Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Funds for minority welfare up by 74 percent
New Delhi, July 7 (IANS) -- The budget has increased the outlay for
the minority affairs ministry from Rs.1,000 crore last fiscal to
Rs.1,740 crore with a focus on educational schemes.
The funds have been hiked to implement projects for the welfare of the
minorities, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced while
presenting the union budget Monday.
'The plan outlay for the Ministry of Minority Affairs has been
enhanced from Rs.1,000 crore in 2008-09 to Rs.1,740 crore for 2009-10,
registering an increase of 74 percent,' he said.
Mukherjee said the hike includes Rs.994 crore for multi-sectoral
developmental programmes for minorities in selected
minority-concentrat ed districts, grant-in-aid to the Maulana Azad
Education Foundation which is almost doubled, and provisions for
National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation and pre-matric
and post-matric scholarships for minorities.
The finance minister said he has made an allocation of Rs.25 crore for
two campuses that the Aligarh Muslim University has decided to set up
at Murshidabad in West Bengal and Malappuram in Kerela.
What clothes a Muslim woman should wear
It is fascinating that people who raise their voices and complain about their liberty have no such regards when it comes to other people’s freedom
By Maswood Alam Khan
The first cultural shock I had on the first day of my arrival at Kuala Lumpur back in 1995 was how conventional Malaysian Muslim women conserve their body exposure. They insulate their head with headscarf so that head-hairs are not visible, but they don’t wear any sash or any extension of their costumes that could additionally cover their basic dress contouring their breasts. On the other hand, Muslim women in Bangladesh, no matter they wear a sari or a frock, are careful first to hide with extra clothing the area of their torso and then their head and other areas of their bodies in accordance with Bangladeshi style and not in gross contravention of Islamic dress codes.
What pleasantly surprised me was the liberty Malaysians enjoyed in ‘dressing as they liked’. You will find Malaysian men and women and foreigners strolling in public places dressed in whatever style they fancy. Liberal attitude to religions and tourist-friendly environment have made Malaysia, a country deemed an ideal Muslim nation, a haven for foreign direct investment.
Nobody will ogle you if like a Chinese damsel you, a Bangladeshi girl or an Iranian lady, wear a bikini while shopping at a mall or move around in public places wearing a ‘burqa’, a head-to-toe Islamic garment. The peaceful coexistence of Malay Muslims, Chinese Buddhists, Indian Hindus and tourists of different colors, creeds and religions enjoying complete freedom in pursuing their individual dress and culture in Malaysia should be a tutorial President of the French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy can study and implement the lessons in his own country.
Inspired by a self-imposed success of the French government, in spite of protests, in banning the Muslim headscarf in public schools in 2004 Nicolas Sarkozy in his recent speech in the French parliament was agog shedding crocodile tears for Muslim women terming the ‘burqa’ a walking prison, a sign of subjugation, a signature of debasement, and an instrument of torture not tolerable on French territory. What a great Frenchman empathizing with the pains of the hapless women, a male Sarkozy deciding what female Muslims should wear and should not!
The French President spending precious time in his parliamentary lecture on sartorial details of Muslim burqa is a clear indication that he was perhaps running out of ideas on how to solve economic and social ills of his country.
The French parliament is soon going to enact laws that will further embolden the 2004 law to ban everything from headscarf to burqa to anything else that Islam had prescribed to conserve woman’s body exposure. Such a ban applicable in all public places would be a veritable French display of secularist fundamentalism entrenched by their law since 1905—to keep religion firmly out of the state sphere.
The 2004 headscarf ban in France was supposed to outlaw conspicuous religious symbols of all faiths. We don’t know whether Israelis wearing Jewish yarmulkes or Americans wearing Christian crosses or Indians with clipped beards wearing their Sheikh turbans to cover their uncut hairs or Muslim imams with their uncut long beards wearing their Muslim turbans are debarred from entering the French territories. If not, such a French policy barring headscarf and burqa should be construed as a discriminatory principle to pick only on Islam and to constrain religious freedom of only Muslims.
Religion should be practiced privately. No religion—Islam or Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism—advocates that religious identities have to be flaunted in public places. We wear caps while praying inside mosques, but there is no compulsion that we have to cover our heads day and night, at workplace and at bedroom. But if someone wishes to keep his or her head covered round the clock there is no right for anybody, let alone the government, to veto the practice.
In fact, very few men and women nowadays wear the garments that are ordained by their religions. There was a time in the first half of the last century when our Muslim ladies not only had to wear burqa under compulsion but also had to move in a rickshaw or a ‘palki’ (a wheel-less and human-powered litter vehicle) tightly wound around by long pieces of clothes so that neither the female passenger inside the litter vehicle can see the outside world nor can a passerby peek into who is sitting inside the manpowered vehicle.
Time has changed. A Hindu priest while moving in public places hesitates to wrap around his waist and legs a long piece of unstitched cloth what in Bangla we call ‘dhuti’, a traditional men’s garment in our country Hindus and Muslims alike would love to wear as a fashion only a few decades back.
We hardly find in our country Muslim women attending their schools, colleges, universities or offices wearing burqa. There are ladies of course who still wear burqa and who are highly esteemed in our society; nobody frowns eyebrows at them. There are girls as well who dress themselves in western styles and nobody ogles them unless they are overly nude.
For convenience most of our Muslim women in our country wear pajamas or jeans in both their homes and offices; our modern girls wear with élan extra clothes tailored in the latest fashion to cover their head and torso. There can hardly a Muslim lady be found who does not wear sari, which is a dress evolved in our Bengali culture based on Hindu religion, not at all a Muslim dress. Have saris made our women less devout compared to those who wear burqa? Have the women lost their liberty for the reason that they had to wear burqa?
It is fascinating that people who raise their voices and complain about their liberty have no such regards when it comes to other people’s freedom, no matter it is freedom of religion or freedom of secularism. For them it is a one-way affair—they want you to obey them or else you risk your social status.
There are groups who may call the burqa ‘a coffin that kills individual liberties’ and there are people who may call the necktie ‘a rope that gags a man’. There are groups who say ‘Muslim women are treated like disposable items’ and there are also people who will say ‘women are worshipped by men when they are nude and abhorred when they are clothed’.
Some groups may say that ‘Muslim women are forced to wear burqa’ while the opposing groups will say that ‘women in the West are forced to get plastic breasts in order to get more acceptances in the society’. Some groups may wish to find their women wearing burqa that covers up the whole body but not the eyes; some groups might wish to find their ladies wearing only sunglasses that cover their eyes only in order to expose the rest of their whole body on a sea-beach under the sun.
Let citizens hear voices of both the groups and choose for themselves what fit them best. But an official ban on headscarf and on burqa the French parliamentarians are now contemplating to impose as a law, reportedly within six months, will be a despotic move on a democratic land and may be interpreted as a ploy to stigmatize Islam. The French should never give in to the blackmail neither of Muslim Fundamentalists nor of Secular Fundamentalists.
