The US Supreme Court has preserved access to a commonly used abortion pill, ruling the drug can remain available while a legal case continues.

In a split decision, it also rejected restrictions on mifepristone implemented by a lower court, essentially maintaining the status quo.

The future of the drug was called into question after a Texas judge sought to invalidate its long-standing approval.

The case could have wide-ranging implications for abortion access.

It comes after the Supreme Court – which has a 6-3 conservative majority – overturned Roe v Wade in June last year, ending the nationwide guarantee to abortion and giving states the power to ban the procedure.

With Friday’s ruling, the mifepristone case now returns to the lower 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

It is likely that the case will come before the Supreme Court once again, setting up the most significant ruling on the issue of abortion since Roe was overturned.

Mifepristone is part of a two-drug regimen that now accounts for more than half of abortions in the country. It has been used by more than five million women in the US to end their pregnancies.

It was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than 20 years ago after four years of review.

The FDA also placed mifepristone in a category of 60 drugs that are regulated under a system of extra restrictions and regular evaluations.

Mainstream medical organisations, including the American College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists and the World Health Organization, have said the abortion pill is safe and effective. 

But earlier this month, Texas court judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled to suspend the FDA approval of mifepristone, saying the agency had violated federal rules that allowed for the accelerated approval of some drugs, and had erred in its scientific assessment of the drug.

Judge Kacsmaryk’s preliminary decision came after a group of anti-abortion health professionals launched a case challenging the safety of mifepristone.

His 7 April ruling was made just minutes before a decision from a judge in Washington state ordered the FDA to make no change to the drug’s availability and preserved access to mifepristone in 17 US states.

US President Joe Biden’s administration appealed the Texas ruling, and asked for the Texas court’s order to be placed on hold.

A divided appeals court said mifepristone could remain available, but with certain restrictions, while the appeal was under way.

Among the restrictions imposed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals was a limit on sending the pills by mail, effectively requiring in-person visits. These restrictions have now been overturned by the Supreme Court, for now.

Two of the Supreme Court’s conservative members, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, dissented publicly to the decision, which came in a single paragraph, issued hours before a self-imposed deadline.

Justice Thomas provided no reasons for his dissent, while Justice Alito wrote that the Supreme Court has been criticised in the past for issuing emergency orders, called the “shadow docket” by critics.

A full vote breakdown was not released.

Legal battle continues

The decision drew immediate reaction from anti-abortion advocates, who have concentrated their efforts on abortion pills since the fall of Roe.

Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative advocacy group that filed the initial lawsuit, said the FDA “must answer for the damage it has caused to the health of countless women and girls”.

“We look forward to a final outcome in this case that will hold the FDA accountable,” it said.

Kristan Hawkins, president of anti-abortion group Students for Life called the Supreme Court’s decision a “tragedy”.

Pro-choice advocates “have weaponised and weakened the medical standards to favour abortion industry interests,” she said. 

The latest ruling was welcomed by medical experts and organisations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University said: “Imposing restrictions on access to mifepristone, a drug that’s been on the market for two decades, is a bridge too far even for a highly aggressive and conservative Supreme Court.”

He said restrictions on mifepristone would post “immeasurable” harms to the drug approval process in the US. “In some ways it would be open hunting season to all of the FDA’s drugs.”

Pro-choice politicians also applauded the top court’s decision, including Mr Biden who said he would continue to defend the FDA’s independence and fight political “attacks on women’s health”.

That fight is not over – oral arguments for the case will begin before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in mid-May.

But for now, Friday’s ruling had the immediate effect of reassuring healthcare providers that access would continue, at least for the time being.

Kristyn Brandi, a gynecologist, or OB-GYN, and abortion provider in New Jersey, said she was relieved to learn about the ruling. Before it came, she and other providers were unsure of what services they would be able to offer patients attending clinics this weekend.

“Tomorrow morning at 7AM the patients will be able to access the care that they need,” she said. “That’s all that matters today.”

By Holly Honderich – BBC News

L’article Mifepristone: US Supreme Court preserves abortion drug access est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill banning most abortions after six weeks, paving the way for drastic changes in access to the procedure across the state.

Opponents argue six weeks is before many women know they are pregnant.

The law will not go into effect until a court rules on an ongoing legal challenge to the existing 15-week ban.

“We are proud to support life and family in the state of Florida,” the governor said in a statement.

