Op-Ed: State Law or Law of the Jungle? Women Tortured in Iraq & HIV+ Men Tortured in Egypt

From the Middle East Times

OP-ED: Natasha Bukhari

State Law or Law of the Jungle?

Published: February 14, 2008

Disturbing and tragic events in the Middle East are a daily occurrence, sadly enough. So much so, that we have grown accustomed to news of suicide bomb attacks killing tens of innocent bystanders in Iraq, or of many Palestinian civilians falling victim "by accident" to one of Israel's hunts for Hamas militants in Gaza.

Watching your own suffer due to injustice brought about by political struggle and occupation must be one of the worst feelings known to mankind, as it does not only remind one of one's own crippling helplessness, but it also unveils that all-so-common ugliness we humans can be capable of manifesting.

Two news items that surfaced last week provoked such feelings in me. Upon reading them, I instantly felt sick, angry, and, most of all, helpless. I was suddenly engulfed by a whirlwind of negative emotions that I, being a believer in the law of attraction, struggled to get rid of, but to no avail.

The first stomach-churning item was news of horrific images revealed to a CNN correspondent by Basra police. Reportedly, the police file revealed images of women tortured and killed for failing to adhere to "rules" imposed by secret fundamentalist groups there.

These rules, according to accounts by women living there, could be having to wear the veil, or not wearing lipstick; and not following them can lead to punishments as severe as mutilation, torture, and beheading.

While we are not unfamiliar with consequences of blind fanaticism, it is still hard to believe that a woman can be killed in front of her children for failing to wear a headscarf, just like it is hard to believe that in Basra last year 133 women were killed by anonymous perpetrators who decided to play god.

These "violations of Islamic teachings" by women led to their deaths and the destruction of their families as well as the terrorizing of a whole community.

While one would argue that such unlawful acts of persecution were brought about by the absence of any jurisdiction after the war on Iraq and the chaos that ensued afterwards, it is still very difficult to fathom the idea that the most basic human right of personal choice and living in dignity can be trampled on by your own people in the name of religion.

The second reported incident is even more condemnable, if that is at all possible, because if true, it is tantamount to persecution by the state of its own citizens, and is in no way related to the absence of the rule of law as is the case with the Basra crimes.

According to press reports, Human Rights Watch has claimed that HIV-positive Egyptian men are tortured and chained to hospital beds while awaiting homosexuality trials.

The report said that the men were forced to undergo HIV tests and were subjected to forced anal tests to "prove" their homosexuality. Some were then chained to hospital beds for hours awaiting "debauchery" trials.

The human rights group condemned these practices as "torturous," "unjust," and "ignorant." It also decried the treatment of HIV patients as criminals instead of providing them with the necessary medical attention.

Steering clear from any undue judgment of or argument regarding homosexuality, religious or otherwise, such practices by the state, which is supposed to be the protector of its citizens, are downright shocking. It is our governments that we should turn to if or when our rights are threatened. It is our judicial system that should be the guarantor of our most basic rights, and it is our medical system that we turn to for treatment when unwell, regardless of the reasons behind our ill-health.

What many in positions of power in our part of the world fail to understand is that allegiance is earned and not enforced. When any system starts unlawfully prosecuting its subjects, the repercussions will be grave. After all, the law of attraction never fails. What goes around does indeed come around.

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Natasha Bukhari is a freelance journalist based in Dubai and a former press adviser to the prime minister of Jordan.

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Human Rights Groups Condemn Egypt's Crackdown on HIV Positive Men

From the Human Rights Watch (HRW)

For Immediate Release (Arabic follows)

 

Egypt: Spreading Crackdown on HIV Endangers Public Health

Rights Violations Drive Those in Need Underground

 

(Cairo, February 15, 2008) – Cairo police arrested four more men suspected of having HIV, signaling a wider crackdown that endangers public health and violates basic human rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today in a joint statement.

 

The recent arrests bring to 12 the number of men arrested in a campaign against people police suspect of being HIV-positive. Four have already been sentenced to a year in jail and eight are still in custody. The two organizations called on Egyptian authorities to respect the men's human rights and to immediately release them so as not to cause lasting damage to the country's HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

 

"In their misguided attempt to apply Egypt's unjust law on homosexual conduct, authorities are carrying on a crackdown against people living with HIV/AIDS," said Rebecca Schleifer, advocate for the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "This not only violates the most basic rights of people living with HIV. It also threatens public health, by making it dangerous for anyone to seek information about HIV prevention or treatment."

 

The most recent arrests occurred after police followed up on information coerced from men already in detention, according to the Health and Human Rights Program of the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). Two of the newly detained men tested positive for HIV. One had his detention extended by 15 days at his February 12 court hearing, with the prosecutor and judge both claiming he was a danger to public health. Another has a hearing scheduled for February 23.

 

As in all previous cases, authorities forced the new detainees to undergo HIV testing without their consent. All those testing positive have been held in Cairo hospitals, chained to their beds.

 

"Arbitrary arrests, forcible HIV tests, and physical abuse only add to the disgraceful record of Egypt's criminal justice system, where torture and ill-treatment are greeted with impunity," said Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui, deputy director of Amnesty International' s Middle East and North Africa Program.

 

The wave of arrests began in October 2007, when police intervened between two men having an argument on a street in central Cairo. When one of them told the officers that he was HIV-positive, police immediately took them both to the Morality Police office and opened an investigation against them for homosexual conduct. Police demanded the names of their friends and sexual contacts during interrogations.

 

The two men told lawyers that officers slapped and beat them for refusing to sign statements the police wrote for them. The men spent four days in the Morality Police office handcuffed to an iron desk, and were left to sleep on the floor. Police later subjected the two men to forensic anal examinations designed to "prove" that they had engaged in homosexual conduct.

 

Such forcible examinations to detect "evidence" of homosexuality are not only medically spurious, but also can amount to torture.

 

Police then arrested two more men because their photographs or telephone numbers were found on the first two detainees. Authorities subjected all four men to HIV tests without their consent. All four are still in detention, pending prosecutors' decisions on whether to bring charges of homosexual conduct. The first two arrestees, who reportedly tested HIV-positive, are still being held in hospital, handcuffed to their beds.

 

A prosecutor reportedly told one of the men who tested positive for HIV: "People like you should be burnt alive. You do not deserve to live."

 

In November 2007, police raided an apartment where one of these men had previously lived, and arrested four more men. All were charged with homosexual conduct. These men told lawyers that police ill-treated them by beating one across the head, and forcing all four to stand in a painful position for three hours with their arms lifted in the air. Authorities also tested these men for HIV without their consent.

 

A Cairo court convicted these four men on January 13, 2008 under Article 9(c) of Law 10/1961, which criminalizes the "habitual practice of debauchery [fujur]" – a term used to penalize consensual homosexual conduct in Egyptian law. Defense attorneys told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that the prosecution based its case on the coerced and repudiated statements taken from the men, without providing witnesses or other evidence to support the charges, which all the men denied. On February 2, 2008, a Cairo appeals court upheld their one-year prison sentences.

 

Criminalizing consensual, adult homosexual conduct is a violation of Egypt's obligations under international human rights law to respect and protect individual privacy and personal autonomy. The apparent use of Article 9(c) in these cases to detain people on the basis of their declared HIV status, and to test them without their consent for HIV infection, also violates those international protections, as well as the prohibition on arbitrary detention. Amnesty International considers that the imprisonment of individuals for actual or alleged consensual same-sex relations between adults in private is a grave violation of human rights, and that individuals held solely on that basis are prisoners of conscience who should be immediately and unconditionally released.

 

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urged the Egyptian authorities to immediately cease any arrests based on people's real or suspected HIV status. In addition to seeking the release of all 12 men, the two organizations also called on authorities to end the practice of chaining detainees to their hospital beds, and to ensure that the men receive the highest available standard of medical care for any serious health conditions.

 

The two organizations urged Egypt to undertake training for all criminal-justice officials on medical facts and international human rights standards in relation to HIV, and to halt immediately all testing of detainees without their consent.