In his recent speech in Cairo, Barack Obama has rightly said: “It is important for the Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit—for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear”.
Maswood Alam Khan is a banker. His e-address: maswood@hotmail. com
An army of occupation
Not every day, and not even every decade, does the Supreme Court rebuke the military advocate general. The last time this happened was 20 years ago, when the advocate general refused to issue a proper indictment against an officer who ordered his men to break the arms and legs of a bound Palestinian. The officer argued that he considered this to be his duty, after the Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin had called for “breaking their bones.”
Well, this week it happened again. The Supreme Court made a decision that was tantamount to a slap in the face of the army's current chief legal officer, Brig. Avichai Mendelblit.
The incident in question took place in Ni’alin, a village which has been robbed of a great part of its land by the Israeli wall. Like their neighbors in Bilin, the villagers demonstrate every week against the wall. Generally, the army's reactions in Ni'alin are even more violent than in Bilin. Four protesters have already been killed there.
In this particular incident, Lt. Col. Omri Borberg took a Palestinian demonstrator, who was sitting on the ground, handcuffed and blindfolded, and suggested to one of his soldiers “let’s go aside and give him a rubber.” He ordered the soldier to shoot a rubber bullet, point blank.For those who do not know — “rubber bullets” are steel bullets coated with rubber. From a distance, they cause painful injuries. At short range, they can be fatal. Officially, soldiers are allowed to use them at a minimum range of 40 meters.
Without hesitating, the soldier shot the prisoner in the foot, although this was a “manifestly illegal order”, which a soldier is obliged by army law to disobey. According to the classic definition of Judge Binyamin Halevy in the 1957 Kafr Kassem massacre case, the “black flag of illegality” is waving over such orders. The prisoner, Ashraf Abu-Rakhma, was hit and fell on the ground.
Veterans of the Ni’alin and Bilin demonstrations know that such and similar incidents happen all the time. But the Abu-Rakhma case was special for one reason: It was documented by a young local woman from a balcony near the crime scene with one of the cameras provided to villagers by B’tselem, an Israeli human rights organization.
Thus Lt. Col. Borberg committed a unforgivable sin: He was photographed in the act. Generally, when peace activists disclose such misdeeds, the army spokesman reaches into his bag of lies and comes up with some mendacious statement or other (“Attacked the soldier”, “Tried to grab his weapon”, “Resisted arrest”). But even a talented spokesman has difficulties denying something that is clearly seen on film.
WHEN the military advocate general decided to prosecute the officer and the soldier for “conduct unbecoming”, Abu-Rakhma and some Israeli human rights organizations applied to the Supreme Court. The judges advised the advocate to change the indictment. He refused, and so the matter reached the court again.
This week, in a decision unusual for its severe language, the three justices (including a woman judge and a religious one) found the “conduct unbecoming” charge itself unbecoming. They ordered the indictment of both officer and soldier on a far more serious criminal charge, in order to make it clear to all military personnel that mistreating a prisoner “is contrary to the spirit of the state and the army.”
After such a slap in the face, any decent person would have resigned in shame. But not Mendelblit. The brigadier is a personal friend of Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and is expecting promotion to the rank of major general at any moment.
Mendelblit has made a huge effort to cover up war crimes committed during the recent Gaza War, from Ashkenazi’s war plan itself to the crimes of individual soldiers. Nobody has been put on trial, nobody even seriously investigated.
ON the day the Supreme Court decision concerning Mendelblit was published, another brigadier also made the headlines. In a speech before religious women soldiers, the chief rabbi of the army, Brig. Avichai Rontzky, expressed the opinion that the army service of women is forbidden by the Jewish religion. Rontzky is a man in the spirit of the person who appointed him. It will be remembered that, when asked what he felt when dropping a one-ton bomb on a residential area, Air Force Gen. Halutz answered: “A slight bump on the wing.” In a discussion about whether to treat a wounded Palestinian on the Shabbat, Rontzky wrote that “the life of a goy is certainly valuable...but the Shabbat is more important.” Meaning: a dying goy should not be treated on Shabbat. Later he retracted. (In modern colloquial Hebrew, a goy is a non-Jew. The term has distinctly derogatory connotations.)
The Israeli army has something that is called the “Ethical Code.” True, the spiritual father of the code, professor Asa Kasher, did defend the atrocities of the “Molten Lead” operation, but Rontzky went much further: He stated unequivocally that “When there is a clash between...the Ethical Code and the Halakha (religious law), certainly the Halakha must be followed.”
The hard core of the fanatical settlers, which is almost entirely composed of religious people (many of whom are “reborn Jews”) decided long ago to gain control of the army from within. In a systematic campaign, which is in full swing, they penetrate the officers’ corps from below — from the junior ranks to the middle to the senior ones.
When the Israeli army came into being, the officers’ corps was full of kibbutz members. Not only were kibbutzniks considered the elite of the new Hebrew society, which was based on values of morality and culture, and not only were they the first to volunteer for every national task, but there were also inbuilt “technical” reasons. The nucleus of the army came from the pre-state Palmach. The Palmach companies constituted a fully mobilized regular army, part of the underground military organization, the Haganah. They could exist and operate freely only in the kibbutzim, where their identity could be camouflaged. As a result, almost all the outstanding commanders in the 1948 war were from the Palmach, kibbutz members or close to them.
These did everything to imbue the new defense forces with the spirit of a pioneering, moral and humanist citizens army, the very opposite of an occupation army. True, the reality was always different, but the ideal was important as an aim to strive for. As I showed in my 1950 book, “The Other Side of the Coin,” our “purity of arms” has always been a myth. But the aspiration to be an army with humanist values was important. Atrocities were hidden or denied, because they were considered shameful. Nothing has remained of all this, except phrases. Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, the character of the army has changed completely. The army that was founded in order to protect the state from external dangers has become an army of occupation, whose task is to oppress another people, crush their resistance, expropriate land, protect land robbers called settlers, man roadblocks, humiliate human beings every day. Of course, it is not the army alone that has changed, but also the state that gives the army its orders as well as its ongoing brainwashing.
The state needs an army. Even after achieving peace, we shall need a strong and effective army in order to protect the state until peace strikes deep roots and we can set up a regional body along the lines of the European Union, perhaps. The army is us. Its character has an impact on all our lives, on the life of our state itself. It has already been said: “Israel is not a banana republic. It is a republic that slips on bananas.” And what bananas!
SC judge apologises for "Taliban" remarks on Muslims
New Delhi, July 06: Under criticism from Mulsim groups, Supreme Court judge Justice Markandeya Katju on Monday apologised for his controversial comments that Muslim students cannot insist on sporting beards as it would lead to "Talibanisation" of the country. A bench of Justices R V Raveendran and Markandeya Katju also withdrew the order passed by it on March 30 in which it had dismissed the petition filed by a student challenging the directive of a convent school in Madhya Pradesh that Muslims cannot sport beard.
