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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"
by Khaled Abu Toameh • January
29, 2019 at 5:00 am
- 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."
by Uzay Bulut • January 29, 2019
at 4:30 am
- "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:
by Jagdish N. Singh • January 29,
2019 at 4:00 am
- 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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