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on the current crackdown, please visit:

http://hrw.org/ english/docs/ 2008/02/05/ egypt17972. htm

 

To read the March 2004 Human Rights Watch report, "In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct," please visit:

http://hrw.org/ reports/2004/ egypt0304/

 

For more information, please contact:

In London, Nicole Choueiry, Amnesty International (Arabic, English, French): +44-78-31-640- 170 (mobile)

In London, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International (Arabic, English, French): +44-77-68-888- 934 (mobile)

In Cairo, Gasser Abdel-Razek, Human Rights Watch (Arabic, English): +20-22-794-5036; or +20-10-502-9999 (mobile)

In New York, Scott Long, Human Rights Watch (English): +;1-212-216-1297; or +;1-646-641-5655 (mobile)

In New York, Rebecca Schleifer, Human Rights Watch (English, Spanish): +;1-212-216-1273

 

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للنشر الفوري

 

مصر: توسيع نطاق الحملة ضد الإيدز يُعرِّض الصحة العامة للخطر

انتهاك الحقوق يدفع بمن يحتاجون الرعاية للاختباء

 

(القاهرة، 15 فبراير/شباط 2008) – قالت منظمة العفو الدولية وهيومن رايتس ووتش اليوم في بيان مشترك إن الشرطة المصرية اعتقلت أربعة رجال آخرين للاشتباه بالإصابة بالإيدز، وهي بادرة توحي بتوسيع الحملة ضد الإيدز؛ مما يُعرِّض الصحة العامة للخطر وينتهك حقوق الإنسان الأساسية.

 

وإثر الاعتقالات الأخيرة أصبح عدد الرجال المعتقلين في الحملة ضد الأشخاص الذين تشتبه الشرطة في إصابتهم بالإيدز هو 12 شخصاً. وتم الحكم على أربعة منهم بالفعل بالسجن، وما زال ثمانية رهن الاحتجاز. وطالبت المنظمتان السلطات المصرية باحترام حقوق الرجال الإنسانية وأن تخلي سبيلهم فوراً حتى لا تسبب ضرراً مستديماً يلحق بجهود البلاد للوقاية من مرض نقص المناعة المكتسبة (الإيدز).

 

وقالت ريبيكا شليفر، المتحدثة باسم برنامج الإيدز وحقوق الإنسان في هيومن رايتس ووتش: "في إطار محاولتها المُضللة لتطبيق قانون مصر غير العادل الخاص بالسلوك المثلي، تستمر السلطات في شن حملة ضد الأشخاص المصابين بالإيدز"، وتابعت قائلة: "وهذا لا ينتهك فقط أكثر الحقوق أساسية لدى الأشخاص المصابين بالإيدز، بل هو أيضاً يهدد الصحة العامة، بجعل سعي أي شخص للحصول على المعلومات عن الوقاية أو العلاج من الإيدز أمر ينطوي على الخطورة".

 

وقد وقعت الاعتقالات الأحدث إثر تحرك الشرطة بناء على معلومات تم استخلاصها بالإكراه من الرجال المُحتجزين، حسبما ذكر برنامج الصحة وحقوق الإنسان في المبادرة المصرية للحقوق الشخصية. واتضح إصابة اثنين من الرجال المحتجزين حديثاً بالإيدز. وتم تجديد حبس أحدهما لمدة 15 يوماً في جلسة محكمة بتاريخ 12 فبراير/شباط، وزعم فيها الادعاء والقاضي معاً أن هذا الشخص خطرٌ على الصحة العامة. وتم تحديد موعد جلسة أخرى في 23 فبراير/شباط.

 

وكما حدث في الحالات السابقة جميعاً، فقد أجبرت السلطات المحتجزين الجدد على الخضوع لاختبار الإيدز دون موافقتهم. وتم احتجاز كل من اتضح إصابتهم بالإيدز في مستشفيات بالقاهرة، مع تقييدهم إلى أسرّتهم بالسلاسل.

 

وقالت حسيبة حاج صحراوي، نائبة مدير برنامج الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا في منظمة العفو الدولية: "إن الاعتقالات التعسفية واختبارات الإيدز الجبرية والإساءات البدنية لا تفعل أكثر من الإضافة إلى سجل نظام العدالة الجنائية المصري الشائن، حيث يلقى كل من التعذيب والمعاملة السيئة احتفاءً يتمثل في التمكين من الإفلات من العقاب جراء ارتكابهما".

 

وقد بدأت موجة الاعتقالات في أكتوبر/تشرين الأول 2007، حين تدخلت الشرطة في شجار بين رجلين في أحد شوارع وسط القاهرة. وحين قال أحدهما للضباط إنه مصاب بالإيدز؛ نقلتهما الشرطة فوراً إلى قسم شرطة الآداب وفتحت تحقيقاً ضدهما للاشتباه بالتورط في السلوك المثلي. وطالبت الشرطة أثناء التحقيقات بأسماء أصدقائهما ومن تربطهم علاقات جنسية بهما.

 

وقال الرجلان للمحامين إن الضباط قاموا بصفعهما وضربهما جرّاء رفض التوقيع على أقوال كتبتها الشرطة لهما. وأمضى الرجلان أربعة أيام في قسم شرطة الآداب وهما مقيدا الأيدي إلى مكتب حديدي، وتُركا ليناما على الأرض. وفيما بعد عرّضت الشرطة الرجلين لاختبارات طب شرعي شرجية مصممة لـ"إثبات" أنهما متورطان في سلوك مثلي.

 

ومثل هذه الاختبارات المصممة للتحقق من وجود "الدليل" على المثلية الجنسية، ليست فقط خاطئة طبياً، بل هي أيضاً ترقى لمستوى كونها تعذيباً.

 

ثم اعتقلت الشرطة رجلين آخرين جراء العثور على صور فوتوغرافية لهما أو أرقام هواتفهما مع أول شخصين محتجزين. وعرّضت السلطات الرجال الأربعة لاختبارات الإيدز دون موافقتهم. وما زال الأربعة جميعاً رهن الاحتجاز بانتظار قرارات الادعاء بتوجيه الاتهامات إليهم بانتهاج السلوك المثلي. وما زال أول شخصين معتقلين منهم، اللذان أفادت التقارير ثبوت إصابتهما بالإيدز حسب الاختبارات، رهن الاحتجاز في المستشفى، وهما مقيدان إلى سريريهما.

 

وتناقلت التقارير إخبار أحد رجال الادعاء لأحد الرجال الذين اتضح إصابتهم بالإيدز: "أمثالك يجب أن يحرقوا أحياءً. أنت لا تستحق الحياة".

 

وفي نوفمبر/تشرين الثاني 2007، داهمت الشرطة شقة سكنية كان يقيم فيها أحد هؤلاء الرجال فيما سبق، واعتقلت أربعة رجال آخرين. وتم توجيه الاتهام إليهم جميعاً بالتورط في السلوك المثلي. وقال هؤلاء الرجال للمحامين إن الشرطة أساءت معاملتهم بضرب أحدهم على رأسه وإجبار كل الأربعة على الوقوف في وضع مؤلم لثلاث ساعات فيما كانت أذرعهم مرفوعة في الهواء. كما اختبرت السلطات الرجال الأربعة للتحقق من الإصابة بالإيدز دون موافقتهم.

 

وأدانت محكمة بالقاهرة هؤلاء الرجال الأربعة في 13 يناير/كانون الثاني 2008 بموجب المادة 9(ج) من قانون رقم 10 لسنة 1961، والذي يُجرّم "اعتياد ممارسة الفجور" وهو مصطلح يستخدم لتجريم السلوك المثلي الطوعي في القانون المصري. وقال محامو الدفاع لمنظمة العفو الدولية وهيومن رايتس ووتش إن النيابة أسندت قضيتها إلى بيانات مستخلصة بالإكراه تبرأ منها أصحابها وتم أخذها من الرجال، وهذا دون استدعاء شهود أو غيرها من الأدلة لدعم الاتهامات التي أنكرها كل الرجال. وفي 2 فبراير/شباط 2008 أيدت محكمة استئناف بالقاهرة الحُكم بالسجن لمدة عام على الرجال.

