Speaking of Islamic Feminism…

In Afghanistan, it’s a crime for women to leave home without permission.

“Running away” is not an offense found in the Afghan Penal Code. However, women and girls in Afghanistan have long faced punishment from family and local governing bodies for leaving home without permission.

In response to challenges to the practice of charging women and girls with the crime of“running away,” in 2010 and 2011 the Afghan Supreme Court issued an instruction to courts that “running away” is a crime…

The authorities typically bring “running away”charges when family members file a complaint after women or girls have fled from spouses and family, often in the context of domestic abuse or forced marriage. There is

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Via a tweet by the great Deeyah – a woman in India is murdered for refusing to “compromise” in her daughter’s rape case.

I suppose I should warn you: it makes very ugly upsetting reading. That’s so often the case, but maybe I should give warnings more often.

A month-and-a-half after a schoolgirl was reportedly raped in Betul, her mother was allegedly shot dead by the accused and his friends on Friday night. No arrests have been made so far.

Imarti Uike, a 45-year-old tribal woman, had refused to withdraw the case related to the alleged rape of her 16-year-old daughter and had filed a written complaint about the repeated threats being faced by her family.

Late on Friday,

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In Morocco on Saturday, a girl of 16 killed herself by swallowing rat poison. She was raped when she was 15, and then forced to marry her rapist.

Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code allows for the “kidnapper” of a minor to marry his victim to escape prosecution, and it has been used to justify a traditional practice of making a rapist marry his victim to preserve the honor of the woman’s family.

“Amina, 16, was triply violated, by her rapist, by tradition and by Article 475 of the Moroccan law,” tweeted activist Abadila Maaelaynine.

Abdelaziz Nouaydi, who runs the Adala Assocation for legal reform, said a judge can recommend marriage only in the case of agreement by

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More about QED later, but meanwhile, something I missed while packing – Afghanistan’s Ulema Council issued a statement outlining “the rights and duties of women under Islam” and Karzai backed it. Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch reports:

The statement said some good things. It prohibited a traditional practice of giving a girl to another family to resolve a dispute (“baad”). It spoke against forced marriage. It confirmed women’s rights to inherit and own property.

On women’s duties, however, the statement took a turn for the worse: Women should not travel without a male chaperone. Women should not mix with men while studying, or working, or in public. Women must wear the Islamic hijab. Women are secondary to men.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

More festive jollity, this time in Jerusalem Israel.

Residents of an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Beit Shemesh called Israel police officers “Nazis” on Sunday, after they removed a sign ordering the separation of men and women in a street in that neighborhood.

In response to the removal of the sign by police officers and city inspectors from Beit Shemesh, a crowd of local ultra-Orthodox residents gathered around them, shouting and cursing at them. One man hurled rocks at the police officers, but managed to flee the scene. No one was hurt and no arrests were made.

Several hours after the police removed the sign, residents of the neighborhood reinstated it.

Earlier on Sunday, a Channel 2 news team was attacked and

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Dahlia Lithwick on the Let Women Die bill.

The other noteworthy element of the bill is a “conscience” provision that would allow hospitals to turn away women who need abortions, based on policy set by religious leadership. The provision ensures that the approximately 600 hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church will now be legally protected if they turn away women seeking abortions medically necessary to save their lives. Oddly enough, Pitts says the conscience provision is redundant, as it’s simply “preserving the same rights that medical professionals have had for decades.” So that makes both provisions of the bill redundant—or maybe only one is while the other literally gives hospitals cover to allow women to die. Rock on,

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The following post from last year.

December 26, 2010

Mark Jones found the confirmation I was looking for, in the shape of the letter the bishop of Phoenix wrote to the president of Catholic Healthcare West. It is unbelievably disgusting.

He’s pissed off that the president of CHW told him that this is a complex matter on which the best minds disagree – not, as one might hope, because he thinks there should be no disagreement on whether or not a pregnant woman should be allowed to die along with her fetus rather than prevented from dying at the expense of her fetus, but because he is The Bishop.

In effect, you would have me believe that

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)