Tag:

womenempowerment

Iran’s Head of Science Ministry: 60% of the country’s students are consisted of women©

by Narges Mohammadi October 9, 2022

According to Jahan Banou news agency, citing from the Public Relations Unit of Iran’s Ministry of Science, Mohammad Ali Zulfigol, the Iranian minister of Science, in a ceremony for the upcoming of the new academic year in universities and higher education centers, with the presence of Iran’s President, presidential vice-Chancellors for Science and Technology, Women and Family Affairs, and Iran’s Minister of Health & Medical education, which was held in the international conference hall of Al-Zahra University of Iran, said: “60% of the country’s students consists of females, and the significant presence of women in higher education is due to the conditions provided by the ruling of the Islamic Republic”.

Iranian Female Scientists

Emphasizing the efforts and perseverance of female students to succeed in the pursuit of science; the Minister of Science said: “God has given every human being special talents and everyone should try to identify their special talent and capacity; to use it so they can achieve their goals and successes”.

Zulfigol added: “Each field of study has a special beauty and is different from other fields; and if students study and research the concepts and ideas of their field of study in depth; they can contribute to the world and the progress of humanity in their field.”

The Iranian Minister said: “God’s mercy is infinite, and if you ask God for something by trusting in His Holy Essence; he will surely grant it with mercy, have high aspirations because higher aspirations make you work harder”.

Zulfigol pointed out that parents and school teachers played a fundamental role in the academic success. He then emphasized respecting parents and teachers and professors and added at the end: “Science without ethics is not useful at all”.

Our research says, before the Islamic revolution in Iran; there were less women active in universities and different parts of the society; and these statistics have increased since 43 years ago.

Source: Tasnim News Agency

October 9, 2022 5 comments

Australia and Oceania Women Pioneers

Trailblazing women paved the way for future women of law

by Narges Mohammadi October 8, 2022

Celebrating 120 years of women in law

Since Ada Evans became the first woman in Australia to graduate in law 120 years ago, many other trailblazing women at the University of Sydney have followed in her footsteps. In 2022, we celebrate all our women of law – from those who paved the way to the changemakers of the future.

“My grandfather erected a notice at the door of his church,” wrote Marie Byles in her unpublished memoir, “‘Jews, infidels, heretics – all are welcome.’ The term heretic was one of pride in our family, not shame.”

It’s a telling anecdote of a true pioneer. While not a heretic herself, Byles was a trailblazer who cared not for convention or established rules, who became the first female solicitor in New South Wales, after completing her degree in law at the University of Sydney. It was a significant moment in history – and one that was only possible because of the work of another revolutionary and Sydney graduate, Ada Evans.

The stories of these two women overlap and intertwine – indeed, Byles’s life and career would have been markedly different without Evans’s influence, and without Byles, Evans’s legacy would not have been so remarkable.

Evans, born in England in 1872, was Australia’s first female law graduate. After completing a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney in 1895, Evans returned to the University four years later, at her mother’s urging, to study law. She was the first woman enrolled in the degree, and legend has it that her application was only successful because the then–Dean was away at the time and unable to thwart the attempt.

While Evans was the first woman to graduate with a law degree in Australia in 1902, she was not the first to practise the law; that honour went to Marie Byles. When Evans graduated, women were in fact not permitted to practise law. It was an injustice Evans worked for the next two decades to overcome.

Marie Byles was the recipient of Evans’s campaigning efforts. A rabble-rouser from the very beginning, Byles’s life was almost too bombastic to be believed. After winning a scholarship to the University, she graduated with a degree in arts in 1921, followed by law in 1924. She was the first woman admitted as a solicitor in New South Wales, a feat only managed due to the diligence and persistence of Evans.

When Byles established her own practice in 1929 – the first woman in New South Wales to do so – she quickly became known not just for her sharp legal mind, but for her nifty organisational skills, with a reputation for speedily processing matters. She also gained a reputation for taking on female clients, assisting them with divorce settlements at a time when divorce was still rare and stigmatised.

For her part, Evans never practised law. She applied twice to the New South Wales Bar and was rejected twice. She applied to the English Bar, also unsuccessfully. Finally, after her efforts to overturn the ban on women working in the law came to fruition, Evans successfully applied to the New South Wales Bar – the third time, it seemed, was the charm. But on graduating, even though Evans was made several lucrative offers of employment, she declined. A visionary to the last, Evans was concerned that it had been too long since she had studied the law, and worried that being the first woman to practise in her state might be detrimental to her sex.

