Amid preparations for next April's local council elections, Farkhonda Hassan, secretary-general of the National Council for Women (NCW) suggests that Article 62 of the constitution be amended since it limits the participation of women to only two per cent of seats. Hassan wants to see this figure increase to at least 30 per cent, as is the case in India, where local councils are considered the basic training for women to acquire political experience. She also believes that this would prepare the legislature to change the electoral system in the future to respond to developments in society.
The required increase, according to Hassan, will only be accomplished by returning to the quota system giving women a minimum number of seats in all legislative councils. She suggested that this would be a temporary measure for 25 years or so, in order to enable women to gain experience, credibility and compete on equal basis. "The council has finished amendments to Article 62 of the constitution, but postponed submitting it for approval to the People's Assembly until redrafting the localities law," revealed Hassan.
Women in Egypt have struggled to acquire equal political rights in order to participate in formulating national policies, lawmaking, professional syndicates, NGOs, or merely to cast a ballot. Participation at the grassroots and policy-making levels would enable them to influence the development process, and ensure that their problems are addressed, given priority and resolved.
Figures in a study conducted by the NCW show that the participation of women in legislative councils, whether as voters or candidates, is not commensurate with their numerical weight in society where they constitute slightly less than 50 per cent of the population. This could be attributed to the political environment which does not encourage the political participation of either men or women -- reflected in the so-called "silent majority" -- as well as the institutional weakness of political parties and civil society organisations.
Moreover, Egyptian women have only been involved in parliamentary life since 1957 and hence have not accumulated sufficient resources or experience to compete with men on an equal basis. Lawyer and feminist Mona Zulficar noted that this is why laws were amended to guarantee minimum female representation in the People's Assembly. This was done through Law 38/1972, as amended by Law 21/1979 and Law 114/1983, regarding the People's Assembly allocating one seat for women in each constituency, totaling 31 seats or less than seven per cent of MPs.
But in an unrelated case before the Supreme Constitutional Court in 1986, a footnote stated that allocating a maximum number of seats for women was unconstitutional, on the grounds that it violated the principle of equality enshrined in the constitution. "The People's Assembly immediately amended the law and cancelled this provision," revealed Zulficar.
Women have traditionally played an important role in local councils because of their interest and involvement in the day- to-day problems of their local communities. Moreover, local councils are an important step in building constituencies to run in parliamentary elections. In 1979, under the quota system, female membership in local councils exceeded 10 per cent; but when the system was cancelled in 1986, this figure dropped to about 1.2 per cent in 1992 and 1997, and fell further in 2002 to about only one per cent, stated Zulficar.
The sitting 857 female members of local council require more support on the governmental and non- governmental levels, according to Hassan. Female candidates require political parties to nominate at least 30 to 50 per cent women in legislative elections, she said, as is the case in France where the minimum number of female candidates must be 50 per cent.
This proposal would enhance the political participation process, Hassan suggested, and end accusations of inequality since it leaves the final word to the electorate but obliges parties to promote political participation and leadership among all segments of society. Hassan added that the NCW has created a centre to contribute to building female cadres capable of taking part in different elections, as well as spread and activate the culture of participation among women.
-- by Reem Leila, Al Ahram News
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Bring in workers but train Saudis too: Al-Ghosaibi
Once the rallying cry of Saudi Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Abdul Rahman Al-Ghosaibi's drive to make the Kingdom's economy owned and operated by Saudis, "saudization" has hit a brick wall.
"Saudization has actually been reduced in many sectors since I took over," Al-Ghosaibi told gathered guests at the Jeddah Economic Forum on Tuesday. Last year we issued 1.8 million visas for expat workers, which is more than we have ever issued in one year."
And Al-Ghosaibi said he is perfectly content to continue issuing visas for foreign workers as long as the sponsor is willing to show him a plan that will provide training for Saudis along the same lines. The days of bringing in foreign workers to do jobs that Saudis can do or be trained to do are over.
"If you want a hundred visas," he said, "then show me a plan that will train a hundred Saudis, as well."
Saudization or, now, "localization" has been criticized by many private sector employers who say that the Saudi work force is too inexperienced, too untrained and too devoid of a work ethic to have acquired the skills and tenacity to hold down many jobs in the private sector.
He rejected that argument, taking up the defense of Saudi youth and calling the nation's boys and girls "committed and responsible." Then, turning the table on employers, he accused the private sector of offering inadequate employment, arguing that the private sector must offer the same holidays, the same pay and the same general employment environment as the government offers.
He pointed to Aramco as an example of what is needed to lure and keep workers in the private sector.
"There is no complaint about Saudi youth from them," he maintained, going on to praise those young Saudis who have struck out on their own, taking out loans to start successful businesses.
"Women in the workplace" was also on his agenda, and he said that his ministry is trying to expand the presence of women in the workforce slowly but effectively. "
Job opportunities should be made available to women on an equal basis with men," he said, highlighting the need to increase the opportunities for women.
"Right now, 90 percent of working women in Saudi Arabia are school teachers while 10 percent are advisers. But increasing and diversifying the role of women in the workforce is not solely the job of government, he stressed.
"The primary reason that there are so few women in other sectors is that they do not receive the support of their families to explore new or different ground," he said.
- Saudi Gazette
"Saudization has actually been reduced in many sectors since I took over," Al-Ghosaibi told gathered guests at the Jeddah Economic Forum on Tuesday. Last year we issued 1.8 million visas for expat workers, which is more than we have ever issued in one year."
And Al-Ghosaibi said he is perfectly content to continue issuing visas for foreign workers as long as the sponsor is willing to show him a plan that will provide training for Saudis along the same lines. The days of bringing in foreign workers to do jobs that Saudis can do or be trained to do are over.
"If you want a hundred visas," he said, "then show me a plan that will train a hundred Saudis, as well."
Saudization or, now, "localization" has been criticized by many private sector employers who say that the Saudi work force is too inexperienced, too untrained and too devoid of a work ethic to have acquired the skills and tenacity to hold down many jobs in the private sector.
He rejected that argument, taking up the defense of Saudi youth and calling the nation's boys and girls "committed and responsible." Then, turning the table on employers, he accused the private sector of offering inadequate employment, arguing that the private sector must offer the same holidays, the same pay and the same general employment environment as the government offers.
He pointed to Aramco as an example of what is needed to lure and keep workers in the private sector.
"There is no complaint about Saudi youth from them," he maintained, going on to praise those young Saudis who have struck out on their own, taking out loans to start successful businesses.
"Women in the workplace" was also on his agenda, and he said that his ministry is trying to expand the presence of women in the workforce slowly but effectively. "
Job opportunities should be made available to women on an equal basis with men," he said, highlighting the need to increase the opportunities for women.
"Right now, 90 percent of working women in Saudi Arabia are school teachers while 10 percent are advisers. But increasing and diversifying the role of women in the workforce is not solely the job of government, he stressed.
"The primary reason that there are so few women in other sectors is that they do not receive the support of their families to explore new or different ground," he said.
- Saudi Gazette
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Egypt: Court appoints woman to perform, register marriages
CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court on Monday appointed a woman to perform and register marriages, the first such appointment in Egypt's history, state news agency MENA said.
The court in the Nile Delta town of Zagazig granted Amal Selim, 32, the right to perform the duties of a ma'dhun in a town in Sharkia province, according to MENA.
It said Selim had applied to the position four months ago, the only woman out of 11 applicants for the job.
According to MENA, Selim said she was sure she would get the job because of her faith in the Egyptian judiciary and because she was the only candidate with a master's degree.
In April, Egypt appointed 30 women as judges, the largest such group to be appointed since 2003 when President Hosni Mubarak first named a woman judge.
Several Arab countries already have women sitting as judges.
- Reuters
The court in the Nile Delta town of Zagazig granted Amal Selim, 32, the right to perform the duties of a ma'dhun in a town in Sharkia province, according to MENA.
It said Selim had applied to the position four months ago, the only woman out of 11 applicants for the job.
According to MENA, Selim said she was sure she would get the job because of her faith in the Egyptian judiciary and because she was the only candidate with a master's degree.
In April, Egypt appointed 30 women as judges, the largest such group to be appointed since 2003 when President Hosni Mubarak first named a woman judge.
Several Arab countries already have women sitting as judges.
- Reuters
Saudi Arabia: KSU Girls Prep for Dialogue Forum
RIYADH, 26 February 2008 — The King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue organized a meeting at the women’s section of King Saud University’s to pave the ground for the “Seventh National Dialogue Forum” that is scheduled to take place today.
Women from various universities, colleges and institutes exchanged their views regarding the future of job opportunities. The meeting, the fifth of its kind, reflected an outstanding level of awareness among young undergraduates and graduates as they discussed employment and related issues and laid down their expectations.
Many issues of concern were brought to the limelight. The graduates talked about the favoritism and its negative effect in the workplace. The girls talked about waiting for years to be employed although some have graduated with honors.
“The important issue is to forge cooperation between universities and the Labor Ministry to study society’s needs and accordingly start specialties that would actually have a place in the market,” said Mashael, one of the participants.
Among the demands raised by the graduates was training courses for Arabic literature graduates who are interested in entering the media and journalism field in men’s colleges.
Secretary-General of the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue Faisal bin Abdurahman bin Muammar disclosed this week that the fifth preparatory meeting would discuss a long list of themes, including work culture, labor legislations and the role of the private sector in providing job opportunities for an ever-increasing number of employment-seekers.
Al-Muammar pointed out that the dialogue would discuss ways to enable women to play a bigger role in the nation’s economic life.
Another issue addressed was promoting legal studies. Nursing graduates also raised concerns regarding low pay and long hours in this profession. The meeting brought to question the destiny of decision No. 120 made by the Ministry of Labor enabling women to work in boutiques and lingerie shops. Some of the graduates expressed their support to the decision, which was aimed at reducing unemployment among graduates by 28 percent.
- Walaa Hawari, Arab News
Women from various universities, colleges and institutes exchanged their views regarding the future of job opportunities. The meeting, the fifth of its kind, reflected an outstanding level of awareness among young undergraduates and graduates as they discussed employment and related issues and laid down their expectations.
Many issues of concern were brought to the limelight. The graduates talked about the favoritism and its negative effect in the workplace. The girls talked about waiting for years to be employed although some have graduated with honors.
“The important issue is to forge cooperation between universities and the Labor Ministry to study society’s needs and accordingly start specialties that would actually have a place in the market,” said Mashael, one of the participants.
Among the demands raised by the graduates was training courses for Arabic literature graduates who are interested in entering the media and journalism field in men’s colleges.
Secretary-General of the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue Faisal bin Abdurahman bin Muammar disclosed this week that the fifth preparatory meeting would discuss a long list of themes, including work culture, labor legislations and the role of the private sector in providing job opportunities for an ever-increasing number of employment-seekers.
Al-Muammar pointed out that the dialogue would discuss ways to enable women to play a bigger role in the nation’s economic life.
Another issue addressed was promoting legal studies. Nursing graduates also raised concerns regarding low pay and long hours in this profession. The meeting brought to question the destiny of decision No. 120 made by the Ministry of Labor enabling women to work in boutiques and lingerie shops. Some of the graduates expressed their support to the decision, which was aimed at reducing unemployment among graduates by 28 percent.
- Walaa Hawari, Arab News
Monday, February 25, 2008
Bahrain: Forum on ways to end violence against women
The UN information centre in Bahrain will hold a forum tomorrow to discuss ways and means of ending violence against women. The occasion will coincide with the launch of ‘Unite To End Violence Against Women’ world campaign by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
The UN has invited government officials, representatives from the civil and private sectors and also media representatives to participate in the event.
“In addition to mobilising the usual partners on women empowerment, the UN is calling on the private sector and the business community, men and women alike, to join the Secretary-General’s campaign that will call for a focus on investing in women and girls,” UNIC said in a statement yesterday.
According to UN estimates at least one out of every three women in the world is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. One in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape.
The UN has invited government officials, representatives from the civil and private sectors and also media representatives to participate in the event.
“In addition to mobilising the usual partners on women empowerment, the UN is calling on the private sector and the business community, men and women alike, to join the Secretary-General’s campaign that will call for a focus on investing in women and girls,” UNIC said in a statement yesterday.
According to UN estimates at least one out of every three women in the world is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. One in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Qatar: Municipal member threatens to quit
DOHA • The lone woman member of the Central Municipal Council (CMC), Sheikha Al Jefairi, has threatened to quit in protest against what she says are improper procedures being followed from the start of the current term of the Council.
Speaking on the phone from Cairo, Al Jefairi told The Peninsula yesterday: "Yes, I have told the Council I would resign if these wrong procedures are not done away with."
During the regular meeting of the CMC on Tuesday, Al Jaffiri criticised the decision to withhold the recommendations of the Council's services committee. The recommendations should be made available to all CMC members before the meeting. It may be noted that only some of the 29 members of the CMC are on the services panel.
Although Al Jefairi is not a member of the services committee and instead heads the Council's legal committee, she told the House not revealing the panel's recommendations on key public issues before the regular meeting of the CMC is a violation of the code of ethics and procedures of the democratically-elected council.
Al Jefairi, who represents the Old Airport area of Doha in the CMC and had won for the second time the last election with a thumping majority, said the practice prevented CMC members from studying the issues listed in the recommendations and taking notes since they directly impact citizens.
Access to the recommendations before they are discussed in the House would help members seek the views of citizens and experts on these issues, she said.
She also criticized the CMC Chairman's decision to end the meeting of the Council without ratifying the recommendations made at the end of deliberations.
The decision is in breach of Article 51 of the law governing the duties of the council which stipulates that CMC recommendations and resolutions should be decided by majority of votes, she said.
"As head of the legal affairs committee at the Council, I reject such unethical procedures being followed at the meetings," Al Jaffiri pointed out.
Ibrahim Al Ibrahim Al Jefairi, another CMC member, supported her stand and said that he had already resigned from the services committee over the issue she has raised. He said all CMC members should get documents in advance to study the issues.
Meanwhile, the CMC meeting reviewed the recommendations on soaring prices in Qatar and were forwarded to the Ministry of Economy for necessary action. The recommendations include diversification of imported products to Qatar, particularly foodstuffs and building materials besides granting new licences for the import of vegetables and fruits for new companies and offering them space in the central market to facilitate merchandise.
- The Peninsula/ By Mohamed Saeed
Speaking on the phone from Cairo, Al Jefairi told The Peninsula yesterday: "Yes, I have told the Council I would resign if these wrong procedures are not done away with."
During the regular meeting of the CMC on Tuesday, Al Jaffiri criticised the decision to withhold the recommendations of the Council's services committee. The recommendations should be made available to all CMC members before the meeting. It may be noted that only some of the 29 members of the CMC are on the services panel.
Although Al Jefairi is not a member of the services committee and instead heads the Council's legal committee, she told the House not revealing the panel's recommendations on key public issues before the regular meeting of the CMC is a violation of the code of ethics and procedures of the democratically-elected council.
Al Jefairi, who represents the Old Airport area of Doha in the CMC and had won for the second time the last election with a thumping majority, said the practice prevented CMC members from studying the issues listed in the recommendations and taking notes since they directly impact citizens.
