Women's Rights in the Middle East

As if reading a dark fairytale, we cringe at the thought of death by stoning. For many, this idea is so far removed from our realities that it seems almost unbelievable to discuss the topic, which for many, requires no discussion at all.

photo credit Google Images

Yet for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, she has become the main character in her own modern day “Grimm” story, being a woman sentenced to die by that very method. 

In 2006, Ashtiani was convicted of committing adultery with the man who killed her husband. For this crime she received 99 lashings and was sentenced to death by stoning, a process where, for women, you are buried up to your chest and stones are thrown until the individual dies.

During her trial, Ashtiani, who speaks Azeri, a language spoken in northwestern Iran, could not understand her persecutors because the entire trial was conducted in Farsi.  It is also alleged that she was forced to make a confession under duress after being tortured in prison.

Protesters in Rome. Photo Credit Google Images

After global uproar, on July 8, 2010 Iran decided to review her case and refrain from stoning Ashtiani. But recently, news broke that Ashtiani was also being charged for the murder of her husband, a crime punishable by hanging.

Protests have been held around the world in countries such as Portugal, Sweden, and Norway to free Ashtiani. France, especially, has taken an enormous interest in the affairs of Ashtiani with French First Lady Carla Bruni writing Ashtiani a letter of hope for justice, says digitaljournal.com.

“Please know from within your cell that my husband will plead ceaselessly for your release and that France will not abandon you,” said Bruni. “I just can’t see what good could come out of this macabre ceremony, whatever the judicial reasons put forward to justify it. Shed your blood and deprive children of their mother, why? Because you have lived, because you have loved, because you’re a woman and because you’re Iranian? Everything within me refuses to accept this.”

Ashtiani, her lawyer, and her lawyer’s family have been persecuted by the Iranian government to the extent that Norway has granted Ashtiani’s lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, asylum after he fled to Turkey, and Ignacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, granted Ashtiani herself asylum in his country although Iranian officials rejected the offer.

Photo Credit Google Images

According to website for The Australian, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran is upset at the United States and Europe for undermining the Iranian legal system.

“They [the U.S. and Europe] have become so shameless that they have turned the case of Ms Ashtiani, who has committed crime and treason, into a human rights case against our nation," said Ramin Mehmanparast, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. "She has become a symbol for Western feminists who are impudently demanding her release and using this ordinary case as a pressure lever against our nation.”

http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/iran/background---ashtiani-and-jalalian/page.do?id=1691089

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21837:an-adulteress-could-in-theory-be-stoned-iran-prosecutor-says&catid=6:women&Itemid=28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg0_acZrTQo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWl7SdI4yt4

http://notonemoreexecution.org/2010/09/05/italy-rises-to-sakineh%E2%80%99s-defence/

Modern-day Exodus: Christians in Iraq Fleeing for Sanctuary

Photo Credit Google Images 

On October 10, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI began the Synod of Bishops’ Special Assembly for the Middle East.


This two week council, made up of 177 Synod Fathers and 69 priests, is working under the theme: “The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness.” This synod, held at the Vatican, will focus its attention on the rising violence in the Middle East against an existing minority group well known for being part of a religious majority in the West: Christians.


According to the UN High Commission for Refugees, since 2003, over 500,000 Christians of Chaldean, Assyrian, and Iraqi descent have fled to neighboring countries such as Syria and Jordan and as far as Europe and the United States to escape the sectarian violence pitted against them by local terrorist groups.

Photo Credit Google Images

These acts of violence, ranging from bombings of church buildings to the raping and killing of young girls, have slowly increased over the past year. Although the motivations for these acts are not clear, many believe that they are political.
A group of Christians was killed in the streets of Mosul, Iraq in February of this year just two weeks before an “inconclusive parliamentary election” according to Arabnews.com, Saudi Arabia’s first English-language newspaper, alluding to political motives. Yet, some believe that the foundation for the killings is purely religious.

One narrative from Muhanned Najif Yusef, a local Christian planning on moving out of Iraq, relates an incident in which Yusef’s neighbor was killed on the street in front of his house due to his religious beliefs.

“The gunmen said: ‘Aren’t you Christian?” said Yusef, retelling the story of his neighbor’s death. “The neighbors said that [he] said, ‘Yes, I am Christian, and I’m an Iraqi like you.’ Then they shot him.”

Photo Credit Google Images

Others believe the increase in violence is related to the efforts of the United States to slowly withdraw from the Middle East. According to Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster, some believe that the extremists responsible for the killings are using the “lapses in security” created by the withdrawal of American forces out of Iraq to conduct acts of extreme violence against Christians living in that area.