Byles, by contrast, was a polymath renaissance woman, never too far from adventure. A keen traveller, she climbed mountains – literally, this time – across Norway, Canada and England, and was an early Western visitor to modern China. There, she discovered an affinity for Buddhism, and returned to Australia eager for more people to know about it. A conservationist, she campaigned for land rights and led bushwalking expeditions. Byles frequently contributed to newspapers, including The Australian Women’s Mirror, where she opined on legal issues affecting her female readers, including a memorable imploration to keep their names upon marriage.

Largely forgotten to history, Ada Evans and Marie Byles have an influence and impact that they might find difficult to believe, over one hundred years after their lives converged through their connection to the University of Sydney’s Law School. For the generations of women who have come after them – consciously or not – they made the law possible, and penetrable.

October 8, 2022 0 comment

Central America Culture

Priyanka Chopra interviews US Vice President Kamala Harris, says ‘we are both daughters of India, in a way’

by Narges Mohammadi October 8, 2022

Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra was recently seen interviewing the US Vice President Kamala Harris at a leadership forum. While the discussions ranged from pay disparity, gun control, climate change and border issues, the duo was also seen talking about their Indian roots.

The 40-year-old star, who is now a resident of Los Angeles, was invited to interview the Vice President by the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum. Chopra began the interview by striking a conversation about their Indian connection. The interview has been dubbed by Vogue as a ‘one-of-its-kind union of two South Asian trailblazers on the global stage.’ The forum was attended by prominent Democrats from across the country.

Chopra began by saying how they both were daughters of India. “You’re a proud American-born daughter of an Indian mom and a Jamaican father. I am an Indian born of two physicians as parents and a recent immigrant to this country who totally still believes in the wholehearted, you know, American Dream,” the actress said.

Talking about women in leadership, Chopra extolled the fact that India has for long had several women at the highest elected positions. She expressed her bewilderment that the US, which is known as the land of opportunity, has waited long to give women the same opportunities.
“In my home country of India, women have held the highest elected positions of power, from tri-selected Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1966 to the current President, Droupadi Murmu. It is baffling to me that in this country, this land of opportunity and revolution, we have not seen that final ceiling shattered yet,” Chopra said in her address. Harris who resonated with Chopra’s thoughts stated that the strength of a democracy lies in the status that is given to women in that democracy.

Following her interview with Harris, the actress took to her Instagram account to share a post that began with a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“Since the very beginning, the world has undermined the power of women. We’ve been shunned and silenced, but thanks to the scarifies and tenacity of so many selfless women, we are in a place today where we can come together and work collectively to right the wrongs. This was a key take away from the conversation I had the honor to moderate with @vp, Kamala Harris at the Women’s Leadership Forum conference in Washington DC last night,” read her post.

While talking about voting rights, in her post the actress had said that although she had not voted in the US, her husband could and one day her daughter would. The duo also spoke at length about issues such as pay disparity. Chopra went on to reveal that despite a 22-year-long career, she hadn’t received equal pay as her male counterparts in the film industry. Chopra also met numerous South Asian members of the Biden Administration during her visit to the White House.

October 8, 2022 0 comment

Asia Politics

Israel’s Mossad chief promotes women at top

by Narges Mohammadi October 6, 2022

Just before the recent protests in Iran; two women get appointed to very senior positions within the Mossad, & this sends a strong signal to the rest of Israel’s security system that maybe things are changing.

As predicted and reported here in an advance exclusive by JahanBanou, Mossad Director David Barnea emerged briefly from the shadows Aug. 25 to slam the impending nuclear deal with Iran as being “based on lies,” and the decision to leave open three probes indicating unreported Iranian nuclear activity as “an unprecedented national fraud.”

While pursuing its shadow war to prevent Iran’s nuclearization — a task with which the late agency head Meir Dagan was entrusted 20 years by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — the Mossad has also become a leader of feminist empowerment in recent months.

This agency issued an unprecedented announcement last week reporting the historic appointments of two women to its top leadership forum. A., a Mossad veteran who rose through the ranks of the predominantly male organization, now heads the Mossad’s Intelligence Directorate (the counterpart of the Chief of Military Intelligence); K. also a longtime Mossad staffer, has been placed in charge of the Iran campaign and tasked with responsibility for dealing with Israel’s most dangerous enemy, including the nuclear threat it holds.

The agency never announces top appointments except for those of its director, whose name is the only one in the Mossad hierarchy allowed for publication.

Women have served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in the General Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the Mossad since their founding over 70 years ago. Some have attained high ranks, but never reached the top posts of these institutions. By and large, women in senior positions hold advisory, human resources or general staff roles. The woman who reached the top rank in the IDF, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Orna Barbivai, headed its human resources directorate and now serves as minister of economy. The IDF has been opening up field training positions for women very gradually, but very few serve in operational, combat roles.