"During the hearing, certain observations were made by one of us (Justice Markandeya Katju). His intentions were not to offend anyone. However, if any one's feeling has been hurt, he apologises and expresses regret in the matter," the bench said in an order. The apex court said since the petitioner Mohd Saleem had expressed apprehension that one of the judges (Katju) was biased it was requesting the Chief Justice of India to place the matter before another bench for hearing.
"The review petition expresses apprehension that one of the judges was biased against the petitioner. We are of the view that the matter should be heard by another bench. We therefore, withdraw the order of March 30, 2009," the apex court said while referring the matter to another bench for a fresh hearing.
Nirmala Convent High School, Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, had removed Mohd Saleem, a 10th class student, after he refused to shave his beard on the ground that it was mandatory in Islam. Saleem challenged his removal in the State High Court which upheld the school's decision after which he appealed to the Apex Court.
However, during the hearing on March 30, Justice Katju had told the petitioner and the advocate Justice B A Khan(retd), who appeared for the student, that Muslims have no fundamental right or religious duty to sport a beard.
The judge further observed that it (apex court) cannot allow Muslim students to sport a beard as it amounted to Talibanisation of the country. According to the bench, if the plea of the student was entertained then tommorow a girl student might insist on wearing only a burqa in the classroom.
"If there are rules, you have to follow it. You can't say that I will not wear a uniform I will wear only a burqa," the bench observed.
The apex court had said that a minority institution has its own set of rules and rights provided by Article 30 of the Constitution and the same cannot be breached by any person.
s The court further said if the student was not interested in following the rules then he has the option of joining some other institution.
"You can join some other institution if you do not want to observe the rules. But you can't ask the school to change the rules for you,"Justice Katju said. Several Muslim groups had reportedly approached the Chief Justice of India seeking withdrawal of the remarks on Talibanisation by Justice Katju.
Saleem in the meantime filed a review petition challenging the apex court's order and also sought withdrawal of the controversial remarks by justice Katju.
Appearing for the student, senior advocate B A Khan had, during the arguments, said Article 25 of the Constitution guaranteed protection to Salim to pursue his religious practice of keeping beard and the regulation providing for shaving it was violative of this provision.
He said the act of the principal to force the student to leave the school for keeping beard was against "his religious conscience, belief and custom of his family".
Pointing out that the Sikh community members were allowed to keep a beard and sport a turban, Salim alleged there was a clear discrimination by the school to force him to be clean shaven and this rule was violative of his fundamental rights.
Bureau Report
New Delhi, July 06: Under criticism from Mulsim groups, Supreme Court judge Justice Markandeya Katju on Monday apologised for his controversial comments that Muslim students cannot insist on sporting beards as it would lead to "Talibanisation" of the country. A bench of Justices R V Raveendran and Markandeya Katju also withdrew the order passed by it on March 30 in which it had dismissed the petition filed by a student challenging the directive of a convent school in Madhya Pradesh that Muslims cannot sport beard.
"During the hearing, certain observations were made by one of us (Justice Markandeya Katju). His intentions were not to offend anyone. However, if any one's feeling has been hurt, he apologises and expresses regret in the matter," the bench said in an order. The apex court said since the petitioner Mohd Saleem had expressed apprehension that one of the judges (Katju) was biased it was requesting the Chief Justice of India to place the matter before another bench for hearing.
"The review petition expresses apprehension that one of the judges was biased against the petitioner. We are of the view that the matter should be heard by another bench. We therefore, withdraw the order of March 30, 2009," the apex court said while referring the matter to another bench for a fresh hearing.
Nirmala Convent High School, Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, had removed Mohd Saleem, a 10th class student, after he refused to shave his beard on the ground that it was mandatory in Islam. Saleem challenged his removal in the State High Court which upheld the school's decision after which he appealed to the Apex Court.
However, during the hearing on March 30, Justice Katju had told the petitioner and the advocate Justice B A Khan(retd), who appeared for the student, that Muslims have no fundamental right or religious duty to sport a beard.
The judge further observed that it (apex court) cannot allow Muslim students to sport a beard as it amounted to Talibanisation of the country. According to the bench, if the plea of the student was entertained then tommorow a girl student might insist on wearing only a burqa in the classroom.
"If there are rules, you have to follow it. You can't say that I will not wear a uniform I will wear only a burqa," the bench observed.
The apex court had said that a minority institution has its own set of rules and rights provided by Article 30 of the Constitution and the same cannot be breached by any person.
s The court further said if the student was not interested in following the rules then he has the option of joining some other institution.
"You can join some other institution if you do not want to observe the rules. But you can't ask the school to change the rules for you,"Justice Katju said. Several Muslim groups had reportedly approached the Chief Justice of India seeking withdrawal of the remarks on Talibanisation by Justice Katju.
Saleem in the meantime filed a review petition challenging the apex court's order and also sought withdrawal of the controversial remarks by justice Katju.
Appearing for the student, senior advocate B A Khan had, during the arguments, said Article 25 of the Constitution guaranteed protection to Salim to pursue his religious practice of keeping beard and the regulation providing for shaving it was violative of this provision.
He said the act of the principal to force the student to leave the school for keeping beard was against "his religious conscience, belief and custom of his family".
Pointing out that the Sikh community members were allowed to keep a beard and sport a turban, Salim alleged there was a clear discrimination by the school to force him to be clean shaven and this rule was violative of his fundamental rights.
Bureau Report
zeenews
Why Sarkozy's France fear Hijab? + A Non Muslim Woman Experiments with Hijab
Yes, they fear Islam because of it’s widest acceptance in the world especially among the youth.
But, can they stop them?
Banning Hijab is Coward’s act. Because, the dictators deny the basic human right and individual freedom where they failed to educate the people and give reasonable justification.
It is the second phase of war against Islam after the successful completion of Ango-American and western version of freedom and democracy in Afganistan/Iraq as well planned to other countries.
They want to continue their war against Islam,
Against such girl who wants save their chastity, practice morality
Expect more from who didn’t learn yet how to respect others.
These people are the wholesale leaders of human right/democracy and culture??
Yes, when these girls also ready to remove their cloths they become western version of cultured
Follow Sarkozy to learn how kick out legally married women and sleep with an illegal.
Hijabed Like Me
A Non Muslim Woman Experiments with Hijab
by Kathy Chin
I walked down the street in my long white dress and inch-long, black hair one afternoon, and truck drivers whistled and shouted obscenities at me.
I felt defeated. I had just stepped out of a hair salon. I had cut my hair short, telling the hairdresser to trim it as she would a guy's.
I sat numbly as my hairdresser skillfully sheared into my shoulder-length hair with her scissors, asking me with every inch she cut off if I was freaking out yet. I wasn't freaking out, but I felt self-mutilated.
*I WAS OBLITERATING MY FEMININITY*
It wasn't just another haircut. It meant so much more. I was trying to appear androgynous by cutting my hair. I wanted to obliterate by femininity.