 

وتجريم السلوك المثلي الطوعي بين البالغين ينتهك التزامات مصر بموجب القانون الدولي لحقوق الإنسان فيما يتعلق بوجوب حماية خصوصية الأفراد وحرية الفرد في بدنه. والاستخدام الظاهر للمادة 9 (ج) في هذه القضايا لاحتجاز الأشخاص بناء على إصابتهم بالإيدز، ولاختبارهم دون موافقتهم للتحقق من إصابتهم بالإيدز، ينتهك أيضاً تدابير الحماية الدولية، والحق في حرية الفرد في بدنه. وتعتبر منظمة العفو الدولية أن حبس الأفراد جراء إقامة علاقات جنسية مع أشخاص من نفس الجنس طوعاً، سواء حدثت هذه العلاقات فعلياً أو بموجب مزاعم بهذا، هو انتهاك جسيم لحقوق الإنسان، وأن الأفراد المحبوسين بناء على هذا السبب فقط هم من سجناء الرأي ويجب أن يُخلى سبيلهم فوراً ودون شروط.

 

ودعت منظمة العفو الدولية وهيومن رايتس ووتش السلطات المصرية لأن توقف فوراً اعتقالات الأفراد بناء على إصابتهم بالإيدز أو للاشتباه بالإصابة. وبالإضافة لطلب إخلاء سبيل الاثني عشر رجلاً، طالبت المنظمتان السلطات أيضاً بإيقاف ممارسة تقييد المحتجزين إلى أسرّتهم بالمستشفى، وضمان أن جميع الرجال يلقون أعلى مستوى متوافر من الرعاية الطبية لأي مضاعفات صحية جسيمة قد تكون لديهم.

 

ودعت المنظمتان مصر إلى تدريب مسؤولي العدالة الجنائية جميعاً على الحقائق الطبية ومعايير حقوق الإنسان الدولية الخاصة بالإيدز، وبأن يكفوا فوراً عن إجراء الفحوصات على المحتجزين دون موافقتهم.

 

للمزيد من تغطية هيومن رايتس ووتش عن هذه الحملة، يُرجى زيارة:

http://hrw.org/ arabic/docs/ 2008/02/05/ egypt17979. htm

 

للاطلاع على تقرير هيومن رايتس ووتش الصادر في مارس/آذار 2004 بعنوان "في زمن التعذيب: إهدار العدالة في الحملة المصرية ضد السلوك المثلي"، يُرجى زيارة: http://www.hrw. org/reports/ 2004/egypt0304/ egypt0304arabic. pdf

 

لمزيد من المعلومات، يُرجى الاتصال:

في لندن، نيكول شويري، العفو الدولية (العربية والإنجليزية والفرنسية): +44-78-31-640- 170 (خلوي)

في لندن، حسيبة حاج صحراوي، العفو الدولية (العربية والإنجليزية والفرنسية): +44-77-68-888- 934 (خلوي)

في القاهرة، جاسر عبد الرازق، هيومن رايتس ووتش (العربية والإنجليزية): +20-22-794-5036 أو +20-10-502-9999 (خلوي)

في نيويورك، سكوت لونغ، هيومن رايتس ووتش (الإنجليزية): +;1-212-216-1297 أو  +;1-646-641-5655 (خلوي)

في نيويورك، ريبيكا شليفر، هيومن رايتس ووتش (الإنجليزية والإسبانية):

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Bahrain to Clamp Down on Homosexuals

From the Gulf Daily News - Thursday, February 14, 2008

Gays to face new clamp

By MOHAMMED AL A'ALI

A NATIONWIDE crackdown on homosexuals could be launched in Bahrain,
including tougher immigration checks to stop foreign gays entering
the country. It would include a study to determine how widespread
homosexuality is in Bahrain.

Parliament's foreign affairs, defence and national security
committee has already backed the proposal, which would force the
government to carry out the study.

The proposal was submitted by MPs belonging to the Al Menbar
parliamentary bloc.

It is in response to what MPs see as Bahrain's growing gay problem
and foreigners found to be gay face deportation, said committee
secretary Jalal Fairooz.

He said the study was being carried out despite the fact that the
Education Ministry claims there are no homosexuals in schools.

However, Mr Fairooz had no suggestions on how such a study could be
carried out, saying it would be up to the government to decide.

"The Interior Ministry has told us that it already bans suspected
homosexuals as they try entering the country from Bahrain
International Airport," said committee secretary Jalal Fairooz.

However, he claimed the ministry said homosexuals pretend not to be
gay by posing "manly" until they make it past immigration.

"They look manly as they come to the airport, but when they get in
they return back to their unaccepted homosexual attitude," said Mr
Fairooz.

"Homosexuals are found in huge numbers at hairdressing salons and
beauty and massage spas, which the ministry regularly inspects."

However, he said many homosexuals were slipping through the net
because the ministry was having problems determining if they were
gay or not.

"Those who look homosexual or offer customers personal services are
being caught by police and taken to the Public Prosecution, " he said.

He described gays as "dangerous" and a "threat to our society and
Islamic values".

"That's why the proposal asks the government to come up with a study
on the problem and eliminate it before it increases and becomes hard
to control, as more gays enter the country," he added.

MPs have approached the ministries of Information, Health and
Industry and Commerce, along with the Labour Market Regulatory
Authority, for their feedback.

However, they have said the issue was not in their remit.

The proposal will now be listed for discussion by parliament's
general-secretariat

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Orthodox Muslim Scholar Also Calls for ‘A Jihad for Love.’

From Egypt Today

A Daa'y Responds

Orthodox Muslim Scholar also calls for 'A Jihad for Love.'

In Islam, the consensus from all orthodox scholars is that the Qur'an and hadith (Prophet's sayings) condemn homosexual activity. A Jihad for Love has polarized the discussion of homosexuality among Muslims. Critics argue that Sharma portrays homosexual activity as permissible in Islam, while they contend that it clearly isn't. They also accuse Sharma of bias: As a gay Muslim man, they argue that he began the project with prejudices and a predefined position on homosexuality.

There are two main arguments Sharma and those featured in his documentary use to defend the way they live their lives. Presenting the opposing views is Moez Masoud, a young Egyptian daa'y (caller to Islam) and media expert who has studied under traditional scholars (including the Grand Mufti of Egypt Ali Gomaa). Masoud aired an episode in his 2007 Ramadan program The Right Way that was unprecedented in the history of religious TV programs: It was filmed in front of a gay cinema in London's Soho district and openly discussed homosexuality.

Argument one: Homosexual inclinations are not a choice, but rather they are biologically driven. In an online article, Sharma wrote that "homosexuality, a 'condition' as natural as heterosexuality, has thrived as long as Islam has, and has often spread rapidly through Islamic lands with the blessings of rulers, artists, poets, musicians, Sufi mystics and many others." Sharma then reasons that since it is an innate disposition, homosexuality cannot be a sin.

In his The Right Way episode, Masoud noted that the existence of a 'gay gene' remains an unproven theory, and there are other explanations behind homosexual inclinations – a widespread, though largely unjustified, example is sexual abuse. Many Muslim scholars agree that even if the 'gay gene' does exist, Islam stresses that humans are only responsible for actions they do voluntarily; inclinations, therefore, are not a sin, only the act.

"The argument is as follows: if the inclination is gene-related, then it is 'not bad' and can be followed," says Masoud. He points out that even if specific behavioral tendencies are wired into you, "that doesn't [...]make these behaviors good, nor should it lead society to allow and 'accept' them."

The reason Masoud believes a societymight accept homosexual activity, although it definitely wouldn't hesitate to arrest and punish a mugger with biologically explainable aggressivetendencies, is that this type of society "is based on a philosophical acceptance of materialism and a denial of the existence of the spirit [] and so is only able to see material losses but not spiritual harms."

A human being, according to Masoud, is made up of body, self and spirit, and therefore has a physical, psychological, and spiritual dimension to him. So even if there is shown to be a 'gay gene,' orthodox Muslim scholars will see it as God giving these men and women both a tribulation which they have to combat and an immense opportunity to draw closer to their spirituality.