In conversations with colleagues, Barnea reportedly expressed pride in spearheading what he views as a revolution, although he insists the two women were appointed purely on merit, not as an affirmative action move. A security source who spoke on condition of anonymity quoted him saying, “They were both simply the best, the most qualified and suited. They were not given any free passes. They were simply the best among all the men against whom they competed over the long years of their progress up the ranks.”

Israel, established in 1948 as a secular, liberal state has been shifting slowly but surely in more religious, conservative directions. Women are excluded from public leadership and positions of influence by a growing number of religious communities and organizations, separated from men at public gatherings organized by such groups, and relegated by many to the private sphere as wives, mothers and breadwinners. The top appointments of women in Israel’s most prestigious security agency are especially unusual against this backdrop.

“You have to understand the significance of this move,” a senior intelligence source said this week. “These two women take part in the top, most classified and intimate forums, representing the Mossad’s position. This is the first time that the country’s leadership and top decision-makers are being briefed on such crucial security issues by women in senior roles. They not only review and detail intelligence planning, they also convey the Mossad’s recommendations to decision-makers. This has never happened before.”

Nonetheless, Israel remains a militaristic, male-dominated society with few women at the top. The only woman to lead the country, the late Prime Minister Golda Meir, was a fleeting phenomenon born of political circumstances but remembered mostly for the disastrous results of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War during her term. Barnea’s appointments run counter to the strong macho culture that prevails behind closed doors of most senior security forums. Could his dramatic moves augur the naming of a woman as Mossad director? Right now, probably not. In the future, quite possibly.

A., the Mossad’s intelligence chief, also has a female deputy, H. The Mossad now has four women in top roles, A. and K. as department heads, and two deputy heads, one in a nonoperational role.

The head of the Iran directorate leads the agency’s activity against Iran, including the technological, logistical and operational aspects of this massive project. Her colleague at the helm of the intelligence department oversees the compilation, formulation and presentation of the intelligence collected by the agency around the world. Together, they hold the Mossad’s top operational roles (other than that of the operations director).

These two very senior positions are now in the hands of two women who grew up, developed professionally and progressed within the Israeli security system. Both were promoted and appointed by Barnea. Both appointments were confirmed by the previous prime minister, Naftali Bennett. Incumbent Prime Minister Lapid has been active throughout his career in advancing women into key roles. Judging by the composition of his own Cabinet, Lapid does not intend to stop this process, but rather to accelerate it; but will it be for the benefit of women, or for the benefit of male politicians? ….

The future will tell us.

October 6, 2022 5 comments

Asia Society

Women’s Equality Makes Our Planet Safe and Secure

by Narges Mohammadi October 6, 2022

“Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is the Founder of the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP), Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN (1996-2001) and Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations (2002-2007).

The following is based on his inaugural keynote speech at the first “Exceptional Women of Peace” Awards Ceremony hosted by the Pathways To Peace (PTP) on 13 September 2022 (virtual)”

Happy 23rd anniversary of the consensus action by the General Assembly of the United Nations of its foundational documents on the culture of peace!

23 years ago, on 13 September 1999, the United Nations adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, a monumental document that transcends boundaries, cultures, societies, and nations. It was an honor for me to Chair the nine-month long negotiations that led to the adoption of this historic norm-setting document by the United Nations General Assembly. That document asserts that inherent in the culture of peace is a set of values, modes of behaviour and ways of life.

A statement from the Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing in 1995 declared that “the dynamic movement towards a culture of peace derives inspiration and hope from women’s visions and actions”. It further underscored that full respect for the human rights of women; the release of women’s creative potential in all aspects of life; the equal participation of women in decision-making are all prerequisites to attaining the culture of peace.

The core message of this 1995 statement continues to be equally relevant today.

I am deeply moved by the honor bestowed on me to be the inaugural keynote speaker at the “Exceptional Women of Peace” Awards Ceremony today, that too on this very special day of 13 September.

Pathways To Peace, PTP, has been working for over 40 years locally and globally, inter-generationally and multi-culturally, to support peacebuilding and peacebuilders, and the initiatives to co-create the global culture of peace.

Executive Director of Pathways To Peace (PTP) Tezikiah (Tez) Gabriel asserted that “We see women, particularly young women using their voice and presence to create positive change and build lasting peace. Yet often these women are not known or recognized. Many are doing their work for peace in the most difficult circumstances. They are unsung “sheroes” nurturing peace in war-torn areas of our world, bringing hope and inspiring peace to those suffering in devasting poverty, hunger, and disease.”