Yet that did not prevent some men from treating me as a sex object. I was mistaken.
It was not my femininity that was problematic, but my sexuality, or rather the sexuality that some men had ascribed to me based on my biological sex.
They reacted to me as they saw me and not as I truly am.
Why should it even matter how they see me, as long as I know who I am? But it does.
I believe that men who see women as only sexual beings often commit violence against them, such as rape and battery.
Sexual abuse and assault are not only my fears, but my reality.
I was molested and raped. My experiences with men who violated me have made me angry and frustrated.
How do I stop the violence? How do I prevent men from seeing me as an object rather than a female? How do I stop them from equating the two? How do I
proceed with life after experiencing what others only dread? The experiences have left me with questions about my identity.
Am I just another Chinese-American female? I used to think that I have to arrive at a conclusion about who I am, but now I realize that my identity is
constantly evolving.
*MY EXPERIENCE OF BEING "HIJABED"*
One experience that was particularly educational was when I "dressed up" as a Muslim woman for a drive along Crenshaw Boulevard with three Muslim men as
part of a newsmagazine project.
I wore a white, long-sleeved cotton shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, and a flowery silk scarf that covered my head, which I borrowed from a Muslim
woman.
Not only did I look the part, I believed I felt the part. Of course, I wouldn't really know what it feels like to be Hijabed-I coined this word for the lack of a better term-everyday, because I was not raised with Islamic teachings.
However, people perceived me as a Muslim woman and did not treat me as a sexual being by making cruel remarks.
I noticed that men's eyes did not glide over my body as has happened when I wasn't Hijabed. I was fully clothed, exposing only my face.
I remembered walking into an Islamic center and an African-American gentleman inside addressed me as "sister", and asked where I came from. I
told him I was originally from China. That didn't seem to matter.
There was a sense of closeness between us because he assumed I was Muslim. I didn't know how to break the news to him because I wasn't sure if I was or
not.
I walked into the store that sold African jewelry and furniture and another gentleman asked me as I was walking out if I was Muslim. I looked at him and
smiled, not knowing how to respond. I chose not to answer.
*BEING HIJABED CHANGED OTHERS' PERCEPTION OF ME*
Outside the store, I asked one of the Muslim men I was with, "Am I Muslim ?" He explained that everything that breathes and submits is.
I have concluded that I may be and just don't know it. I haven't labeled myself as such yet. I don't know enough about Islam to assert that I am
Muslim.
Though I don't pray five times a day, go to a mosque, fast, nor cover my head with a scarf daily, this does not mean that I am not Muslim. These seem
to be the natural manifestations of what is within.
How I am inside does not directly change whether I am Hijabed or not. It is others' perception of me that was changed. Repeated experiences with others
in turn creates a self-image.
*HIJAB AS OPPRESSION: A SUPERFICIAL AND MISGUIDED VIEW*
I consciously chose to be Hijabed because I was searching for respect from men.
Initially, as both a Women's Studies major and a thinking female, I bought into the Western view that the wearing of a scarf is oppressive.
After this experience and much reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that such a view is superficial and misguided: It is not if the act is
motivated by conviction and understanding.
*THE MOST LIBERATING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE*
I covered up that day out of choice, and it was the most liberating experience of my life.
I now see alternatives to being a woman.
I discovered that the way I dress dictated others' reaction towards me. It saddens me that this is a reality.
It is a reality that I have accepted, and chose to conquer rather than be conquered by it.
It was my sexuality that I covered, not my femininity. The covering of the former allowed the liberation of the latter.
This article was originally published in Al-Talib, the newsmagazine of the Muslim Students' Association of the University of California in Los Angeles
(UCLA) in October 1994. At the time of its publication, Kathy Chin was a senior at UCLA majoring in Psychobiology and Women's Studies.
*More on Hijab** *
Hijab Products
- A Documentary: Hijab: An Act of
Faith
Let There Be NO Compulsion in Religion (Holy Quran 2:256)
"Invite (all) to the way of the Lord With wisdom and Beautiful preaching And argue with them in ways that are Best and most gracious" (Holy Quran)
Peace Be Upon All Of You
A Non Muslim Woman Experiments with Hijab
by Kathy Chin
I walked down the street in my long white dress and inch-long, black hair one afternoon, and truck drivers whistled and shouted obscenities at me.
I felt defeated. I had just stepped out of a hair salon. I had cut my hair short, telling the hairdresser to trim it as she would a guy's.
I sat numbly as my hairdresser skillfully sheared into my shoulder-length hair with her scissors, asking me with every inch she cut off if I was freaking out yet. I wasn't freaking out, but I felt self-mutilated.
*I WAS OBLITERATING MY FEMININITY*
It wasn't just another haircut. It meant so much more. I was trying to appear androgynous by cutting my hair. I wanted to obliterate by femininity.
Yet that did not prevent some men from treating me as a sex object. I was mistaken.
It was not my femininity that was problematic, but my sexuality, or rather the sexuality that some men had ascribed to me based on my biological sex.
They reacted to me as they saw me and not as I truly am.
Why should it even matter how they see me, as long as I know who I am? But it does.
I believe that men who see women as only sexual beings often commit violence against them, such as rape and battery.
Sexual abuse and assault are not only my fears, but my reality.
I was molested and raped. My experiences with men who violated me have made me angry and frustrated.
How do I stop the violence? How do I prevent men from seeing me as an object rather than a female? How do I stop them from equating the two? How do I
proceed with life after experiencing what others only dread? The experiences have left me with questions about my identity.
Am I just another Chinese-American female? I used to think that I have to arrive at a conclusion about who I am, but now I realize that my identity is
constantly evolving.
*MY EXPERIENCE OF BEING "HIJABED"*
One experience that was particularly educational was when I "dressed up" as a Muslim woman for a drive along Crenshaw Boulevard with three Muslim men as
part of a newsmagazine project.
I wore a white, long-sleeved cotton shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, and a flowery silk scarf that covered my head, which I borrowed from a Muslim
woman.
Not only did I look the part, I believed I felt the part. Of course, I wouldn't really know what it feels like to be Hijabed-I coined this word for the lack of a better term-everyday, because I was not raised with Islamic teachings.
However, people perceived me as a Muslim woman and did not treat me as a sexual being by making cruel remarks.
I noticed that men's eyes did not glide over my body as has happened when I wasn't Hijabed. I was fully clothed, exposing only my face.
I remembered walking into an Islamic center and an African-American gentleman inside addressed me as "sister", and asked where I came from. I
told him I was originally from China. That didn't seem to matter.
There was a sense of closeness between us because he assumed I was Muslim. I didn't know how to break the news to him because I wasn't sure if I was or
not.
I walked into the store that sold African jewelry and furniture and another gentleman asked me as I was walking out if I was Muslim. I looked at him and
smiled, not knowing how to respond. I chose not to answer.
*BEING HIJABED CHANGED OTHERS' PERCEPTION OF ME*
Outside the store, I asked one of the Muslim men I was with, "Am I Muslim ?" He explained that everything that breathes and submits is.