He claimed the law would “defend the dignity of human life and transform Florida into a pro-family state”.

The state has been a safe haven for those seeking abortion in the country’s south-east since Roe v Wade – which gave women in the US the constitutional right to abortion – was overturned last year.

The state’s current 15-week limit on abortion is one of the most lenient in the south-east, with many travelling from other states to Florida to have the procedure.

The six-week ban makes exceptions for abortions in cases of rape or incest, as long as the woman can provide documentation such as a police report or a restraining order.

Mr DeSantis’ signed the bill late Thursday night just hours after Florida’s Republican-led House of Representatives approved the ban on Thursday, with 70 voting for and 40 voting against. It had been passed in the state Senate on 3 April.

“A woman’s right to choose, I’ve heard people talk about that,” Republican lawmaker Kiyan Michael said during the debate, as quoted by CNN. “Well, that right to choose begins before you have sex.”

In a statement shortly after Mr DeSantis signed the bill, the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates said the ban’s exceptions for rape or incest would not provide “meaningful access to patients in need”.

The group argued the bill as a whole would “shut down a critical abortion access point for millions across the southeast, Caribbean, and Central and South America”.

The fate of the new six-week abortion law is still contingent upon another ruling from Florida’s Supreme Court.

Florida’s highest court is hearing a challenge brought by abortion clinics to the state’s existing 15-week ban. The latest law signed by Mr DeSantis contains language that says the six-week ban would only go into effect if Florida’s highest court upholds the 15-week law that is already in place.

Florida’s conservative Supreme Court is expected to side with anti-abortion activists and rule the 15-week ban is constitutional.

National debate over abortion in the US has been raging since a federal judge suspended the original approval of a widely used abortion drug, mifepristone, last week.

That suspension was later blocked by an appellate court, and the Biden administration has said it will ask the Supreme Court to restore full access to the drug.

By Alys Davies – BBC News

L’article Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs six-week abortion ban into law est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

From India to France, bigots are scared of the hijab. Why are Western feminists so deafeningly silent about this?

A little piece of cloth is scaring big governments again.

The latest instance is in India, where in early March the Supreme Court announced that it would set up a three-judge bench to hear a case challenging a hijab ban in educational institutions in the state of Karnataka. In October 2022, the top court had delivered a split verdict on the ban, which the Karnataka High Court had previously upheld.

As a result of the Indian hijab ban in educational institutions, thousands of girls have not been able to attend school for a year, and were denied even a temporary lifting of the ban for their practical exams this year.

And thanks to the same restrictions on religious dress in France, thousands of French women must choose between practising their sincerely held spiritual beliefs or pursuing their love for the sport of football.

The French Football Federation bans hijab-wearing women and girls from its competitions. The French senate in January of last year voted 160 to 143 to extend that ban to all sports competitions, though that move was ultimately defeated in the country’s parliament. Meanwhile, France’s hijab ban at state-run academic institutions remains in place.

As always, these bans have been justified by supporters, in part, as acts aimed at the emancipation of women. Nothing says women’s empowerment like policing women’s dress.

Why is it that the hijab is so often the obsession of bigots the world over? What is it about this piece of cloth that brings about so much passionate protest from detractors?  And why are Western feminists so deafeningly silent when it comes to this type of state control of women’s bodies?

I asked myself these very questions when I received hate mail following my appearance on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah in 2016. In response to a question about my head covering, I told Trevor it was an act of spiritual devotion but, reversing roles, posed my own question to him. Paraphrased, I inquired “Oppression is the taking away of one’s power. So what are we really saying about women and the source of their power if they are oppressed when they privatise their sexual energy?”

Trevor slowly attempted a response, “We are saying they are only powerful when they are sexy in public?” he ventured timidly.  “Did I get it right?” The audience roared and the clip went viral.

While I received an overwhelmingly positive response to the appearance, every piece of hate mail was about this segment. Mostly women, claiming to be “feminists” were incredulous that I dare attribute an empowering quality to the hijab, or point out the inherent misogyny of casting it as demeaning.

The great irony of course is that all these supposed “saviours” of Muslim women who want to liberate us from our religious dress because they claim it degrades and limits us, do just that by restricting or ridiculing our choices.

Indian and French girls must choose between their education and practising their faith, and thousands of French athletes must make a similar agonising decision between their careers and their creed.

How poetic it is that the very people who rightly decry the treatment of women under the Taliban, partially because the group bars women from education and athletics, support hijab bans that ultimately result in the same?