She went on to emphasize that “The Exceptional Women of Peace Awards seek to honor those women – and ALL women. In the spirit of our beloved Avon Mattison, when we honor one, we honor all. All are needed to build the sustainable peace, to create the Culture of Peace in all our lives.”

Encouraged by the spirit of its Co-Founder, Avon Mattison, a dear and respected friend, PTP recognizes the exceptional leadership of women of all ages, backgrounds, and experiences. To commemorate the inspirational legacy of Avon, this year on 8 March, International Women’s Day, PTP launched an award campaign, to honor “Exceptional Women of Peace.”

As PTP says “This award honors the inspiring work of women peacebuilders whose courage, leadership, and commitment to peace stand out as beacons of strength and hope.”

My life’s experience has taught me to value peace and equality as the essential components of our existence. They unleash the positive forces of good that are so needed for human progress. My initiatives at the United Nations General Assembly in 1999 on the Culture of Peace, in the Security Council in 2000 on equality of women’s participation and in leading the UN system’s prioritization of the needs of the world’s most vulnerable countries as their champion for six years – all show that when head and heart join together to do something meaningful and worthwhile for humanity, no obstacle is insurmountable.

My work has taken me to the farthest corners of the world. I have seen time and again the centrality of the culture of peace and women’s equality in our lives. This realization has now become more pertinent amid the ever-increasing militarism, militarization and weaponization that is destroying both our planet and our people.

One soul-stirring inspiration that I have experienced from my work for peace, development and human rights is that we should never forget that when women – half of world’s seven plus billion people – are marginalized, there is no chance for our world to get sustainable peace in the real sense. It is my strong belief that unless women are engaged in advancing the culture of peace at equal levels at all times with men, sustainable peace would continue to elude us.

Women bring a new breadth, quality, and balance of vision to a common effort of moving away from the cult of war towards the culture of peace. I believe wholeheartedly that women’s equality makes our planet safe and secure.

All of you are aware of UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security. It is very close to my intellectual existence and my very small contribution to a better world for each one of us. To trace back, more than 22 years ago, on the International Women’s Day in 2000, as the President of the Security Council, I initiated an agreed statement that formally brought to global attention the positive role and contribution of women.

The Security Council recognized in that statement that peace is inextricably linked with equality between women and men and affirmed the value of full and equal participation of women at all decision-making levels. That conceptual and political breakthrough finally resulted in the adoption of the Resolution 1325.

Adoption of 1325 opened a much-awaited door of opportunity for women who have shown time and again that they bring a qualitative improvement in structuring peace and in post-conflict architecture. When women participate in peace negotiations and in the crafting of a peace agreement, they have the broader and long-term interest of society in mind.

We recall that in choosing the three women laureates for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the citation referred to 1325 saying that “It underlined the need for women to become participants on an equal footing with men in peace processes and in peace work in general.”

UNSCR 1325 is the only UN resolution so specifically noted in any citation of the Nobel Prize.

Much, nevertheless, remains to be done.

Empowering women’s political leadership will have ripple effects on every level of society. When politically empowered, women bring important and different skills and perspectives to the policy making table in comparison to their male counterparts. I underscore often that when women join politics, they want to DO something, when men join politics, they want to BE something.

Patriarchy and misogyny are humanity’s dual scourges pulling back the humanity away from our aspiration for a better world to live in freedom, equality, and justice. Gender inequality is an established, proven, and undisputed reality – it is all pervasive. It is a real threat to human progress!

On a somber note, let me alert that we are experiencing around the globe an organized, determined rollback of the gains made as well as new attacks on women equality and empowerment – yes, in all parts of the world and in all countries without exception.

That global reality is dramatically evidenced in the fact that the UN itself despite being the biggest champion of women’s equality has failed to elect a woman secretary-general yet to reverse the historical injustice of having the post occupied by men for its entire seven-decades of its existence.

Before closing, let me assert that feminism is a component of a modern view on global politics. It is about smart policy which includes whole populations, uses all potential and leaves no one behind.

Let me reiterate that I am proud to be a feminist. All of us need to be. That is how we make our planet a better place to live for all.

Congratulations to the first recipients of the Exceptional Women of Peace Award in 2022.

We should always remember that without peace, development is impossible, and without development, peace is not achievable, but without women, neither peace nor development is conceivable. [IDN-InDepthNews – 23 September 2022] Photo: Late Ms. Avon Mattison (left) with Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury at the inaugural High Level Forum on The Culture of Peace at the United Nations convened by the 66th President of the UN General Assembly on 14 September 2012.

