on image for more information), as though the promotion of rights for women equal “collusion and assembly to endanger national security”. These are the rights for which the woman activists have been peacefully demonstrating:

• Abolition of polygamy
• The right of divorce by women
• Joint custody of children for mothers and fathers
• Equal rights in family law
• Increasing the minimum legal age for girls to 18 (currently it is 15)
• Equal rights for women as witnesses in courts of law

Iranian Woman Can’t Keep Quiet blogs here about Du’a Khalil Aswad, above, age about 17, who was stoned to death in an “honor killing” near Mosul in Iraq for falling in love with the wrong man, then links here to a site dedicated to ending honor killings.

From the site:

Amandeep Atwal: Stabbed to death by her father for having a relationship with a Canadian boy. (Canada)

Fadime Sahindal: Murdered by her father for refusing an arranged marriage in favour of a Swedish boyfriend, who also died in mysterious circumstances. Fadime was an active campaigner against ‘honour’ crime. (Sweden)

D. Kannagi: Forced to drink poison in front of scores of witnesses, then burnt for marrying outside her caste. (India)

Naziat Khan: Strangled in front of her three young daughters at home in Streatham, London. Her estranged husband allegedly carried out the honour killing because she wanted a separation. (UK)

Rudayena Jemael: Pictured here with her son, who was suspected of killing her because she chose to remarry 19 years after her divorce.

Sezen Yuksel: Strangled by her husband two days after her wedding. She had been forced into marriage and refused sexual relations. (India)

Yasmin Akhtar: Kidnapped, strangled and set on fire when she applied for divorce. (UK)

S Murugesan: Poisoned and burnt for marrying a woman of a higher caste (D. Kannagi above). I am including a man because men also torture and murder men in the interests of preserving male hierarchies. This is very visible in the caste system, but it happens everywhere.

Monique Vance: Chased down and fatally shot despite court orders barring contact through 2009. Karl Vance shot Monique Vance several times inside a neighbor’s apartment and then several more times after she ran out. (Seattle, Washington)

Clella Colson: Strangled by her ex-boyfriend, Terry Van Allen, in front of their 14-year-old son. Despite a no-contact order. (Lake Stevens, Washington)

Rebecca Griego: Shot to death at work despite no-contact orders and Griego having taken every conceivable precaution trying to protect herself.

I include the last three as honor killings because in fact, that is what they are. These killings and several others occurred where I live, within the last month or so. Honor killings occur throughout the world, whether the surrounding culture recognizes them for what they are or not.

In an article provocatively and controversially entitled, How Multiculturalism is Betraying Women, Johann Hari writes of a shocking number of German court verdicts in which “honor killings” or similar “honor” crimes went unpunished because the courts considered the honor crimes part of the “culture” of which the victims were a part. Hari writes:

[This] allows the most reactionary and revolting men … to define what that culture is. Across Europe, many imams are offering advice to Muslim men on how to beat Muslim women. For example, in Spain, the popular Imam Mohammed Kamal Mustafa warns that you shouldn’t use “whips that are too thick” because they leave scars that can be detected by the “infidels”. That might be Mustafa’s culture — but it isn’t Nishal’s. It isn’t the culture of the women who scream and weep as they are beaten….Listen to Jasvinder Sanghera, who founded the best British charity helping Asian women after her sister was beaten and beaten and then burned herself to death. She says: “It’s a betrayal of these women to be PC about this. Look at the figures. Asian women in Britain are three times more likely to commit suicide than their white friends. That’s because of all this.”

Yet the brave campaigners who have tried to help these women — like the Labour MP Ann Cryer — have been smeared as racist. In fact, the real racists are the people who vehemently condemn misogyny and homophobia when it comes from white people but mysteriously fall silent when it comes from black and Asian men.

…The highest administrative court in North Rhine-Westphalia has agreed that Muslim parents have the “right” to forbid their daughter from going on a school trip unless she was accompanied by a male family member at all times. The judges said the girl was like “a partially mentally impaired person who, because of her disability, can only travel with a companion”.

As the Iranian author Azar Nafisi puts it: “I very much resent it when people — maybe with good intentions or from a progressive point of view — keep telling me, ‘It’s their culture’ … It’s like saying the culture of Massachusetts is burning witches.” She is horrified by the moves in Canada to introduce shariah courts to enforce family law for Muslims.

I include this link, although it is not a blog post, because the issues the author raises are issues radical feminists have been raising for 50 years or more now, they are issues we are still raising, and yet when we raise these issues we are too often called “racists” or “cultural imperialists.” How can a culture in which a woman is tortured, burned, murdered for the sake of her father’s or husband’s “honour” be rightfully called a culture which belongs to her? Particularly when she begged for help or mercy as she was being tortured or murdered?

In these posts, GF, EFand CD of Women of Zimbabwe Arise tell of being beaten and tortured in the ongoing arrests and brutalizations of peaceful demonstrators in Zimbabwe, which I wrote about here

Following is a partial list of others of my blog postings about the sufferings of women under Sharia/Islamic fundamentalism:

Ansar Al Islam Threatens Iraqi Women’s Rights Activist With Death

Saudi Justice Ministry Says Resorting to the Media Could Hurt Raped Woman Sentenced to 200 Lashes

American Business Woman Arrested, Strip Searched in Saudi Arabia for Having Coffee with Male Colleagues at Starbucks

Iran Closes Down Leading  Iranian Feminist Magazine

Mother of Ronak Safarzadeh, Imprisoned Iranian Women’s Activist, Beaten by Officials

Outrage:  Iranian Women’s Rights Defender Sentenced to Lashings, Prison

Female Born Couple Imprisoned for Marrying to Prevent One of Them Being Sold to Pay Uncle’s Gambling Debt

Nawal Al Saadawi’s Critics:  “Egotistical, Man-Hating, Always Trying to Get Attention”

50 Peaceful Women Protesters Arrested, Brutalized in Iran; U.S. Denies VISAs to Iranian Women’s Delegation

Cleric:  Women Should Wear Chastity Belts to Prevent Rape

Nawal Al Saadawi:  War Against Women, Women Against War, Waging War on the Mind

Imam Suggests Sydney Gang Rape Victims Were Raped Because They Were Like So Much Uncovered Meat

A Letter About the Stoning of a Prostituted Mother

For My Unnamed Nigerian Sister, Stoned to Death in Izom

Malalai Joya:  “They Will Kill Me, But They Will Not Kill My Voice”

Interview with Nazanin

Iranian Women in Prison:  “We Too Ceased to Live the Very Day That We Killed Our Husbands”

Saudi Arabia to Behead Women for Witchcraft

The Murder of Safi Ama Jan 

Take Action to Stop Execution by Stoning of Two Sisters in Iran

Tehran: Women’s Peaceful Demonstrations Being Violently Suppressed

Zakia Zaki, Afghan Woman Owner of Peace Radio, Gunned Down, Second Afghan Woman Journalist Murdered in Five Days

Heart