Some will point out that the hijab is indeed sometimes forced and sometimes politicised by authoritarian systems that do restrict women’s education and movement. So, they contend, it is a symbol of oppression that should be cancelled.

This argument denies women their agency. According to representative survey research conducted by the Washington-based Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, roughly half of Muslim women in the United States wear hijabs. The most popular reason given for why those who wear it do so is “religious devotion”, cited by roughly half. Next comes “so people know I’m Muslim” (21 percent), and  “modesty” (12 percent). Just one percent of those who wear a hijab said it was in compliance with the wishes of a relative or husband.

But let’s take to its logical conclusion the argument that says anything that is sometimes coerced or politicised is inherently oppressive and must be opposed.

Let’s apply this idea to something else that is far more often forced on women than the hijab, and see where we end up: sex. One in four women are victims of sexual assault during their undergraduate education in the United States. And sexual violence is not only politicised, it is used as a weapon of war in conflicts from Bosnia to Ukraine.

So because sex is often forced and even weaponised, should it be banned? Should the state restrict consenting adult women from choosing in the name of women’s empowerment?

Should well-meaning self-proclaimed “feminists” shame and demean other women for making it a part of their lives?

If the answer is no, then perhaps this Women’s History Month, Western feminists should consider opposing hijab bans with as much ferocity as hijab mandates.

By Dalia Mogahed – Research Director at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding / Aljazeera

L’article Analysis. Feminists need to oppose hijab bans as much as hijab mandates est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

En cette journée internationale des droits des femmes, une multitude de rassemblements est prévue dans les grandes villes du monde, dont Madrid qui est habituellement le théâtre d’une gigantesque marée violette.

Talibans au pouvoir en Afghanistan, répression massive de la contestation provoquée en Iran par la mort de Mahsa Amini, remise en cause du droit à l’avortement aux Etats-Unis, conséquences de la guerre en Ukraine sur les femmes: les motifs de mobilisation sont nombreux.

Les femmes “restent les premières victimes des guerres et sous-représentées dans les négociations diplomatiques”, ont dénoncé mardi des responsables officielles devant le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU. Antonio Guterres a pris l’exemple de l’Afghanistan où “les femmes et les filles ont été effacées de la vie publique”.

Les universités ont rouvert dans ce pays lundi après la longue coupure hivernale, mais seuls les hommes ont pu passer leur seuil, les femmes n’étant plus autorisées à étudier depuis le retour au pouvoir des talibans en août 2021.

“Egalité au travail et dans la vie”

Démarche symbolique et inédite à la veille du 8 mars, l’Union européenne a adopté des sanctions contre le ministre taliban de l’Enseignement supérieur Neda Mohammad Nadeem, “responsable de la violation généralisée du droit des femmes à l’éducation”.

D’autres individus ou entités responsables de violations des droits des femmes en Iran, en Russie, au Soudan du Sud, en Birmanie ou en Syrie ont été également visés par ces sanctions.

En Europe, des rassemblements sont prévus mercredi dans plusieurs pays comme en France, où des manifestations pour exiger “l’égalité au travail et dans la vie” sont organisées dans environ 150 villes. Un nombre nettement supérieur à celui des années précédentes selon les organisateurs.  La contestation sera notamment placée sous le signe de la lutte contre la réforme des retraites, accusée d’être injuste envers les femmes.

Interdiction de manifester au Pakistan

Ailleurs dans le monde, des manifestations ont été en revanche interdites comme à Lahore, dans l’est du Pakistan, pays conservateur et patriarcal, où les autorités ont justifié leur décision par les “panneaux et bannières controversés” abordant des sujets comme le divorce, le harcèlement sexuel ou les menstruations, habituellement brandis par les manifestantes.

A Cuba, faute de pouvoir manifester librement, les organisations féministes indépendantes contourneront pour leur part les célébrations officielles en se mobilisant via une “manifestation virtuelle” sur les réseaux sociaux où elles sensibiliseront notamment sur les féminicides.

Au Mexique, c’est sous les slogans “Plus une seule femme assassinée” et “Contre la violence masculine et le travail précaire” que les manifestants défileront dans les principales villes du pays, où 969 féminicides ont été recensés en 2022, selon les chiffres officiels.

Augmentation du nombre de féminicides

En Colombie, des rassemblements sont prévus pour réclamer des mesures contre l’augmentation du nombre de féminicides, passé de 182 en 2020 à 614 l’année dernière, selon les données du ministère public.

