Moral failure

18/10/2013
Peter Jacob

A Christian woman sits at the scene of twin suicide bombings at the All Saints Memorial Church in Peshawar

Mourning loss of life has a special significance everywhere, especially in the Eastern cultures. “Missing a wedding reception is excusable, but not a funeral,” you are reminded every now and then. That is why elaborate rituals and prayers are conducted on the funerals and cremations, three days, 10 days and even 40 days after the death. And then there are followed by annual memorial services.
Societies suffering oppression and terrorism use funerals as a means of collective healing and protest – Ireland, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan are examples from the recent past.

Funerals are a means of collective healing and protest

When the then-president Farooq Leghari failed to offer a word of sympathy after the whole Christian village of Shantinagar was burned and 14 churches destroyed in 1997, it saddened all people of good will. The PML-N had won the elections a few days ago, failing to sympathize with the Christian community in clear terms until they settled in the saddle of power comfortably. This moral failure to respond became a part of the collective memory.
In 1998 when Bishop John Joseph laid down his life in protest against the death penalty given to Ayub Masih, the ministers for Information and Religious Affairs gave provocative and misleading statements.
In 2009, when six Christians were burnt alive and several dozen houses were robbed and set ablaze in Gojra, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif only scheduled a visit to the site after the Christian MPAs from his party threatened to resign en bloc. The MPAs remembered that the Judicial Inquiry report on Shantinagar under their party’s government had remained inconclusive. The mention of this fact by some Church leaders during his visit to Gojra extracted some pledges from the chief minister. The Judicial Inquiry report of the Gojra incident was completed and handed over, but it was finally released by the caretaker government of Punjab in 2013. There hasn’t been even a single conviction in court.
The burning of around 80 houses in Joseph Colony in Lahore in 2013 received an immediate response.  Lahore has a large Christian population and the elections were only on a month away, so it is easy to be skeptical about the motive.  Perhaps we can deduce that the PML-N chief minister had learned from the past.

The PTI had no clue how to respond

It was a colossal loss for the Christian community where in this one single incident in Peshawar 84 lives were lost and over a hundred were injured. The PTI simply had no clue how to respond, especially when the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had already faced criticism on his naive proposal of reserving sanitation work for Christians in his province.
The reaction of the Christian youth, which so far lived by the image of ‘healers and teachers’ set by the generations of Pakistani Christians, was anger. They were somewhat aggressive in Peshawar and Karachi.
Discrimination institutionalized on the basis of religion has taken its toll. Treating painful realities with arrogance adds insult to injury. The opinion of the minority Christians may not matter a lot politically speaking, but defying fairness will deprive the leadership of their legitimacy as duty bearers of the common good.
- See more at: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/moral-failure/#sthash.UKzvqCav.dpuf

Mourning loss of life has a special significance everywhere, especially in the Eastern cultures. “Missing a wedding reception is excusable, but not a funeral,” you are reminded every now and then. That is why elaborate rituals and prayers are conducted on the funerals and cremations, three days, 10 days and even 40 days after the death. And then there are followed by annual memorial services.
Societies suffering oppression and terrorism use funerals as a means of collective healing and protest – Ireland, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan are examples from the recent past.

Funerals are a means of collective healing and protest

When the then-president Farooq Leghari failed to offer a word of sympathy after the whole Christian village of Shantinagar was burned and 14 churches destroyed in 1997, it saddened all people of good will. The PML-N had won the elections a few days ago, failing to sympathize with the Christian community in clear terms until they settled in the saddle of power comfortably. This moral failure to respond became a part of the collective memory.
In 1998 when Bishop John Joseph laid down his life in protest against the death penalty given to Ayub Masih, the ministers for Information and Religious Affairs gave provocative and misleading statements.
In 2009, when six Christians were burnt alive and several dozen houses were robbed and set ablaze in Gojra, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif only scheduled a visit to the site after the Christian MPAs from his party threatened to resign en bloc. The MPAs remembered that the Judicial Inquiry report on Shantinagar under their party’s government had remained inconclusive. The mention of this fact by some Church leaders during his visit to Gojra extracted some pledges from the chief minister. The Judicial Inquiry report of the Gojra incident was completed and handed over, but it was finally released by the caretaker government of Punjab in 2013. There hasn’t been even a single conviction in court.
The burning of around 80 houses in Joseph Colony in Lahore in 2013 received an immediate response.  Lahore has a large Christian population and the elections were only on a month away, so it is easy to be skeptical about the motive.  Perhaps we can deduce that the PML-N chief minister had learned from the past.

The PTI had no clue how to respond

It was a colossal loss for the Christian community where in this one single incident in Peshawar 84 lives were lost and over a hundred were injured. The PTI simply had no clue how to respond, especially when the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had already faced criticism on his naive proposal of reserving sanitation work for Christians in his province.
The reaction of the Christian youth, which so far lived by the image of ‘healers and teachers’ set by the generations of Pakistani Christians, was anger. They were somewhat aggressive in Peshawar and Karachi.
Discrimination institutionalized on the basis of religion has taken its toll. Treating painful realities with arrogance adds insult to injury. The opinion of the minority Christians may not matter a lot politically speaking, but defying fairness will deprive the leadership of their legitimacy as duty bearers of the common good.
- See more at: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/moral-failure/#sthash.UKzvqCav.dpuf

Mourning loss of life has a special significance everywhere, especially in the Eastern cultures. “Missing a wedding reception is excusable, but not a funeral,” you are reminded every now and then. That is why elaborate rituals and prayers are conducted on the funerals and cremations, three days, 10 days and even 40 days after the death. And then there are followed by annual memorial services.