Access to the recommendations before they are discussed in the House would help members seek the views of citizens and experts on these issues, she said.
She also criticized the CMC Chairman's decision to end the meeting of the Council without ratifying the recommendations made at the end of deliberations.
The decision is in breach of Article 51 of the law governing the duties of the council which stipulates that CMC recommendations and resolutions should be decided by majority of votes, she said.
"As head of the legal affairs committee at the Council, I reject such unethical procedures being followed at the meetings," Al Jaffiri pointed out.
Ibrahim Al Ibrahim Al Jefairi, another CMC member, supported her stand and said that he had already resigned from the services committee over the issue she has raised. He said all CMC members should get documents in advance to study the issues.
Meanwhile, the CMC meeting reviewed the recommendations on soaring prices in Qatar and were forwarded to the Ministry of Economy for necessary action. The recommendations include diversification of imported products to Qatar, particularly foodstuffs and building materials besides granting new licences for the import of vegetables and fruits for new companies and offering them space in the central market to facilitate merchandise.
- The Peninsula/ By Mohamed Saeed
Saudi Arabia: Women Driving Is Not in Conflict With Religion: Scholars
JEDDAH, 21 February 2008 — A well-regarded Saudi religious scholar said that there is nothing in Islamic law that bans women from driving and that the fatwas issued in this regard are based on individual judgments.
“In principle women driving is permitted in Islam,” said Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan, a member of the Kingdom’s Council of Senior Islamic Scholars.
The ban, he said, has to do with the social complications rather than the act itself. As an example, the sheikh referred to a fatwa from former Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin-Baz that said it is permitted for women in rural areas to drive cars, but that they should be forbidden from driving in the cities where, as Al-Obaikan said, “youths (even) harass women accompanied by parents and drivers.
He said if certain issues are resolved, such as the problem of men’s behavior and traffic safety, then he sees no religiously motivated conflict with women driving.
Sheikh Mehsin Al-Awaji, another prominent religious scholar in the Kingdom, agreed. “No religious scholar is going to tell you differently,” he said. “But (the issue of) women driving comes as a ‘package’ and we need to fix the ‘package’ before making the decision (to allow women to drive).”
Expanding on the idea that allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia comes with a “package” of issues, Al-Awaji said there needs to be Saudi women working as police officers, mechanics and other positions. The sheikh diminished the significance of women driving, saying that myriad social reforms have higher priority, even in the realm of empowering women or encouraging public participation in important social challenges.
Fawzeyah Al-Oyouni, a woman’s rights and human rights activist, said that most people agree that Islam doesn’t forbid women from driving. The problem, she says, is that the government isn’t moving fast enough to implement the necessary actions to open the way for a smooth transition toward allowing women to drive.
The Saudi government has pointed out that there is no law that states women cannot drive. “The Interior Ministry’s stand is clear on this,” said ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour Al-Turki.
But in reality women are occasionally arrested when found driving. Arab News reported several instances in recent years of situations where women have been stopped by authorities and detained for the infraction of driving a vehicle.
In a previous statement, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah said that Saudi women would be permitted to drive someday.
Arab News asked 125 men what they thought of the issue. Ten men categorically opposed the idea; 36 men were fully in support of an unqualified lift on the social ban; and the rest would be OK with women driving with a few ground rules.
Most of the men who expressed reservations to an unqualified lift on the social ban — 80 of them — said they were concerned about safety due to the hazardous conditions on Saudi roads and lack of sufficient enforcement of traffic laws. Sixteen men expressed religious reservations; 21 men expressed financial reasons while eight expressed social concerns.
Four hundred Saudi and non-Saudi women were asked by Arab News about the subject. Out of this survey, Arab News found that 282 of these women would drive cars on their own, without a male guardian. Forty-four women said they would continue to use drivers. Thirty women said they would only drive with their male guardian in the car. Thirty-two women said they would drive with a relative in the vehicle. A dozen women said they opposed the idea of women driving.
Out of these women, 122 said they wouldn’t drive on Saudi roads due to safety concerns while 296 said they would have to see better enforcement of rules before they would feel safe driving. Seventy-two women said they’d rise to the challenge of driving in Saudi Arabia’s traffic.
- Samir Al-Saadi, Arab News
“In principle women driving is permitted in Islam,” said Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan, a member of the Kingdom’s Council of Senior Islamic Scholars.
The ban, he said, has to do with the social complications rather than the act itself. As an example, the sheikh referred to a fatwa from former Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin-Baz that said it is permitted for women in rural areas to drive cars, but that they should be forbidden from driving in the cities where, as Al-Obaikan said, “youths (even) harass women accompanied by parents and drivers.
He said if certain issues are resolved, such as the problem of men’s behavior and traffic safety, then he sees no religiously motivated conflict with women driving.
Sheikh Mehsin Al-Awaji, another prominent religious scholar in the Kingdom, agreed. “No religious scholar is going to tell you differently,” he said. “But (the issue of) women driving comes as a ‘package’ and we need to fix the ‘package’ before making the decision (to allow women to drive).”
Expanding on the idea that allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia comes with a “package” of issues, Al-Awaji said there needs to be Saudi women working as police officers, mechanics and other positions. The sheikh diminished the significance of women driving, saying that myriad social reforms have higher priority, even in the realm of empowering women or encouraging public participation in important social challenges.
Fawzeyah Al-Oyouni, a woman’s rights and human rights activist, said that most people agree that Islam doesn’t forbid women from driving. The problem, she says, is that the government isn’t moving fast enough to implement the necessary actions to open the way for a smooth transition toward allowing women to drive.
The Saudi government has pointed out that there is no law that states women cannot drive. “The Interior Ministry’s stand is clear on this,” said ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour Al-Turki.
But in reality women are occasionally arrested when found driving. Arab News reported several instances in recent years of situations where women have been stopped by authorities and detained for the infraction of driving a vehicle.
In a previous statement, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah said that Saudi women would be permitted to drive someday.
Arab News asked 125 men what they thought of the issue. Ten men categorically opposed the idea; 36 men were fully in support of an unqualified lift on the social ban; and the rest would be OK with women driving with a few ground rules.
Most of the men who expressed reservations to an unqualified lift on the social ban — 80 of them — said they were concerned about safety due to the hazardous conditions on Saudi roads and lack of sufficient enforcement of traffic laws. Sixteen men expressed religious reservations; 21 men expressed financial reasons while eight expressed social concerns.
Four hundred Saudi and non-Saudi women were asked by Arab News about the subject. Out of this survey, Arab News found that 282 of these women would drive cars on their own, without a male guardian. Forty-four women said they would continue to use drivers. Thirty women said they would only drive with their male guardian in the car. Thirty-two women said they would drive with a relative in the vehicle. A dozen women said they opposed the idea of women driving.
Out of these women, 122 said they wouldn’t drive on Saudi roads due to safety concerns while 296 said they would have to see better enforcement of rules before they would feel safe driving. Seventy-two women said they’d rise to the challenge of driving in Saudi Arabia’s traffic.
- Samir Al-Saadi, Arab News
Jordan: New campaign to raise awareness on women’s rights
AMMAN - Hoping to make proposed changes to the Personal Status Law permanent, women’s rights activists this week announced a new campaign to raise public awareness and get their concerns back on policymakers’ agenda.
“The Right to Equal Rights” campaign will include a petition drive and a march to Parliament, according to Nuha Mahrez, head of the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development’s (JOHUD) women’s empowerment programme.
The new campaign is in response to 2001 amendments to the law, which included an increase in the legal age from 15 for women and 16 for men to 18 for both.
The legislation also gave women “khuloe”, or the right to divorce without the husband’s consent, as long as the woman agreed to renounce any right to the couple’s finances or her dowry.
Seven years later, activists have yet to see Parliament make the amendments permanent, with the measures voted down by the Lower House in 2003 and 2004.
In addition, a loophole in the amendments allows women to get married as young as 15 if the suitor is proven financially able to pay for a dowry and support his family.
The campaign calls on lawmakers to close this loophole, and women activists plan to meet with deputies to discuss making the amendment permanent.
In addition to JOHUD, the coalition includes the Queen Zein Al Sharaf Institute, the Jordanian National Forum for Women, the Performing Arts Centre and Freedom House.
Another proposed change calls for allocating compensation to women under khuloe based on the length of the marriage and her income.
The initiative also calls for an amendment allowing equal visitation rights for mothers in cases of separation or divorce, Mahrez said.
A judge would be designated to mediate the dispute if both parties are unable to reconcile visitation times.
Mahrez said the campaign also seeks to win the support of clerics and imams, encouraging them to raise the issue of equal rights in their Friday sermons and to address misconceptions surrounding women’s empowerment, the Personal Status Law and Islam.
“The changes in the law aren’t against religion, but protect basic human rights, which are enshrined in Sharia,” Mahrez said.
The campaign, which will continue throughout the year, will also include play performances in each governorate, teaching children the importance of equal rights.
By Taylor Luck from the Jordan Times
“The Right to Equal Rights” campaign will include a petition drive and a march to Parliament, according to Nuha Mahrez, head of the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development’s (JOHUD) women’s empowerment programme.
The new campaign is in response to 2001 amendments to the law, which included an increase in the legal age from 15 for women and 16 for men to 18 for both.
The legislation also gave women “khuloe”, or the right to divorce without the husband’s consent, as long as the woman agreed to renounce any right to the couple’s finances or her dowry.
Seven years later, activists have yet to see Parliament make the amendments permanent, with the measures voted down by the Lower House in 2003 and 2004.
In addition, a loophole in the amendments allows women to get married as young as 15 if the suitor is proven financially able to pay for a dowry and support his family.
The campaign calls on lawmakers to close this loophole, and women activists plan to meet with deputies to discuss making the amendment permanent.
In addition to JOHUD, the coalition includes the Queen Zein Al Sharaf Institute, the Jordanian National Forum for Women, the Performing Arts Centre and Freedom House.
Another proposed change calls for allocating compensation to women under khuloe based on the length of the marriage and her income.
The initiative also calls for an amendment allowing equal visitation rights for mothers in cases of separation or divorce, Mahrez said.
A judge would be designated to mediate the dispute if both parties are unable to reconcile visitation times.
Mahrez said the campaign also seeks to win the support of clerics and imams, encouraging them to raise the issue of equal rights in their Friday sermons and to address misconceptions surrounding women’s empowerment, the Personal Status Law and Islam.
“The changes in the law aren’t against religion, but protect basic human rights, which are enshrined in Sharia,” Mahrez said.
The campaign, which will continue throughout the year, will also include play performances in each governorate, teaching children the importance of equal rights.
By Taylor Luck from the Jordan Times
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Morocco: Over 5,500 cases of violence against women in 2007
Fez (east of Rabat) - A total of 5,650 cases of violence against women, including 3,010 at workplaces, were reported in 2007 in Morocco, according to Fez-based Center for People's Rights (French acronym CDG).
Violence against women climaxed in May with 680 documented cases, while some 660 cases were reported in April, 635 in November, 577 in October, 571 in February, 530 in June, 525 in March, 420 in July, 416 in September, 262 in January and 160 in December, director of the center, Jamal Chahdi, said.
General violence acts include rape, physical violence, non-payment of alimony, eviction from marital home, repudiation, insults, abuse and sexual harassment, while violence at workplaces include illegal dismissal, not reporting work hours, sexual harassment, denial of insurance or compensation for extra-hours and disrespect of the Labor Code.
On ways to curtail violence against women, Mr. Chahdi called for the involvement of all social actors to ensure an optimal implementation of the Family Code provisions, a quicker implementation of violence-related sentences and the defense of women’s rights at workplaces.
He also called for respecting the Labor Code, creating business committees and health services in workplaces, simplifying court procedures in labor disputes and boosting the role of trade unions by ensuring a larger representation of women.
Touching on the endeavors made so far in the field, Mr. Chahdi hailed Morocco’s women-friendly measure to combat violence through setting up a national strategy for the defense of women's rights and the creation by the Ministry of Justice of special crisis centers to accommodate and comfort women victims of violence. He finally called for encouraging education to human rights to "change social stereotypes and attitudes."
Founded in 1999 by a group of human rights activists in the region of Fez, the Center for People's Rights (CDG) aims to create a national network for the defense and education to human rights.
-Maghreb Arabe Press
Violence against women climaxed in May with 680 documented cases, while some 660 cases were reported in April, 635 in November, 577 in October, 571 in February, 530 in June, 525 in March, 420 in July, 416 in September, 262 in January and 160 in December, director of the center, Jamal Chahdi, said.
General violence acts include rape, physical violence, non-payment of alimony, eviction from marital home, repudiation, insults, abuse and sexual harassment, while violence at workplaces include illegal dismissal, not reporting work hours, sexual harassment, denial of insurance or compensation for extra-hours and disrespect of the Labor Code.
On ways to curtail violence against women, Mr. Chahdi called for the involvement of all social actors to ensure an optimal implementation of the Family Code provisions, a quicker implementation of violence-related sentences and the defense of women’s rights at workplaces.
He also called for respecting the Labor Code, creating business committees and health services in workplaces, simplifying court procedures in labor disputes and boosting the role of trade unions by ensuring a larger representation of women.
Touching on the endeavors made so far in the field, Mr. Chahdi hailed Morocco’s women-friendly measure to combat violence through setting up a national strategy for the defense of women's rights and the creation by the Ministry of Justice of special crisis centers to accommodate and comfort women victims of violence. He finally called for encouraging education to human rights to "change social stereotypes and attitudes."
Founded in 1999 by a group of human rights activists in the region of Fez, the Center for People's Rights (CDG) aims to create a national network for the defense and education to human rights.
-Maghreb Arabe Press
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Religious police hit back over woman held in cafe
RIYADH - Saudi Arabia’s religious police hit back on Tuesday at critics of their arrest of a businesswoman in a Starbucks cafe for mixing with a male colleague, threatening to sue a journalist.
The powerful Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, charged the Saudi woman was making ‘suspicious gestures’ while in the man’s company and broke the law on several counts, in a statement published in the local press.
The commission ‘reserves the right of its members ... to claim their legal right from columnist Abdullah Al Alami who accused them of abduction,’ it said.
The religious police, commonly known as Muttawa, said Alami, a columnist for the daily Al Watan, had also accused them of strip-searching the woman, ‘which is no less reprehensible than ... the crime of kidnapping’.
The businesswoman, a 40-year-old financial consultant, was quoted in the English-language daily Arab News on February 5 as saying she was detained and strip-searched by the Muttawa the previous day.
She had been sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with an unrelated man, an activity which is taboo in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia.
The woman, named only as Yara, said she was holding a business meeting with the man in a branch of Starbucks in Riyadh, in a section reserved for families.
Yara, a mother of three, said she was taken to a Riyadh prison, strip-searched and forced to sign a confession to having been caught alone with an unrelated man.
She said the Muttawa released her several hours later after her husband intervened. The man with whom Yara had coffee, an unnamed Syrian financial analyst, was also arrested.
Newspapers said the man was released the next day.