Le secrétaire d’Etat américain Antony Blinken et la Première dame Jill Biden vont remettre à Washington le prix de la contribution “à un meilleur avenir” à “onze femmes extraordinaires du monde entier”.

Les féministes se mobiliseront aussi tout particulièrement pour défendre le droit à l’avortement, remis en cause en particulier aux Etats-Unis par la décision de la Cour suprême de révoquer en juin l’arrêt “Roe v. Wade” de 1973 garantissant ce droit. En Europe, ce droit a aussi été fragilisé récemment en Hongrie et en Pologne.

World Opinions – Agences

L’article Les femmes manifestent pour leurs droits, menacés à travers le monde est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Dans les campagnes chinoises, les droits économiques sont reconnus aux familles, représentées le plus fréquemment par des hommes. Les droits des femmes sont souvent contournés par les assemblées rurales, promptes à les déposséder dès qu’elles ne sont plus la fille ou la femme d’un homme du village.

Un projet de révision de la loi portant sur les droits collectifs ruraux qui améliorerait les droits des femmes sur la terre est débattu en Chine, selon le South China Morning Post. Le quotidien observe que dans la première directive gouvernementale de l’année 2023, publiée peu avant l’ouverture de la session parlementaire annuelle, et traditionnellement consacrée à la question rurale, la “protection des droits et des intérêts des femmes” a été mise en bonne place.

Or si l’égalité entre les hommes et les femmes est un principe du droit chinois, dans la réalité, il est fort peu ou mal appliqué, surtout à la campagne. “Des dizaines de millions de femmes de la Chine rurale n’ont pas leur nom sur un contrat ou un certificat d’usage des terres”, note le journal anglophone.

Depuis la réforme de 1984, “les localités ont une certaine autonomie dans la façon d’attribuer les parcelles, qui sont redessinées par des assemblées de villages majoritairement masculines”, écrit le titre. Au moment du partage périodique des terres par les collectivités locales (tous les quinze ou trente ans, selon la taille des foyers), les femmes sont exclues de multiples façons, et les nombreux rappels à la loi n’y font rien.

Plaintes classées sans suite et procès perdus

Bien souvent, les femmes ont été éjectées de ce droit à l’accès aux terres, pourtant réaffirmé par la loi sur la garantie des droits des femmes de 1992. En particulier, lorsqu’elles sont “mariées à l’extérieur” [hors du village], divorcées ou veuves remariées.

Le système fonctionne sur la base des foyers, et ce sont les chefs de famille – les hommes – qui les détiennent pour le ménage. En 2018, moins de 20 % des femmes étaient inscrites sur les certificats d’allocation des terres. Selon une avocate spécialisée de Pékin :

“Cela veut dire que les femmes ne peuvent faire construire de maison à leur nom, et qu’elles sont les premières dépossédées en cas de réquisition des terres par les autorités locales.”

Ayant eu à traiter près de 3 000 cas de plaintes sur ce problème en vingt ans, l’avocate indique : “Près de 90 % de ces cas ont été classés sans suite ou les procès ont été perdus.”

C’est en ce sens qu’une réforme pourrait faire avancer les droits des femmes sur les terres, si elles sont enfin reconnues en tant que “membres de la collectivité économique à la campagne”. Le nouveau texte pourrait, en particulier, accorder le droit de vote à un plus grand nombre de femmes dans les assemblées villageoises.

World Opinions – Courrier international

L’article Inégalités. Les femmes chinoises peinent toujours à faire valoir leurs droits sur la terre est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Saad Lamjarred, a star Moroccan singer, has been found guilty of raping a young woman in France and sentenced to six years in prison.

Lamjarred, 37, showed no reaction after the verdict was announced by a court in Paris on Friday, French media reported. He was immediately detained.

During a short trial, he denied raping the woman in a Paris hotel in 2016.

Lamjarred is famous in the Arab music world. His hit LM3ALLEM has been viewed more than one billion times on YouTube.

When Lamjarred was arrested in 2016, the king of Morocco – who has awarded Lamjarred the country’s highest national honour – intervened to cover the singer’s legal fees.

Many of the singer’s fans alleged at the time that he was the victim of a “plot” by neighbouring Algeria, which has strained relations with Morocco.

And the first song he released after his arrest, which he dedicated to the king, showed just how popular he remained, gaining over 140m views.