I have concluded that I may be and just don't know it. I haven't labeled myself as such yet. I don't know enough about Islam to assert that I am
Muslim.
Though I don't pray five times a day, go to a mosque, fast, nor cover my head with a scarf daily, this does not mean that I am not Muslim. These seem
to be the natural manifestations of what is within.
How I am inside does not directly change whether I am Hijabed or not. It is others' perception of me that was changed. Repeated experiences with others
in turn creates a self-image.
*HIJAB AS OPPRESSION: A SUPERFICIAL AND MISGUIDED VIEW*
I consciously chose to be Hijabed because I was searching for respect from men.
Initially, as both a Women's Studies major and a thinking female, I bought into the Western view that the wearing of a scarf is oppressive.
After this experience and much reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that such a view is superficial and misguided: It is not if the act is
motivated by conviction and understanding.
*THE MOST LIBERATING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE*
I covered up that day out of choice, and it was the most liberating experience of my life.
I now see alternatives to being a woman.
I discovered that the way I dress dictated others' reaction towards me. It saddens me that this is a reality.
It is a reality that I have accepted, and chose to conquer rather than be conquered by it.
It was my sexuality that I covered, not my femininity. The covering of the former allowed the liberation of the latter.
This article was originally published in Al-Talib, the newsmagazine of the Muslim Students' Association of the University of California in Los Angeles
(UCLA) in October 1994. At the time of its publication, Kathy Chin was a senior at UCLA majoring in Psychobiology and Women's Studies.
*More on Hijab
Hijab Products
- A Documentary: Hijab: An Act of
Faith
Let There Be NO Compulsion in Religion (Holy Quran 2:256)
"Invite (all) to the way of the Lord With wisdom and Beautiful preaching And argue with them in ways that are Best and most gracious" (Holy Quran)
Peace Be Upon All Of You
Hijab Hi School in America .. Most of students areAMERICAN
------------ --------- --------- ---------
Light the lamp the dark will disappear
Learn the truth fear will disappear
Coward dies each moment
Respecting others is the Braveness
Abu Nabhan
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Abu Nabhan
Role of the Family in the Spread of Islam
By Professor Ismail Faruqi
The family, is indeed, the best tool for Islamic Da'wah in the West. There is no institution, there is no mechanism that I know of, that can convey Islam as well as the living example of an Islamic family in the West. The Islamic family, if it is rightly Islamic, is the very ideal to which Western people today aspire. In other words, the reality of Western people today stands diametrically opposite; if they can say that they can stand at the bottom of human, social and ethical development, because of what we see happening around us in their midst, the Islamic family with its ideals, with its norms and standards, stands at the opposite highest, and therefore, there can be no better way of convincing Western man, the non-Muslim man or woman, of the value of Islam, of the greatness of Islam, than to invite them to visit a Muslim family. But then, the Muslim family must be a good one. In other words, it must be truly Islamic and it must live up to the standards expected of an Islamic family. And now as to the dialectic of this relationship.
PRINCIPLES OF MUSLIM FAMILY LIFE
The Question of Pre-marital Sex
First of all, before a family is made or before a family is born, is it possible to engage in the kind of family relationship, in the very same kind of relationship that the family blesses and legitimises, before marriage? In plain English, what about pre- marital sex? Certainly our daughters do not practise pre-marital sex. They keep their chastity and their purity and for us sex is legitimate only within the bounds of marriage, only in the family, and this very restriction upon our sexual lives saves us from the evils of sexual promiscuity, the sexual libertine that is taking place today in all Western societies. The consequences of this sexual promiscuity are clear for everyone to see. The spread of venereal diseases, the disappointment of the newly-weds in the first week after marriage because everything has been deja vu as, we say in French. Having been accustomed to having more than one sexual partner, this becomes a habit which is continued even after marriage and, therefore, there is no fidelity in the Western home. The children are illegitimate in the eyes of the father because he is not their father and all this brings about emotional ruin.
The leaders of the women 's liberation movement in the West, practically all of them are now retracting what they had been advocating by way of sexual liberty in the 50's, the 60's and the early 70's because they say to themselves now and to their own people: That is not what we have been dreaming of by way of liberty for women. It looks as if we have given birth to a monster that is eating up our stand in society and ruining it. You have also all heard about the teenage pregnancies and the unmarried mothers. You have heard about infanticide, about how people throw their babies into garbage bins and leave them at the doors of others. There is an extremely active business of buying and selling babies which is without parallel in the history of the West and also that despite all this, the so-called ideal of women's liberation, namely that women may have a career, a career which may give them dignity and self-respect, has failed. Despite all the work that has been done in this field, women are still looked upon as sex toys or sex objects. They are still under-paid and their legal personalities are incomplete. In other words, there are still many legal rights which women do not enjoy on par with men and so, this whole movement which liberated women in order to improve her situation has brought ruin upon itself, upon women, as well as upon the family. However, the Islamic family, by upholding the Islamic ideal of sexual purity, of sexual legitimacy only in and within marriage and married life, has saved itself from all these evils. In New York, where at the entrance to the public library stand two big lions made out of stone, the common saying is that these two lions roar whenever a virgin passes by them. Well, now the saying is that the two lions roar whenever a sane woman, whenever a woman who has preserved her mental health, passes by them. All these evils, Alhamdulillah, we are saved from by virtue of our upholding the Islamic ideals of sexual chastity and purity.
The Patriarchal Family
Secondly, the family in Islam is a patriarchal family and the patriarch, that is to say, the head of the family, carries a tremendous burden of responsibility. Along with this responsibility he carries the burden of leadership. He acts as a fulcrum around which the life of the family revolves and all the talk about the superiority of men over women is nonsense unless it refers to this leadership role and the responsibility role. It is absolutely essential. Even in the case of the universe, of the cosmos, Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, has said to us in His Holy Book: "But if there were more than two Lords in the universe, one of these Lords would have contested the power of the other and fought to ride over him." In other words, it is impossible to have a management, to have an organisation, to have a going concern such as the family without somebody assuming the role of leadership and responsibility. And this is really all that Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, has meant us to achieve and to understand when he established for us the leadership, the family as a patriarchal institution because our Shari'ah, without apology does regard the family as a patriarchal institution. The ship without a captain cannot run for long, nor does the ship without a rudder. Allah has blessed us by imposing this leadership, by vesting the patriarch of the family with it and demanding its fulfilment, in fact, making the question of fulfilment a question of law. A father who is not fulfilling his role as a responsible leader is a father that can be sued under the law, under the Shari'ah, and he can be sued by any member of the Islamic Ummah because the Ummah and the Shari'ah regard this role as constitutive, it is a public role.