In its statement, the 5,000-strong religious police accused Yara of violating both the law and Islamic tenets by flying unaccompanied from Jeddah to Riyadh and sitting alone with an unrelated man in a public place in a section reserved for families.
The religious police said its members went to the coffee shop after receiving information that the woman did not have her head covered and was wearing make-up and making ‘suspicious gestures’ while in the man’s company.
A UN expert on women’s rights said last week at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia that she had heard accounts of serious discrimination against women and abuses by the Muttawa.
‘The Muttawa are said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms’,’ said Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, citing Yara’s arrest during her visit.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including a ban on driving.
They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and can not mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
(AFP)
The powerful Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, charged the Saudi woman was making ‘suspicious gestures’ while in the man’s company and broke the law on several counts, in a statement published in the local press.
The commission ‘reserves the right of its members ... to claim their legal right from columnist Abdullah Al Alami who accused them of abduction,’ it said.
The religious police, commonly known as Muttawa, said Alami, a columnist for the daily Al Watan, had also accused them of strip-searching the woman, ‘which is no less reprehensible than ... the crime of kidnapping’.
The businesswoman, a 40-year-old financial consultant, was quoted in the English-language daily Arab News on February 5 as saying she was detained and strip-searched by the Muttawa the previous day.
She had been sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with an unrelated man, an activity which is taboo in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia.
The woman, named only as Yara, said she was holding a business meeting with the man in a branch of Starbucks in Riyadh, in a section reserved for families.
Yara, a mother of three, said she was taken to a Riyadh prison, strip-searched and forced to sign a confession to having been caught alone with an unrelated man.
She said the Muttawa released her several hours later after her husband intervened. The man with whom Yara had coffee, an unnamed Syrian financial analyst, was also arrested.
Newspapers said the man was released the next day.
In its statement, the 5,000-strong religious police accused Yara of violating both the law and Islamic tenets by flying unaccompanied from Jeddah to Riyadh and sitting alone with an unrelated man in a public place in a section reserved for families.
The religious police said its members went to the coffee shop after receiving information that the woman did not have her head covered and was wearing make-up and making ‘suspicious gestures’ while in the man’s company.
A UN expert on women’s rights said last week at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia that she had heard accounts of serious discrimination against women and abuses by the Muttawa.
‘The Muttawa are said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms’,’ said Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, citing Yara’s arrest during her visit.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including a ban on driving.
They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and can not mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
(AFP)
Monday, February 18, 2008
UAE: Number of women in UAE cabinet doubled
The number of women in the cabinet of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates was doubled to four on Sunday, in a reshuffle in which new economy and labour ministers were named.
Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum, ruler of the affluent emirate of Dubai, brought in two women as ministers of state, the official WAM news agency reported. They are Maitha al-Shamsi, assistant to the deputy head of UAE University for scientific research, and Reem al-Hashemi, who served as deputy ambassador to Washington and assistant to the foreign minister for economic affairs.
Sheikha Lubna al-Qassemi, a US-educated businesswoman who became the first woman to join the cabinet of the conservative Gulf state in November 2004, was moved from the economy portfolio to a newly-created external trade ministry. The fourth woman, Mariam al-Rumi, stayed on as social affairs minister.
Qassemi was replaced as minister of economy by Sultan bin Said al-Mansuri, who was in charge of public sector development in the outgoing cabinet. The change comes amid high levels of inflation and spiraling cost of living, with inflation officially put at 9.3 percent in 2006.
The UAE ambassador to Washington, Saqr Ghubash, was named minister of labour, succeeding Ali al-Kaabi, who was dropped from government. Labour is a key portfolio in a country where expatriate workers and their dependents make up nearly 80 percent of the population of more than four million. The UAE employs hundreds of thousands of mostly Asian low-paid workers whose conditions have been the focus of international rights groups.
The board chairman of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Obaid al-Tayer, entered the cabinet as minister of state for financial affairs. There was no change in the key ministries of energy, foreign affairs and interior. The defence portfolio has long been held by Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed, who also serves as vice president of the seven-member Gulf federation.
- Agence France-Presse
Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum, ruler of the affluent emirate of Dubai, brought in two women as ministers of state, the official WAM news agency reported. They are Maitha al-Shamsi, assistant to the deputy head of UAE University for scientific research, and Reem al-Hashemi, who served as deputy ambassador to Washington and assistant to the foreign minister for economic affairs.
Sheikha Lubna al-Qassemi, a US-educated businesswoman who became the first woman to join the cabinet of the conservative Gulf state in November 2004, was moved from the economy portfolio to a newly-created external trade ministry. The fourth woman, Mariam al-Rumi, stayed on as social affairs minister.
Qassemi was replaced as minister of economy by Sultan bin Said al-Mansuri, who was in charge of public sector development in the outgoing cabinet. The change comes amid high levels of inflation and spiraling cost of living, with inflation officially put at 9.3 percent in 2006.
The UAE ambassador to Washington, Saqr Ghubash, was named minister of labour, succeeding Ali al-Kaabi, who was dropped from government. Labour is a key portfolio in a country where expatriate workers and their dependents make up nearly 80 percent of the population of more than four million. The UAE employs hundreds of thousands of mostly Asian low-paid workers whose conditions have been the focus of international rights groups.
The board chairman of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Obaid al-Tayer, entered the cabinet as minister of state for financial affairs. There was no change in the key ministries of energy, foreign affairs and interior. The defence portfolio has long been held by Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed, who also serves as vice president of the seven-member Gulf federation.
- Agence France-Presse
Friday, February 15, 2008
Middle East: In the Middle East, women directors unspool social commentary
By Danna Harman Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Tel Aviv - In the Middle East, women have a new voice: the movies. As nascent film industries bloom in the region, a few emerging women directors are probing some of the most delicate subjects within their male-dominated communities, giving viewers a glimpse into once-veiled worlds.
"Women realized that they were in double jeopardy – of having Westerners speak for them, and men speak for them.... so they got behind the cameras," says Mona Eltahawy, a New York-based Egyptian commentator and lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues.
The Monitor recently contacted three such filmmakers – Israeli Arab Ibtisam Maraana and Buthina Canaan Khoury of the Palestine Territories; and Haifaa Al-Mansour of Saudi Arabia – to talk about their hard-won successes.
In time, these directors may come to emulate the commercial fortunes of Nadine Labaki's "Caramel," a comedic social commentary set inside a Beirut beauty salon that became Lebanon's top-grossing film of 2007, or Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis," the Oscar-nominated film based on her childhood in Iran. (Both films are in release in the US.) But the three directors are wary of being pigeon-holed, a notion voiced by Satrapi, who lives in France.
"I think I am interesting because I make good movies," says Satrapi in a phone interview. "Not because I represent anything."
Like Satrapi, these three bold directors have often been criticized but they each share Satrapi's ethos: "I was not surprised by the objections and I don't care," she says. "I fear nothing."
Haifaa Al-Mansour
Tel Aviv - In the Middle East, women have a new voice: the movies. As nascent film industries bloom in the region, a few emerging women directors are probing some of the most delicate subjects within their male-dominated communities, giving viewers a glimpse into once-veiled worlds.
"Women realized that they were in double jeopardy – of having Westerners speak for them, and men speak for them.... so they got behind the cameras," says Mona Eltahawy, a New York-based Egyptian commentator and lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues.
The Monitor recently contacted three such filmmakers – Israeli Arab Ibtisam Maraana and Buthina Canaan Khoury of the Palestine Territories; and Haifaa Al-Mansour of Saudi Arabia – to talk about their hard-won successes.
In time, these directors may come to emulate the commercial fortunes of Nadine Labaki's "Caramel," a comedic social commentary set inside a Beirut beauty salon that became Lebanon's top-grossing film of 2007, or Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis," the Oscar-nominated film based on her childhood in Iran. (Both films are in release in the US.) But the three directors are wary of being pigeon-holed, a notion voiced by Satrapi, who lives in France.
"I think I am interesting because I make good movies," says Satrapi in a phone interview. "Not because I represent anything."
Like Satrapi, these three bold directors have often been criticized but they each share Satrapi's ethos: "I was not surprised by the objections and I don't care," she says. "I fear nothing."
Haifaa Al-Mansour
Growing up in Saudi Arabia, a country without any movie theaters, meant that when Haifaa Al-Mansour's family wanted an outing to the cinema, they'd have to drive to Bahrain.
"There is a debate nowadays in our local Shura council about opening a theater ... but it has not passed yet," sighs Mansour, speaking by phone from Australia, her new home with her husband, an American diplomat. "I make films for Saudis. I want to talk to them. Provoke them. Make them think about the issues. But it's hard when they cannot see my work."
In any case, Mansour's films wouldn't win the sort of accolades in Saudi Arabia that she has garnered at film festivals abroad. By peeking a camera lens behind the veil of Saudi Arabian life, she has ventured into unprecedented territory for a woman in a society where women are not allowed to vote, drive, study the same subjects men do, or take on the same jobs.
Mansour, one of 12 children, didn't intend to focus her filmmaking career on women's issues, but found the issues too important not to address. She began her filmmaking career making a seven-minute short, "Who?," in which a man disguised as a women – i.e., dressed in a traditional black, full-body covering called the abaya – stalks women and enters their homes. The film explores the theme of hiding behind disguises, says Mansour. Shot with a hand-held camera, the film was released in Turkey and could be seen in Saudi Arabia only on pirated DVDs. Many perceived it as an anti-abaya message.
A few years later, the documentary "Women Without Shadows" – winner of the Golden Dagger for best documentary at the Muscat film festival in Oman – wondered whether it is necessary for women to cover their faces in public in order to comply with Islamic teachings.
"I get hate e-mails," says Mansour. "People say I am not religious. That I don't respect my own culture. It's not true. I don't want to corrupt my viewers, but there are certain situations in Saudi Arabia that merit people talking about them."
Mansour's fountain of strength, she says, is her family. Her father, famous Saudi poet Abdul Rahman Mansour, brought home films for his kids to watch on video. He encouraged his daughters to study – Mansour studied comparative literature at the American University in Cairo – and didn't force them to wear the veil or rush into marriage. He was very open-minded, she says.
She hopes that viewers will bring that same quality to her work. Anyone who loves Saudi Arabia, she concludes, "needs to be critical. It can only make us better."
Ibtisam Maraana
In any case, Mansour's films wouldn't win the sort of accolades in Saudi Arabia that she has garnered at film festivals abroad. By peeking a camera lens behind the veil of Saudi Arabian life, she has ventured into unprecedented territory for a woman in a society where women are not allowed to vote, drive, study the same subjects men do, or take on the same jobs.
Mansour, one of 12 children, didn't intend to focus her filmmaking career on women's issues, but found the issues too important not to address. She began her filmmaking career making a seven-minute short, "Who?," in which a man disguised as a women – i.e., dressed in a traditional black, full-body covering called the abaya – stalks women and enters their homes. The film explores the theme of hiding behind disguises, says Mansour. Shot with a hand-held camera, the film was released in Turkey and could be seen in Saudi Arabia only on pirated DVDs. Many perceived it as an anti-abaya message.
A few years later, the documentary "Women Without Shadows" – winner of the Golden Dagger for best documentary at the Muscat film festival in Oman – wondered whether it is necessary for women to cover their faces in public in order to comply with Islamic teachings.
"I get hate e-mails," says Mansour. "People say I am not religious. That I don't respect my own culture. It's not true. I don't want to corrupt my viewers, but there are certain situations in Saudi Arabia that merit people talking about them."
Mansour's fountain of strength, she says, is her family. Her father, famous Saudi poet Abdul Rahman Mansour, brought home films for his kids to watch on video. He encouraged his daughters to study – Mansour studied comparative literature at the American University in Cairo – and didn't force them to wear the veil or rush into marriage. He was very open-minded, she says.
She hopes that viewers will bring that same quality to her work. Anyone who loves Saudi Arabia, she concludes, "needs to be critical. It can only make us better."
Ibtisam Maraana
Ibtisam Maraana was 19 when she went to see a movie for the first time. She recalls the occasion, right down to the hour, vividly. Venturing outside the Arab village of Paradise, too small to merit its own movie house, she went to a nearby Jewish town to take in a 5 p.m. showing of the Coen Brothers' "The Big Lebowski." Maraana loved it.
A decade on, she's funneled a rebellious streak into a career as an accomplished director who examines cultural mores in a fresh light.
Her 2005 film "Badal," which won the best short documentary award at Toronto's Hot Docs festival, looks at the local tradition of a package-deal arranged marriage in which a brother-sister duo from one family are married off to a duo from another family. "By coupling a girl with her more attractive brother, a family could thus ensure she found a mate," explains Maraana, who herself was considered an unattractive marriage candidate because of her "advancing" age, a scar on her hand, and beyond all, her independent streak.
The daughter of a maid who cleaned houses in a Jewish town, Maraana recalls spending that time looking "at bikes I was not allowed to ride at home in the village because I was a girl." She resented those wealthier houses and their owners but she also got a glimpse of a certain social and cultural openness that intrigued her.
Later, Maraana studied media communication in Jerusalem but soon shifted her focus. "I realized there were so many stories no one was telling," she says.
One such story, chronicled in "Three Times Divorced," is often difficult to watch. It delves into divorce and child custody in the Arab world by following Khitam, a Palestinian woman from Gaza, who is beaten, divorced, and thrown out of her house by her Israeli Arab husband. Her efforts to gain custody of her six children, to fight the Islamic sharia courts, and to gain legal status in Israel, show the power of a determined woman against all odds.
"Courage is in my genes," says Maraana calmly, sipping tea in her apartment in Florentine, an artsy south Tel Aviv neighborhood. "Women typically appreciate my movies and want to have a forum for these important issues," she says. But men, especially, surprisingly, educated ones, feel threatened."
Maraana compares her filmmaking to going to war. Not surprisingly, she longs to write a feature. "In fiction you can create your own reality," she says. "I want to make movies about love, too. I don't always want to be fighting."
Buthina Canaan Khoury
Her 2005 film "Badal," which won the best short documentary award at Toronto's Hot Docs festival, looks at the local tradition of a package-deal arranged marriage in which a brother-sister duo from one family are married off to a duo from another family. "By coupling a girl with her more attractive brother, a family could thus ensure she found a mate," explains Maraana, who herself was considered an unattractive marriage candidate because of her "advancing" age, a scar on her hand, and beyond all, her independent streak.
The daughter of a maid who cleaned houses in a Jewish town, Maraana recalls spending that time looking "at bikes I was not allowed to ride at home in the village because I was a girl." She resented those wealthier houses and their owners but she also got a glimpse of a certain social and cultural openness that intrigued her.
Later, Maraana studied media communication in Jerusalem but soon shifted her focus. "I realized there were so many stories no one was telling," she says.
One such story, chronicled in "Three Times Divorced," is often difficult to watch. It delves into divorce and child custody in the Arab world by following Khitam, a Palestinian woman from Gaza, who is beaten, divorced, and thrown out of her house by her Israeli Arab husband. Her efforts to gain custody of her six children, to fight the Islamic sharia courts, and to gain legal status in Israel, show the power of a determined woman against all odds.
