Religion is not the biggest enemy for Arab women, poll finds
Religion is not the biggest enemy for Arab women, poll finds
In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize last year, Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman thanked women of the Arab world for her medal. Without their struggle to win equal rights, she would not be there, she said. The greatest challenge in that quest is not religion but the lack of economic and social development and a dearth of perceived security, said a Gallup Poll released Monday.
"The idea that coming in with a secular liberal social program as the solution to fixing how societies view women isn't supported by the evidence," said Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
Download the full report at gallup.com
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June 12 marks the one-week anniversary of an ongoing sit-in by prominent Egyptian writers, filmmakers, performers and intellectuals seeking the removal of Minister of Culture Alaa Abdel-Aziz. They broke into the ministry building on June 5 to protest what they see as efforts to 'Ikhwanize' the arts.
Read more at Al Monitor.
For more on this, read Al Monitor's Minister of Culture Wages Campaign Against Egyptian Artists.
While Egypt is still discussing its future NGO law, which may hinder e.g. human rights organisations in working freely in the country, a court in Cairo has sentenced 43 people to between one and five years in prison for working for unregistered NGOs in Egypt.
Twenty-seven defendants, all of whom were tried in absentia, received five-year jail sentences. Eleven received one-year suspended sentences, and five received two-year sentences.
Read more at Ahram Online.
A Tunisian court on Wednesday convicted three European feminist activists who staged a topless courthouse protest last month, sentencing them to four months and a day in prison, a court official said. The defense called the sentence far too harsh.
Read more at Huffington Post.
