Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Preparing for Peace - The Palestinian Way


In this mailing:
  • Khaled Abu Toameh: Preparing for Peace - The Palestinian Way
  • Uzay Bulut: Austria Must Recognize Alevism as Distinct from Islam
  • Jagdish N. Singh: India: The Upper House of Parliament Must Help Muslim Women, Endorse the Bill Banning the Practice of "Triple Talaq"

Preparing for Peace - The Palestinian Way

by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  January 29, 2019 at 5:00 am
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  • If, in the eyes of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, normalization with Israel is an act of "treason," a "crime" and a "big political and national sin," the Trump administration may well be wasting its time and prestige on a peace plan that envisions peace between the Arab countries and Israel, at least at this time.
  • To achieve peace with Israel, Palestinian leaders need to prepare their people -- and all Arabs and Muslims -- for peace and compromise with Israel, and not, as they are now doing, the exact opposite. Shaming and denouncing Arabs who visit Israel is hardly a way to prepare anyone for peace, or the possibility of any compromise.
  • Meanwhile, the Trump administration and the international community would be doing a real service to the Palestinians if they start paying attention to assaults on public freedoms, including freedom of the media, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Holding Palestinian leaders accountable for their systematic abuses of public freedoms, assaults on journalists and incitement is the only way to encourage badly needed moderate and pragmatic Palestinians and Arabs to speak out.
While the Palestinian Authority continues to arrest and intimidate Palestinian journalists in the West Bank, its loyalists are also waging a campaign against Arab journalists who dare to visit Israel. (Image source: iStock)
While the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to arrest and intimidate Palestinian journalists in the West Bank, its loyalists are also waging a campaign against Arab journalists who dare to visit Israel.
This month alone, the PA security forces have arrested nine Palestinian journalists, according to the Palestinian Committee for Supporting Journalists.
One of the journalists, Yousef al-Faqeeh, 33, a reporter for the London-based Quds Press News Agency, was taken into custody on January 16. On January 27, a PA court ordered al-Faqeeh remanded into custody for 14 days. His family said that they still do not know why he was arrested.
Al-Faqeeh's wife, Suhad, said that PA security officers raided their house; when Yousef asked whether they had a search warrant, they proceeded to arrest him. "They took him to an unknown destination and did not provide a reason for his arrest," she said. "They also confiscated his computer and mobile phone."

Austria Must Recognize Alevism as Distinct from Islam

by Uzay Bulut  •  January 29, 2019 at 4:30 am
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  • "Anyone who studies and researches our faith a little bit would understand that. Alevism is a distinct faith. Alevism has been affected by Christianity, as well. Does that make [it] a branch of Christianity? And Islam has been affected by Judaism. Is Islam a branch of Judaism?" -- Zeynep Arslan, Vice-President of the Austrian Federation of Alevi Unions.
  • "Although the officials of the lands where we live have signed agreements of international law, they never implement what is required by the law. Our religious rights and freedoms are guaranteed by international law, but our places of worship, cem houses, are not recognized [by the government]; our taxes are collected without our consent to be used to pay the salaries of imams who reject or insult us... Alevi school children still have to enroll in compulsory Islamic courses, in spite of rulings by the European Court of Human Rights." – Public statement by Alevi leaders in Turkey, in support of the Austrian Federation of Alevi Unions, January 3, 2019.
  • Alevis have been suffering from Islamic intolerance in their home country, Turkey, for a century. They are now struggling against rising Islamic supremacism in Europe. Let us hope that Austria's high court does the right thing this week and accepts their petition to be recognized as a distinct faith.
The Austrian Supreme Administrative Court is set to issue a ruling on a petition by the Austrian Federation of Alevi Unions to have their religion officially recognized as separate from Islam. Pictured: The Supreme Administrative Court building in Vienna. (Image source: Bwag/Wikimedia Commons)
The Austrian Supreme Administrative Court is set to issue a ruling on a petition by the Austrian Federation of Alevi Unions to have their religion officially recognized as separate from Islam -- and not part of the updated version of the 1912 Islam Law, which went into effect in 2015. The new law recognizes two "Islamic religious societies" -- the Islamic Community in Austria, which represents Islam's Sunni sects, and the Islamic Alevi Community in Austria, which is defined as an "Islamic sect."
Austrian Federation of Alevi Unions president, Özgür Turak, told Gatestone about the legal struggle for official recognition of Alevism as distinct from Islam:

India: The Upper House of Parliament Must Help Muslim Women, Endorse the Bill Banning the Practice of "Triple Talaq"

by Jagdish N. Singh  •  January 29, 2019 at 4:00 am
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  • The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has argued that the bill amounts to interference with religious law, and therefore violates the Constitution of India. This objection might be thought of as disingenuous. According to Article 44 of the Constitution, "The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India."
  • By contrast, triple talaq is a unilateral, arbitrary tool in the hands of men against women, a condition what that is simply not acceptable in modern India.
  • For decades, Indian courts have upheld the precedence of Muslim women's right to equality over Muslim Personal Law. The court ruled in 1985 that the denial of alimony was a violation of Bano's fundamental rights, regardless of her religion, and that triple talaq ran contrary to those rights. In other words, Muslim women must enjoy the same rights as other women in India.
  • India's Parliament must do the right thing for the country's Muslim women, as it did nearly 64 years ago for the country's Hindu women. Until the passage of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Hindu women in India were not at liberty to divorce their husbands, while Hindu men were free to engage in polygamy. It will be a shattering miscarriage of justice if oppositionist politicians succeed in blocking this much-needed bill.
The Indian Parliament building in New Delhi. (Image source: Shahnoor Habib Munmun/Wikimedia Commons)
The Narendra Modi government in New Delhi deserves applause for passing the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018, which criminalizes the practice of "triple talaq" -- a medieval, patriarchal divorce procedure still in use in many Muslim communities in India and abroad. All this procedure requires for a man to divorce his wife is to repeat the word "talaq" three times.
In order for the bill -- passed by India's Lower House of Parliament (Lok Sabha) on December 27, 2018 -- to be written into Indian law, it needs approval by the Parliament's Upper House (Rajya Sabha).
In an attempt to keep this from happening, radical Islamist groups, such as the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), are attempting to join forces with opposition parties to torpedo the bill. Oppositionists on the left have accused the bill of violating fundamental human rights and of constituting "an assault on the Muslim family structure."
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