"Courage is in my genes," says Maraana calmly, sipping tea in her apartment in Florentine, an artsy south Tel Aviv neighborhood. "Women typically appreciate my movies and want to have a forum for these important issues," she says. But men, especially, surprisingly, educated ones, feel threatened."
Maraana compares her filmmaking to going to war. Not surprisingly, she longs to write a feature. "In fiction you can create your own reality," she says. "I want to make movies about love, too. I don't always want to be fighting."
Buthina Canaan Khoury
Buthina Canaan Khoury, a Christian Palestinian filmmaker from the West Bank town of Taybeh, is used to pioneering unchartered territory. She was the first Palestinian camera woman and producer for the European Broadcasting Union inside the Palestinian Territories. Now the head of her own Majd Production Company, she has nothing less than a filmmaking agenda: to highlight key Palestinian issues.
Her latest film, "Maria's Grotto," which opened November in Ramallah, takes on the often taboo subject of honor killings. In it, Khoury looks at the aftermath of two honor killings and interviews two other women who survived brutal stabbings. "This movie is not meant to give a bad image to Palestinians," she stresses. "On the contrary, we criticize ourselves because we love our society and want to help it improve."
Khoury got her start in Boston by getting an MBA in photography and filmmaking. Her first splash as a filmmaker was 2004's "Women in Struggle," an account of four women who had spent years in Israeli jails.
The filmmaker is thrilled that more women are getting behind the camera.
"It's a domino effect, in which seeing one Arab woman making a film soon inspires and encourages others to follow suit," she says. "And the more we produce, the greater the interest – before we were seen as exotic, one-off phenomenons, but now we have a diversity of voices and we are being taken more seriously."
She wouldn't mind a turn at lighter fare, though. Khoury's next film will relay the story of her own family, which moved from Boston back home to Taybeh, in the West Bank, in 1994 after the Oslo Accords – in order to fulfill their father's dream of opening the first microbrewery in the Middle East. (Not easy in a region full of "dry" spots.)
"It's challenging to do women's issues all the time," concludes Khoury. "I would like to have a little fun."
Saudi Arabia: NHRA proposes Allowing Women to Practice Law
RIYADH - The chairman of the government-run National Human Rights Association, Dr. Bandar Al-Hajjar announced that the Association has finished work on a bill allowing women to practice law in the Kingdom's courtrooms.
The bill is now expected to wind its way through the legislative process with various government agencies weighing in on its merits, told Arabic daily newspaper Al-Madina.
In addition to announcing the promulgation of the bill, Al-Hajjar made public statistics pertaining to the Association's work.
According to Al-Hijjar, the Association has registered 490 cases, 431 of which were filed against the judiciary. In 52 cases, claimants complained about ill- treatment on the part of judges hearing their cases.
Al-Hajjar indicated that the Association has intervened in cases where the object of the complaint became bogged down in protracted proceedings. Other cases involved claims for identification or requests for lifting a ban on travel.
Al-Hajjar added that judicial cases reported to the Association represented 6% of the total 12,000 cases.
He said that the Association has reviewed 1,927 administrative cases of arbitrary termination, psychological violence against employees, arbitrary transfer and injuries resulting from environmental pollution.
Al-Hajjar also noted that 63 percent of the cases were filed by Saudis, 5 percent by Egyptians, 3 percent by Yemenis and 29 percent by other nationalities.
The Association was successful in resolving between 75 and 85 percent of cases that were referred to it.
Some 594 cases related to claims of financial entitlements of workers, 374 of which were filed against sponsors.
Al-Hajjar also said that the Association has communicated with more than 1510 local and international agencies concerned with prisoners.
-The Saudi Gazette
The bill is now expected to wind its way through the legislative process with various government agencies weighing in on its merits, told Arabic daily newspaper Al-Madina.
In addition to announcing the promulgation of the bill, Al-Hajjar made public statistics pertaining to the Association's work.
According to Al-Hijjar, the Association has registered 490 cases, 431 of which were filed against the judiciary. In 52 cases, claimants complained about ill- treatment on the part of judges hearing their cases.
Al-Hajjar indicated that the Association has intervened in cases where the object of the complaint became bogged down in protracted proceedings. Other cases involved claims for identification or requests for lifting a ban on travel.
Al-Hajjar added that judicial cases reported to the Association represented 6% of the total 12,000 cases.
He said that the Association has reviewed 1,927 administrative cases of arbitrary termination, psychological violence against employees, arbitrary transfer and injuries resulting from environmental pollution.
Al-Hajjar also noted that 63 percent of the cases were filed by Saudis, 5 percent by Egyptians, 3 percent by Yemenis and 29 percent by other nationalities.
The Association was successful in resolving between 75 and 85 percent of cases that were referred to it.
Some 594 cases related to claims of financial entitlements of workers, 374 of which were filed against sponsors.
Al-Hajjar also said that the Association has communicated with more than 1510 local and international agencies concerned with prisoners.
-The Saudi Gazette
Algeria: Women cite problems with implementation of new family code
Three years after Algeria's family code was revised, women are looking back with regret on their initial enthusiasm for the change. What appears to have been a well-intended effort to protect women and children's rights has inadvertently caused many of them to lose everything.
Her eyes are wild, her face is pale and her right hand stretches out to passers-by, opening and closing with an automatic, yet timid movement. For a year now, Hadfa Boutouba, 45, has lived in a cardboard box on the pavement in Algeria's working-class Bab El Oued district. Her three children Nassim, 10, Amina, 8, and Ines, 5, live with her. Her story is by no means unique. After fifteen years of marriage, the couple separates. The husband remarries, and the wife is forced to leave the home. Destination: the street.
Like so many Algerian women, Hadfa Boutouba was caught up in a storm of political slogans when the Family Code was reformed on February 27th 2005. Women were told that by repealing the 1984 law on marriages, they and their children would finally enjoy rights and protections in the case of divorce. Promises of what the new law would bring ranged from "equality of the sexes" to "strengthening the family unit".
At the time, women’s associations in Algeria hailed the new law as a victory. Even today, limited knowledge about the law leaves many women with a positive impression. Although she has not read the law, 36 year old tax inspector Hassiba Chékir,, tells Magharebia, "I’ve heard that divorced women are entitled to a home, and the husband cannot take a second wife without informing the first."
But the reality is not so simple. Many women today feel that the slogans from three years ago were illusory. Fatima Benbrahem, a lawyer well-known for her work to promote women’s rights, tells Magharebia that "instead of bringing solutions, the new family code has created dissolution". "They wanted to be innovative," she explains, adding that unfortunately, their actions brought about the opposite effect.
Lawyer Ahmed Khababa agrees. "Designed to strengthen family ties, the new code has turned the futures of thousands of families to tragedy in a very short time." He refers to Article 14 of the new law, which, in the case of repeated conflict, allows a wife to separate from her spouse without his agreement. In addition, Article 72 guarantees a mother a sizable sum of money to support herself and her children. "It is the father's responsibility to provide a decent home or, failing that, payment for rent," Khababa says.
"Many women who had stored up years of marital conflict rushed into demanding a divorce as soon as the new laws were created, thinking they would end up with a roof over their heads."
But the women were in for a rude awakening. "The husband presents a pay slip to the judge, indicating his low income. In the majority of cases, the judge awards a rent of 6,000 DA, knowing that the average price for a studio flat in a working-class district of Algiers approaches 10,000 DA. In the best case scenario, the woman chooses a dilapidated place to live. In the worst case, she will return to her parents' home, or find herself out on the streets," Khababa affirms.
Such a scenario was "predictable", Benbrahem says, and statistics released by the Ministry of Justice support her assessment. Indeed, there were 25,000 divorces in 2005. By 2007, the number had spiked to 36,750.
At the root of many of the problems is Article 8, which sets out conditions for the husband to contract up to four marriages at a time. The number of marriages, however, is not the worry. The problem lies in the way the marriages work.
Now, a husband who wants to remarry must present a judge with a marriage request bearing the signature of his previous wife. In other words, the woman must be informed of her husband’s intention to remarry.
"This condition has wrecked everything," Benbrahem says. "Very few men follow it through," he adds, noting that most turn to "extramarital relationships, and traditional or religious marriages which deprive the woman of all her rights in the eyes of the law."
Men have found a number of ways to circumvent the law. "I've pleaded cases where the husband has won by contracting a second illegal marriage (thanks to the new family code)," says the lawyer. "The cunning husband waits for the day when his new wife becomes pregnant. He then goes off to the judge and orders him to validate his marriage so he can give his name to the future offspring." Faced with this fait accompli, "the judge complies in 100% of cases" and the first wife finds herself out on the street.
"We absolutely have to work to get this family code repealed," insists Meriem Bellala, president of the SOS Association for Women in Distress. "The new code," she says, "enshrines the downfall of Algerian women and their children."
Since the enactment of the new law, she says, child custody has become "a means to justify a frequently unsavoury end." Because the husband no longer has to pay his wife's rent if she loses legal rights to the children, the mother wants custody in order to have a place to live and the father wants custody so he can stop paying an additional rent.
Bellala says that problems lie not only in the way the law is enforced, but also in a lack of understanding in some constituencies "where the texts defining the law have never been received." The Algerian authorities do not deny this situation.
Nouara Djaâfar, Algeria's minister for families and women, tells Magharebia that marriage failures are not the fault of the law "embodying the family code, but [rather] in the application of the law, which needs to be given time." According to a study by Djaâfar's ministry, more than 50% of women "do not know their rights" and are unaware of the content of the new family code.
Outside the capital, "they haven’t even heard about revisions to this law," says Samia Guermaz, a 42-year old English teacher. "It's common law that governs families."
Indeed, ignorance of civil law has led many women to enter into marriage with foreign Muslims without acquiring the proper legal protections of their rights. Mabdellah Temine, communications advisor for the Ministry of Religious Affairs, provided Magharebia with information indicating that in 2006 alone, some 3,000 women were tricked into marrying imams and sheikhs from the Middle East and the Gulf who were in Algeria on short-term postings.
"After noticing the husband’s absence, the victims go along to the consulate of their respective country," Temine says. "They discover there that the people they are inquiring after do not exist." The so-called "men of faith" have given false names in order to consummate "zawaj al mutaa" without being traced. Because the marriage was never official registered with the state, Temine says, "These women and children find that they have no rights."
By Achira Mammeri for Magharebia in Algiers
Her eyes are wild, her face is pale and her right hand stretches out to passers-by, opening and closing with an automatic, yet timid movement. For a year now, Hadfa Boutouba, 45, has lived in a cardboard box on the pavement in Algeria's working-class Bab El Oued district. Her three children Nassim, 10, Amina, 8, and Ines, 5, live with her. Her story is by no means unique. After fifteen years of marriage, the couple separates. The husband remarries, and the wife is forced to leave the home. Destination: the street.
Like so many Algerian women, Hadfa Boutouba was caught up in a storm of political slogans when the Family Code was reformed on February 27th 2005. Women were told that by repealing the 1984 law on marriages, they and their children would finally enjoy rights and protections in the case of divorce. Promises of what the new law would bring ranged from "equality of the sexes" to "strengthening the family unit".
At the time, women’s associations in Algeria hailed the new law as a victory. Even today, limited knowledge about the law leaves many women with a positive impression. Although she has not read the law, 36 year old tax inspector Hassiba Chékir,, tells Magharebia, "I’ve heard that divorced women are entitled to a home, and the husband cannot take a second wife without informing the first."
But the reality is not so simple. Many women today feel that the slogans from three years ago were illusory. Fatima Benbrahem, a lawyer well-known for her work to promote women’s rights, tells Magharebia that "instead of bringing solutions, the new family code has created dissolution". "They wanted to be innovative," she explains, adding that unfortunately, their actions brought about the opposite effect.
Lawyer Ahmed Khababa agrees. "Designed to strengthen family ties, the new code has turned the futures of thousands of families to tragedy in a very short time." He refers to Article 14 of the new law, which, in the case of repeated conflict, allows a wife to separate from her spouse without his agreement. In addition, Article 72 guarantees a mother a sizable sum of money to support herself and her children. "It is the father's responsibility to provide a decent home or, failing that, payment for rent," Khababa says.
"Many women who had stored up years of marital conflict rushed into demanding a divorce as soon as the new laws were created, thinking they would end up with a roof over their heads."
But the women were in for a rude awakening. "The husband presents a pay slip to the judge, indicating his low income. In the majority of cases, the judge awards a rent of 6,000 DA, knowing that the average price for a studio flat in a working-class district of Algiers approaches 10,000 DA. In the best case scenario, the woman chooses a dilapidated place to live. In the worst case, she will return to her parents' home, or find herself out on the streets," Khababa affirms.
Such a scenario was "predictable", Benbrahem says, and statistics released by the Ministry of Justice support her assessment. Indeed, there were 25,000 divorces in 2005. By 2007, the number had spiked to 36,750.
At the root of many of the problems is Article 8, which sets out conditions for the husband to contract up to four marriages at a time. The number of marriages, however, is not the worry. The problem lies in the way the marriages work.
Now, a husband who wants to remarry must present a judge with a marriage request bearing the signature of his previous wife. In other words, the woman must be informed of her husband’s intention to remarry.
"This condition has wrecked everything," Benbrahem says. "Very few men follow it through," he adds, noting that most turn to "extramarital relationships, and traditional or religious marriages which deprive the woman of all her rights in the eyes of the law."
Men have found a number of ways to circumvent the law. "I've pleaded cases where the husband has won by contracting a second illegal marriage (thanks to the new family code)," says the lawyer. "The cunning husband waits for the day when his new wife becomes pregnant. He then goes off to the judge and orders him to validate his marriage so he can give his name to the future offspring." Faced with this fait accompli, "the judge complies in 100% of cases" and the first wife finds herself out on the street.
"We absolutely have to work to get this family code repealed," insists Meriem Bellala, president of the SOS Association for Women in Distress. "The new code," she says, "enshrines the downfall of Algerian women and their children."
Since the enactment of the new law, she says, child custody has become "a means to justify a frequently unsavoury end." Because the husband no longer has to pay his wife's rent if she loses legal rights to the children, the mother wants custody in order to have a place to live and the father wants custody so he can stop paying an additional rent.
Bellala says that problems lie not only in the way the law is enforced, but also in a lack of understanding in some constituencies "where the texts defining the law have never been received." The Algerian authorities do not deny this situation.
Nouara Djaâfar, Algeria's minister for families and women, tells Magharebia that marriage failures are not the fault of the law "embodying the family code, but [rather] in the application of the law, which needs to be given time." According to a study by Djaâfar's ministry, more than 50% of women "do not know their rights" and are unaware of the content of the new family code.
Outside the capital, "they haven’t even heard about revisions to this law," says Samia Guermaz, a 42-year old English teacher. "It's common law that governs families."
Indeed, ignorance of civil law has led many women to enter into marriage with foreign Muslims without acquiring the proper legal protections of their rights. Mabdellah Temine, communications advisor for the Ministry of Religious Affairs, provided Magharebia with information indicating that in 2006 alone, some 3,000 women were tricked into marrying imams and sheikhs from the Middle East and the Gulf who were in Algeria on short-term postings.