Societies suffering oppression and terrorism use funerals as a means of collective healing and protest – Ireland, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan are examples from the recent past.

When the then-president Farooq Leghari failed to offer a word of sympathy after the whole Christian village of Shantinagar was burned and 14 churches destroyed in 1997, it saddened all people of good will. The PML-N had won the elections a few days ago, failing to sympathize with the Christian community in clear terms until they settled in the saddle of power comfortably. This moral failure to respond became a part of the collective memory.

In 1998 when Bishop John Joseph laid down his life in protest against the death penalty given to Ayub Masih, the ministers for Information and Religious Affairs gave provocative and misleading statements.

In 2009, when six Christians were burnt alive and several dozen houses were robbed and set ablaze in Gojra, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif only scheduled a visit to the site after the Christian MPAs from his party threatened to resign en bloc. The MPAs remembered that the Judicial Inquiry report on Shantinagar under their party’s government had remained inconclusive. The mention of this fact by some Church leaders during his visit to Gojra extracted some pledges from the chief minister. The Judicial Inquiry report of the Gojra incident was completed and handed over, but it was finally released by the caretaker government of Punjab in 2013. There hasn’t been even a single conviction in court.

The burning of around 80 houses in Joseph Colony in Lahore in 2013 received an immediate response.  Lahore has a large Christian population and the elections were only on a month away, so it is easy to be skeptical about the motive.  Perhaps we can deduce that the PML-N chief minister had learned from the past.

It was a colossal loss for the Christian community where in this one single incident in Peshawar 84 lives were lost and over a hundred were injured. The PTI simply had no clue how to respond, especially when the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had already faced criticism on his naive proposal of reserving sanitation work for Christians in his province.

The reaction of the Christian youth, which so far lived by the image of ‘healers and teachers’ set by the generations of Pakistani Christians, was anger. They were somewhat aggressive in Peshawar and Karachi.

Discrimination institutionalized on the basis of religion has taken its toll. Treating painful realities with arrogance adds insult to injury. The opinion of the minority Christians may not matter a lot politically speaking, but defying fairness will deprive the leadership of their legitimacy as duty bearers of the common good.

Mourning loss of life has a special significance everywhere, especially in the Eastern cultures. “Missing a wedding reception is excusable, but not a funeral,” you are reminded every now and then. That is why elaborate rituals and prayers are conducted on the funerals and cremations, three days, 10 days and even 40 days after the death. And then there are followed by annual memorial services.
Societies suffering oppression and terrorism use funerals as a means of collective healing and protest – Ireland, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan are examples from the recent past.
- See more at: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/moral-failure/#sthash.UKzvqCav.dpuf

Mourning loss of life has a special significance everywhere, especially in the Eastern cultures. “Missing a wedding reception is excusable, but not a funeral,” you are reminded every now and then. That is why elaborate rituals and prayers are conducted on the funerals and cremations, three days, 10 days and even 40 days after the death. And then there are followed by annual memorial services.
Societies suffering oppression and terrorism use funerals as a means of collective healing and protest – Ireland, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan are examples from the recent past.
- See more at: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/moral-failure/#sthash.UKzvqCav.dpuf

Mourning loss of life has a special significance everywhere, especially in the Eastern cultures. “Missing a wedding reception is excusable, but not a funeral,” you are reminded every now and then. That is why elaborate rituals and prayers are conducted on the funerals and cremations, three days, 10 days and even 40 days after the death. And then there are followed by annual memorial services.
Societies suffering oppression and terrorism use funerals as a means of collective healing and protest – Ireland, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan are examples from the recent past.
- See more at: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/moral-failure/#sthash.UKzvqCav.dpuf

Mourning loss of life has a special significance everywhere, especially in the Eastern cultures. “Missing a wedding reception is excusable, but not a funeral,” you are reminded every now and then. That is why elaborate rituals and prayers are conducted on the funerals and cremations, three days, 10 days and even 40 days after the death. And then there are followed by annual memorial services.
Societies suffering oppression and terrorism use funerals as a means of collective healing and protest – Ireland, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan are examples from the recent past.

Funerals are a means of collective healing and protest

When the then-president Farooq Leghari failed to offer a word of sympathy after the whole Christian village of Shantinagar was burned and 14 churches destroyed in 1997, it saddened all people of good will. The PML-N had won the elections a few days ago, failing to sympathize with the Christian community in clear terms until they settled in the saddle of power comfortably. This moral failure to respond became a part of the collective memory.
In 1998 when Bishop John Joseph laid down his life in protest against the death penalty given to Ayub Masih, the ministers for Information and Religious Affairs gave provocative and misleading statements.
In 2009, when six Christians were burnt alive and several dozen houses were robbed and set ablaze in Gojra, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif only scheduled a visit to the site after the Christian MPAs from his party threatened to resign en bloc. The MPAs remembered that the Judicial Inquiry report on Shantinagar under their party’s government had remained inconclusive. The mention of this fact by some Church leaders during his visit to Gojra extracted some pledges from the chief minister. The Judicial Inquiry report of the Gojra incident was completed and handed over, but it was finally released by the caretaker government of Punjab in 2013. There hasn’t been even a single conviction in court.
The burning of around 80 houses in Joseph Colony in Lahore in 2013 received an immediate response.  Lahore has a large Christian population and the elections were only on a month away, so it is easy to be skeptical about the motive.  Perhaps we can deduce that the PML-N chief minister had learned from the past.