It was not immediately clear if he planned to appeal against the verdict.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Saad Lamjarred: Moroccan star singer convicted of rape in France est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Momina Khatun is convinced she is cursed.

She’s one of hundreds of women in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam who married under the age of 18 – and are now stuck in limbo after their husbands were arrested in a crackdown on child marriage.

The state government claims it wants to eradicate the illegal practice, but Ms Khatun and other women whose husbands are in custody say they have been left helpless.

Ms Khatun, who is expecting a baby, didn’t have an easy start in life, but marriage turned out better than she expected.

Her father remarried when she was eight. A few months later her mother abandoned her too, leaving her to live with her paternal aunt in a tiny village in the state.

“Life was difficult there. I was treated like I was a burden to her family,” Ms Khatun said. Last year, when her aunt’s family decided to get her married at the age of 17, she was delirious with fear.

“We were always told that the man we marry will determine the quality of our life. I was young and worried what would happen if my husband was a bad person.”

But Yakub Ali, the farmer she married, turned out to be a kind man who took away the “loneliness and replaced it with genuine love and affection”, Ms Khatun said.

“There wasn’t much, we were poor. At least there was peace.”

But their happiness was short-lived.

On 4 February, Mr Ali was arrested from their home and charged with marrying Ms Khatun when she was a minor.

A week on, the 22-year-old remains in custody. Ms Khatun, who is seven months pregnant, has not been able to meet her husband since his arrest.

“Where do I go? I have no one. My child and I will die hungry and lonely,” she said.

Ms Khatun and hundreds of other women in Assam have been protesting after their male relatives were arrested in connection with cases of child marriage.

More than 8,100 people have been named in police complaints so far, including the parents of grooms and priests who performed the marriage ceremonies. It was not immediately clear how the police arrived at the figures – the BBC has contacted officials for comment – but at least 2,500 people have been arrested since last week.

Women like Ms Khatun see the action as a “cruel interference in their lives”.

Mostly uneducated and poor, they say the arrested men are primary breadwinners for their families and that they depend on them to survive. Videos of women, wailing outside police stations and rolling on the ground, have cascaded over social media, fuelling feelings of anger and outrage.

Those like Mr Ali, who are accused of marrying girls aged 14-18, are being charged under a law that bans child marriage and carries a sentence of two years and a fine.

Men accused of marrying girls below 14 have been charged under a more stringent law that protects children from sexual offences, a non-bailable felony carrying jail terms ranging from seven years to life.

Reports say that districts with higher Muslim populations in Assam have seen more arrests than others, though hundreds of Hindu men have also been arrested.

Under Muslim personal law in India, girls can get married once they reach puberty. The conflict between this and India’s Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, which bars all marriages of women below the age of 18, is being challenged in the Supreme Court.”There is a line of precedent that special laws will override general personal laws of any religion,” according to Dr Arghya Sengupta, research director of Vidhi Legal, a think-thank.

But he added that “the unjustness of the situation” also needs to be factored in. “The personal law of Muslims has allowed girls who have attained puberty to marry of their own free will for decades. So to suddenly throw their husbands in jail for a practice which, in their eyes, was never wrong may be unjust.”

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma maintains that his government is at “war” against child marriage and isn’t targeting any one community. But critics say the retrospective arrests are the latest attempt of the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to marginalise minorities, especially Bengali-speaking Muslims.

The community, which migrated from what was once East Pakistan and is now Bangladesh, has long faced discrimination in the multi-ethnic state, where linguistic identity and citizenship are the biggest political fault lines.

The Hindu-nationalist BJP government, which is also in power nationally, has announced a slew of policies, including a controversial citizenship law, that critics say discriminates particularly against Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Experts say the arrests could push illegal marriages underground, making them harder to report.

“Child marriages are more a social malaise than a religious one, and are rooted in poverty and patriarchy,” says Dr Abdul Azad, lecturer and researcher at Vrije University, Amsterdam.

“It is only through social and economic upliftment of communities that the practice can be truly eradicated – not by explicitly targeting a single community.”

Although illegal, child marriage is widespread in many parts of India mainly due to patriarchal customs, lack of education and poverty.

Very few cases are actually reported. In Assam, only 155 cases of child marriage were registered in 2021, and 138 in 2020, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

The latest crackdown started on 23 January, when Mr Sarma expressed alarm over the soaring underage pregnancy rate in Assam and promised to put an end to the problem.