October 6, 2022 1 comment

Central America Health

Women who are physically active may live longer, regardless of their genes

by Narges Mohammadi October 6, 2022

In the United States, the National Center for Health Statistics estimates the life expectancies of males and females are 74.5 years and 80.2 years, respectively. For healthy aging, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that physical activity is key.

To find out whether physical activity had an advantage over genetics in promoting longevity, researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at the University of California San Diego and other institutions conducted a nationwide study.

After analyzing health data of more than 5,000 older postmenopausal women, the researchers found that higher levels of light, moderate, or vigorous physical activity correlated with a lower risk of all-cause deaths. The findings expanded on prior studies that have shown that more sedentary time carries greater health risks.

These associations persisted across varying levels of genetic potential for living longer.

“[The] findings support the importance of higher physical activity (PA) and lower sedentary time (ST) for reducing mortality risk in older women, regardless of [their] genetic predisposition for longevity,” the researchers wrote.

Their prospective study was recently published in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity.

OPACH women’s study

From 2012 to 2020, the UC San Diego researchers analyzed data on the physical activity of more than 5,000 ambulatory women ages 63 and older.

Lead author Alexander Posis, MPH, a doctoral student in the San Diego State University/UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health, explained the significance of the OPACH study to Medical News Today:

“Our study used pre-existing data from the Objective Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health (OPACH) study, which is part of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) that started in the early 1990s because women had not been included in many epidemiologic studies and clinical trials.”

– Alexander Posis, MPH, lead author of the study

The OPACH study focused on associations between physical activity, cardiovascular disease, and injury risks. The data generated allowed researchers to look at physical activity and the risk of mortality, cancers, cognitive decline, and physical disability as well.

Other research using the OPACH study found associations with physical activity (PA), sedentary time (ST), and mortality during an average follow-up of 3 years. However, no one had explored any possible genetic influence on these associations.

The UC San Diego study aimed to use a follow-up of 6 years and adjust the results with a “weighted genetic risk score (GRS) for longevity.”

Activity and variants

OPACH participants wore an accelerometer 24 hours per day for 7 consecutive days.

The device measured the amount of time the women spent moving or being still and the intensity of any activity.

The researchers defined total PA “as movement resulting in energy expenditure.” They categorized PA intensity and ST minutes using predetermined cut points applied to the accelerometer counts.

The researchers’ conclusions

Of the 5,446 women in the present study’s sample, 1,022 passed away during follow-up.

The authors determined that 36% of the total population had a high GRS, 33.1% had a medium GRS, and 30.9% had a low GRS for longevity.

The researchers firstly found that physical activity, of light or moderate-to-vigorous intensity, was associated with a lower risk of death while higher ST was associated with a higher risk of death. Interestingly, these associations persisted regardless of one’s genetic predisposition for longevity.

Interestingly, the low-GRS individuals were younger, more active, and had higher physical functioning scores than the other GRS groups. Those with low GRS were also “more likely to be of Black race/ethnicity than the medium and high GRS groups.”

“Our study showed that, even if you aren’t likely to live long based on your genes, you can still extend your lifespan by engaging in positive lifestyle behaviors such as regular exercise and sitting less,” Aladdin H. Shadyab, PhD, the study’s senior author and assistant professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, said in a news release.

October 6, 2022 0 comment

Asia Politics

Afghan women protest school attack as Taliban cracks down

by Narges Mohammadi October 6, 2022

Women demonstrated across various cities in Afghanistan after dozens of mostly young women were killed in an attack on a school last week.

Dressed in a long black abaya with her face mask secured, university professor Zahra Mosawi walked the streets of the ancient Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif to denounce incessant attacks on the Shia Muslim minority.

Mosawi, 28, carried with her a large yellow placard with the word “Azadi” – or freedom – scrawled across it as she joined more than 50 other colleagues and students in a demonstration on Monday against the recent attack on a learning center in Kabul that killed 53 students, mostly young women.

It was just the latest horrific act of violence on a facility attended by Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazaras, who have historically faced persecution. No group claimed responsibility.

“After Friday’s attack on innocent girls in the Kaj education center, we said we have had enough,” Mosawi said, referring to the institute in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi area where a suicide bomber opened fire and then blew himself up.

In WhatsApp groups and on social media, Mosawi and other academics and activists mobilized to condemn the unrelenting violence on the Hazara as well as restrictions on women and minorities. “We have to raise our voices and organize ourselves. This genocide against Hazara has to end,” she added.