The PTI had no clue how to respond

It was a colossal loss for the Christian community where in this one single incident in Peshawar 84 lives were lost and over a hundred were injured. The PTI simply had no clue how to respond, especially when the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had already faced criticism on his naive proposal of reserving sanitation work for Christians in his province.
The reaction of the Christian youth, which so far lived by the image of ‘healers and teachers’ set by the generations of Pakistani Christians, was anger. They were somewhat aggressive in Peshawar and Karachi.
Discrimination institutionalized on the basis of religion has taken its toll. Treating painful realities with arrogance adds insult to injury. The opinion of the minority Christians may not matter a lot politically speaking, but defying fairness will deprive the leadership of their legitimacy as duty bearers of the common good.
- See more at: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/moral-failure/#sthash.UKzvqCav.dpuf

Young Christians are angry for a reason

India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria on slavery's list of shame, says report

18/10/2013

Hong Kong (CNN) -- A new report claiming to be the most comprehensive look at global slavery says 30 million people are living as slaves around the world.

The Global Slavery Index, published by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation, lists India as the country with by far the most slaves, with an estimated nearly 14 million, followed by China (2.9 million) and Pakistan (2.1 million).

The top 10 countries on its list of shame accounted for more than three quarters of the 29.8 million people living in slavery, with Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh completing the list.

In terms of countries with the highest of proportion of slaves, Mauritania in West Africa topped the table, with about 4% of its 3.4 million people enslaved, followed by Haiti, Pakistan, India and Nepal.

READ MORE: Mauritania -- slavery's last stronghold

The index, whose authors claim it contains the most authoritative data on slavery conditions worldwide, is the product of Australian mining magnate and philanthropist Andrew Forrest's commitment to stamp out global slavery.

Forrest, ranked by Forbes as Australia's fifth richest man, with an estimated net worth of $5.7 billion, adopted the cause after his daughter volunteered in an orphanage in Nepal in 2008, where she encountered victims of child sex trafficking. Forrest is a signatory to the Giving Pledge started by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, whose members commit to donating at least half their wealth to philanthropic causes.

The index, which draws on 10 years of research into slavery and was produced by a team of 4 authors supported by 22 other experts, is the inaugural edition of what will be an annual report. It ranks 162 countries according to the number of people living in slavery, the risk of enslavement and the robustness of government responses to the problem.

Walk Free policy and research manager Gina Dafalia told CNN the report was intended to shine a spotlight on the issue, and quantify the extent of the problem in different countries before anti-slavery initiatives were launched. So far, she said, Walk Free, along with partners Humanity United and the Legatum Foundation, had pledged a total of $100 million to stamp out the practice.When we started working in this area we realized that we didn't have a good understanding of what exactly the situation of slavery is in the world," she said. "We needed that information before we started doing any interventions."

The index gives a higher estimate of the global number of slaves than other reports -- a report by the International Labor Organization last year pegged the number at 20.9 million.

Dafalia said this was a result of the Global Slavery Index using a broader definition of slavery, which included human trafficking, forced labor, as well as practices such as forced marriage, debt bondage and the exploitation of children.

"Our definition of modern slavery includes, for example, forced and servile marriage, a concept not included in the ILO estimate, given the focus on 'forced labor,'" she said.

The explicit definition used in the report was "the possession and control of a person in such a way as to significantly deprive that person of his or her individual liberty, with the intent of exploiting that person through their use, management, profit, transfer or disposal. Usually this exercise will be achieved through means such as violence or threats of violence, deception and/or coercion."

Kevin Bales, one of the report's authors and co-founder of Free the Slaves, said that the global number of slaves was difficult to quantify. But through methods including random sample surveys, researchers were able to arrive at an estimate. "We were able to go to households and say 'Has anything like this happened to anyone in your family?'" he said.

He believed the index, which he hoped would provide "a bit of a wake-up call" to the world's governments, had a margin of error of between 5-10%. "We always erred on the conservative side."

Asked why 30 million continued to live in conditions of slavery in 2013, Dafalia said the reasons varied from country to country, but one constant was that it remained a "hidden problem."

In some of the worst-hit countries, the report said, the affected parties were citizens ensnared in endemic, culturally-sanctioned forms of slavery -- "the chattel slavery of the Haratins in Mauritania, the exploitation of children through the restavek practice in Haiti, the cultural and economic practices of both caste and debt bondage in India and Pakistan, and the exploitation of children through vidomegon in Benin."

In other examples, including Nepal, Gabon and Moldova, it was migrants who were most vulnerable to exploitation. In many examples, noted the report, child and forced marriage was prevalent and child protection practices weak.

It noted that in India, the country with the most slaves, the risk of enslavement varied markedly from state to state.

The Middle East and North Africa, it said, showed the highest measured level of discrimination against women, with one result being a high level of forced and child marriages within the region, and widespread exploitation of trafficked women as domestic workers and prostitutes. Vulnerable male migrants also frequently found themselves in exploitative working conditions.

In contrast, said Bales, countries like Brazil led the world in anti-slavery efforts. "It has a national plan to eradicate slavery. It has a dirty list where it has every company that's ever had slavery pollute their products, they have special anti-slavery police squads."

He rejected the suggestion that the term "slavery" was an overly emotive or misleading way of defining people who were trapped by crushing poverty.