"After noticing the husband’s absence, the victims go along to the consulate of their respective country," Temine says. "They discover there that the people they are inquiring after do not exist." The so-called "men of faith" have given false names in order to consummate "zawaj al mutaa" without being traced. Because the marriage was never official registered with the state, Temine says, "These women and children find that they have no rights."
By Achira Mammeri for Magharebia in Algiers
Saudi Arabia: Rights group urges Saudi king to spare woman convicted of 'witchcraft'
Human Rights Watch appealed to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Thursday to spare the life of a woman who was condemned to death for "witchcraft".
"King Abdullah should halt the execution of Fawza Falih and void her conviction for 'witchcraft,'" the New York-based HRW, adding it had delivered the appeal in a letter to the Saudi king."
The religious police who arrested and interrogated Fawza Falih and the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence against absurd charges," it said.
"The fact that Saudi judges still conduct trials for unprovable crimes like witchcraft' underscores their inability to carry out objective criminal investigations," said Joe Stork, the Middle East director at HRW.
It charged that the judges relied on Falih's "coerced confession and on the statements of witnesses who said she had 'bewitched' them to convict her" in April 2006, following her arrest in May 2005. Falih had "retracted her confession in court, claiming it was extracted under duress, and that as an illiterate woman she did not understand the document she was forced to fingerprint", said HRW." At one point, she had to be hospitalised as a result of beatings" at the hands of the religious police, called the "mutaween" in the ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom, it said.
HRW said: "The judges never investigated whether her confession was voluntary or reliable, or investigated her allegations of torture. They never even made an inquiry as to whether she could have been responsible for allegedly supernatural occurrences, such as the sudden impotence of a man she is said to have 'bewitched'."
HRW said that an appeals court had ruled Falih could not be sentenced to death for "witchcraft" as a crime against God because she had retracted her confession.
She had been condemned to death in April 2006 for "witchcraft, recourse to jinn (supernatural beings), and slaughter" of animals, it said. But lower court judges then sentenced her to death "on a 'discretionary' basis, for the benefit of 'public interest' and to 'protect the creed, souls and property of this country'", it said.
HRW did not specify Falih's nationality but referred in its letter to the king to her relatives in Jordan.
In November, Egyptian pharmacist Mustapha Ibrahim, who worked in the northern city of Arar, was beheaded by the sword for "sorcery" under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic laws for allegedly trying to separate a married couple.
- Agence France-Presse
"King Abdullah should halt the execution of Fawza Falih and void her conviction for 'witchcraft,'" the New York-based HRW, adding it had delivered the appeal in a letter to the Saudi king."
The religious police who arrested and interrogated Fawza Falih and the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence against absurd charges," it said.
"The fact that Saudi judges still conduct trials for unprovable crimes like witchcraft' underscores their inability to carry out objective criminal investigations," said Joe Stork, the Middle East director at HRW.
It charged that the judges relied on Falih's "coerced confession and on the statements of witnesses who said she had 'bewitched' them to convict her" in April 2006, following her arrest in May 2005. Falih had "retracted her confession in court, claiming it was extracted under duress, and that as an illiterate woman she did not understand the document she was forced to fingerprint", said HRW." At one point, she had to be hospitalised as a result of beatings" at the hands of the religious police, called the "mutaween" in the ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom, it said.
HRW said: "The judges never investigated whether her confession was voluntary or reliable, or investigated her allegations of torture. They never even made an inquiry as to whether she could have been responsible for allegedly supernatural occurrences, such as the sudden impotence of a man she is said to have 'bewitched'."
HRW said that an appeals court had ruled Falih could not be sentenced to death for "witchcraft" as a crime against God because she had retracted her confession.
She had been condemned to death in April 2006 for "witchcraft, recourse to jinn (supernatural beings), and slaughter" of animals, it said. But lower court judges then sentenced her to death "on a 'discretionary' basis, for the benefit of 'public interest' and to 'protect the creed, souls and property of this country'", it said.
HRW did not specify Falih's nationality but referred in its letter to the king to her relatives in Jordan.
In November, Egyptian pharmacist Mustapha Ibrahim, who worked in the northern city of Arar, was beheaded by the sword for "sorcery" under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic laws for allegedly trying to separate a married couple.
- Agence France-Presse
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Don’t waste women’s potential – Erturk
RIYADH - A visiting UN official called Wednesday for greater participation of Saudi women in society so as to avoid "an incredible waste of human resources here."Yanik Erturk, the special United Nations rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on Violence against Women, said at a press conference here that while her 10-day visit to the Kingdom has given her hope about improvement in the condition of Saudi women, more is needed to be done.
"I have met many high-level educated women, and I see an incredible waste of human resources here," said Erturk. "Half of society can't contribute."
Ertuk noted that women's access to education, which has resulted in the significant improvement in the literacy rates for women in a relatively short period of time, was a positive improvement achieved by the Saudi government.
"Women are enjoying free and close to full access to primary, secondary and tertiary education, where the ratio of girls attending school is equal to or higher than that of boys," she said.
However, Erturk said that women still have limited access to higher education in some fields.
Erturk's findings also concluded that in the public sector, with the exception of participation in the health, education and social fields, women still lack access to employment in ministries such as the Ministry of Justice and Interior and they are excluded from decision-making positions.
She noted in particular the absence of women members in the Council of Ministers, Shoura Council, and on the board of the Human Rights Commission.
During the press conference, Erturk addressed the need for judicial reform, the overall participation of women in society, work force and decision-making, violence against women and the conditions of foreign female workers.
"There is urgency for judicial reform," said Erturk. "The judiciary reform which is already in progress is important to bridge the gap between traditions, law and what is being implemented."
The special UN rapporteur also addressed the issue of codification of law and the need for establishing a family law, looking into guardianship, and women's access to the judicial system.
Erturk noted progress in Saudi media coverage of women's issues. "The media is the most important element in supporting women's issues," she said. "I am impressed by the coverage women's issues are getting, and encourage it to go further."
"I congratulate the media for engaging in the issue of violence against women but more has to be dome to increase awareness."
Erturk also expressed her gratitude to the Saudi government for inviting her to the Kingdom and also for all the support they provided her during her visit.
"The Saudi women I met had diverse voices, aspirations and demands," said Erturk. "Among the Saudi women I met there were those who have expressed contentment and satisfaction with their lives, while others have raised concerns of serious levels of discriminatory practices against them."
"I also met foreign women married to Saudi nationals and migrant domestic workers who face additional vulnerabilities."
Erturk spoke about her visits to the safe houses for domestic workers and the Social Protection centers in Jeddah and Dammam.
"I met with many migrant workers in safe houses and hundreds in Riyadh prison, this morning" said Erturk. "I believe that both the sending countries and the host country have obligations to ensure protective measures for the safety of these workers who are uninformed, uneducated and mostly illiterate themselves," said Erturk.
The behavior of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice grabbed Erturk's attention during her visit to the Kingdom. "These law enforcers are responsible for maintaining morality in public places. Although they are required to act in concert with the police and under certain limitations with respect to arrest and detention of people, they reportedly often act independently; as a result they are said to be responsible for serious human right abuses....," she said.
During her 10-day visit to the Kingdom, Erturk did not meet with the Commission or with Yara, the businesswoman who was arrested by the Commission for having coffee at Starbucks in Riyadh with her male colleague.
By Susan Zawawi from the Saudi Gazette
Saudi Arabia: Judicial Reforms take a Big Stride
RIYADH - Judicial reforms picked up pace with a decision to convert branches of the Board of Grievances across the country into administrative courts, SPA reported. The decision to make the change was made by the Administrative Affairs Committee at the Board of Grievances, chaired by Sheikh Muhammed Abdullah Bin Muhammed Al-Ameen.
Accordingly, administrative courts will be based in Riyadh Region, Makkah Region, the Eastern Province, Madina Region, Asir Region and in Jouf, Qassim, Tabuk, Hail, the Northern Frontier, Jizan, Najran, and Baha.
Al-Ameen directed the Board of Grievances to provide premises for the administrative courts, create judiciary and administrative posts and make financial allocations before the courts start functioning.
In line with the new Judiciary System, the Administrative Affairs Committee will perform the tasks of the Judiciary Administrative Council until such time the Council is formed.
Muhammed Bin Abdul Kareem Al-Isa, deputy chairman of the Board of Grievances, said he was optimistic with the developments.
"The Board of Grievances organized a series of workshops in the past two months which preceded the endorsement of the two systems aimed at enforcing the decision as per the directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz," Al-Isa said.
Al-Isa said the Board is focused on training of judiciary staff and making big strides towards establishing an e-court to provide judiciary services electronically, which will speed up litigation procedures.
As per the Royal Decree, the administrative court system will have a High Administrative Court, an Administrative Appeal Courts and Administrative Courts.
An Administrative Appeal Court will have a Chairman and judges with the rank of a Judge of Appeal. An Administrative Court will have a Chairman and judges. The Judiciary Administrative Council is empowered to establish other specialized courts at the King's consent. Al-Isa said these courts would function through specialized circuits as follows:
Higher Administrative Court circuit formed of three judges.
Administrative Appeal Courts circuits formed of three judges.
Administrative Courts circuits formed of three judges or one judge.
The Judiciary Administrative Council will form the Administrative Courts circuits in accordance with the suggestions of the courts' chairmen.
About the mechanism to separate the commercial and punitive courts from the Board of Grievances and their affiliation to the Ministry of Justice, Al-Isa said the Experts Commission is studying the separation mechanism following the Board's recommendation to the higher authorities. A deadline will be fixed for the separation including a precise mechanism defining the staff's jobs.
- Saudi Gazette report
Accordingly, administrative courts will be based in Riyadh Region, Makkah Region, the Eastern Province, Madina Region, Asir Region and in Jouf, Qassim, Tabuk, Hail, the Northern Frontier, Jizan, Najran, and Baha.
Al-Ameen directed the Board of Grievances to provide premises for the administrative courts, create judiciary and administrative posts and make financial allocations before the courts start functioning.
In line with the new Judiciary System, the Administrative Affairs Committee will perform the tasks of the Judiciary Administrative Council until such time the Council is formed.
Muhammed Bin Abdul Kareem Al-Isa, deputy chairman of the Board of Grievances, said he was optimistic with the developments.
"The Board of Grievances organized a series of workshops in the past two months which preceded the endorsement of the two systems aimed at enforcing the decision as per the directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz," Al-Isa said.
Al-Isa said the Board is focused on training of judiciary staff and making big strides towards establishing an e-court to provide judiciary services electronically, which will speed up litigation procedures.
As per the Royal Decree, the administrative court system will have a High Administrative Court, an Administrative Appeal Courts and Administrative Courts.
An Administrative Appeal Court will have a Chairman and judges with the rank of a Judge of Appeal. An Administrative Court will have a Chairman and judges. The Judiciary Administrative Council is empowered to establish other specialized courts at the King's consent. Al-Isa said these courts would function through specialized circuits as follows:
Higher Administrative Court circuit formed of three judges.
Administrative Appeal Courts circuits formed of three judges.
Administrative Courts circuits formed of three judges or one judge.
The Judiciary Administrative Council will form the Administrative Courts circuits in accordance with the suggestions of the courts' chairmen.
About the mechanism to separate the commercial and punitive courts from the Board of Grievances and their affiliation to the Ministry of Justice, Al-Isa said the Experts Commission is studying the separation mechanism following the Board's recommendation to the higher authorities. A deadline will be fixed for the separation including a precise mechanism defining the staff's jobs.
- Saudi Gazette report
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Morocco: Women in Parliament seek to change public image
The last elections in Morocco swept 34 women from six political parties into Parliament. The new legislators now plan to work together, regardless of party differences, to advance women's issues and prove they can perform as well as the male MPs.
National elections last October in Morocco brought 34 women to the first chamber of Parliament, but while the female MPs have proven effective legislators, their task has not been easy. Along with their work responsibilities, they must battle stereotypes which consider women to be weak politicians.
"Although it is still low, the number of women elected could still be quite a force to be reckoned with. What matters is discourse, the quality of their contributions to the debating chamber and their ability to convince," says Fatiha Lyadi, the only independent candidate elected last fall. She is now Information Director at the Ministry of Communications.
Bassima Hakkaoui, an MP for the Justice and Development Party, agreed it is time to destroy the negative clichés. "Women are just as competent as men. I think we should judge their performance by their presence in Parliament, their effectiveness and their perseverance," she said.
In fact, this new wave of elected women is "young and knowledgeable", and made up of many successful administrators, according to Moustafa Zaari, a journalist for the Arab-language daily Assabah. "This is a good thing for the country," he told Magharebia.
Female politicians recognise they have a long way to go before they can reach their objectives. Since the start of the current legislative year in October 2007, no women have been chosen to chair parliamentary committees. In the previous parliament, by contrast, two women were appointed; one to head the foreign affairs committee and the other to oversee the social sectors committee. In the current Parliament, only one woman has been awarded significant responsibility.
That female legislator is Latifa Bennani Smires, who, after securing an appointment to head up the Istiqlal party’s parliamentary group, has effectively demonstrated her political skills. To achieve more, however, she said that women serving in the Moroccan Parliament need to work together.
Political relations professor Mohamed Katiri also feels that women in the legislature would do well to pursue greater co-ordination in order to stamp their presence on the institution. "In the last Parliament, very few women MPs were known through their actions. During this one, women must join ranks to prove what they are capable of doing. This is how women will win the confidence of the voters," he said.
The 34 women MPs come from six political parties belonging both to the majority and opposition. Despite this diversity, they expect to pull together in the "Women in Parliament Forum". The group was set up in 2005 but its powers were limited. Now, however, the more experienced women parliamentarians and the new arrivals hope to identify common objectives to help women and recognise the principles of democracy.
The revitalised forum aims to highlight the work of women in parliament, to strengthen their presence and representation in the centres of decision-making, and to use legislative mechanisms to promote women's issues.
When it comes to politics and comparisons to male legislators, Hakkaoui said with conviction that women are up to the challenge.
By Sarah Touahri for Magharebia in Rabat
National elections last October in Morocco brought 34 women to the first chamber of Parliament, but while the female MPs have proven effective legislators, their task has not been easy. Along with their work responsibilities, they must battle stereotypes which consider women to be weak politicians.
"Although it is still low, the number of women elected could still be quite a force to be reckoned with. What matters is discourse, the quality of their contributions to the debating chamber and their ability to convince," says Fatiha Lyadi, the only independent candidate elected last fall. She is now Information Director at the Ministry of Communications.
Bassima Hakkaoui, an MP for the Justice and Development Party, agreed it is time to destroy the negative clichés. "Women are just as competent as men. I think we should judge their performance by their presence in Parliament, their effectiveness and their perseverance," she said.
In fact, this new wave of elected women is "young and knowledgeable", and made up of many successful administrators, according to Moustafa Zaari, a journalist for the Arab-language daily Assabah. "This is a good thing for the country," he told Magharebia.