The protesters also demanded the reopening of girls’ high schools in Afghanistan, which have been closed since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year. “We raise our voices for justice and equality. We want the right to work, to education, and the freedom of all women,” Mosawi said. Similar demonstrations took place in Kabul, Herat and Bamiyan over the weekend, largely led by women from Afghanistan’s academia.

“We talked about the attack on Kaj centre in our classrooms on Saturday, and how Afghan girls are being prevented from education. These girls were killed because they wanted to learn,” said Soraya Alizada, 25, a student who joined the protests in central Bamiyan province.

She and her classmates led a demonstration demanding an end to the violence against the Hazara and the reopening of schools for girls. “Because of these attacks, many families don’t allow their daughters to take part in the university entrance exam. In which part of the world are girls and boys killed for the crime of seeking education?” Alizada asked.

‘Beat the girls’

The peaceful demonstrations were met with a Taliban backlash. Witnesses told Al Jazeera that security forces fired warning shots, and video on social media from Herat and Kabul showed them violently dispersing protesters.

In Bamiyan, Alizada said the Taliban “beat the girls who were demonstrating, broke their phones, and called them ‘bitches’”. “One Taliban pointed his gun at one girl threatening to shoot her, but we all stopped him from doing this”, she said.

In Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, demonstrators had it rough right from the start as Taliban members locked them up inside their campus, Mosawi said.

“The Taliban surrounded Balkh University [in Mazar-i-Sharif] from five directions and did not allow students to leave to participate in the protests,” she said, adding some eventually broke out and freed their classmates to join the demonstration.

Some protesters were also beaten, Mosawi said. “Because the journalists were not present, the protesting girls were themselves filming the protests,” she said. “But the Taliban first beat these girls and then broke their cell phones.”

Heather Barr, associate director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, noted “how incredibly dangerous” it is to protest.

“The Taliban’s response has, predictably, been brutal, including new abusive strategies such as locking students in their hostels. The Taliban seem to have no tolerance at all for protests by women and girls, even when the protest is not specifically about their abuses,” said Barr.

Recent research found the Taliban has done little to protect or assist targeted communities when they face attack, she added. The Taliban government defended the handling of the demonstrations.

“When they plan to protest they should have informed us in advance about the time, place and about the topic so we could prepare for possible threats. But unfortunately in Kabul, a number of our sisters started protesting without informing us, so the security forces tried to prevent them,” said Abdul Nafee Takoor, a spokesman for the interior ministry.

“A similar thing happened in Balkh today although the security forces there were informed prior to the protest. But the protesters refused to demonstrate at the place the security forces allocated for them. Instead they wanted to go to another location, and that is why security forces tried to stop them,” he told Al Jazeera.

Despite the Taliban crackdown on the demonstrations, Mosawi said she was encouraged by the large turnout, which included Afghan men. “This is the first time that men stood by the women, although only a limited number joined. But I am happy it might inspire other men also stand with the women of their provinces,” she said.

“I have a message for those Afghan men who sit at home and just watch women on the streets,” Mosawi said. “How long will you remain silent in front of all these crimes and persecution against women? If today you choose to remain silent, tomorrow you may be faced with the same persecution.”

October 6, 2022 0 comment

Culture Europe

Spanish civil war book reveals hidden history of female journalists

by Narges Mohammadi October 2, 2022

A new book has shed light on the little-known history of nearly 200 female journalists from 29 countries who covered the Spanish civil war.

While Ernest Hemingway and Arthur Koestler were among writers who made their names reporting on the war, Bernardo Díaz Nosty’s 900-page Periodistas extranjeras en la Guerra Civil (Foreign Female Journalists in the Civil War) uncovers the story of 183 women whose writing gave a new slant on the 1936-39 conflict, distinct from the masculine and bellicose tales of life on the frontline.

The American Martha Gellhorn is one of the few female journalists whose work covering the war is widely known.

Women were less interested in “the macho competitiveness of violence”, says Nosty, a journalism professor at the University of Málaga.

The Spanish civil war was the first to witness the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilians as a weapon and the impact of the war on the daily life of civilians, rather than soldiers, was what women tended to focus on.

“Death wasn’t just on the frontline,” Nosty says, “but also in the rearguard, striking the defenceless whose protection and survival depended primarily on women.

“There’s a silent heroism in the suffering of the elderly, women and children, which doesn’t appear in reporting from the front. Even when women went to the front, they reported from a more humane point of view on how the young men were suffering, rather than on the battles.”

According to Nosty, the French journalist Hélène Gosset, who wrote for L’Oeuvre, said women were pacifists by nature and that the children who were dying every day in bombardments were being “sacrificed to the madness of men”.