"I spend a lot of time talking to people who have been or are in slavery, and when you talk to them about it, they know what the situation is," he said.

"We're not talking about bad choices, we're not talking about crummy jobs in a sweatshop. We're talking about real life slavery -- you can't walk away, you're controlled through violence, you're treated like property."

Teacher 'raped, murdered and left in dumpster'

15/10/2013

Murdered' Lauren Paterson with her boyfriend James Grima.

A British teacher is feared murdered after she went missing during a night out in Qatar's popular nightclub scene.

Friends of Lauren Patterson, who had just flown to the Middle Eastern country after attending her grandmother's funeral, claim the 24-year-old had been raped and murdered, the Daily Mail reported. Those close to her said she had told them she was being taken to the wrong house by a group of men.

The young woman was last seen by a friend with her ex-boyfriend and another Qatari man in a nightclub at the five-star La Cigale hotel in Doha

Though what happened next is still not clear.

It was claimed on Twitter that Patterson had been murdered.

"Lauren was raped and brutally murdered," a friend close to her said.

"Her body was found in the dumpsters behind La Cigale."

They also claim her ex-boyfriend had flown to Saudi Arabia, while the other man had been detained by Qatari police with a bruised lip.

The arrested man, a friend of Patterson's ex-boyfriend, told police his lip injury was from an altercation with a taxi driver.

He also claimed that Patterson had been dropped off in front of the wrong house by a taxi.

The man was later released after police searched his apartment.

Current boyfriend James Grima mourned the suspected death of his girlfriend in touching messages on a Facebook page set up to try and find her.

"She was a truly remarkable girl, my rock, always there for everyone. I know she's in heaven now in her Daddy's arms," he wrote.

‘Rest In Peace babe ... I will always look up at the sky cause you always were the brightest star and always will be.

‘I love you so much babe, I really do and I can’t get over the fact that you were taken away so cruelly, it really breaks my heart to think about it. I know you’re watching over us, wherever you are, and I know that I will meet you again one day."

He had earlier launched an online appeal to find the missing woman, but revealed a few hours later she had been found dead.

Her mother, Alison, also posted a tribute on the page: "Thank you so much to everyone for all their wonderful words about Lauren."

A spokesperson for the British Foreign Office said: A spokesman said: "We are aware of a British national, Lauren Patterson, reported missing in Qatar."

‘We are providing the family with consular assistance.’

Thousands with secondary breast cancer ‘being failed’

12/10/2013

Thousands of women living with secondary breast cancer are being “failed” by the health service and urgent action needs to be taken to improve care and support services, a leading charity has said.

Breast Cancer Care believes that big gaps in data on how many women suffered from the condition have left health commissioners unprepared, leading to “chaotic” care for increasing numbers of women living with the incurable, but treatable, disease.

Estimating that 36,000 people could be living with secondary breast cancer, the charity called for urgent action to improve data on rates of the disease, particularly in Scotland and Wales.

Secondary, or metastatic, breast cancer is a cancer that has spread to another part of the body, usually some time after an initial breast cancer diagnosis. A diagnosis of secondary breast cancer means that the cancer can be treated but it can’t be cured.

However, drugs and other treatments can control and slow down its spread. Improvements in treatments mean that more women are now living longer, increasing the urgency of ensuring they have access to effective services, the charity said. “People living with secondary breast cancer are still being failed,” said Diana Jupp, Breast Cancer Care’s director of services and campaigns.

“We’re calling on all cancer registries to record all recurrent and secondary breast cancer diagnoses so that the NHS can plan and deliver care and support. Unless we know the numbers of people living with secondary breast cancer nobody can plan how to deliver care.”

The charity said women had come to them saying they felt “invisible and ignored”. “We know from the research we’ve done that many people living with secondary breast cancer have a very chaotic experience of care, where they don’t have a named nurse,” said Ms Jupp. “It’s an incredibly tough experience to be going through without good care and support and it seems deeply unfair on anyone who is diagnosed.”

In England, it is now mandatory for data on secondary breast cancer rates to be recorded by the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN), but Breast Cancer Care said coverage was “patchy”. Di Riley, acting head of the NCIN said: “[We] think it’s important to collect information along the whole pathway of cancer treatment, including patients with recurrence of metastatic disease.”

Case study: ‘There is life after diagnosis’

Lesley Frame, 40, a radiographer from East Kilbride, was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer eight years ago.

When I was diagnosed I felt completely alone. I felt the information available didn’t pertain to me. I didn’t end up using many support services because I didn’t feel there was anything there for me.

I was one of the first at my local hospital to get Herceptin, which has helped me manage the condition. But I have problems going for job promotions, moving house, going on holiday – all this is restricted because I can’t get life insurance and I have to get my Herceptin every three weeks. I’m at work full time, I haven’t been side-lined, there is life after diagnosis.

Saudi Arabian preacher who beat his five-year-old daughter to death is jailed for just eight years and sentenced to 600 lashes

09/10/2013
A Saudi Islamic preacher accused of torturing his five-year-old daughter to death has been sentenced to just eight years in jail and 600 lashes.

Lama suffered multiple injuries including a crushed skull, broken ribs and back, bruising and burns. She had also been raped repeatedly.