The sudden nature of the move has shattered many families.

Khalidul Rashid, a resident of Dhubri district in Assam, breaks down before he even begins speaking.

He says his 23-year-old daughter Kulsoom Khan took her own life on 4 February. The eldest of four, Kulsoom was married off when she was 14. In 2020, when her husband died of Covid-19, she moved back to her parent’s home with her two children.

Everything was fine in her life, her father says, but when she heard last week about the arrests, she became vey tense.

On Friday, she asked her father for her marriage certificate. “I told her that her husband was dead and she had nothing to worry about,” Mr Rashid says.

But Kulsoom was afraid the police would arrest her parents.

“So she took her life – to protect us,” Mr Rashid says.

Dr Kalam says that while most of the child marriages in Assam occur among the marginalised communities, a powerful social movement against the practice has taken shape in recent years.

Now the government’s “aggressive approach”, he says, will weaken this movement.

“Our society has become so divided that such brutal actions are gaining support,” Dr Kalam says.

Masud Zaman, a lawyer based in Dhubri district who is fighting on behalf of eight women protesters, agrees with the assessment.

A Muslim-dominated area, Dhubri has recorded the highest number of arrests.

“The common perception is that child marriage is a problem of Muslim society. But child marriage rates are high in Dhubri because it’s one of the poorest districts of Assam, where most families are illiterate. Not because Muslims live here,” Mr Zaman says.

He accused the government of turning a social issue into a communal one, at the expense of women’s lives.

While both Hindu and Muslim men have been rounded up in the recent arrests, the lawyer alleges there has been selective treatment in the way bail is being given.

“In Majuli – which is predominantly home to tribal communities – 24 men got bail within a day. We argued on behalf of [Muslim] men accused of the same offences on the same grounds, but couldn’t get bail.”

The BBC saw a copy of one of the bail orders passed by a district court in Majuli, which states the arrests had been made on “vague and insufficient grounds”.

Mr Zaman added that it was insensitive to think money – the government has announced financial compensation for the affected women – could alleviate their grief.

“What about the emotional bond between a wife and her husband? How will the government compensate women for that?”

It’s a question that haunts Ms Khatun.

“Does suffering ever end in a woman’s life?” she says.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Assam: India child brides desperate after mass arrests est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Iran drew international condemnation on Saturday after it executed two men for killing a paramilitary force member in November during protests sparked by the death in custody of a young woman.

The latest killings double the number executed so far in connection with the nationwide protests. Two men were put to death in December, sparking global outrage.

They also come in defiance of a campaign by international rights groups for the lives of the two men to be spared.

“Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, the main perpetrators of the crime that led to the martyrdom of Ruhollah Ajamian, were hanged this morning,” judicial news agency Mizan Online reported on Saturday.

The UN human rights office decried the executions, which it said followed “unfair trials based on forced confessions”.

“We urge Iran to halt all executions,” it said on Twitter.

The British foreign minister James Cleverly condemned the executions and urged Iran to “immediately end the violence against its own people”.

Campaigners call for greater global action after deaths of Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini

“The execution of Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini by the Iranian regime is abhorrent,” Cleverly said on Twitter. “The UK is strongly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances.”

Iran hanged the two men for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during nationwide protests that started after the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini last September.

The European Union said it was “appalled” by the executions.

“This is yet another sign of the Iranian authorities’ violent repression of civilian demonstrations,” the spokesperson for the bloc’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, said, urging an immediate end to death sentences against protesters.

The court of first instance had sentenced the two men to death in early December, it said, and on Tuesday the supreme court upheld the death sentences, accusing them of killing Ajamian on 3 November.

The victim was a member of the Basij militia – linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – who died in Karaj, west of Tehran.

Prosecutors previously said the 27-year-old was stripped naked and killed by a group of mourners who had been paying tribute to a slain protester, Hadis Najafi.

Karami’s parents issued a video pleading for authorities to spare his life in December.

“I respectfully ask the judiciary, I beg you please, I ask you … to remove the death penalty from my son’s case,” said Mashallah Karami.

He described his son as a former national karate team member and told Iranian media that a family lawyer had been unable to access his case file.

Karami was not allowed to have a final meeting with his family and had foregone food and water in protest, according to Mohamad Aghasi, whom relatives wanted to handle the case, in remarks on Twitter.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR), said both men “were subjected to torture, sentenced after sham trials … without the minimum standards for due process”.