Female politicians recognise they have a long way to go before they can reach their objectives. Since the start of the current legislative year in October 2007, no women have been chosen to chair parliamentary committees. In the previous parliament, by contrast, two women were appointed; one to head the foreign affairs committee and the other to oversee the social sectors committee. In the current Parliament, only one woman has been awarded significant responsibility.
That female legislator is Latifa Bennani Smires, who, after securing an appointment to head up the Istiqlal party’s parliamentary group, has effectively demonstrated her political skills. To achieve more, however, she said that women serving in the Moroccan Parliament need to work together.
Political relations professor Mohamed Katiri also feels that women in the legislature would do well to pursue greater co-ordination in order to stamp their presence on the institution. "In the last Parliament, very few women MPs were known through their actions. During this one, women must join ranks to prove what they are capable of doing. This is how women will win the confidence of the voters," he said.
The 34 women MPs come from six political parties belonging both to the majority and opposition. Despite this diversity, they expect to pull together in the "Women in Parliament Forum". The group was set up in 2005 but its powers were limited. Now, however, the more experienced women parliamentarians and the new arrivals hope to identify common objectives to help women and recognise the principles of democracy.
The revitalised forum aims to highlight the work of women in parliament, to strengthen their presence and representation in the centres of decision-making, and to use legislative mechanisms to promote women's issues.
When it comes to politics and comparisons to male legislators, Hakkaoui said with conviction that women are up to the challenge.
By Sarah Touahri for Magharebia in Rabat
Saudi Arabia: Women complain of discrimination, abuse
RIYADH - A UN expert on women’s rights said on Wednesday she had heard accounts of serious discrimination against women and abuses by religious police during a visit to ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia.
There also appears to be no timeframe for lifting a ban on women’s driving, Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, told reporters at the end of a 10-day visit to the Muslim kingdom.
Erturk said that while some Saudi women she met during her visit at the government’s invitation expressed satisfaction with their lives, ‘others have raised concerns of serious levels of discriminatory practices against women that compromise their rights and dignity as full human beings.’
Others related ‘the domestic abuse they systematically encounter with little prospect of redress.’
Erturk said that progress had been made in women’s access to education, but there has been no comparable increase in their participation in the labour force, mainly due to sex segregation in the workplace, and they are ‘particularly excluded from decision-making positions.’
She said many of her interlocutors complained about the behaviour of the religious police, or Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who are commonly known as Muttawa and enforce a strict Islamic moral code.
‘The Muttawa are said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms’,’ the UN official said, citing an incident reported during her visit in which they arrested a businesswoman for sitting in a coffee shop with a male colleague in Riyadh.
Erturk said she had not met any officials from the religious police during her visit, which followed a report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women which stated that women in the kingdom were the victims of systematic and pervasive discrimination across all aspects of social life.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including the driving ban. They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and cannot mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
Erturk, who met officials and human rights groups, said she had raised the driving ban during her talks but did not feel there was a specific timeframe for solving the issue.
What matters in enabling women to drive is that this would give them freedom to move and work, she said.
Erturk, who will report to the UN Human Rights Council, said recently adopted judicial reforms which foresee the establishment of family courts, together with a draft law on domestic violence, were ‘promising initiatives,’ but more needed to be done to combat violence against women.
This includes adoption of a legal framework based on international human rights standards that would cover violence and family matters, establishment of a ‘national machinery for women’ to intervene in cases of violence, and ‘positive action policies and plans’ to empower women.
(AFP)
There also appears to be no timeframe for lifting a ban on women’s driving, Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, told reporters at the end of a 10-day visit to the Muslim kingdom.
Erturk said that while some Saudi women she met during her visit at the government’s invitation expressed satisfaction with their lives, ‘others have raised concerns of serious levels of discriminatory practices against women that compromise their rights and dignity as full human beings.’
Others related ‘the domestic abuse they systematically encounter with little prospect of redress.’
Erturk said that progress had been made in women’s access to education, but there has been no comparable increase in their participation in the labour force, mainly due to sex segregation in the workplace, and they are ‘particularly excluded from decision-making positions.’
She said many of her interlocutors complained about the behaviour of the religious police, or Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who are commonly known as Muttawa and enforce a strict Islamic moral code.
‘The Muttawa are said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms’,’ the UN official said, citing an incident reported during her visit in which they arrested a businesswoman for sitting in a coffee shop with a male colleague in Riyadh.
Erturk said she had not met any officials from the religious police during her visit, which followed a report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women which stated that women in the kingdom were the victims of systematic and pervasive discrimination across all aspects of social life.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including the driving ban. They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and cannot mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
Erturk, who met officials and human rights groups, said she had raised the driving ban during her talks but did not feel there was a specific timeframe for solving the issue.
What matters in enabling women to drive is that this would give them freedom to move and work, she said.
Erturk, who will report to the UN Human Rights Council, said recently adopted judicial reforms which foresee the establishment of family courts, together with a draft law on domestic violence, were ‘promising initiatives,’ but more needed to be done to combat violence against women.
This includes adoption of a legal framework based on international human rights standards that would cover violence and family matters, establishment of a ‘national machinery for women’ to intervene in cases of violence, and ‘positive action policies and plans’ to empower women.
(AFP)
Monday, February 11, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Cancer Screening Targets 75,000 Qassim Women
JEDDAH — The Health Affairs Department in the Qassim Region has introduced a complete program for early detection of breast cancer. The program, staffed by women oncologists, pathologists and radiologists, targets 75,000 patients — aged 35 to 60 — in the region.
Dr. Mohammed Al-Habdan, executive director of the program, described the program, which began last year, as the first of its kind in the region. The Health Ministry is likely to expand the program to other regions after reviewing its success.
“There are five permanent centers and one mobile center in the program,” said Habdan. King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Buraidah, King Saud Hospital in Unaizah, and the general hospitals in Al-Rass Bakeriya and Mudnib are permanent centers, he explained.
He said the program required special budget allocations in order to carry out its mission in an efficient manner and expand its services to other areas. “Some centers in the program still lack necessary equipment and medical facilities,” he explained.
“So far we have been able to cover 14 percent of targeted women in the region,” he said.
“We are providing comprehensive medical services to the targeted group. Patients are diagnosed by a multi-disciplinary-team (MDT) after taking mammograms,” he added.
Mammograms are the most important tool doctors have to help them diagnose, evaluate and follow women who have had breast cancer.
Safe and highly accurate, a mammogram is an X-ray photograph of the breast. The technique has been in use for about 30 years.
Leading experts including the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society now recommend annual mammograms for women over 40. Detecting breast cancer early through mammography means many more women are being treated for breast cancer and are able to protect their breasts.
“Under this program we have so far been able to detect four cancer cases in the early stages. We also found some non-cancerous tumors in some women,” Habdan said. “In order to avoid possible mistakes, mammography images are checked by three experts,” he added.
Habdan emphasized the significance of the program in the wake of growing breast cancer cases among Saudi women as a result of both hereditary and environmental factors.
“We have a relatively young population and we recommend mammography for women aged 35 and 60 every 18 months,” he said.
A public awareness campaign was organized in the region as part of the program in order to enlighten women on the benefits of early diagnosis.
A well-equipped vehicle with oncologists and other experts tours remote areas of the region that do not have hospitals or health centers in order to provide mammography tests.
Breast cancer accounts for 20 percent of all cancers among Saudi women. “About 10 to 15 percent of all breast cancers are thought to be familial and only two-thirds to three-fourths of these cases are due to an inherited mutation,” one expert said.
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
Dr. Mohammed Al-Habdan, executive director of the program, described the program, which began last year, as the first of its kind in the region. The Health Ministry is likely to expand the program to other regions after reviewing its success.
“There are five permanent centers and one mobile center in the program,” said Habdan. King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Buraidah, King Saud Hospital in Unaizah, and the general hospitals in Al-Rass Bakeriya and Mudnib are permanent centers, he explained.
He said the program required special budget allocations in order to carry out its mission in an efficient manner and expand its services to other areas. “Some centers in the program still lack necessary equipment and medical facilities,” he explained.
“So far we have been able to cover 14 percent of targeted women in the region,” he said.
“We are providing comprehensive medical services to the targeted group. Patients are diagnosed by a multi-disciplinary-team (MDT) after taking mammograms,” he added.
Mammograms are the most important tool doctors have to help them diagnose, evaluate and follow women who have had breast cancer.
Safe and highly accurate, a mammogram is an X-ray photograph of the breast. The technique has been in use for about 30 years.
Leading experts including the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society now recommend annual mammograms for women over 40. Detecting breast cancer early through mammography means many more women are being treated for breast cancer and are able to protect their breasts.
“Under this program we have so far been able to detect four cancer cases in the early stages. We also found some non-cancerous tumors in some women,” Habdan said. “In order to avoid possible mistakes, mammography images are checked by three experts,” he added.
Habdan emphasized the significance of the program in the wake of growing breast cancer cases among Saudi women as a result of both hereditary and environmental factors.
“We have a relatively young population and we recommend mammography for women aged 35 and 60 every 18 months,” he said.
A public awareness campaign was organized in the region as part of the program in order to enlighten women on the benefits of early diagnosis.
A well-equipped vehicle with oncologists and other experts tours remote areas of the region that do not have hospitals or health centers in order to provide mammography tests.
Breast cancer accounts for 20 percent of all cancers among Saudi women. “About 10 to 15 percent of all breast cancers are thought to be familial and only two-thirds to three-fourths of these cases are due to an inherited mutation,” one expert said.
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Middle East: U.S. Universities Rush to Set Up Outposts Abroad
By TAMAR LEWIN
New York Times
When John Sexton, the president of New York University, first met Omar Saif Ghobash, an investor trying to entice him to open a branch campus in the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Sexton was not sure what to make of the proposal — so he asked for a $50 million gift.
“It’s like earnest money: if you’re a $50 million donor, I’ll take you seriously,” Mr. Sexton said. “It’s a way to test their bona fides.” In the end, the money materialized from the government of Abu Dhabi, one of the seven emirates.
Mr. Sexton has long been committed to building N.Y.U.’s international presence, increasing study-abroad sites, opening programs in Singapore, and exploring new partnerships in France.
But the plans for a comprehensive liberal-arts branch campus in the Persian Gulf, set to open in 2010, are in a class by themselves, and Mr. Sexton is already talking about the flow of professors and students he envisions between New York and Abu Dhabi.
The American system of higher education, long the envy of the world, is becoming an important export as more universities take their programs overseas.
In a kind of educational gold rush, American universities are competing to set up outposts in countries with limited higher education opportunities. American universities — not to mention Australian and British ones, which also offer instruction in English, the lingua franca of academia — are starting, or expanding, hundreds of programs and partnerships in booming markets like China, India and Singapore.
And many are now considering full-fledged foreign branch campuses, particularly in the oil-rich Middle East. Already, students in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar can attend an American university without the expense, culture shock or post-9/11 visa problems of traveling to America.
At Education City in Doha, Qatar’s capital, they can study medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, international affairs at Georgetown, computer science and business at Carnegie Mellon, fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth, engineering at Texas A&M, and soon, journalism at Northwestern.
In Dubai, another emirate, Michigan State University and Rochester Institute of Technology will offer classes this fall.
“Where universities are heading now is toward becoming global universities,” said Howard Rollins, the former director of international programs at Georgia Tech, which has degree programs in France, Singapore, Italy, South Africa and China, and plans for India. “We’ll have more and more universities competing internationally for resources, faculty and the best students.”
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, internationalization has moved high on the agenda at most universities, to prepare students for a globalized world, and to help faculty members stay up-to-date in their disciplines.
Overseas programs can help American universities raise their profile, build international relationships, attract top research talent who, in turn, may attract grants and produce patents, and gain access to a new pool of tuition-paying students, just as the number of college-age Americans is about to decline.
Even public universities, whose primary mission is to educate in-state students, are trying to establish a global brand in an era of limited state financing.
Partly, it is about prestige. American universities have long worried about their ratings in U.S. News and World Report. These days, they are also mindful of the international rankings published in Britain, by the Times Higher Education Supplement, and in China, by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The demand from overseas is huge. At the University of Washington, the administrator in charge of overseas programs said she received about a proposal a week. “It’s almost like spam,” said the official, Susan Jeffords, whose position as vice provost for global affairs was created just two years ago.
Traditionally, top universities built their international presence through study-abroad sites, research partnerships, faculty exchanges and joint degree programs offered with foreign universities. Yale has dozens of research collaborations with Chinese universities. Overseas branches, with the same requirements and degrees as the home campuses, are a newer — and riskier — phenomenon.
“I still think the downside is lower than the upside is high,” said Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania. “The risk is that we couldn’t deliver the same quality education that we do here, and that it would mean diluting our faculty strength at home.”
While universities with overseas branches insist that the education equals what is offered in the United States, much of the faculty is hired locally, on a short-term basis. And certainly overseas branches raise fundamental questions: Will the programs reflect American values and culture, or the host country’s? Will American taxpayers end up footing part of the bill for overseas students? What happens if relations between the United States and the host country deteriorate? And will foreign branches that spread American know-how hurt American competitiveness?
“A lot of these educators are trying to present themselves as benevolent and altruistic, when in reality, their programs are aimed at making money,” said Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who has criticized the rush overseas.
David J. Skorton, the president of Cornell, on the other hand, said the global drive benefited the United States. “Higher education is the most important diplomatic asset we have,” he said. “I believe these programs can actually reduce friction between countries and cultures.”
Tempering Expectations
While the Persian Gulf campus of N.Y.U. is on the horizon, George Mason University is up and running — though not at full speed — in Ras al Khaymah, another one of the emirates.
George Mason, a public university in Fairfax, Va., arrived in the gulf in 2005 with a tiny language program intended to help students achieve college-level English skills and meet the university’s admission standards for the degree programs that were beginning the next year.
George Mason expected to have 200 undergraduates in 2006, and grow from there. But it enrolled nowhere near that many, then or now. It had just 57 degree students — 3 in biology, 27 in business and 27 in engineering — at the start of this academic year, joined by a few more students and programs this semester.
The project, an hour north of Dubai’s skyscrapers and 7,000 miles from Virginia, is still finding its way. “I will freely confess that it’s all been more complicated than I expected,” said Peter Stearns, George Mason’s provost.
The Ras al Khaymah campus has had a succession of deans. Simple tasks like ordering books take months, in part because of government censors. Local licensing, still not complete, has been far more rigorous than expected. And it has not been easy to find interested students with the SAT scores and English skills that George Mason requires for admissions.
“I’m optimistic, but if you look at it as a business, you can only take losses for so long,” said Dr. Abul R. Hasan, the academic dean, who is from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. “Our goal is to have 2,000 students five years from now. What makes it difficult is that if you’re giving the George Mason degree, you cannot lower your standards.”
Aisha Ravindran, a professor from India with no previous connection to George Mason, teaches students the same communications class required for business majors at the Virginia campus — but in the Arabian desert, it lands differently.
Dr. Ravindran uses the same slides, showing emoticons and lists of nonverbal taboos to spread the American business ideal of diversity and inclusiveness. She emphasizes the need to use language that includes all listeners.
And suddenly, there is an odd mismatch between the American curriculum and the local culture.