"In that sense," he continues, "they will then truly be mujahideen (those involved in jihad). The [documentary] is correct in its use of the term of jihad but defines it incorrectly. When people who have homoerotic desires struggle against their inclinations, they are struggling against an act that satisfies their physical body [] but is against their spiritual self.

"The word sex is now assumed to be anything to do with pleasure and anything orgasmic. But sex is the unison of pairs, of male and female. The word 'know' in the Bible occasionally means sex. 'He knew her' means he slept with her, which means he got to know his other half, and acknowledged the 'other.' Sex cannot be devoid of acknowledgment of the other, so when it's two similar and not two opposites there is no knowing, no acknowledgment and no sex."

Masoud also points out that in addition to spiritual harms, homoerotic activity results in "severe witnessable physical harm," since it is not compatible with the human body's design. Increased vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases and to the HIV virus is also a risk, as well as to other diseases.

"We have to make a clear distinction between the act and the desire," explains Masoud. "The compulsive desire is not a sin, and only those who act upon it are sinning. Many people say that the person who engages in homosexual activities is an apostate, but Islam really says — and agrees with [Sharma] on this point — that the person is still Muslim, Muslim, Muslim, as long as he acknowledges that he is sinning. We need to reach out to these people, and I [personally] get many emails and telephone calls from youth suffering from this problem thinking they are damned even though they don't act upon their desires. We need to help them without disarming them of their spirituality. We, too, need to tell them who they are, but on all levels of existence: body, self and most importantly spirit."

Argument two: Sharma rebuts orthodox Islamic scholars who have interpreted the Qur'an and Hadith as forbidding homosexual relations by stating "that story [in the Qur'an] has nothing to do with consensual homosexual relations — it is about male-to-male rape. [Also] the Hadith of our beloved Prophet have been misinterpreted for centuries by men."

Sharma and those who agree with him have reached this conclusion through their own ijtihaad, the personal attempt to interpret scripture. "We were instructed by our Prophet (peace be upon him)" explains Sharma, "to actually engage in discussion about Islam after which we can form an opinion based on it with our own intelligence."

Scholars point out the hole in his logic—which is that the process of ijtihaad is not open to anyone, but only to those who have rigorously studied. Otherwise, anyone can open any book and make any fatwa (religious verdict) to suit his needs based on limited knowledge and information that is out of context.

"Only around 20 of over 100,000 companions of the prophet were "ahl estembat" (those who considered themselves qualified enough to actually interpret Qur'an and Hadith)" says Masoud. "Ijtihaad needs intensive training in language, purpose of Shariah and an academic awareness of the reasoning behind all other specialized mujtahids' (those who practiced ijtihaad) derived rulings. Unqualified, post modern readings of scripture are too focused on personal freedom and individual pleasure that they unintentionally take the verses out of both spiritual and scriptural context. Specialization is respected in all realms of life, and Sacred Law should be no exception.

"Also, if you [start the process of ijtihaad] with preconceived notions and then search for 'proof' in the Qur'an, you will see what you want to see — just like terrorists find justification for killing innocent non-Muslims in the Qur'an."

In the end, Masoud notes, one has to remember that "jihad is to struggle in the cause of good. It's a struggle for the sake of goodness, beauty, justice and truth. Homoerotic activity is not a manifestation of these universal principles; it's a violation of them and is in antithesis to the spiritual dimension. I love the title [of the movie] but when defined differently. We need to have jihad against extremism in society so we can learn to love the sinning person that is struggling, even though we hate their sin. And so, I too, call for a jihad for love."

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Adult Film Star's Remarks (on Islam) Spark Debate

From the Standford Daily Online - February 14, 2008

 

Adult film star's remarks spark debate

Tonight's speaker to address safe sex in pornography




February 14, 2008

By Kelley Fong

Gay pornographic actor and activist Michael Lucas will speak tonight in Cubberley Auditorium regarding the role of the adult entertainment industry in AIDS prevention. But some students have raised concerns over controversial remarks attributed to Lucas about the Arab and Muslim communities.

As a result of the comments, members of the group Queer & Asian (Q&A) voted through email not to co-sponsor the event. Of about 15 active members, approximately half voted against supporting the event, with the lone affirmative vote retracted after a Q&A member sent out an email with more information.

Lucas has spoken out against the Muslim faith for its condemnation of homosexuality. In a New York Blade op-ed, he wrote, "the Koran is today's 'Mein Kampf,'" alleging that the Koran inspires followers to kill homosexuals.

"We just found [his comments] really personal for our group, because we are queer and Asian, and one of our main purposes is to talk about the intersection of race and sexuality," said Q&A co-president Herwin Icasiano '10. "As representatives, in a way, of the Arab and Muslim community, I don't think it would be wise on our part to sponsor the event."

Lucas, whose talk is entitled "The Role of Safe Sex in Pornography and Cultural AIDS Prevention," is the founder and CEO of Lucas Entertainment, a New York-based gay adult film company. He is known for his safe sex and anti-drug advocacy — a stance that prompted the Speakers Bureau to invite him to Stanford.

Carrie Mlynarczyk '09, a member of the ASSU Speakers Bureau, said that Stanford has hosted pornographic stars to discuss AIDS prevention in the past.

"A lot of people always come to those events," she said. "And AIDS is clearly a big issue on campus, so this is just an interesting perspective."

Mlynarczyk said she had not read all of Lucas's statements. But from what she saw, "he was expressing his concerns on an issue as opposed to trying to make a blanket statement."

"Clearly I'm not going to support or agree with anyone who is racist or discriminates against other groups," she said. "But when I saw what people were saying was controversial, I was a little confused. It seemed he was simply making statements about the ways that gay people have been treated in specific cultures, or events that have happened."

Patrick Cordova '09, an undergraduate senator and Speakers Bureau member, said that while he does not condone Lucas's opinions, his comments are rooted in real criticism of homophobia and hatred around the world.

"Do they induce some hurt feelings? Yeah, it appears as if that's the case," Cordova said. "But I don't see that there is a real connection between pornography and Muslim issues. The issue of sexuality and of individuals being susceptible to HIV/AIDS transmission — that's not race- or religion-specific."

Still, student reactions to Lucas's selection as a speaker raise questions about racial and religious prejudice.

"If he had made those statements about black people or Jewish people or Native American people, would they still be tolerated?" said Fatima Hassan '09, president of the Muslim Student Awareness Network (MSAN). "I don't have a problem with the event — I just wonder why [his comments are] so tolerated."

Cordova said that Lucas's offensive statements should not preclude him from having an opportunity to speak on campus about a separate issue.

"If we want to cut down on racism and sexism and homophobia in this world, we need to confront it," he said, inviting students to engage in a dialogue with Lucas.

"I would be shocked if no one asked him about his political beliefs, and I hope people do," Cordova added. "I hope that some of the individuals who have spoken out against this event show up and ask the tough questions."

Though Icasiano said he believed challenging Lucas on his beliefs was important, he does not plan to attend the talk.

"[Some Q&A members] wanted to show to the queer community and the community of Stanford that we are not supporting this event," he said.

As of Tuesday night, Q&A members had not reached a consensus about whether they would boycott the event.

Speakers Bureau members emphasized the importance of open discussion despite some students' beliefs about Lucas.

"We didn't intentionally bring him here for speaking out against Muslims," said Speakers Bureau Director Meera Venu '08. "We obviously didn't mean to offend any communities, but we think that a discussion of ideas is productive."

Lucas' talk will begin at 7 p.m.

Queer Jihad: A View from South Africa - by Scott Siraj Kugle

From the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World

 

Review - August 2005

 

Full article in PDF form.

Whatever Happened to Saudi Reform?

From BBC - February 6, 2008

Whatever happened to Saudi reform?

Some are accused of fomenting protest among Saudi women

By Roger Hardy
Middle East analyst, BBC News

In February 2007 the Saudi secret police stormed the Jeddah villa of lawyer Issam Basrawi and arrested him and five other prominent reformists.

Four others were arrested in Jeddah and nearby Medina.

The 10 men were professional people - lawyers, doctors, academics, a former judge.

A year on, although Mr Basrawi has been released on health grounds, the rest are still in jail - even though none has been formally charged.

A lawyer representing some of the men says he has been denied access to them.