Nazanin Boniadi, a British actor of Iranian origin and an ambassador for Amnesty International in the UK, said on Twitter that the “political cost of Iran executions” must increase.

Campaigners have called for stronger international action after the latest executions.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said foreign nations must withdraw their ambassadors from Iran and call for a moratorium on executions and state violence against peaceful dissent.

“We are mourning as a nation,” prominent US-based dissident Masih Alinejad said in a Twitter post. “Help us save others.”

Authorities have arrested thousands people in the wave of demonstrations that began with the September death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who had been arrested by morality police for allegedly breaching the strict dress code for women.

Since the beginning of the protest movement, courts have sentenced 14 people to death in connection with the demonstrations, according to an Agence France-Presse count based on official information.

Among those, four have been executed, two others have had their sentences confirmed by the supreme court, six are awaiting new trials and two others can appeal.

World Opinions – Theguardian.com

L’article Iran condemned for executing two men over alleged crimes during protests est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

The Taliban have banned women from visiting all parks in Kabul, excluding them still further from public life in Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Ministry told the BBC those managing parks in the capital had been told not to allow women in.

The group claims Islamic laws were not being followed at parks.

Women’s rights and freedoms have been severely restricted since the militant Islamists seized power in August 2021.

Under Taliban rules on segregating people by gender, women have been allowed to visit parks on three days every week – Sunday, Monday, Tuesday – and men on the remaining four.

Now women won’t be allowed even if accompanied by male relatives.

“We’ve done this because in the past 15 months, despite our efforts, people have been going to the park and not respecting Sharia laws,” Mohammed Akif, spokesman for the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told the BBC.

“The restriction is for all women, whether they are with or without a mahram [male escort].”

The ban on women extends to amusement parks that usually have rides like bumper cars or a ferris wheel, and where families visit together with their children.

It appears to be in force only in the capital for now, but in the past such rules have eventually applied across the country.

One woman who Reuters news agency caught up with at the entrance to a Kabul park was disappointed after being turned away.

“When a mother comes with their children, they must be allowed to enter the park, because these children haven’t seen anything good… they must play and be entertained,” said Masooma, who gave only her first name for security reasons.

Under the Taliban women in Afghanistan have been subjected to a series of curbs on their freedoms.

A number of women have been beaten for demanding their rights.

Women are barred from going on longer distance journeys without a male chaperone. Teenage girls have still not returned to school in most of the country, despite Taliban promises to allow them to do so.

While some women still work in sectors such as healthcare and education, most were told not to go to work after the Taliban swept back to power. In May a decree was passed ordering women to wear the Islamic face veil in public, although some in urban areas can still be seen failing to comply.

The Taliban have vowed there will be no brutal repression of women as there was when they were first in power in the 1990s.

They say they now respect women’s rights in line with Sharia law, and are not against women being educated or having jobs.

But Western diplomats have indicated to the Taliban that resuming development funding for a country in deep economic crisis depends on the treatment of women improving.

By Yogita Limaye in Kabul and Simon Fraser in London – BBC

L’article Afghanistan: Taliban ban women from Kabul parks est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Acclaimed Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga has been convicted of inciting violence by carrying a placard calling for political reform.

The magistrate said the protest could have incited other people to join, and cause a breach of peace.

Ms Dangarembga agreed to pay a fine of about $110 (£100) to avoid serving a three-month jail term.

She had pleaded not guilty in a trial that critics say is the latest sign of a government crackdown on dissent.

This is despite the fact that President Emmerson Mnangagwa took power in 2017 with a promise to introduce reforms after the decades-long repressive rule of his predecessor, Robert Mugabe.

Ms Dangarembga is one of Zimbabwe’s most famous authors. Her novel, This Mournable Body, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, in 2020.

She was convicted along with a friend Julie Barnes.

The pair had walked along a road in the capital, Harare, two years ago, holding placards which called for political reform and the release of two government critics.

The courtroom gasped and the two women stood motionless as the verdict was pronounced.

“Guilty of inciting public violence and breaching the peace,” came the judgement.

The magistrate said that as they protested on a public road, and pictures were shared on social media, others could have been provoked to protest.

The two have until Tuesday to pay the fine. If they reoffend within the next five years they will be jailed for six months.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Analysis. Tsitsi Dangarembga: Zimbabwe author convicted over placard protest est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.