While the women came from all over the world, from as far afield as Canada and Peru, the most numerous were from Britain (40) and the US (35), followed by France (24) and Germany (13). There were seven each from Argentina, Austria, Italy and Russia.

“Many of the women were Jews, many were Communist party members, among them German and Italian exiles who had been living in Paris and London and who joined the war in defence of democracy and against racism,” he says.

Such was the case of Gerda Taro, a wealthy Polish Jew forced to flee Nazi Germany and who went to Spain as a photographer along with her partner, Endre Ernö Friedmann, where they published pictures under the portmanteau name Robert Capa.

Taro was killed in an accident near the end of the war when she was run over by a republican tank.

Another was Ilse Wolff, an Austrian Jew who, after covering the war, went to London where she made anti-Nazi broadcasts for the BBC.

“A very high proportion of the women who came had a university education and came from the higher social classes, restless women who wanted to break with convention,” Nosty says.

Among the many English reporters was Josie Shercliff, who wrote for the Daily Herald under the name of José Shercliff. She went on to be the Times’ correspondent in Lisbon, where she possibly also worked as a spy.

Kate Mangan, an artist and actor, went to join the International Brigades but ended up in the republican press office in Valencia. Never More Alive, her memoir of her time in Spain, was finally published in 2020 with a foreword by the civil war historian Paul Preston.

In the 1930s, women enjoyed a moment of greater freedom, Nosty says, and they saw clearly what they had to lose were fascism to prevail. “They were the ones who warned that if fascism wasn’t defeated in Spain, it could provoke a European war,” he says.

Not surprisingly, more than 90% of female journalists operated in republican zones, which were both more accessible to the media but also had more modern views on the role of women. Most also wrote for leftwing or centre-left publications.

However, some took the Francoist line that the war was being run from Moscow. Gertrude Gaffney, for example, who wrote for the Irish Independent, saw Franco as the antidote to communism’s godless mission.

The Reuters correspondent Dora Leonard went on to become Franco’s personal English teacher as well as broadcasting in English for Spain’s state radio until she retired.

October 2, 2022 0 comment

Europe Politics

Stick, twist … or sack Kwasi Kwarteng? The choices facing Liz Truss

by Narges Mohammadi September 29, 2022

We rate UK’s new PM’s likely next steps as she sets about navigating path through crisis of her government’s making

Liz Truss who won the 2022 Conservative Party leadership election following Johnson’s resignation amid a government crisis and became UK’s new prime minister on September the 6th, is battered by financial markets and besieged by MPs whose constituents’ mortgage payments are set to rocket; and now she must navigate a serious economic crisis of her government’s own making.

Does she stick, twist – or gamble again?

Rating the likelihood of what might happen from one to five, here are some of her options in the days ahead.

Style it out

Truss was reportedly reluctant for Kwasi Kwarteng (British Chancellor of the Exchequer) to issue an emergency statement earlier this week, aimed at reassuring financial markets. She preferred to stand firm. The mini-budget was closely aligned with Truss’s own ardently free-market vision, and she is unlikely to want to be forced into a humiliating U-turn so early in her premiership.

As many of her intellectual outriders have suggested, she is also relatively relaxed about somewhat higher interest rates, believing the Bank of England should have acted sooner against inflation.

Some in government appear to believe markets overreacted so dramatically in recent days because they did not understand the full context of Kwarteng’s plans, and what he and Truss are hoping to achieve. Truss intends to remedy that by rushing out other aspects of what she firmly believes to be a pro-growth set of policies – from childcare reform to immigration – in the hope of reassuring investors.

She could then use her conference speech next week to try to instill a sense of determined calm. But with the bond markets giving journalists an instant readout of how well she is going down with the audience that really matters, that looks a bold – not to say mad – strategy.

U-turn on tax cuts, with or without sacking Kwasi Kwarteng

In its pointed statement on Tuesday evening, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dropped a heavy hint it would like to see the chancellor withdraw some of his tax-cut plans, when he sets out his fiscal plan on 23 November.

Long before that, the intense market pressure could yet force Truss to change course, unpicking some aspects of the £45bn package Kwarteng announced, on top of the costly energy price guarantee.

Some of the tax cuts could be delayed, for example – as Rishi Sunak insisted was necessary during his leadership campaign – or some of the more contentious policies, such as the cut in the 45p rate, could be scrapped altogether.

Truss hastily dropped plans for regional setting of public sector pay during her leadership campaign, after it became clear that if implemented, they would cut the salaries of key workers such as nurses.