Lama al-Ghamdi died in October 2012 having suffered multiple injuries. Her skull was crushed, a finger nail had been pulled off, her ribs and arm broken and she suffered extensive bruising and burns.
There were also reports that she’d been repeatedly raped, though this was denied by her mother.
The case sent shockwaves around the world earlier this year and there was further outrage when it appeared that her father, Fayhan al-Ghamdi, would be released by a Saudi court after just a few months in prison.
The mother, Syeda Mohammed Ali, told CNN in February: 'My dear child is dead, and all I want now is justice so I can close my eyes and know she didn't die in vain. She was brutally tortured in the most shocking ways.'
A campaign began to force the court, in the town of Hawta, to stiffen the sentence.
The same court and judge july re-examined the case, but there is anger once more that the punishment for Al-Ghamdi, a prominent Islamist preacher who regularly appears on television in Saudi Arabia, is too lenient.

Lama spent ten months in hospital before succumbing to her injuries

Earlier this year activists from the group Women to Drive said the preacher had doubted Lama's virginity and had her checked up by a medic.
Randa al-Kaleeb, a social worker from the hospital where Lama was admitted, said the girl's back was broken and that she had been repeatedly raped.
Her injuries were then burned.
Rather than the death penalty or a long prison sentence, the judge in the case ruled the prosecution could only seek 'blood money', according to activists.
The money is compensation for the next of kin under Islamic law.
Activists said the judge ruled the few months al-Ghamdi spent in prison since his arrest in November 2012 was sufficient punishment.
He has reportedly agreed to pay £31,000 ($50,000), which is believed to have gone to Lama's mother.
The amount is half that would have been paid if Lama had been a boy.
A social media campaign quickly gained momentum after the ruling was publicised.
Manal al-Sharif launched a campaign on Twitter using the hashtag 'Ana Lama', which means ‘I am Lama’, calling for better protection for children and women.

We must talk to Taliban to get peace: Malala

08/10/2013

Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban for championing girls’ rights to education has said talks with the militants are needed for peace.

Malala Yousafzai was attacked by a gunman on a school bus near her former home in Pakistan in October 2012.

The targeting of a schoolgirl who had spoken out for girls’ rights to education caused outrage in Pakistan and around the world.

The 16-year-old was treated in the UK and now lives in Birmingham. She spent months in hospital and required several operations to repair her skull.

In her first in-depth interview since the attack, Malala told the BBC that discussions with the Taliban were needed to achieve peace.

“The best way to solve problems and to fight against war is through dialogue,” she said.

“That’s not an issue for me, that’s the job of the government… and that’s also the job of America.”

In July, plans for talks involving the Taliban, the US and the Afghan government were frustrated by a row over the status of the Taliban’s newly opened office in Doha, Qatar.

Malala said it was important that the Taliban discussed their demands.

“They must do what they want through dialogue,” she said.

“Killing people, torturing people and flogging people… it’s totally against Islam. They are misusing the name of Islam.”

Malala also described the day of the attack for the first time. She said the street her school bus was travelling on was unusually deserted before the vehicle was flagged down and the gunman opened fire.

“I could see that there was no-one [there] at that time.

“Usually there used to be so many people and boys and they used to be standing in front of shops. But today… it was vacant.”

The teenager, who gave a speech to the UN in July, also spoke of her desire to return to Pakistan and enter politics.

“I will be a politician in my future. I want to change the future of my country and I want to make education compulsory,” she said.

“I hope that a day will come [when] the people of Pakistan will be free, they will have their rights, there will be peace and every girl and every boy will be going to school.”

Malala among Nobel favourites

05/10/2013

STOCKHOLM: This year’s Nobel prize season opens on Monday with rumours swirling that the peace prize could go to Malala Yousufzai, Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege or rights activists from Russia or Belarus.

The first Nobel to be announced will be the medicine prize on Monday, when the jury in Stockholm will reveal the winner or winners at about 11.30am. But like every year, most of the speculation is about who will take home the prestigious peace and literature prizes.

A record 259 nominations have been submitted for this year’s peace prize but the Norwegian Nobel Institute never discloses the list, leaving amateurs and experts alike to engage in a guessing game ahead of the October 11 announcement.

The head of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, Kristian Berg Harpviken, follows the work of the peace prize committee closely and has since 2009 published his own shortlist of possible winners — though he has yet to correctly pick the laureate.

Topping his list this year is Malala. Mr Harpviken said she “not only has become a symbol of girls’ and children’s right to education and security, but also of the fight against extremism and oppression”.

But others suggest the prize would be too heavy to bear given her young age of 16. Tilman Brueck, the head of Stockholm peace research institute SIPRI, told Norwegian news agency NTB that, 

He suggested the award could instead go to Colombia’s peace negotiators or Myanmar’s reformists.

Asle Sveen, a historian specialising in the peace prize, meanwhile said he thought the five committee members could give the nod to Congolese gynaecologist Dr Mukwege.

The doctor has set up a hospital and foundation to help thousands of women who have been raped in strife-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by local and foreign militants, as well as by soldiers in the army.

“The secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Geir Lundestad has repeatedly said the conflict in DR Congo has not gotten enough attention,” Mr Sveen told NTB.

Human Rights Watch said the committee could also choose to honour rights activists in Russia, following the worst crackdown since the fall of the Soviet Union. Activists in Belarus, often described as Europe’s last dictatorship, were another possibility, said the group.

Russian women activists such as Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Svetlana Gannushkina and Lilia Shibanova could be serious candidates, or rights group Memorial and jailed Belarussian rights activist Ales Belyatski.

Meanwhile, Malala has added another award to a growing list of prizes she has received in recent months.

On Friday she was given the RAW in WAR Anna Politkovskaya Award, named after the Russian journalist who was shot dead seven years ago.