The Social Features
A third advantage which the Islamic family has over the Western family is the fact that the family is made out of a cement which is social and therefore begins long before the marriage, but the special relationship that we refer to as the love relationship is supposed to begin and to grow only after marriage and not before. Before marriage, there is social affinity between the two families of the couple. After marriage, one enters upon this relationship with a determination to make it grow and, therefore the chances of a love relationship between husband and wife growing and becoming more secure and stronger are better under the Islamic system than they are under the Western system. Under the Western system, as you know, it is supposed to grow as a result of courtship, but because of illicit fornication which may take place between the couple before they become husband and wife, marriage is looked upon as a confirmation of that which has already been developing for a year or two or three or ten or whatever. In our society, marriage is regarded as the beginning not the consummation; it is not something that is practically finished on the wedding day. It is something that begins on the wedding day, and has all the future in which to flower and become greater. The determination with which this is entered into by the Muslim spouses allows ample room for adjustment because the commitment has already been made and therefore a Muslim who enters into marriage is determined to make that marriage work, determined to make the love relationship between the two spouses grow, and is therefore more ready for the adjustment that family life demands. It is the other way round in Western society. If this relationship has grown to its apex before marriage and marriage is looked upon as a consummation of that movement, then the consequence is that the desire to adjust, the preparation to make the necessary sacrifices and adjustments, would be all the more because the interest in it would be on the wane rather than on the increase.
Arranged Marriages
A fourth advantage is the advantage that we talk about in arranged marriages. Arranged marriages are really the coming together of two families. Of course, the individuals are involved, and as we said earlier it is possible for such a marriage to succeed because from the standpoint of the marriage the love relationship begins after and not before the wedding. But then, the relationship between the two families is something that has been cultivated for some time, and so we speak of the Muslim marriage not as a marriage of two individuals but as a marriage of two families. And the two families with all their resources, their human resources, their economic resources, their wisdom resources are at the service of the newly-married couple and there is no doubt that nobody in the world needs more advice, more economic assistance and more support than the newly-married couple and this is provided for them from both sides of the marriage if it is truly a Muslim marriage, that is to say a marriage of the two families. Compare and contrast this with the situation of the Western young men and women who meet under all kinds of circumstances on their own and having met and fallen in love, decide to enter into marriage. They are literally alone and this is why the greatest overwhelming majority of these marriages are contracted outside even the knowledge of their parents and their relatives.
Marriage: A Civil Contract
A fifth point is that our marriage is by contract; it is a civil contract between two equal parties, between two equal families, not just between two individuals. It is a civil contract that requires the consent of the two parties. The two parties may include outside of the Shari'ah requirements, anything that may lead to their happiness and mutually agreeable to both of them. Once the marriage has taken place and the contract has been signed and agreed upon, witnessed not only by the individual spouses, but also by their guardians and their elders, then it becomes a legal and binding document. Now, this creates a constitution for the marriage. Now consider its fate, and the home as a state. It has internal affairs and it has external affairs, it has public security affairs and it has police affairs and jail affairs, sometimes. It has educational affairs and it has propaganda affairs, and public information. All the ministries of government, all the functions of the ministries of government are there to be per- formed in the family, in the home unit. Can you imagine all these activities being carried out with- out a constitution in the state? But such is the Western marriage. The Western marriage has no constitution. It is a state without a constitution.
They say it is a sacrament and a sacrament is an equal act; it is a mysterious cement which has created, a cadre or framework that has been vested upon that couple outside of their family and it is not spelled out, that is to say, nobody knows its terms and this is why when there is dispute, when there is trouble, when the marriage is on the rocks, they have to refer to custom, to common law, to what- ever the arbitrary wisdom of the judge may happen to hit upon by way of solution. Therefore, we can say that the Western marriage is a chaotic marriage, it is the founding of an institution without a constitution, whereas our Islamic marriage, being built upon the constitution, its terms being spelled out in the constitution which is the contract of marriage, is an orderly, a societal institution, that is to say it is an institution very much in society. And Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, has commanded us in the Holy Book that if we agree on anything, to write it down, and writing down the contract of marriage is a blessed act which saves the marriage as well as a great deal of unhappiness and suffering.
Marriage - Settles Life and Relations
Likewise, this contract of marriage, and this is my sixth point, settles life and relations should the marriage for any reason come to an end, whether this is by death or separation by divorce. The consequences are all or should all be spelled out in the contract of marriage and in this way the life of the spouses after marriage are also regulated. I remember a case which I read about in the American press not too long ago, a case in California. California is the state which is most liberal in man- woman relations and now they recognise that a man and a woman coming together and living together without marriage, without the sacrament, still entitles the woman to some kind of settlement, some kind of compensation. I remember one very famous American woman sued the man who was her paramour, with whom she had been living for many years without marriage, without bond, neither civil nor religious nor anything. She pleaded her case to the judge that "after all, I have given this man the flower of my youth, I have given this man all the service and all the company and so on and so forth, now he is telling me to get out of here, and no settlement, nothing, and he is a man of means. Am I not entitled to something, despite the fact that I have no marriage and we have been living in sin?" So the judge pronounced his verdict that because there had been no contract, no marriage agreement, and at least the sacrament is a kind of agreement that is recognised by society, you the woman are not entitled to anything. So this famous woman went out and met the press and she began cursing the judicial system of America for this atrocious piece of injustice and she was saying: "all fellow women of America, do not ever enter into marriage, do not allow your men even to kiss you unless you agree with them on the consequences of termination of that relationship, and put it down in writing for only then will the judicial system operate."
And when I read that, I said that here, finally, these American women, after running away from the Islamic value of pinning down and spelling out the relationship and the consequences of the relationship in a contract which has been available to everyone for fourteen centuries, finally they are coming to realise its value. How much education and how much safeguarding of the future for our Western neighbours, our non-Muslim neighbours it would provide if we were to invite them to our homes and show them our contracts of marriage and tell them that life within marriage, or should the marriage be terminated outside the marriage, are all here, written down and spelled out, agreed upon not only by the two individuals concerned, but also by the two families. What a tremendous source of relief this could give them if they were capable of practising it and, of course, this would be an introduction to them to enter the fold of Islam because only Islam gives them that assurance and that guarantee.
Women's Personality
The seventh point that I want to make concerns woman's personality. I have already mentioned women's liberation and you are aware, I am sure, how much has been done since the days of universal suffrage; the right to vote, to elect officers of the government, or a right to all property or what you have, but the West still has a great deal to learn from Islam on this question of legal status, regardless of the relationship that marriage has brought about. In the West, only very recently and only a few women are beginning to carry their maiden name and then only those that have achieved a reputation and a career before marriage. It has become something of a business value, like the name of the business world, therefore they want to keep the name, but very few among them believe that they are total and complete personalities and of course, the law does not allow them to be. There is no faith in the union, in America, that would allow a married woman, or a married man for that matter, to sell a property without consideration for the other spouse. And so it looks that, as far as buying and selling property is concerned, women are half persons, not fully legal persons, and in the continent in Europe, there are still many states which do not recognise at all such rights of married women or of unmarried women for that matter.