Truss could attempt to blame Kwarteng for the chaos and force him out, though MPs are of the firm belief that it was Truss’s mini-budget just as much as it was his. She would then have to find another right-hand man or woman, solid enough to reassure the markets, but willing to serve in her deeply ideological cabinet.

Announce spending cuts

Kwarteng has promised the markets – and his own MPs – more details on how he plans to ensure that debt as a share of GDP is falling in the “medium term”, despite his vast unfunded spending plans. One way to try to make those sums add up would be to announce spending cuts in the years ahead, with the welfare budget a likely victim.

Sunak promised in his budget earlier this year that benefits would be uprated in line with inflation in April, for example, after the 3.1% rise this year left many struggling. Kwarteng has refused to repeat that pledge, and it could be abandoned.

Promising cuts would please some of Truss’s backers, who see a smaller state as integral to their vision of a leaner, more competitive economy. But with public services, from ambulances to courts, already struggling badly, it is not obviously an election-winning approach.

Resign and give someone else a go

In theory, the fabled “men in grey suits” of the 1922 Committee (and most of them are men), looking at the dramatic impact of Truss’s short premiership on financial markets, could decide she is permanently trashing her party’s reputation and urge her to go.

But the party’s leadership rules, as they stand, give Truss 12 months before she can face any formal challenge. With the strong support of her party’s membership in the summer ballot, she has a mandate to dig in her heels and crack on with implementing her radical plans.

She may also suffer a crisis of self-doubt and resign – but anyone who has met her believes that to be extremely unlikely.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/28/stick-twist-or-sack-kwasi-kwarteng-the-choices-facing-liz-truss

September 29, 2022 4 comments

Asia Society

by Narges Mohammadi September 28, 2022

For the past, nearly 10 days, lots of protests have been happening in Iran; and so this country has been on the top headlines of the international media press for the past few days. More than a week ago in Iran, a 22-year-old young woman was called by the Iranian morality police because her clothing was against the rules. Iran is an Islamic country and 99.9 percent of it’s population are Muslim and so the regulations of this country including certain having a dress code while within the society, are all according to the rules of Islam.

This young woman was only called to a session to learn more about the national laws; however, after the class, she goes up to the female police at that station, and while talking to her suddenly she faints and then is taken to the hospital by the police personnel. The surveillance footage shows no physical harm was done to this young woman and the reason that she fainted still remains unknown.

She immediately was hospitalized, but very sadly a few days after she passed away. The death of this young lady whose name was Mahsa Amini was a shock for all Iranians including top authorities and government officials in Iran. It was so devastating that Iran’s president, Ibrahim Raisi personally contacted Mahsa’s family and gave them his deepest thoughts and said that their daughter is just like his own child, then gave the family his word that he would make sure to punish anyone who committed the least amount of negligence that resulted in this young woman’s death.

Furthermore, as soon as her death was announced, protests have been going on in different cities of Iran condemning and attacking the Iranian police force and the government and insulting Islamic values. Now, are they really “protests” or actually “riots”? …

Certain governments who have placed the most horrific sanctions on the Iranian nation, and consider Iran to be a “terrorist”, now are sympathizing with Iranians over these occurrences. Our research within the Iranian nation says that the most concern that Iranians have these days are economical issues that are caused by these sanctions, not moral issues or the police force; and everything that has or is happening at current is a certain performance that is being monitored from outside Iran’s borders.

If these governments really feel sorry for Iran, shouldn’t they lift the sanctions that are absolutely illegal according to international regulations? Shouldn’t they stop interfering in Iran’s internal affairs?…

The answer is that they should but the hard truth is that they would never do that. They don’t want peace and stability in Iran. They want these protests or it’s better if we say “RIOTS” because they think that in an unstable Iran that they have benefited from a lot before the Islamic revolution; they can benefit more for their interests while it is burning in the fire of deception.

Now, since Friday, 23^rd of September, all over Iran, in all 32 provinces of this country, marches and gatherings have been held in condemning these “RIOTS”. The output of these gatherings was that the Iranian nation said to the world “We may be suffocating because of the economic situation of our country, but we love Iran and Islam and we support our police force and government. We are not with the ones who disrupted our peace and caused damage to our community.” While comparing the number of people in the “RIOTS” and the ones who participated in the gatherings; you will see that gatherings had more people who attended.

As a result, anything that’s happening in Iran, is just a sick game of the ones who think about nothing but their own “interests & benefits”; and the Iranian people, especially the female population of this country, are all devoted to their country, police force and each other.

September 28, 2022 0 comment

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