At the time of their arrest, the Saudi media alleged the men were financing acts of violence in Iraq and encouraging young Saudis to join the insurgency there.

One of the detainees, Saud al-Hashemi, was active in organising humanitarian aid for Iraq - and was strongly critical of the US presence there.

But the men's supporters are convinced their real crime was speaking out for political reform.

At the time of their arrest they were preparing to launch a reformist movement - and there is a suspicion the authorities wanted to nip their plans in the bud.

Hope betrayed

The current climate is in marked contrast to that in 2005, when King Abdullah came to the throne promising change.

Both Saudi and international human-rights activists believe 2007 witnessed an intensification of pressure on political dissent.

The current climate is in marked contrast to that in 2005, when King Abdullah came to the throne promising change.

Having pinned their hopes on him, reformists now feel he has failed to deliver.

Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan has been detained since December for speaking out on behalf of the jailed reformists.

Veteran Islamist Abdullah al-Hamed - who organised a petition last year calling for a constitutional monarchy - was arrested with his brother in November.

They were accused of encouraging a women's demonstration - a highly unusual event in the conservative kingdom - over the detention of thousands of al-Qaeda suspects.

But despite the pattern of arrest and harassment, the pressure for reform continues.

A group of reformists have posted a petition online on the Menber al-Hewar website, calling for the release of the nine reformists and their ally, the blogger Fouad al-Farhan.

Women's rights activists are openly pressing for the right to drive.

And liberal and Islamist reformists are joining hands to condemn a legal system which - despite the promise of judicial reform - is failing to protect their rights.

Parvez Sharma's Next Project, 'Musical' - Director's 'Jihad' Opened Berlin's Panorama Section

From Variety Magazine

February 9, 2008

Sharma finds next project, 'Musical'
Director's 'Jihad' opened Berlin's Panorama section

By ED MEZA

Parvez Sharma, whose "A Jihad for Love" opened this year's Panorama Dokumente section at the Berlinale on Friday, is heading back to his native India for his next project, a Muslim Bollywood pic tentatively titled "Jihad: The Musical."

Sharma has been traveling the international fest circuit with "A Jihad for Love," which explores the lives of gay and lesbian Muslims.

Pic, a strong contender for this year's documentary Teddy Award, has enjoyed a massive turnout in Berlin with a packed premiere, sold-out screenings and enthusiastic question-and-answers sessions.

"Islam is so contested in Europe right now and there has been a tremendous amount of resonance because people don't get to see films about Muslims by Muslims," said Sharma.

The helmer said he hopes the pic's success "points the way forward for more Muslim filmmakers to showcase their works in festivals in the West."

"A Jihad for Love" has attracted plenty of attention with what many see as a provocative title, but Sharma insists he's taking back the word "Jihad," which, in its traditional sense, can mean a personal religious struggle.

The doc has unspooled in Toronto, Rio, Morelia, Sheffield, Montreal, Delhi and Cape Town and will next travel to a slew of other fests, including Sydney, Thessaloniki and the Intl. Istanbul Festival for its first screening in a Muslim country. Pic is also headed for Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population on the planet.

First Run Features recently acquired U.S. theatrical and DVD rights to the doc, which was produced by Sandi Dubowski, who won the Teddy Award in 2001 for his pic about gay Orthodox Jews, "Trembling Before G-d." Sharma, who is based in New York, plans to travel to Bombay (Mumbai?) following his globetrotting tour to make a more light-hearted Bollywood pic.

Deeper Than the Skin: Films with Islamic Taboos Featured in Berlin

From NEWSWEEK Magazine

Feb 9, 2008

Deeper Than the Skin

This year's Berlinale features a number of films that deal with aspects of Islam long considered taboo.

Islam and homosexuality are rarely addressed in the same film. So when Indian director Parvez Sharma made "A Jihad for Love," a documentary about gay and lesbian Muslims, he wasn't terribly surprised to find himself embroiled in controversy. The film, which includes interviews with Muslim homosexuals from 12 countries, features an appearance by a gay imam from South Africa, where the Muslim Judicial Council issued a religious decree forbidding Muslims to see it. But when it screens this week at the Berlin International Film Festival, "A Jihad for Love" will no doubt receive a much warmer reception. It promises, says Sharma, "to engage European audiences with Islam in ways they did not even think were possible."

It's a goal clearly in vogue at this year's Berlinale, where fully a dozen films tackle complex and previously unexplored aspects of Muslim life. In "The Song of Sparrows," the Oscar-nominated Iranian director Majid Majidi tells the story of a modern-day Iranian family that moves from the suburbs of Tehran to the city, where the father falls upon hard times. Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss's documentary "Full Battle Rattle" focuses on the Iraqi-Americans who "play" Iraqis in the U.S. Army's Iraq simulation program in the Mojave Desert, contrasting the characters they play with their real-life stories of living in exile in America. These films come at a time when mistrust of Muslims remains high in Europe, and harsh stereotypes persist in the face of concerns over immigration, terrorist bombings and the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The films certainly don't shy away from the taboo. "The Aquarium," by Yousry Nasrallah, hints at the dangerous strain of Islam lurking around the edges of middle-class, educated Egyptian society. And "3 Women," by Iranian director Manijeh Hekmat ("Women's Prison"), tells the story of three generations of strong-willed Iranian women, each in search of meaning and liberation. Döndü Kilic's documentary "The Other Side of Istanbul" explores discrimination in Turkey's capital from the perspective of a gay man whose family has accepted his homosexuality, challenging traditional Islamic views. And Tanaz Eshaghian's documentary "Be Like Others" boldly examines the ramifications of undergoing a sex change in Iran.

Some of the most compelling offerings come from American and European filmmakers seeking to portray Muslims as individuals who are also confronting the complexities of modern life. In the documentary "Heavy Metal in Baghdad," directors Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi follow a group of young Iraqi musicians fighting to keep their band, their dreams and their sanity intact as their country disintegrates. The youths are cosmopolitan and fluent in English, driving home "how little [Westerners] know about the Iraqi people," says Alvi. Another war-based documentary, "S.O.P. Standard Operating Procedure," by Oscar winner Errol Morris ("The Fog of War"), unravels the human-rights violations at Abu Ghraib prison.

Perhaps the most in-depth Western portrait of Islam is French director Emmanuelle Demoris's "Mafrouza/Heart," about life in a shantytown of Alexandria, Egypt. Demoris interviews residents of this impoverished Muslim community and finds not angry extremists but shopkeepers joking about the local imam who doesn't pray enough, unveiled women dancing sensuously in the streets and residents boycotting services at a local mosque taken over by extremists.

Making movies with Islamic themes or characters can be dangerous work. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed for making "Submission." Benjamin Gilmour's debut feature, "Son of a Lion," takes place in the lawless North-West Frontier province of Pakistan, where men "carry around AK-47s like umbrellas," says the Australian director. Gilmour, 32, had to grow a full beard and don the traditional salwar kameez to win the trust of a local Pashtun clan, who protected him from Taliban operatives so he could film his story about a son's struggle to break away from the violent world of his ex-fighter father. Gilmour says he hopes the film "humanizes the Pashtun people, who are too readily placed in the terrorist basket." Judging from this year's crop of Berlinale films, the only basket suitable for Muslims is the one labeled "humanity."

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Faisal Alam
alam.faisal@gmail.com

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
  — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Saudis Clamp Down on Valentines

From BBC - February 11, 2008

Prices for black market roses are reported to be rising

Saudis clamp down on valentines

Religious police in Saudi Arabia are banning the sale of Valentine's Day gifts including red roses, a local newspaper has reported.

The Saudi Gazette quoted shop workers as saying that officials had warned them to remove all red items including flowers and wrapping paper.

Black market prices for roses were already rising, the paper said.

Saudi authorities consider Valentine's Day, along with a host of other annual celebrations, as un-Islamic.

In addition to the prohibition on celebrating non-Islamic festivals, the authorities consider Valentine's Day as encouraging relations between men and women outside wedlock - punishable by law in the conservative kingdom.

The Saudi Gazette reported that some people placed orders with florists days or weeks before Valentine's Day in anticipation of the ban, which is a regular occurrence.

"Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion," one florist said.

Others were planning to travel to the more religiously liberal neighbouring countries, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, to celebrate.

Saudi Arabian authorities impose a strict Islamic code that prevents men and women from mixing.

UN Calls for Saudi Women's Rights

From BBC - February 1, 2008

The UN says Saudi women face restrictions

UN call for Saudi women's rights

By Frances Harrison
Religious affairs reporter

Women in Saudi Arabia should be allowed more basic freedoms, according to a UN anti-discrimination committee.

It says the practice of needing a man's permission to marry, work, travel or be educated should end.

In a report, the committee also says there should be more laws offering protection to women.

But the Saudi government, in submissions before the report was published, said there was no discrimination against women.

Victims of crime

Overall the UN is very critical of Saudi Arabia's approach to women's rights. It even expresses concern about the Saudi state's understanding of the idea of equality - saying similar rights for men and women is not the same as equal rights.

The UN highlights the situation of women who have been victims of crime. In a recent case, a woman who was gang raped was initially sentenced to jail and lashes.

The court found she was wrong to have been with a man who was not her relative at the time of the attack.

The UN report says social attitudes and the system of male guardianship deter women from reporting crimes and lead to a patriarchal system.

Some improvements

It complains men and women do not have equal rights when it comes to marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance and says female illiteracy is still high in the world's top oil exporter.

The UN does concede there have been visible improvements in the number of women in the Saudi workforce, but complains there are too few women in politics.

Last month a Saudi delegation told the UN body - the committee on the elimination of discrimination against women - that human rights in the kingdom were based on Sharia law.

The delegation said Saudi society was still largely a tribal one where new ideas took time to be accepted.

Cool Reception for Asia's Gay Workers

From Financial Times (Germany)

February 7, 2008

Cool reception for Asia's gay workers

von Raphael Minder

Homosexual employees face discrimination across most of Asia, but global investment banks are at the forefront of change. The international dimension of investment banking is forcing employers to confront the issue of homosexual discrimination. Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank, recently held an unusual recruitment event at Hong Kong university. Lehman's invitation was specifically aimed at gay and lesbian students who aspire to be bankers.

Encouraged by the success of the presentation and buffet dinner for 50 students, Lehman is planning to extend its initiatives targeting the gay community this year. It will include the bank's first pro-gay activities in Singapore, the city-state that has become one of Asia's leading financial centres but where sex between men is illegal.

Lehman Brothers is not the only bank seeking to recruit from Asia's gay community. Such is the enthusiasm among investment banks that some have banded together to give their Asian events a higher profile, taking it in turn to organise lectures, dinners and other events around a gay or lesbian theme. In November, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Merrill Lynch and UBS co-sponsored a cinema evening in Hong Kong which featured The Bubble, a 2006 film about the gay relationship between a Palestinian and an Israeli soldier.

Investment banks' efforts to recruit more gays and lesbians is partly an attempt to attract the most talented employees. At a time when Asia has become the world's biggest region for deals such as initial public offering, investment banks are struggling to fill the new positions on offer. And the intense hiring competition makes it crucial to ensure talented gay people are not deterred from applying because of a combination of Asian intolerance and western macho behaviour on trading floors.

Cheryl de Souza, Lehman's Asia director of diversity and inclusion, says: "Walking across some of the floors in Hong Kong, you will find that we now have people who feel comfortable about having a picture of their [same-sex] partner on their desk and that's huge in terms of progress."

Furthermore, banks are increasingly committed to corporate social responsibility and best practice, which also helps explain why some US executives argue that they are ahead of their peers in pushing for sexual diversity. Christopher Jackson, a senior vice-president for Lehman in Tokyo, says: "The way we're tackling this in Asia certainly emanates to some extent from the fact that we're a US firm based in New York."

In most of Asia, gay people still face discrimination

What Lehman and some other investment banks are trying to achieve in Singapore and other parts in Asia runs counter to the region's cultural and legal environment. Homosexual people are broadly accepted in some countries, notably Thailand, the Philippines and Hong Kong, where gay sex was only decriminalised in 1991. But in most of Asia, gay people still face discrimination and censure - both in and out of the workplace - amid a blend of religious intolerance, family conservatism and legal bans, often inherited directly from British colonial rule. For instance gay sex is a criminal offence across the Indian subcontinent.

In Malaysia, a Muslim country where sodomy is a crime, police in November broke up a gay sex party in a fitness club on Penang and arrested 37 men aged between 20 and 45. The evidence gathered against them included used condoms found on the floor as well as six boxes of new condoms - which in many countries would probably be construed as a sign of responsible sexual behaviour.

Richard Welford, a director of CSR Asia, a consultancy focused on corporate social responsibility, says: "In the vast majority of cases in Asia, gays and lesbians have to stay hidden. Sometimes they will even make up boyfriends or girlfriends . . . But it does seem that in some sectors such as investment banking, businesses are taking the lead [in improving the situation for gay people]. You could say that they are ahead of Asian society there."

Investment banks are in a better position to push for change

This has not been the case in Asian retail banking. Unlike retail banks that have countrywide branch networks, investment banks are also in a better position to push for change because they generally operate only in a country's biggest city, where the population is usually most diverse and conservative attitudes are less entrenched than in second-tier cities and more remote Asian manufacturing centres.

The international dimension of investment banking is also forcing employers to confront the issue of homosexual discrimination more regularly than their counterparts in retail banking and other more local institutions. A recurring problem is the difficulty of getting investment bankers to relocate to countries that do not offer dependent visas for same-sex partners.

Still, the jurisprudence governing homosexuality is not necessarily the best guide as to where gay people will find it easiest to work in the Asia-Pacific region, according to some executives who gathered at a recent evening party of Fruits in Suits, an association that holds monthly events in Hong Kong.

Some even contrast life in Sydney, where the Mardi Gras celebration is one of the world's biggest annual gay events, with the macho working environment within parts of the Australian financial services industry, which one banker says is "a lot behind the curve".

India offers another intriguing situation, according to Stephen Golden, a vice-president at Goldman Sachs, who helps co-ordinate the bank's global leadership and diversity programme. He says: "India is one of those places where the laws relating to homosexuality haven't changed but society has. We have had employees who are openly gay and have been asked to transfer to India and have gone there without any issues. They understand the cultural environment and have had very good experiences."

"The least diverse office we have in Asia"

On the flip side stands South Korea, where there is no legislation banning gay sex but where gay people say they cannot be open about their sexuality for fear of being treated as social pariahs. Kay McArdle, who heads Goldman's diversity programme in Asia excluding Japan, describes Seoul as "the least diverse office we have in Asia".

Still, she finds reason for optimism in the current staffing problems that Korean firms are confronting. Recognition that there is a dearth of women in the workplace should eventually translate into broader improvements for gay people and others who struggle to gain acceptance in the Korean workplace, she argues. "The Korean government has recently been doing a huge push on getting women back into the workforce as many employers face acute staff shortages." Ms McArdle says. "They are getting up the curve, slowly but surely. And that is good news for diversity in general."

Violations of 'Islamic Teachings' Take Deadly Toll on Iraqi Women

From CNN

Police chief Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf holds a book cataloging the dead.

February 8, 2008

By Arwa Damon
CNN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.

The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.

"Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."

Her fear is justified. Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year -- 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

One glance through the police file is enough to understand the consequences. Basra's police chief, Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, flips through the file, pointing to one unsolved case after another. Watch Khalaf show evidence of the brutality »

"I think so far, we have been unable to tackle this problem properly," he says. "There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads."

"When I came to Basra a year ago," he says, "two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant."

The killers enforcing their own version of Islamic justice are rarely caught, while women live in fear.

Boldly splattered in red paint just outside the main downtown market, a chilling sign reads: "We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you."

The attacks on the women of Basra have intensified since British forces withdrew to their base at the airport back in September, police say. Iraqi security forces took over after British troops pulled back, but are heavily infiltrated by militias.

And tracking the perpetrators of these crimes is nearly impossible, Khalaf says, adding that he doesn't have control of the thousands of policemen and officers.