Many religious people in the United States, like Sister Donna Markham of Adrian, Mich., fearful of the fate of their brothers and sisters in Christ living in the Middle East, have appealed to the U.S. government to help those targeted in Iraq. Yet despite these grassroots efforts, Christopher Hill, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, told USA TODAY that the violence directed towards Christians in the Middle East “[is] an issue that the government of Iraq has to resolve.”


For now, thousands of Iraqi Christians are establishing residency in countries like Jordan and Lebanon, nations where there is a higher population of Christians and, therefore, more tolerance for those who follow that religion. Yet, the countries welcoming the refugees are somewhat hesitant to accept foreigners for many reasons, one of these being that refugees from other ethnic groups, such as the Palestinians, are inhabiting areas of these countries as well.


In Lebanon, the U.N. has made an agreement that any Iraqi person with official refugee status approved by UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) may stay in the country for one year, a contract that is subject to renewal. Most Iraqis are not legally allowed to work in Lebanon, leaving Iraqi men to perform odd jobs like car washing and forcing Iraqi women into prostitution.

Photo Credit Google Images

Although awareness for the plight of Christians in the Middle East is spreading, many around the world, and especially in the United States, react indifferently whenever issues involving the Middle East are brought up. For that and many reasons, Pope Benedict XVI hopes that the synod will inspire people from around the world, especially those in the Middle East to work toward “creating conditions of peace and justice,” according to Catholicnewsagency.com.

"In spite of the difficulties, the Christians of the Holy Land are called to revive the consciousness of being 'living rocks' of the Church in the Middle East, in the holy places of our salvation,” said Pope Benedict XVI.



For more information and related topics, please explore these websites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5CM29RvJxc
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/world/middleeast/12briefs-POPE.html
http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c2.html
http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c2.html
http://www.radiovaticana.org/inglese/enindex.html
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/23/iraq-protect-christians-violence

Blogging: Punishable by Law

After being arrested in 2008 and detained for nearly two years, on September 28, 2010, Hossein Derakhshan, Canadian-Iranian citizen, was sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison. His crime: blogging.

According to multiple websites including Iranfocus.com and CBC.CA, Derakhshan was tried on charges of blogging against the Iranian government and spreading anti-Iranian propaganda from his home in Toronto. Additional charges were “collaborating with enemy states,” referring to his trip to Israel which is prohibited by Iranian law, and “insulting religious sanctity.”

Image from Google Images

Since then, Derakhshan’s blog has been taken down, Iran has banned two newspapers, the Bahar Zanjan (weekly) and Andishe-ye No (daily) due to “insulting the country’s officials” and sentenced Isa Saharkhiz, an Iranian journalist, to three years in prison for “insulting Iran’s Supreme Leader” and “issuing propaganda against the regime,” according to the New York Times.

How foreign is this issue—and I use that word purposefully—to a nation such as the United States where freedom of speech and press is clearly stated in the founding document of the country?

Derakhshan, known as the “Blogfather,” developed software that allowed Iranians to post blogs in their own language. In times where the latest innovations in technology are revered, anticipated, and used to their full potential, people—journalists—are being arrested, incarcerated, and most important, silenced because they are using yet another medium to reach out to the public.

As stated in Articles 18 and 19 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “everyone has the right to freedom of thought…opinion and expression.” If this stands true, then how, in the 21^st century, in the year 2010, are reporters, foreign correspondents, and journalists from across the globe being detained for simply exercising their rights as human beings to express their ideas?

Image from Google Images

This led me to ponder on the phrase “International Affairs.” The incarceration of Derakhshan is not an issue that just concerns Iran. This is an international issue that needs to be seen through a global lens.

Derakhshan holds both Iranian and Canadian citizenship, yet Iran refuses to acknowledge his dual citizenship, using this negation as a means to subject Derakhshan to the strict laws of Iran. Due to this, Canada not only has limited access to Derakhshan but also limited power when it comes to aiding in his release.

Just one year ago, former president Bill Clinton rescued two American journalists who were being held by North Korea on crimes of illegally crossing into the country and engaging in “hostile acts.” This type of situation is becoming more realistic to nations across the globe. The proximity of this issue may not be measured in miles but rather in emotions such as fear and national unity.

The sharp juxtaposition of the arrest of a journalist against the background of the modern times in which we live is almost unfathomable to me. The sheer thought of being arrested for posting a blog, not unlike the one I am writing now, is practically mind-blowing, making its relevance timeless and an issue not to be ignored.

For more information please explore these websites:

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21844:pioneer-iran-blogger-sentenced-to-19-years-prison&catid=5:human-rights&Itemid=27

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37459792838&v=wall

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/09/22/iran-hossein-derakhshan.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R29N20100928

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525033,00.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/world/middleeast/29tehran.html

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