Malala was presented with the award in London and said she hoped she could be,

“I admire Anna’s dedication to truth, to equality, and to humanity,” she added.

The award was presented by the so-called “British Schindler”, Nicholas Winton, who in 1939 saved the lives of more than 600 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia as World War II was about to start.

-Contribution by AFP

Iran bill allows men to marry adopted daughters

05/10/2013

According to a story published in The Guardian, Iran has passed a law, which if approved by the Guardian Council, would allow men to marry their adopted daughters once the child reaches the age of 13.

Human rights activists have expressed dismay that the bill opens the door for men to use the law to marry their own adopted daughters if the court rules that it's in the interest of the child.

In Iran girls under the age of 13 can still be legally married, but it requires a judge's approval.

Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer with the London-based group Justice for Iran said that law essentially legitimises child abuse.

"This bill is legalising paedophilia," she said. "It's not part of the Iranian culture to marry your adopted child. Obviously incest exists in Iran more or less as it happens in other countries across the world, but this bill is legalising paedophilia and is endangering our children and normalising this crime in our culture."

Iranian officials are arguing that the law has been enacted out of practicality since adopted girls are forced to wear a hijab around their fathers.

'With this bill, you can be a pedophile and get your bait in the pretext of adopting children,' Sadr said.

Whether or not the law will get the final stamp of approval by the country's Governing Council is still a question but the outcry among activists has been vocal.

Underage marriage is a real concern in the country where it has been reported that there were 42,000 children between the ages of 10 and 14 who were married in 2010.

In 2012, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Majles (the Iranian parliament) told the press that they regard the law that prohibits girls below the age of 10 from being married off as "un-Islamic and illegal."

In August of this year, a court in India's capital stirred up controversy when it said marriage with an underage girl was permissible under Indian Law.

The city court in Delhi said that provisions of the the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) Act suggested that where a physical relationship is undertaken with a minor girl – which is neither sexual assault nor has consent been taken by unlawful means – no offence can said to have been committed.

According to a Times of India report, the court made these observations while acquitting a 22-year-old native of West Bengal of charges of kidnapping and raping a 15-year-old girl, with whom he had eloped and later married.

Torture-murder of a 24-year-old Indonesian maid in her employers house in Malaysia

August 2007

The torture-murder of a 24-year-old Indonesian maid in her employers house in Malaysia last week is just the tip of the iceberg of a litany of human rights abuses foreign workers there are subjected to.

Abuses that regularly result in workers who arrive in Malaysia full of dreams of improving their life and sending money home for the education of their children, returning home with broken bodies, shattered spirits or as in this case, dead.

While Malaysian officials have attempted to play down this latest killing, claiming abuse of foreign workers is a rare occurrence, the facts belie this.

In commenting on the this latest incident, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda, pressed for Kuala Lumpur’s firmness in handling the case, and said “this kind of incident has happened frequently.”

“Stern prosecution actions are needed to give a shock therapy to other Malaysian employers so that they would not abuse, but treat Indonesian workers based on their rights.”

This view is echoed by Irene Fernandez, director of Malaysian NGO Tenaganita, a non-profit organization focusing on migrant advocacy, who said incidents such as this are “happening too often.”

According to Ms Fernandez, 45 Indonesian workers have died in Malaysia so far this year from a variety of causes, including torture by abusive employers.

The NGO has documented more than 1,050 human rights violations ranging from rape to physical abuse over the last two years.

“An average of six to seven violations were recorded per case, but in more serious cases, there can be up to ten violations. The most common violations are non-payment of wages and physical abuse.

“As long as the Malaysian government does not address this fundamental issue, such incidents will continue to happen. We should feel ashamed of such incidents,” she added.

In this latest incident the body of a 24-year old woman named Kunarsih, who like many Indonesians used only one name, from Demak in Central Java, who had only been working in Malaysia for four months, was found bludgeoned to death in the home of her employer in Pucong Perdana, Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysian police have detained the employer, Goo Eng Keng, but are still looking for his 29-year-old wife, Chen Pei Ee, who went missing after the incident.

According to reports, the young woman had bruises all over body and died from blunt force injuries to her chest and abdomen.

This has lead to claims that the woman had been tortured prior to her death. A view was supported by Tatang B Razak, Head of the Task Force for the Protection and Service of Indonesian citizens at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, who said “her whole body was swollen . . . it’s very clear that it’s because of torture.”

In 2004 Indonesian’s and Malaysian’s alike were outraged and repulsed when a 19-year-old Indonesian domestic worker, Nirmala Bonat from Kupang in West Timor, was found by a security guard at Villa Putra Apartments in Jalan Tun Ismail, an upscale condominium complex, crying, severely bruised and bleeding from the head and mouth.

Ms Bonat said that she was abused for the first time when she accidentally broke a mug while washing it, and for the previous five months, her employer’s wife would abuse her everyday with a hot iron, pouring hot water on her, and using other objects to hit her.

Photo’s of the woman’s burned and scalded body that appeared in the media created such an outcry due to their horrific nature that the Malaysian government was forced into issuing a public apology over the incident, expressing disgust and shame.

The wife of Ms Bonat’s employer, 35-year-old mother of four, Yim Pek Ha, was accused of poured boiling water on her, beating her, and pressing a hot iron on her breasts and back as punishment for mistakes in ironing clothes. Following her rescue she was treated for second and third-degree burns.