The Extended Family
Then our family, and this is my eighth point, our Muslim family is an extended family, it is not a nuclear family though the nuclear family is quite fashionable . We said that the nuclear family, forgive me for using this term and playing on the term nuclear and fission, the nuclear family consisting only of husband, wife and children does not have the resources, the human resources, the wisdom resources, the friendly resources that the extended family brings to the scene. This tendency, unfortunately is gripping the whole Muslim world and I would not be surprised to see it gripping the Muslim population of England, Europe and America as well, that every person who gets married wants to go and live in a flat of his own, avoiding his relatives, immediate or distant. This is a terrible development, this is the Westernisation and the corruption that we are subjected to, that we are undergoing in our lives in the West, and we should resist it. We should resist it for several reasons. The Shari'ah has prescribed for us who is our dependent and who is not our dependant, who is our heir and who is not our heir and therefore, to the extent that the Shari'ah has done this, then those people who inherit from us and who are our dependants must live together. We must eat together from the same kitchen and live as far as possible in the same home. We, our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our grandparents, our cousins, uncles, nephews, nieces and so forth, because these constitute the extended family of Islam. Now the extended family of Islam is the noblest, the greatest, the most valuable social institution that the world has ever seen. By going nuclear, that is to say by going individualistic, Western society has lost all these values and they are suffering terribly.
Let me point out to you a few of those consequences. Because we live with our parents and our elders, we love them, they have brought us up, they have played with us when we were young, they have told us stories, they were patient with us and they have educated us, guided us, advised us, so we love them because we are in constant communion with them. However, in the Western case, there is alienation and a strangeness because as soon as the youth period is past, the children strike out on their own and the result is that when the parents become old, there is no respect for them; they end their days pining for their children in old folks' homes or the nursing homes for old people. There could not be a more cruel death for anyone than that of being taken to the old folks' home to die slowly, away from his own progeny, from his own dependants and there could not be a worse fate for any man or woman than to be deprived of the relationship and affection of their own children. But you see, respect for elders has to be cultivated and it will not be cultivated by separation, hence this is the great benefit of the Muslim extended family. Secondly, the extended family permits no generation gap among Muslims. In the same family there are babies, teenagers, adults and elders, maybe elders of the first level and elders even of the second level and, since they live together, they are in constant communion with one another; this is precisely the socialisation, the acculturation that the sociologists are talking about and are pleading for, and yet the nuclear family makes it impossible. This is why acculturation and socialisation have to be obtained in the drug store, through the television screen or through one's peers in the schools, but then this is not acculturation, this is not socialisation. This is demagogisation, if the term can be used. Acculturation and socialisation means the passing on from one generation to another of norms, of social norms, of social values. It does not mean a group of people coming together Ad hoc in order to have fun. That is not socialisation, that is not acculturation, and where in the Western society can this process take place anyway?
This is why Western society today is so radically different from Western society of yesterday, and this is why the old values of Western society do not obtain today and why there is no continuity. On the Islamic side, because of the extended family, there is no such generation gap. Thirdly, a great consequence of the extended family is the fact that considering that human beings are social animals, as the philosophers used to say, they need company, they need solace. I need somebody with whom to love sometime and I need somebody with whom to play sometime. I need somebody with whom to complain sometime and I need somebody with whom to cry sometime. Now where else but in the extended family can I find that somebody? Now if I do not have the extended family, if I do not give vent to these pent-up emotions, these emotions will build up in me and make me insane, make me crazy, they will make me take to drugs, to alcohol, to running after other women outside the home.
A nuclear family endangers that sanity and opens the door to all kinds of maladjustments. Another consequence of the extended family is that we learn to be loyal to a group, we learn to be altruistic, we learn to give our emotions, our love, loyalty and fidelity to a group that is, of course, the microcosm of the Ummah, in other words, to defeat our individualism. All of us are individualists, this is something inside us, it is an instinct. We are all advocates, everybody wants to promote himself and fill his own tummy and so on and so forth. This is natural, Allah has put that inside us, but Allah has also planted us in an extended family in order to curb those instincts, to discipline them. In fact, to make something good come out of them instead of the egotistic pursuit which brings ruin. Without the extended family there can be no Ummah because there can be no Ummatic feeling bred in the members and the result would be dissolution, and this is exactly what we are seeing in the Western family and in Western society. Western society today is built upon individuals and upon egotism, everybody wants his own thing, his own pleasure, to pursue his own interests, and nobody is willing to adjust and sacrifice and co-operate with another and this is why the society is falling apart. And to bring a Western person into an extended family and to let him experience what we experience in the extended family situation is undoubtedly, if he or she has any measure of sensitivity, to convert them to Islam, to make them one to that kind of relaxation, that kind of thirst that is enjoyed by the Muslim who is living in an extended family.
The Benefits of an Extended Family
Another point, the ninth point, can be regarded as a consequence of the extended family. We have heard about women going out to work and having a career, but for a woman to go out to work and have a career in the West, in the nuclear family, must always be and can only be done at the cost of the home and the children. Either there are no children, deliberately, in order to pursue the career or, if there are children, they are abandoned to the television set or to the baby-sitter or to the street corner if they cannot afford the baby-sitter. Sometimes they even bum themselves or burn the house down by playing with fire without a supervisor. Or the woman comes home from work, exhausted to the point of being uninterested in the spouse or another person, and then tempers fly, because everybody is exhausted and so family life is ruined. I want to tell you that only in the Muslim family can the woman have a career outside the home. Why? Because she can absent herself, if she has a talent; if she has the talent to invent things or produce things that would benefit the whole Ummah, a woman can do that without losing either home or children. Why? Because there are so many other women in the home, because there are so many other people in the home carrying on the business of the family and so preventing damage to the career or the home. Of course, the first career of a Muslim woman is her family. There can be no doubt about that, and that comes before driving shuttles to the moon or whatever or inventing robots. It is her duty, it is her function, it is her prime function, the function for which Allah has created her is, indeed, to be the pillar, the main pillar of the family and the mother. But this may not exhaust all her years or all her energies. And therefore, if it is possible for her to serve the Ummah additionally, besides being a mother, this could be done only in the case of the extended family and the Muslim family. And it is also the condition for the preservation of her femininity because the tensions under which women work outside of the home are dissipated when she comes home and the same femininity, the same feminine touch never leaves the home. This is always available.
And, in conclusion, I should remind you of all the other values that our Muslim family enjoys by virtue of adhering to the prescriptions of the Shari'ah. The fact that we do not drink alcohol or take drugs is a tremendous source of strength for the family. The fact that gambling is Haraam and that the resources of the family ought to have one kitty in which to put their incomes and from that kitty should come all the expenses of everyone according to a system of priorities established by the responsible leader or father. All these are tremendous props which the Western peoples do not enjoy at all.