"We're trying to trace crimes carried out by an anonymous enemy," he says.

Amnesty International has raised concern about the increasing violence toward women in Iraq, saying abductions, rapes and "honor killings" are on the rise.

"Politically active women, those who did not follow a strict dress code, and women [who are] human rights defenders were increasingly at risk of abuses, including by armed groups and religious extremists," Amnesty said in a 2007 report.

Sometimes, it's just the color of a woman's headscarf that can draw unwanted attention.

"One time, one of my female colleagues commented on the color of my headscarf," Safana says. "She said it would draw attention ... [and I should] avoid it and stick to colors like gray, brown and black."

This extremist ideology enrages many secular Muslim women, who say it's a misrepresentation of Islam.

Sawsan, another woman who works at a university, says the message from the radicals to women is simple: "They seem to be sending us a message to stay at home and keep your mouth shut."

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Sawsan says, the situation was "the best." But now, she says, it's "the worst."

"We thought there would be freedom and democracy and women would have their rights. But all the things we were promised have not come true. There is only fear and horror."

Sawsan, a university worker, says the message to women is clear: "Stay at home and keep your mouth shut."

Safana, 30, says she lives in fear: "I don't know who to be afraid of."

Senegal: Five Detained After Gay Wedding Story

From the Independent Online - South Africa

February 5, 2008

Five detained after gay wedding story

Dakar - Five people have been detained and more are under investigation in Senegal over alleged death threats against the editor of a magazine which ran an article on a homosexual wedding, police said on Tuesday.

"Five individuals have been taken into custody for the moment. The first ones on Saturday, all are being held in detention" at the police criminal investigations division, police told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The source declined to give details of the interrogations, but added that "the inquiry is ongoing, and other people are being investigated."

According to local media, these detentions followed death threats against the editor and a photographer for the magazine Icone, which published a story last week on a same-sex wedding, graphically illustrated with pictures of two men exchanging rings and several dozen guests whose faces were partially blackened.

Homosexuality is outlawed in Senegal, a majority Muslim country in west Africa.

Under Senegalese laws acts "against nature with an individual of the same sex" are punishable with a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a fine of between 100,000 CFA francs (about R1,7-million) to one million francs.

The newspaper Le Populaire on Tuesday reported that five suspected homosexuals were in detention and that an Icone photographer had been questioned by police on Monday and later released. - Sapa

Berlin Film Fest Brings Fringe Muslims into Focus

From AFP

February 10, 2008

People queue to buy tickets for the 58th Berlin International Film Festival

BERLIN (AFP) — People living on the margins of Muslim society, from a heavy metal band in Iraq to transsexual Iranians and a gay Kurdish man in Turkey, managed to get their voices heard at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

A clutch of documentaries examining subjects considered taboo in Muslim countries have played to packed audiences at the annual event, together with feature films offering different takes on contemporary life in Egypt, Iran and Pakistan.

Setting the tone was Indian director Parvez Sharma's "A Jihad for Love," about gays and lesbians who are also devout Muslims, which kicked off the 10-day festival's Panorama Documentary section.

The film interviews Muslim homosexuals from 12 countries, including a gay imam in South Africa, a lesbian couple in Istanbul, an Egyptian who spent a year in prison for being gay before fleeing to Paris, and four young men who fled Iran for their lives and now live as political refugees in Canada.

"Islam is the heart of this film. They are proud to be gay, but fundamentally they're coming out as Muslims and saying they're as Muslim as anybody else, and their Islam is as true and fundamental as anybody else's," Sharma said in his blog from at the Berlinale.

Tanaz Eshaghian's "Be Like Others" examines the ramifications of undergoing a sex change in Iran, where such operations are legal to young gay men who opt for gender change rather than undergo steady harassment and abuse.

"Iran doesn't allow much room to be anything other than a man or a woman," said Eshaghian who interviewed a number of patients who passed through a Tehran sex-change clinic.

"These people just didn't fit in, and when you don't fit in, as a result you push up against the logic of a culture. Everyone else takes it as common sense, but not fitting in shows what common sense is," she said.

Another group of young men finding it tough to fit in are the members of Acrassicauda, who bill themselves as the only thrash-metal band in Iraq.

The subject of the documentary "Heavy Metal in Baghdad," some of the band members speak a fluent English gleaned from American movies and littered with "dude" references, profanities and pledges to just "keep on rockin'".

The film documents the band's efforts to realise their musical ambitions as Baghdad descends into anarchy and violence following the fall of Saddam Hussein.

At one point, the drummer, Marwan, speaks of death threats they received from religious hardliners "saying that we were Americanised and playing Satan's music".

The end of the film finds most of the group relocated to Damascus in Syria and, according to director Suroosh Alvi who attended the screening in Berlin, they have since been granted refugee status in Turkey.

Turkey is the setting for another documentary shown here, "The Other Side of Istanbul" by Dondu Kilic, which explores discrimination in the Turkish capital from the perspective of a gay Kurdish man, Mehmet Tarhan, whose family has accepted his homosexuality.

"So you're anti-military, gay and Kurdish," says a man who engages Mehmet in a debate on his sexuality in an Istanbul cafe. "That's like all three Turkish minorities rolled into one!"

Picture of the Day - Parvez Sharma Prays in Egypt Mosque

Sharma says that for the Muslims he filmed, "their sexual identity is second to their religious identity."

Courtesy Parvez Sharma

Out of the Closet and Onto the Screen: A controversial film breaks open the taboo topic of homosexuality and Islam

Courtesy of Parvez Sharma Filmmaker Parvez Sharma playing 'tourist'

From Egypt Today (The Magazine of Egypt) February 2008 Out of the Closet and Onto the Screen A controversial film breaks open the taboo topic of homosexuality and Islam By Ethar El-Katatney

HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT a comfortable, much less a popular, topic among Muslims. Broach the subject in the Middle East, and you're likely to hear a response like the one Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave US audiences last year: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country." At best, society adopts a 'don't ask, don't tell' approach – do what you will, just don't advertise it.

A controversial new documentary, A Jihad for Love, is shattering that taboo by interviewing homosexual Muslims, including an Egyptian gay man 'outed' by his arrest during the 2001 Queen Boat raid and an Egyptian lesbian still hiding her sexuality from society. Filmmaker Parvez Sharma had dual motivations: first, to challenge the mindset that Muslim and gay are mutually exclusive, and second, to challenge the Western world's own Islamophobia.

As a Muslim and openly admitted homosexual, Sharma had to challenge himself to make the documentary in a way that would neither make Islam look bad nor be apologetic. "Sharing some of the stories of condemnation, isolation, [and] pain would make it easy to issue a blanket critique of Islam," he explains, "[but] as a Muslim I could not allow myself to [] join the bandwagon of Islamophobes. I knew that I had to be a defender of the faith as a Muslim filmmaker and at the same time engage in a critique of what I knew was wrong in orthodox Islam's condemnation of homosexuality."

An Emotional Opus

Born and raised in India, 34-year-old Sharma is currently touring the world, screening his 81-minute documentary in Canada, South Africa and Europe. Released in September 2007, A Jihad for Love is his first venture and an emotional opus; it cost $2 million and took six years to complete, with filming in four continents, 12 countries and nine languages.

The impetus for the documentary came after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Sharma, who had moved to the United States for a Masters degree program, suddenly found that his religious identity and skin color made him a target. He realized he had to have "the second and bigger coming out of my life — to come out as a Muslim." He says that America, at the time, was suffering from a climate of hatred."Western media," Sharma notes, "tends to portray Islam as a monolithic concept, [and] the Islam I knew was under threat. So I [thought] why not take the story of Islam and tell it through Islam's most unlikely storytellers, which are gay and lesbian Muslims."

Courtesy of Parvez Sharma

Maha (right) with her partner Maryam at the Citadel in Cairo

Sharma feels that the non-Muslim's view of Islam has been dominated by the perspectives of Western media and violent extremists. For example, in Arabic jihad literally means "struggle," but the Western media uses it almost exclusively to mean "holy war." Sharma's film title seeks to reclaim the word in the sense of jihad al-nafs, the Islamic concept of "struggle against the self."|

"[I was] saying that jihad is not about violence, which is all people talk about," explains Sharma. "I called [the movie] A Jihad for Love because it was so compelling to put the word 'jihad' and the word 'love' together, because we were taking a profound Islamic concept and together with that using the word 'love', which is a universal Islamic condition."