As is typical in such cases in Malaysia, a day after the arrest of his wife, Ms Bonat’s employer filed a complaint against the maid, saying that the wounds on her body were self-inflicted and accused her of stealing RM10, 000 ($US2,870.00) from his home.

Despite being charged with four counts of causing hurt with dangerous weapons and facing a maximum of 80-years imprisonment, and in spite of promises by senior Malaysian politicians, including Prime Minister Dato Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, that maximum penalties would be applied, the case is still ongoing.

While Yim is free to continue her life unimpeded, released on RM85,000 ($US24,300) bail, due to immigration rules Ms Bonat is confined to a shelter at the Indonesian embassy.

Domestic workers in Malaysia have few rights

The problem is that foreign workers, especially those employed as domestic workers, have very few rights as Malaysia specifically excludes domestic workers from most standard labour protection laws that cover other workers.

Malaysia is second only to Saudi Arabia in the number of Indonesian’s working as domestic workers, and Indonesians are the lowest paid of all who work in this field.

Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia typically work 16 to 18 hour days, seven days a week, and earn around $US3.30 (Rp31,000) a day. This is half the amount of a Filipina domestic worker who only has to work six days a week is paid.

This salary discrepancy, according to Indonesia’s Ambassador to Malaysia, Dr. H Rushdihardjo, is because, “Indonesian maids don’t have the same level of skills as Filipina maids. The primary difference is that Filipina maids speak English, whereas Indonesian maids can just do cooking and cleaning.”

The majority of employers hold foreign workers passports and Indonesian domestic staff are not permitted to carry cash for the first two years of employment. In addition, it is not uncommon for employers to refuse to allow Indonesian domestic workers to write or telephone their families back home, and the majority are confined to their work premises.

Most are forced to ‘live in’ with employers, though many are not even provided with a room of their own – sleeping with the children they look after, or even on the kitchen floor. Many do not receive their salary until the end of the standard two-year contract.

Ms Fernandez, said many domestic workers suffer psychological, physical, and sexual assault by labor agents and employers, and “at the end of the day, we consider such practices bonded labor.”

Over the years NGO’s and the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur have received thousands of complaints from domestic workers about working conditions, wages or abuse and each month more than 1,500 Indonesian maids run away from their employers, citing abuse, dissatisfaction with long working hours, lack of freedom of movement, or unpaid salaries as the reason.

The number of Indonesian workers running away from employers and seeking refuge at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur reached such a magnitude, that a few years ago it was forced to build a two story compound inside the embassy grounds to accommodate them.

Even now more than 100 Indonesian domestic workers were being sheltered at the embassy after complaining about abusive employers.

Eka Suripto, an official at the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur, said the lack of enforcement and prosecution of abusive employers was compounding the problem.

Domestic workers in Malaysia who complain find themselves subject of a counter complaint

“Once we finish with the relevant processes, we have to negotiate with the employers for a settlement, such as unpaid wages, and then send the women back to Indonesia.”

Commenting on the death of Kunarsih, Mr Suripto said, “certainly this matter will be further investigated. But the lack of law enforcement is leading to an increasing number of maid abuse cases.”

According to Dr. Rushdihardjo, there is a pattern to the abuses reported against Indonesian domestic workers. “If its sexual it’s the Indians, if it’s physical it’s the Chinese – and the Malays don’t pay,” he said.

In a double whammy situation, many foreign workers who flee their abusive employers find themselves being prosecuted under Malaysia’s immigration laws and jailed instead of receiving assistance.

Because most employers keep the employee’s passports, it’s difficult for the foreign workers to prove they are in the country legitimately, while others who have demanded unpaid wages often end up being reported for threatening or assaulting their employers.

In the rare cases where a domestic worker does lodge a complaint against an employer, inevitably the employer lays a counter charge that the worker has stolen from them, and/or inflicted the injuries herself. Malaysian police are more disposed towards proceeding against the foreign worker than against their fellow citizens.

While each time the case of an abused worker is highlighted the Malaysian government mutters it’s regret and makes statements it will come down hard on abusive employers, the abuses continue to occur.

Ms Fernandez says, “each time there is a reaction that something must be done but there has been no political commitment to see it through.”

This lack of political commitment was amply demonstrated earlier this month when the Malaysian government refused to sign a declaration aimed at improving the levels of protection provided to foreign migrant workers at the 40th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Ministerial Meeting (AMM).

Titled, ‘The Statement on the Establishment of the Asean Committee on the Declaration of the Protection and Promotion of the Migrant Workers’, the declaration was supposed to show a forward movement in protecting and guaranteeing the rights and status of foreign workers.

While Asean heads of state had signed the declaration during the leaders’ summit hosted by the Philippines in Cebu last January, the signing of the declaration at the AMM would have elevated it to a more legally binding arrangement.

The declaration particularly called for stronger protection and improved conditions for migrant workers in the region, and assigned “obligations” on both the “sending” and “receiving” states. However, despite all prior indications it would sign the document, Malaysia withheld it’s signature at the last minute.

Malaysia’s stubborn resistance to providing levels of protection to domestic workers is as well documented as the cases of abuse it allows to happen

It was only last year, after more than four years of intense diplomatic lobbying and pressure by Indonesia, that Malaysia finally passed a law that salaries of Indonesian domestic workers had to be paid into a bank account in their name, and that salaries needed to be banked each month.

However the new law, which came into effect in June of last year, gives employers a period of up to two years to comply with it. and will not affect Indonesian domestic workers already working in Malaysia. Employers will only need to abide by the new arrangements when renewing their employee’s two-year contracts.