The Last Word
And now a last word. We are here to stay, we are here to plant Islam in this part of the world and we must utilise everything in our power to make the word of Allah supreme. If we go and merely talk to our neighbours, our talk is talk and talk my brothers and sisters, does not have the convincing power of facts. Facts and deeds are far more eloquent and they tell their stories far stronger than any words, even if the words are sheer poetry. Now it is in the realm of the family that these values of Islam are exemplified. You must make it a rule to invite a non-Muslim to visit your family once a week. Devote every Friday evening to your Da'wah effort. Invite your neighbour, whether your friend is a colleague from the factory, office, the shop where you work or your geographic neighbour next door. Let him come in with his wife or with his girlfriend or whatever, let them come in and see for themselves these Islamic values implemented in the real life of the family. You do not have to be rich; you have to be clean, you have to be disciplined, you have to be thinking in terms of Da'wah, of putting forth these excellent values of Islam and talking about them, and not only talking about them, but practising them, and that would be your best argument. And remember that it is Allah that converts them to Islam, not you, but may you all and your poor brother, Ismail Faruqi, be instruments in the hands of Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, to spread His faith.
"The family is a divinely inspired institution that came into existence with the creation of man. The human race is a product of this institution and not the other way around."
-Khurshid Ahmad
50 ஆண்டுகள் சிறையில் இருங்கள்: மகாராஷ்டிர அரசு கண்டிப்பு
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Obama delivers key Russia speech
US President Barack Obama has urged Russia to turn from the past, emphasising the common goals the US shares with its former Cold War rival. He told young graduates in Moscow they were the "last generation" to be born in a "divided world". Mr Obama sought to reassure the country that the US sought a "strong, peaceful and prosperous" Russia. The speech comes on the second day of Mr Obama's visit to Moscow and followed his first meeting with Vladimir Putin. During the breakfast talks he told the former president turned prime minister that he had done "extraordinary work" leading Russia. |
140 dead in bloody riots in China's Xinjiang
At least 140 people have been killed and more than 800 others injured as ethnic violence erupted in China's restive Xinjiang region.
A government spokesman confirmed on Monday that at least 140 people were killed, after hundreds of locals took to the streets of the regional capital Urumqi on Sunday -- burning and smashing vehicles and confronting police and anti-riot troops -- state media Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua did not say how many people were involved or how many have been arrested, but AFP said that the confrontation involved around 3,000 Uighurs, and that at least 300 had been arrested.
The unrest had followed a protest against government handling of a clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in far southern China in late June, when two Uighurs died.
Police used electric cattle prods and fired gunshots into the air to try to quell the unrest. Three people from China's majority Han Chinese ethnic group died in the attacks and an overnight curfew was declared.
On Monday morning, however, order was restored "the situation was under control", according to Xinhua.
China has called Sunday's unrest in Urumqi, "a crime of violence that was pre-meditated and organized", saying that it was masterminded by the World Uighur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in exile in the United States.
The unrest is the latest in more than a year of violence to hit Xinjiang, home to eight million Muslim Uighurs -- many of whom say they have suffered political and religious persecution under Han Chinese rule for decades.
During this long period of time Uighur separatists have waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule and there continues to be sporadic outbreaks of violence in the region.
Source: Press TV
A government spokesman confirmed on Monday that at least 140 people were killed, after hundreds of locals took to the streets of the regional capital Urumqi on Sunday -- burning and smashing vehicles and confronting police and anti-riot troops -- state media Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua did not say how many people were involved or how many have been arrested, but AFP said that the confrontation involved around 3,000 Uighurs, and that at least 300 had been arrested.
The unrest had followed a protest against government handling of a clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in far southern China in late June, when two Uighurs died.
Police used electric cattle prods and fired gunshots into the air to try to quell the unrest. Three people from China's majority Han Chinese ethnic group died in the attacks and an overnight curfew was declared.
On Monday morning, however, order was restored "the situation was under control", according to Xinhua.
China has called Sunday's unrest in Urumqi, "a crime of violence that was pre-meditated and organized", saying that it was masterminded by the World Uighur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in exile in the United States.
The unrest is the latest in more than a year of violence to hit Xinjiang, home to eight million Muslim Uighurs -- many of whom say they have suffered political and religious persecution under Han Chinese rule for decades.
During this long period of time Uighur separatists have waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule and there continues to be sporadic outbreaks of violence in the region.
Angry Uighurs defy Chinese police
 Armed police are out in force in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital New protests have flared in the western Chinese city of Urumqi, two days after more than 150 people died in clashes involving ethnic groups and police. About 200 ethnic Uighurs, who are a Muslim minority, faced off against police to protest over the arrest of 1,434 people over Sunday's unrest. Groups of ethnic Han Chinese have now armed themselves with batons and stones and have gathered in Urumqi. Beijing and the Uighurs blame each other for the outbreak of violence. Witnesses to Sunday's protests said Uighur protesters attacked vehicles before turning on local Han Chinese.
The unrest was apparently sparked by a brawl between Uighurs and Han Chinese several weeks earlier in a toy factory thousands of miles away in Guandong province. Officials say 156 people - mostly ethnic Han Chinese - died in Sunday's violence and more than 1,000 were injured. Uighur groups say many more have died, claiming 90% of the dead were Uighurs. State-run news agency Xinhua also reported a protest in another part of Xinjiang province on Monday, with police breaking up a 200-strong demonstration near a mosque in the city of Kashgar. 'Extraordinary defiance' The BBC's Quentin Sommerville, on the streets of Urumqi, says at least 200 people - mostly elderly women or women with children - took to the streets, complaining that their relatives had been arbitrarily arrested.Foreign journalists witnessed the protest during a tour led by government officials showing them parts of the city where shops and homes had been destroyed in Sunday's violence. Our correspondent says it was an extraordinary act of defiance by the protesters. He says riot police - armed with rifles and tear gas - charged the women and surrounded them. But they sat on the ground in defiance of orders from officers to disperse. He says the protesters finally began leaving as the journalists were ushered away from the area. But policemen were waiting in the side streets, he said, and it was unclear what had happened to the women. Later, in what seems to be a counter-protest, Han Chinese people gathered in various parts of the city. Reports say riot police dispersed them with tear gas. Buses 'torn apart' The mass arrests have been going on since Sunday's clashes. Reports are surfacing that police have been going from house to house, rounding up young men for questioning.The Chinese authorities say they have arrested the "ringleaders" of the protests, but that they are still seeking others. Witnesses said Uighur protesters tore apart buses and cars with their bare hands on Sunday, and then turned on the local Han Chinese in what appears to have been an ethnic attack. Some Chinese were dragged from the windows of buses while others were beaten in their homes. Many of the injured - Uighur, Han and some from another ethnic group, the Hui - are still being treated in Urumqi's hospitals. Demonstrators said they had been demanding justice for two Uighurs killed last month in a fight with ethnic Han Chinese at a factory in south-eastern China. Officials say 15 people have now been arrested over the Guandong incident. There has been widespread international concern at the clashes, which some analysts say are the most serious in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon led the calls for restraint, a sentiment echoed by Britain and the US. |
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