The Characters

Sharma started the project in 2002 and ended up with over 400 hours of footage of 20-some gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Muslims in countries where he says, "the silence was the loudest." The result is the first and only feature-length documentary to explore the complex relationship between Islam and homosexuality, presenting six 'stories,' each looking at the lives of individuals and couples from a different part of the Muslim world.

Mazen, an Egyptian man in his 20s, was one of the infamous Cairo 52, a group arrested in May 2001 aboard the Queen Boat, a floating nightclub on the Nile. Mazen was beaten, forced to stand trial twice on charges of "habitual debauchery" and sentenced to a total of four years in prison (one year in his first trial, three years in his second). He fled to Paris before serving the second sentence.

Courtesy Moez Masoud

Egyptian daa'y Moez Masoud

"[All the characters in the film] are my children," says Sharma, "but Mazen's story I consider very, very powerful because he was targeted by the state [and] he was one of many people who had to leave their homeland. [He had to leave] because the government decided that in order to appease people like the ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] they had to suddenly talk about [] Islamic morality, [and] it made sense to go and target the most vulnerable group in society, which was the gay Muslim men."

The filmmaker says the "spiritual backbone" of the film is Mushin Hendricks, a former South African imam cast out by his community when he came out of the closet. He agreed to be filmed as soon as he was sure Sharma wasn't going to portray gay Muslims as promiscuous. In a phone interview with et, Hendricks says that he came from a religious family, and that his grandfather was also an imam. Because of this, he hid his personal realization since the age of 12. He even got married to see if he could live a 'normal' life, although he told his wife beforehand that he was gay.

"She was shocked but told me, 'I love you and I still want to marry you and help you overcome this'," Hendricks recalls. "Six years down the road we knew this wasn't working. The best thing is to accept yourself as you are, and only Allah will judge you."

Trying to understand the Qur'an from a point of view that accepts all that is different, Hendricks then began his own path of study, starting at the University of Islamic Studies, a branch of Al-Azhar, in Karachi, Pakistan. "I didn't study extensively as I only needed the basics in order to do my independent research," he says. "I did not need to be 'institutionalized' and thus did not study 'under' a scholar or follow a particular school [of Islamic thought]."

Hendricks' research included interpretation of the Qu'ran in a modern context and studies of inconsistencies in the hadith. He eventually came to the conclusion that consensual homosexual relationships were permissible in Islam. Hendricks now travels around the US giving workshops to Muslims about homosexuality in Islam and offering a critical look at hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad [PBUH]), from which most of the condemnations of homosexuality come.

Courtesy Parvez Sharma

Sharma says that for the Muslims he filmed, "their sexual identity is second to their religious identity.

Maryam, a Moroccan, and Maha, an Egyptian, are a lesbian couple who met online. Sharma says that when he met Maryam at the very start of his filming, "she couldn't even articulate the word lesbian because she thought it was haram (forbidden) and sinful to say the word." It was only in 2006 that she agreed to be filmed.

"I remember walking through the streets of Cairo with them," says Sharma, "[and] going to the places they hold dear to their hearts, like the Citadel. It was really profound because I was able to capture the invisibility that society has put upon them in the heart of the Arab world and Arab thought throughout the centuries."

In an interview with international press, the veiled Maha defended her actions, saying, "If asked of my sin on Judgment Day, I will stand before God and say that my sin is that I loved [] and Allah is merciful and forgiving."

The Challenges

Funding was a major obstacle and part of the reason the film took so long to produce. In the end, it was co-produced by five major international broadcasters, and funded by over 600 individuals and 20 foundations.

To find people willing to talk on camera, Sharma tapped into the underground networks of gay and lesbian Muslims living in Muslim countries through emails, telephone calls, and organizations working discreetly with human rights groups.

Sharma says gaining the necessary trust was a jihad of its own. The director recalls, "It was a struggle because I was going to people and I was telling them to talk about two very personal things which no one would want to share on camera: their sexuality and their relationship with Allah."

He says what made it easier was that he was a Muslim gay man going through the same struggles that they were. "If I was a white, Western filmmaker wielding the camera, this film would certainly not have been made."

Those who finally came forward to tell their stories were doing their best to negotiate a relationship with Islam even though they knew that the majority of people believed the religion was rejecting them. They felt that Islam was at a tipping point and thus were willing to take the risk.

"All the people in my film are coming out as Muslims," says Sharma. "They are proud to be gay, but fundamentally they're coming out as Muslims and saying they're as Muslim as anybody else. Their sexual identity is second to their religious identity."

After convincing people to appear on screen, Sharma had to shoot the actual documentary — without governmental permission. Among what he calls "hard core guerrilla filmmaking tactics:" He had to pass himself off as a tourist, using only handheld cameras. In case he was caught, he made sure that the first and last 15 minutes of a tape were tourist-esque footage. He never put the tapes in his carry-on luggage, and left backups with friends until he had safely left the country. He had a few close calls with police, including one in Egypt in Tahrir square, but managed to talk himself out of trouble.

The Reaction

A Jihad for Love premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007, where it received official screening honors. It has also been screened in major festivals including the Festival do Rio in Brazil, and the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in South Africa. Theatrical distribution deals, particularly in North America and Europe, are in the works. Audiences are raving; Sharma and his documentary have been featured in international newspapers The Guardian and The New York Times, Reuters newswire, as well as on the CBC, BBC and Oprah Winfrey's talk show, just to name a few.

"The reaction has been really positive, to tell you the truth," says Sharma, adding that Muslims who see the film discover it is "actually a defense of Islam and speaks very respectfully.

"I remember in the Toronto screening there was a very religious Shi'a woman from Iran who came to me and said, 'Parvez, I came to this film with my fists clenched [] I was so angry and I expected a film that would criticize Islam. And as I was watching the film my hand started opening up and [] so [did] my heart. I'm leaving this film realizing that this film is a poem to Islam'."

Media coverage so far has largely been from Western press, apart from articles in the Daily News Egypt and the Arabic daily Al-Arabiya, and one TV spot with Al-Arabiya's Muna Shikaki in Dubai. While the Al-Arabiya article was neutral, within an hour of being published there were more than 300 comments of "the usual nonsense," says Sharma. The emails he receives berate him, condemn him to hell and, "if they are nice, ask me to still seek forgiveness while there is still time."

"I was upset about that because none of these people have seen this film. There is a herd mentality where people get outraged about issues but none of them bother to read a book, or see a film. I advise people who reacted to see the film and then judge."

Still, not everyone who has seen the film is smiling. In South Africa, the Muslim Judicial Council issued a hukum (judgment), similar to a fatwa, calling homosexuals murtads, apostates. In many schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the sin of apostasy carries the death penalty.
The Future

Sharma believes that the release of his film marks the beginning of a 'jihad of the camera', a movement equivalent to last century's 'jihad of the pen.' He wants to screen the movie in Muslim countries, but admits it is unlikely to happen. Nevertheless, he says that he will get the movie to every Muslim that needs to see it, even if by underground means. In Egypt, he hopes to screen it the American University in Cairo, but if that fails — as he admits it probably will — the next best route is through academic circles.

"I have hundreds of friends in Cairo who are interested in helping out with this, and I [will] seek that help. I want to organize screenings in peoples' [houses] and I will do so in the coming year."

Sharma is also accepting donations to cover the film's post-production costs and fund his planned multi-year Muslim Dialogue Project, "where we will create a movement of tremendous change, engage the 'ulama (Islamic scholars), change lives [] change Muslim hearts and minds, stop 19-year-old [homosexual] Muslims from committing suicide, and have the first-ever Muslim conference discussing issues relating to homosexuality with specialists from all over the world." A book and another film are also in the works.

It starts, however, with Sharma's jihad: "With this film I plan to go into every mosque, every Muslim community that will let me in, to create dialogue, to break down the walls of silence, to help the many unsung lives and to create change for years to come."