In a country where homosexual acts are illegal, Dr. Ravindran’s slide show suggests using “partner” or “life partner,” since “husband” or “wife” might exclude some listeners. And in a country where mosques are ubiquitous, the slides counsel students to avoid the word “church” and substitute “place of worship.”
The Ras al Khaymah students include Bangladeshis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Indians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians and more, most from families that can afford the $5,400-a-semester tuition. But George Mason has attracted few citizens of the emirates.
The students say they love the small classes, diversity and camaraderie. Their dorm feels much like an American fraternity house, without the haze of alcohol. Some praise George Mason’s pedagogy, which they say differs substantially from the rote learning of their high schools.
“At my local school in Abu Dhabi, it was all what the teachers told you, what was in the book,” said Mona Bar Houm, a Palestinian student who grew up in Abu Dhabi. “Here you’re asked to come up with your personal ideas.”
But what matters most, they say, is getting an American degree. “It means something if I go home to Bangladesh with an American degree,” said Abdul Mukit, a business student. “It doesn’t need to be Harvard. It’s good enough to be just an American degree.”
Whether that degree really reflects George Mason is open to question. None of the faculty members came from George Mason, although that is likely to change next year. The money is not from George Mason, either: Ras al Khaymah bears all the costs.
Nonetheless, Sharon Siverts, the vice president in charge of the campus, said: “What’s George Mason is everything we do. The admissions are done at George Mason, by George Mason standards. The degree programs are Mason programs.”
Seeking a Partnership
Three years ago, Mr. Ghobash, the Oxford-educated investor from the United Arab Emirates, heard a presentation by a private company, American Higher Education Inc., trying to broker a partnership between Kuwait and an American university.
Mr. Ghobash, wanting to bring liberal arts to his country, hired the company to submit a proposal for a gulf campus run by a well-regarded American university. American Higher Education officials said they introduced him to N.Y.U. Mr. Ghobash spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the company’s fees, talked with many N.Y.U. officials and paid for a delegation to visit the emirates before meeting Mr. Sexton, the university president, in June 2005.
Mr. Sexton said he solicited the $50 million gift to emphasize that he was not interested in a business-model deal and that academic excellence was expensive. Mr. Ghobash declined to be interviewed. But according to American Higher Education officials, $50 million was more than Mr. Ghobash could handle.
So when the agreement for the Abu Dhabi campus New York University was signed last fall, Mr. Ghobash and the company were out of the picture, and the government of Abu Dhabi — the richest of the emirates — was the partner to build and operate the N.Y.U. campus. The Executive Affairs Authority of Abu Dhabi made the gift in November 2007.
“The crown prince shares our vision of Abu Dhabi becoming an idea capital for the whole region,” Mr. Sexton said. “We’re going to be a global network university. This is central to what N.Y.U. is going to be in the future. There’s a commitment, on both sides, to have both campuses grow together, so that by 2020, both N.Y.U. and N.Y.U.-Abu Dhabi will in the world’s top 10 universities.”
Neither side will put a price tag on the plan. But both emphasize their shared ambition to create an entity central to the intellectual life not just of the Persian Gulf but also of South Asia and the Middle East.
“We totally buy into John’s view of idea capitals,” said Khaldoon al-Mubarak, chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority. “This is not a commercially driven relationship. It’s a commitment to generations to come, to research. We see eye to eye. We see this as a Catholic marriage. It’s forever.”
It is also, for New York University, a chance to grow, given Abu Dhabi’s promise to replace whatever the New York campus loses to the gulf.
“If, say, 10 percent of the physics department goes there, they will pay to expand the physics department here by 10 percent,” Mr. Sexton said. “That’s a wonderful opportunity, and we think our faculty will see it that way and step up.”
Mr. Sexton is leading the way: next fall, even before the campus is built, he plans to teach a course in Abu Dhabi, leaving New York every other Friday evening, getting to Abu Dhabi on Saturday, teaching Sunday and returning to his New York office Monday morning.
“The crown prince loved the idea and said he wanted to take the class,” Mr. Sexton said. “But I said, ‘No, think how that would be for the other students.’ ”
Uncharted Territory
While the gulf’s wealth has drawn many American universities, others dream of China’s enormous population.
In October, the New York Institute of Technology, a private university offering career-oriented training, opened a Nanjing campus in collaboration with Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and dozens of American universities offer joint or dual degrees through Chinese universities.
Kean University, a public university in New Jersey, had hoped mightily to be the first with a freestanding undergraduate campus in China. Two years ago, Kean announced its agreement to open a branch of the university in Wenzhou in September 2007. Whether the campus will materialize remains to be seen. Kean is still awaiting final approval from China, which prefers programs run through local universities.
“I’m optimistic,” said Dawood Farahi, Kean’s president. “I’m Lewis and Clark, looking for the Northwest Passage.”
In fact, his negotiations have been much like uncharted exploration. “It’s very cumbersome negotiating with the Chinese,” he said. “The deal you struck yesterday is not necessarily good today. The Chinese sign an agreement, and then the next day, you get a fax saying they want an amendment.” Still, he persists, noting, “One out of every five humans on the planet is Chinese.”
Beyond the geopolitical, there are other reasons, pedagogic and economic.
“A lot of our students are internationally illiterate,” Dr. Farahi said. “It would be very good for them to have professors who’ve taught in China, to be able to study in China, and to have more awareness of the rest of the world. And I think I can make a few bucks there.” Under the accord, he said, up to 8 percent of the Wenzhou revenues could be used to support New Jersey.
With state support for public universities a constant challenge, new financing sources are vital, especially for lesser-known universities. “It’s precisely because we’re third tier that I have to find things that jettison us out of our orbit and into something spectacular,” Dr. Farahi said.
Possibilities and Alarms
Most overseas campuses offer only a narrow slice of American higher education, most often programs in business, science, engineering and computers.
Schools of technology have the most cachet. So although the New York Institute of Technology may not be one of America’s leading universities, it is a leading globalizer, with programs in Bahrain, Jordan, Abu Dhabi, Canada, Brazil and China.
“We’re leveraging what we’ve got, which is the New York in our first name and the Technology in our last name,” said Edward Guiliano, the institute’s president. “I believe that in the 21st century, there will be a new class of truly global universities. There isn’t one yet, but we’re as close as anybody.”
Some huge universities get a toehold in the gulf with tiny programs. At a villa in Abu Dhabi, the University of Washington, a research colossus, offers short courses to citizens of the emirates, mostly women, in a government job-training program.
“We’re very eager to have a presence here,” said Marisa Nickle, who runs the program. “In the gulf, it’s not what’s here now, it’s what’s coming. Everybody’s on the way.”
Some lawmakers are wondering how that rush overseas will affect the United States. In July, the House Science and Technology subcommittee on research and science education held a hearing on university globalization.
Mr. Rohrabacher, the California lawmaker, raises alarms. “I’m someone who believes that Americans should watch out for Americans first,” he said. “It’s one thing for universities here to send professors overseas and do exchange programs, which do make sense, but it’s another thing to have us running educational programs overseas.”
The subcommittee chairman, Representative Brian Baird, a Washington Democrat, disagrees. “If the U.S. universities aren’t doing this, someone else likely will,” he said. “I think it’s better that we be invited in than that we be left out.”
Still, he said he worried that the foreign branches could undermine an important American asset — the number of world leaders who were students in the United States.
“I do wonder,” he said, “if we establish many of these campuses overseas, do we lose some of that cross-pollination?”
New York Times
When John Sexton, the president of New York University, first met Omar Saif Ghobash, an investor trying to entice him to open a branch campus in the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Sexton was not sure what to make of the proposal — so he asked for a $50 million gift.
“It’s like earnest money: if you’re a $50 million donor, I’ll take you seriously,” Mr. Sexton said. “It’s a way to test their bona fides.” In the end, the money materialized from the government of Abu Dhabi, one of the seven emirates.
Mr. Sexton has long been committed to building N.Y.U.’s international presence, increasing study-abroad sites, opening programs in Singapore, and exploring new partnerships in France.
But the plans for a comprehensive liberal-arts branch campus in the Persian Gulf, set to open in 2010, are in a class by themselves, and Mr. Sexton is already talking about the flow of professors and students he envisions between New York and Abu Dhabi.
The American system of higher education, long the envy of the world, is becoming an important export as more universities take their programs overseas.
In a kind of educational gold rush, American universities are competing to set up outposts in countries with limited higher education opportunities. American universities — not to mention Australian and British ones, which also offer instruction in English, the lingua franca of academia — are starting, or expanding, hundreds of programs and partnerships in booming markets like China, India and Singapore.
And many are now considering full-fledged foreign branch campuses, particularly in the oil-rich Middle East. Already, students in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar can attend an American university without the expense, culture shock or post-9/11 visa problems of traveling to America.
At Education City in Doha, Qatar’s capital, they can study medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, international affairs at Georgetown, computer science and business at Carnegie Mellon, fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth, engineering at Texas A&M, and soon, journalism at Northwestern.
In Dubai, another emirate, Michigan State University and Rochester Institute of Technology will offer classes this fall.
“Where universities are heading now is toward becoming global universities,” said Howard Rollins, the former director of international programs at Georgia Tech, which has degree programs in France, Singapore, Italy, South Africa and China, and plans for India. “We’ll have more and more universities competing internationally for resources, faculty and the best students.”
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, internationalization has moved high on the agenda at most universities, to prepare students for a globalized world, and to help faculty members stay up-to-date in their disciplines.
Overseas programs can help American universities raise their profile, build international relationships, attract top research talent who, in turn, may attract grants and produce patents, and gain access to a new pool of tuition-paying students, just as the number of college-age Americans is about to decline.
Even public universities, whose primary mission is to educate in-state students, are trying to establish a global brand in an era of limited state financing.
Partly, it is about prestige. American universities have long worried about their ratings in U.S. News and World Report. These days, they are also mindful of the international rankings published in Britain, by the Times Higher Education Supplement, and in China, by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The demand from overseas is huge. At the University of Washington, the administrator in charge of overseas programs said she received about a proposal a week. “It’s almost like spam,” said the official, Susan Jeffords, whose position as vice provost for global affairs was created just two years ago.
Traditionally, top universities built their international presence through study-abroad sites, research partnerships, faculty exchanges and joint degree programs offered with foreign universities. Yale has dozens of research collaborations with Chinese universities. Overseas branches, with the same requirements and degrees as the home campuses, are a newer — and riskier — phenomenon.
“I still think the downside is lower than the upside is high,” said Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania. “The risk is that we couldn’t deliver the same quality education that we do here, and that it would mean diluting our faculty strength at home.”
While universities with overseas branches insist that the education equals what is offered in the United States, much of the faculty is hired locally, on a short-term basis. And certainly overseas branches raise fundamental questions: Will the programs reflect American values and culture, or the host country’s? Will American taxpayers end up footing part of the bill for overseas students? What happens if relations between the United States and the host country deteriorate? And will foreign branches that spread American know-how hurt American competitiveness?
“A lot of these educators are trying to present themselves as benevolent and altruistic, when in reality, their programs are aimed at making money,” said Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who has criticized the rush overseas.
David J. Skorton, the president of Cornell, on the other hand, said the global drive benefited the United States. “Higher education is the most important diplomatic asset we have,” he said. “I believe these programs can actually reduce friction between countries and cultures.”
Tempering Expectations
While the Persian Gulf campus of N.Y.U. is on the horizon, George Mason University is up and running — though not at full speed — in Ras al Khaymah, another one of the emirates.
George Mason, a public university in Fairfax, Va., arrived in the gulf in 2005 with a tiny language program intended to help students achieve college-level English skills and meet the university’s admission standards for the degree programs that were beginning the next year.
George Mason expected to have 200 undergraduates in 2006, and grow from there. But it enrolled nowhere near that many, then or now. It had just 57 degree students — 3 in biology, 27 in business and 27 in engineering — at the start of this academic year, joined by a few more students and programs this semester.
The project, an hour north of Dubai’s skyscrapers and 7,000 miles from Virginia, is still finding its way. “I will freely confess that it’s all been more complicated than I expected,” said Peter Stearns, George Mason’s provost.
The Ras al Khaymah campus has had a succession of deans. Simple tasks like ordering books take months, in part because of government censors. Local licensing, still not complete, has been far more rigorous than expected. And it has not been easy to find interested students with the SAT scores and English skills that George Mason requires for admissions.
“I’m optimistic, but if you look at it as a business, you can only take losses for so long,” said Dr. Abul R. Hasan, the academic dean, who is from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. “Our goal is to have 2,000 students five years from now. What makes it difficult is that if you’re giving the George Mason degree, you cannot lower your standards.”
Aisha Ravindran, a professor from India with no previous connection to George Mason, teaches students the same communications class required for business majors at the Virginia campus — but in the Arabian desert, it lands differently.
Dr. Ravindran uses the same slides, showing emoticons and lists of nonverbal taboos to spread the American business ideal of diversity and inclusiveness. She emphasizes the need to use language that includes all listeners.
And suddenly, there is an odd mismatch between the American curriculum and the local culture.
In a country where homosexual acts are illegal, Dr. Ravindran’s slide show suggests using “partner” or “life partner,” since “husband” or “wife” might exclude some listeners. And in a country where mosques are ubiquitous, the slides counsel students to avoid the word “church” and substitute “place of worship.”
The Ras al Khaymah students include Bangladeshis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Indians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians and more, most from families that can afford the $5,400-a-semester tuition. But George Mason has attracted few citizens of the emirates.
The students say they love the small classes, diversity and camaraderie. Their dorm feels much like an American fraternity house, without the haze of alcohol. Some praise George Mason’s pedagogy, which they say differs substantially from the rote learning of their high schools.
“At my local school in Abu Dhabi, it was all what the teachers told you, what was in the book,” said Mona Bar Houm, a Palestinian student who grew up in Abu Dhabi. “Here you’re asked to come up with your personal ideas.”
But what matters most, they say, is getting an American degree. “It means something if I go home to Bangladesh with an American degree,” said Abdul Mukit, a business student. “It doesn’t need to be Harvard. It’s good enough to be just an American degree.”
Whether that degree really reflects George Mason is open to question. None of the faculty members came from George Mason, although that is likely to change next year. The money is not from George Mason, either: Ras al Khaymah bears all the costs.
Nonetheless, Sharon Siverts, the vice president in charge of the campus, said: “What’s George Mason is everything we do. The admissions are done at George Mason, by George Mason standards. The degree programs are Mason programs.”
Seeking a Partnership
Three years ago, Mr. Ghobash, the Oxford-educated investor from the United Arab Emirates, heard a presentation by a private company, American Higher Education Inc., trying to broker a partnership between Kuwait and an American university.
Mr. Ghobash, wanting to bring liberal arts to his country, hired the company to submit a proposal for a gulf campus run by a well-regarded American university. American Higher Education officials said they introduced him to N.Y.U. Mr. Ghobash spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the company’s fees, talked with many N.Y.U. officials and paid for a delegation to visit the emirates before meeting Mr. Sexton, the university president, in June 2005.