Under the agreement employers will also be required to sign personal contracts with their domestic workers stipulating the wages agreed upon by both parties, and the domestic worker must sign a letter of acceptance before they can start work.

Employers are also barred from withholding pay for the first five months of a contract as is often the practice now.

Prior to this agreement the first five months of an Indonesian domestic workers salary was paid to Indonesian agents who claimed it was to cover the costs incurred in sending the domestic worker from Indonesia.

While a step in the right direction, the new arrangements only apply to Indonesian domestic workers and are not applicable to those from other countries.

Malaysia refuses to set a minimum wage for Indonesian domestic workers

A major hurdle in the two countries not reaching agreement earlier was Indonesia’s attempt to secure a minimum monthly wage of RM500 ($US143.00) per month, a demand that the Malaysian’s refuse to succumb to.

Tan Sri Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, Malaysia’s Home Affairs Minister, said the reason why Filipina maids get paid more is that, “The Philippines have set the rate in their law.

“Indonesia has asked but we’ve said no because we’ve got 320,000 Indonesian maids in Malaysia and if we say there is a fixed wage our employers – Malaysian’s – will say ‘no, no, no I can’t afford to pay that.”

He also doesn’t think Indonesian domestic workers should be given a day off. He claims, “you work in the house. You are part of the family. That’s how Malaysian’s accept maids here. There are so many of them here. If they went out it would create a lot of problems.”

In response to the high number of maids who flee their employer each month, a labor law introduced in 2006 allows domestic workers to change their employer twice during the two-year contract of employment.

However, the domestic worker “must reimburse the first employer based on the period of actual service rendered and then charge the new employer fees and levies proportional to the remaining period of the worker’s contract.”

In spite of the publicity generated over Kunarsih’s death, it was only a matter of days before another Indonesian domestic worker, identified as Parsiti, made headlines as she attempted to flee from her abusive employer.

According to press reports, Parsiti was forced to climb out the window of a 17th-floor apartment to escape her employer, who she claimed strangled her and beat her with a rattan stick. This was the second incident in two months where an Indonesian domestic worker had been forced to seek escape from abusive employers by exiting through high-rise apartment windows.

Just days later Tenaganita and Malaysian police rescued 148 abused Indonesian maids in the Klang Valley after receiving over 200 calls through its domestic workers action line.

25% of Malaysia’s workforce are immigrants

Malaysia remains one of the largest importers of foreign labor in Asia. Approximately 25 per cent, or between 2.5 to 3 million people out of its 11 million workforce is comprised of foreign migrants, primarily employed in manufacturing (33 per cent), palm oil plantations (23 per cent), domestic service (26 per cent) and construction (18 per cent).

Of this figure only some 1.8 million are legal and have valid work permits and according to official Malaysian government figures, 1.2 million of the foreign workers come from neighboring Indonesia.

While Malaysia has made headlines over the brutal sweeping campaigns it conducts to find illegal workers, along with mandatory caning of those who overstay their visa, the country seems to have an insatiable appetite for imported labor.

Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) executive director, Professor Emeritus Datuk Dr Mohamed Ariff, claims the number of foreign workers in Malaysia is expected to exceed five million by 2010.

Much of this growth will be in the construction industry, with the current ninth Malaysian Plan (9MP) setting a growth target of 3.5 per cent in this sector alone.

The majority of modern Malaysia’s towering skyscrapers, as well as the administrative capital of Putrajaya, was built by foreign labour. In fact the first person buried in the Putrajaya cemetery was an Indonesian construction worker killed on the job.

Malaysia depends on its cheap workforce

Shamsuddin Bardin, Malaysian Employers Federation Director, says foreign workers are employed in the “three D jobs that Malaysians don’t want – dirty, dangerous and difficult.”

The country also has the largest number of domestic workers in Asia. More than 400,000 domestic workers are currently registered with approximately 90 per cent, or 360,000, from poor rural areas of Indonesia.

In addition, it is estimated there is up to another 20,000 undocumented Indonesian woman employed as domestic help.

Human rights groups and NGO’s have long tried to highlight the litany of human rights abuses taking place against foreign workers in Malaysia, but often these reports and abuses go unreported, even in the local media.

However conditions are unlikely to improve in the near future. Just as Malaysia depends on its cheap workforce, Indonesia relies heavily on the many billions of dollars sent home by its citizens working abroad. Money that is spent on educating their children and building homes in their villages.

Indonesia needs to do much more to protect the rights of it foreign workers if incidences such as this are not to be repeated over and over again.

In March 2003 Indonesia temporarily suspended issuing visas for those wanting to work as maids overseas. Officially the ban was implemented so the maids could be better trained, but Indonesian MPs had complained that they faced abuse abroad.

Perhaps its time to impose such a ban again. As well as time to crack down heavily on the unlicensed labor traders who prowl the nations villages and send uneducated, untrained and ill-prepared young women off to the abusive households of Malaysia in exchange for a handful of Rupiah.

The only way to reduce incidences of abuse and violence against domestic workers is to ensure that their rights are protected. This is the role of Indonesia’s lawmakers. The only way to ensure Indonesian domestic workers receive a more realistic reward for the labour is to establish skills training centers that at the very least put Indonesian workers on an equal footing with their counterparts from the Philippines.

In the meantime, Malaysian politicians need to stop giving lip service only to the problem, and set minimum punishment laws for abusive bosses to show that they truly value the contribution these workers make to their economy