Mr. Sexton said he solicited the $50 million gift to emphasize that he was not interested in a business-model deal and that academic excellence was expensive. Mr. Ghobash declined to be interviewed. But according to American Higher Education officials, $50 million was more than Mr. Ghobash could handle.
So when the agreement for the Abu Dhabi campus New York University was signed last fall, Mr. Ghobash and the company were out of the picture, and the government of Abu Dhabi — the richest of the emirates — was the partner to build and operate the N.Y.U. campus. The Executive Affairs Authority of Abu Dhabi made the gift in November 2007.
“The crown prince shares our vision of Abu Dhabi becoming an idea capital for the whole region,” Mr. Sexton said. “We’re going to be a global network university. This is central to what N.Y.U. is going to be in the future. There’s a commitment, on both sides, to have both campuses grow together, so that by 2020, both N.Y.U. and N.Y.U.-Abu Dhabi will in the world’s top 10 universities.”
Neither side will put a price tag on the plan. But both emphasize their shared ambition to create an entity central to the intellectual life not just of the Persian Gulf but also of South Asia and the Middle East.
“We totally buy into John’s view of idea capitals,” said Khaldoon al-Mubarak, chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority. “This is not a commercially driven relationship. It’s a commitment to generations to come, to research. We see eye to eye. We see this as a Catholic marriage. It’s forever.”
It is also, for New York University, a chance to grow, given Abu Dhabi’s promise to replace whatever the New York campus loses to the gulf.
“If, say, 10 percent of the physics department goes there, they will pay to expand the physics department here by 10 percent,” Mr. Sexton said. “That’s a wonderful opportunity, and we think our faculty will see it that way and step up.”
Mr. Sexton is leading the way: next fall, even before the campus is built, he plans to teach a course in Abu Dhabi, leaving New York every other Friday evening, getting to Abu Dhabi on Saturday, teaching Sunday and returning to his New York office Monday morning.
“The crown prince loved the idea and said he wanted to take the class,” Mr. Sexton said. “But I said, ‘No, think how that would be for the other students.’ ”
Uncharted Territory
While the gulf’s wealth has drawn many American universities, others dream of China’s enormous population.
In October, the New York Institute of Technology, a private university offering career-oriented training, opened a Nanjing campus in collaboration with Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and dozens of American universities offer joint or dual degrees through Chinese universities.
Kean University, a public university in New Jersey, had hoped mightily to be the first with a freestanding undergraduate campus in China. Two years ago, Kean announced its agreement to open a branch of the university in Wenzhou in September 2007. Whether the campus will materialize remains to be seen. Kean is still awaiting final approval from China, which prefers programs run through local universities.
“I’m optimistic,” said Dawood Farahi, Kean’s president. “I’m Lewis and Clark, looking for the Northwest Passage.”
In fact, his negotiations have been much like uncharted exploration. “It’s very cumbersome negotiating with the Chinese,” he said. “The deal you struck yesterday is not necessarily good today. The Chinese sign an agreement, and then the next day, you get a fax saying they want an amendment.” Still, he persists, noting, “One out of every five humans on the planet is Chinese.”
Beyond the geopolitical, there are other reasons, pedagogic and economic.
“A lot of our students are internationally illiterate,” Dr. Farahi said. “It would be very good for them to have professors who’ve taught in China, to be able to study in China, and to have more awareness of the rest of the world. And I think I can make a few bucks there.” Under the accord, he said, up to 8 percent of the Wenzhou revenues could be used to support New Jersey.
With state support for public universities a constant challenge, new financing sources are vital, especially for lesser-known universities. “It’s precisely because we’re third tier that I have to find things that jettison us out of our orbit and into something spectacular,” Dr. Farahi said.
Possibilities and Alarms
Most overseas campuses offer only a narrow slice of American higher education, most often programs in business, science, engineering and computers.
Schools of technology have the most cachet. So although the New York Institute of Technology may not be one of America’s leading universities, it is a leading globalizer, with programs in Bahrain, Jordan, Abu Dhabi, Canada, Brazil and China.
“We’re leveraging what we’ve got, which is the New York in our first name and the Technology in our last name,” said Edward Guiliano, the institute’s president. “I believe that in the 21st century, there will be a new class of truly global universities. There isn’t one yet, but we’re as close as anybody.”
Some huge universities get a toehold in the gulf with tiny programs. At a villa in Abu Dhabi, the University of Washington, a research colossus, offers short courses to citizens of the emirates, mostly women, in a government job-training program.
“We’re very eager to have a presence here,” said Marisa Nickle, who runs the program. “In the gulf, it’s not what’s here now, it’s what’s coming. Everybody’s on the way.”
Some lawmakers are wondering how that rush overseas will affect the United States. In July, the House Science and Technology subcommittee on research and science education held a hearing on university globalization.
Mr. Rohrabacher, the California lawmaker, raises alarms. “I’m someone who believes that Americans should watch out for Americans first,” he said. “It’s one thing for universities here to send professors overseas and do exchange programs, which do make sense, but it’s another thing to have us running educational programs overseas.”
The subcommittee chairman, Representative Brian Baird, a Washington Democrat, disagrees. “If the U.S. universities aren’t doing this, someone else likely will,” he said. “I think it’s better that we be invited in than that we be left out.”
Still, he said he worried that the foreign branches could undermine an important American asset — the number of world leaders who were students in the United States.
“I do wonder,” he said, “if we establish many of these campuses overseas, do we lose some of that cross-pollination?”
Friday, February 8, 2008
Middle East: Arab charity is blooming – no thanks to America
By Ian Wilhelm from the Christian Science Monitor
Dubai, UAE - Oil and conflict. These are the two topics that dominate news coverage of the Middle East.
But there are signs that amid headlines that scream of suicide bombings and surging energy costs, a quiet social movement is under way – one that could help alleviate some deep-rooted problems of the Arab world.
Last month, while much of the globe watched the oft-hyped World Economic Forum, a first-of-its-kind summit of Arab philanthropists was held in this Persian Gulf city. Middle East royalty and Egyptian businessmen mixed with Lebanese activists and other humanitarian do-gooders to find ways to aid their troubled region. And they carried a pointed message to the Bush administration: Stop making the war on terror a war on Arab goodwill.
The charitable impulses of Arab billionaires and others are growing, according to a report released at the event by the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo.
Building on a long tradition of zakat, the Islamic version of tithing, philanthropy in the Mideast looks strikingly similar to that of Bill Gates and Andrew Carnegie and seeks to make profound social changes.
Consider the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum who pledged $10 billion last year to his own foundation. If this were an American grantmaker, it would be the third largest in the country, according to Chronicle of Philanthropy figures.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation will focus its largess on bolstering education, supporting entrepreneurship, and fostering cultural understanding by translating both classic and modern Arabic books into English and other languages.
But to get organized and be effective aren't easy tasks. Most Arabic nations have murky laws governing nonprofits and charitable giving; support for human rights and democracy is often a taboo subject, and, not least of all, American policy is an obstacle.
Since Sept. 11, the US has viewed Arab donors with a suspicious eye, accusing them of using their money to fund madrassahs or terrorist training camps. After the attacks, for example, US officials pressured Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to set up rules that restrict charitable giving.
During the Dubai conference, a Saudi businessman complained that American investigators met with him 11 times over the past several years to examine his donations. No explanation was given, he said, and there was no official framework to make complaints.
Such scrutiny causes donors to keep quiet about their giving, says the Gerhart report. And because people are more likely to donate if they have role models, below-the-radar efforts hurt philanthropy.
When Warren Buffett publicly pledged most of his fortune to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006, he inspired other gifts to the fund, including the $35 "life savings" of a 7-year-old.
Aside from government scrutiny of giving, Arab philanthropy has also been criticized because it simply may come from a donor with a different viewpoint from the recipient's.
In 2001, Rudolph Giuliani rejected a $10 million gift from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud to help victims of terrorist attacks.
We can debate Mr. Giuliani's reasons – he disliked the prince's suggestion that American policy in Israel spurred the Sept. 11 attack – but the message to Arab philanthropists was clear: Your money's no good here.
To be sure, safeguards are needed. Many terrorism experts say that Al Qaeda, Hizbullah and other militant groups use charities as a front to raise money for their operations.
But a focus only on cracking down on illegal gifts hurts the region, conference participants said.
Why doesn't the country that invented modern philanthropy do more to support it in the Middle East? Why not help Arab nations implement better nonprofit laws that promote, as well as regulate, giving?
The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, for instance, is providing college scholarships for Arab students to attend Ivy League schools in America. Speaking of Arab teenagers, Nabil Ali Alyousuf, acting chief executive of the Al Maktoum Foundation, put it best: "We either educate them or we leave them to poverty, no education, and potential extremism."
As a reporter, I have seen what philanthropy and charities can accomplish in disaster-ridden areas like Sri Lanka after the tsunami and in post-Katrina New Orleans. Perhaps a similar humanitarian spirit can generate home-grown solutions in the Arab world.
• Ian Wilhelm is a writer living in Cologne, Germany. He has covered philanthropy and international aid for more than seven years.
Dubai, UAE - Oil and conflict. These are the two topics that dominate news coverage of the Middle East.
But there are signs that amid headlines that scream of suicide bombings and surging energy costs, a quiet social movement is under way – one that could help alleviate some deep-rooted problems of the Arab world.
Last month, while much of the globe watched the oft-hyped World Economic Forum, a first-of-its-kind summit of Arab philanthropists was held in this Persian Gulf city. Middle East royalty and Egyptian businessmen mixed with Lebanese activists and other humanitarian do-gooders to find ways to aid their troubled region. And they carried a pointed message to the Bush administration: Stop making the war on terror a war on Arab goodwill.
The charitable impulses of Arab billionaires and others are growing, according to a report released at the event by the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo.
Building on a long tradition of zakat, the Islamic version of tithing, philanthropy in the Mideast looks strikingly similar to that of Bill Gates and Andrew Carnegie and seeks to make profound social changes.
Consider the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum who pledged $10 billion last year to his own foundation. If this were an American grantmaker, it would be the third largest in the country, according to Chronicle of Philanthropy figures.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation will focus its largess on bolstering education, supporting entrepreneurship, and fostering cultural understanding by translating both classic and modern Arabic books into English and other languages.
But to get organized and be effective aren't easy tasks. Most Arabic nations have murky laws governing nonprofits and charitable giving; support for human rights and democracy is often a taboo subject, and, not least of all, American policy is an obstacle.
Since Sept. 11, the US has viewed Arab donors with a suspicious eye, accusing them of using their money to fund madrassahs or terrorist training camps. After the attacks, for example, US officials pressured Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to set up rules that restrict charitable giving.
During the Dubai conference, a Saudi businessman complained that American investigators met with him 11 times over the past several years to examine his donations. No explanation was given, he said, and there was no official framework to make complaints.
Such scrutiny causes donors to keep quiet about their giving, says the Gerhart report. And because people are more likely to donate if they have role models, below-the-radar efforts hurt philanthropy.
When Warren Buffett publicly pledged most of his fortune to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006, he inspired other gifts to the fund, including the $35 "life savings" of a 7-year-old.
Aside from government scrutiny of giving, Arab philanthropy has also been criticized because it simply may come from a donor with a different viewpoint from the recipient's.
In 2001, Rudolph Giuliani rejected a $10 million gift from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud to help victims of terrorist attacks.
We can debate Mr. Giuliani's reasons – he disliked the prince's suggestion that American policy in Israel spurred the Sept. 11 attack – but the message to Arab philanthropists was clear: Your money's no good here.
To be sure, safeguards are needed. Many terrorism experts say that Al Qaeda, Hizbullah and other militant groups use charities as a front to raise money for their operations.
But a focus only on cracking down on illegal gifts hurts the region, conference participants said.
Why doesn't the country that invented modern philanthropy do more to support it in the Middle East? Why not help Arab nations implement better nonprofit laws that promote, as well as regulate, giving?
The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, for instance, is providing college scholarships for Arab students to attend Ivy League schools in America. Speaking of Arab teenagers, Nabil Ali Alyousuf, acting chief executive of the Al Maktoum Foundation, put it best: "We either educate them or we leave them to poverty, no education, and potential extremism."
As a reporter, I have seen what philanthropy and charities can accomplish in disaster-ridden areas like Sri Lanka after the tsunami and in post-Katrina New Orleans. Perhaps a similar humanitarian spirit can generate home-grown solutions in the Arab world.
• Ian Wilhelm is a writer living in Cologne, Germany. He has covered philanthropy and international aid for more than seven years.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Whatever happened to Saudi reform?
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.
The climate is in marked contrast to that in 2005, when King Abdullah came to the throne promising change 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
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.
By Roger Hardy
Middle East analyst, BBC News
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.
The climate is in marked contrast to that in 2005, when King Abdullah came to the throne promising change 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
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.
By Roger Hardy
Middle East analyst, BBC News
Morocco: Renewed debate over justice reforms
The debate over corruption in Morocco has been rekindled following statements from Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi concerning his planned reforms of the country's judicial system.At a press conference on January 29th – the first of its kind for El Fassi – the prime minister told journalists a restructuring of Morocco's judicial system is one of five main areas on which his government is currently focussing.
Justice Minister Abdelwahed Radi told Magharebia that judicial reform is the single largest challenge faced by his organisation. "Today in Morocco we have sound legislation, competent judges and experienced officials, but the system is under-resourced," he said, adding that if his department can manage to overcome shortages in human and financial resources, Moroccan courts will be able to improve their performance and better serve taxpayers.
Another priority, according to Radi, is the overbooking of judges.
In Morocco, there are 3,320 judges working on more than three million cases per year. This, he says, poses a real problem for the quality of the rulings given. "We think that if we can get the human resources we need, we should be able to improve the quality of our judicial system across the board."
To overcome the present shortfall in the justice sector, the ministry would need roughly 2,600 new magistrates.
In the meantime, Radi announced an action plan for reform based on available resources to improve Moroccan courts and judges' working conditions. Under this plan the government will purchase more than 9,000 computers, establish a new IT database and set up a professional training programme for judges.
The justice minister also proposed the creation of four courts of appeal and 16 courts of first instance. "It is in this area that we must take steps to serve Moroccan taxpayers more effectively," he concluded.
According to some legal experts and civil society workers, success in justice reform remains part of the fight against corruption among magistrates.
NGOs in civil society are calling for an anti-corruption law to be created in Morocco to accompany these reforms to ensure that justice will prevail.
Many Moroccan citizens hope for transparency and judicial independence. Azzeddine is a property developer in his forties. He said he feels justice reforms must be the very top priority today: "It’s urgently needed, because it guarantees individual freedom and citizens’ rights," he said.
Maître Mohamed El Nouidi, a lawyer in Casablanca, said justice reform still has a long way to go. He said it is impossible to engage in a reform programme without seriously tackling the problem of corrupt magistrates. El Nouidi stressed that justice reform requires suitable training for judges, the need to execute judgements and the implementation of administrative procedures which are straightforward and transparent for taxpayers.
To meet these goals, El Nouidi said, the support of the political class is needed and members of the Higher Council of Magistrates should be elected and not appointed.
By Hassan Benmehdi for Magharebia in Casablanca
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