Afghanistan

• Afghan Women Continue to Wear Symbolic Burqa. [People's Daily Online, China] In today's conflict-ridden Afghanistan, the garment seen by many as a symbol of oppression is finding new followers among Western women worried about anti-foreigner sentiment, and Western men looking for ironic gifts for lovers back home. The growing number of women beggars and prostitutes on the streets of the capital are also choosing to hide their supposed shame beneath its all-covering folds.

• Domestic Violence is ‘Endemic’. [UN News Centre] Domestic violence against Afghan women appears endemic, and attacks against them usually take place with impunity. A study of more than 1,300 cases reported to authorities between January 2003 and June 2005 found that violence against women – sexual, physical or psychological – affects all branches of Afghan society, regardless of the woman’s marital status or her level of education or employment.

• Women's Music Program Angers Afghanistan's Conservative Clerics. [Payvand, Iran] Many Afghans believe that only men should sing and play musical instruments  Music is opening a new world to 18 Afghan girls and young women enrolled in a cultural program in northern Afghanistan. The United Nations, which is helping to implement the program, says it is aimed at strengthening the voice of women in society. But conservative Islamic clerics in Mazar-e Sharif say the Koran forbids women from singing or learning to play musical instruments.

• Music Opens New World to Afghan Girls. [Reuters] Just a few years ago, music was banned by the hardline Taliban government. Musicians fled the country and women were barred from schools or leaving home without a male relative. Now, this six-month project at the Nagashand Fine Art Gallery in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, near the border with Uzbekistan, is teaching 18 girls and women to become music teachers. The women are taught singing and how to play a range of modern and traditional musical instruments.

• Azerbaijan Has the Lowest Number of Female Prisoners in the CIS. [Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan] There are more than half a million imprisoned women and girls around the world, according to the "World Female Imprisonment List," published for the first time by the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College in London, APA reports.

• Two Female Refugees Arrested. [Narinjara News, Bangladesh] Two female Burmese refugees were arrested on Thursday in possession of a gun by Bangladeshi police at the Nayapara refugee camp in Teknaf, said a report of the Dainik Cox's Bazar newspaper on 5 August. Police from the refugee camp made the arrest while they were guarding the camp during the night of August 3, after they found the women in possession of a .22 caliber, locally-made gun.

• PM Calls for Change in Mindset Towards Women. [Monsters and Critics.com, UK] Calling for a change in mindset of people towards gender equality and women empowerment, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday said he was deeply disturbed by the rising crime graph against women and female foeticide which he described as 'barbaric'. 'The worst manifestation of gender discrimination is female foeticide. How can we call ourselves a civilised society if we can tolerate such a barbaric crime?' Manmohan Singh said in his keynote address at the golden jubilee celebrations of Lady Shri Ram College here.

• Intake of Women Officers in Army Increasing. [Hindustan Times] The government on Wednesday informed Rajya Sabha that women officers make up for 2.56 per cent of the total strength of the Indian Army at present. "Until 1991, women were not eligible for recruitment to the Army. Following government approval, induction of women officers in select branches in the Army commenced in 1992 on an experimental basis with an initial tenure of five-year service."

• Similar Service Terms for Women and Men in Army. [Hindu, India] The Government issued orders making on a par the terms and conditions for men and women officers opting for entry to the Army through short service commission. This follows the recent uproar over complaints of discrimination against women in the Army. Under the new system, both men and women officers will enjoy common inter-seniority at the end of training at the Officers Training Acadamy.

• Female Judges to Hear Rape Cases as India Admits Failures of Legal System. [Independent, UK] Under a proposed new law, rape cases will only be allowed to be heard by a female judge. The radical measure is the latest in a recent series of initiatives to improve the country's poor record in prosecuting rapes. Every 29 minutes in India a woman is raped. In Delhi, it is far the most common form of violent crime.

• Lady Judges for Rape Victims: A Fair Deal? [Times of India] The government is all set to make it mandatory that only women judges will hear rape cases. The idea supposedly being to do away with the 'tough questioning' that defence lawyers resort to in courts, normally presided over by male judges. But will this actually help women or is it just another cosmetic change? Ujwal Nikam, special public prosecutor, Mumbai, feels it is the former. "It is a thoughtful decision.

• Focus on Gender Justice in 11th Plan. [Hindu, India] Women groups on Monday asked the Planning Commission to articulate gender equality and gender justice as the central goal of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. The ultimate goal in gender equality is to ensure that women and men have equitable access to, and benefit from society's resources, opportunities and rewards. And, as part of this, women need to have equal participation in defining what is valued and how this can be achieved, women's groups told the Planning Commission.

• Scores of Aborted Female Foetuses Discovered. [Mail & Guardian Online, South Africa] Health authorities have recovered scores of aborted female foetuses from a well in northern India. The site was discovered by police in the city of Patiala in Punjab state, which has one of the worst gender ratios in the country, newspapers reported. The well was on a vacant plot next to a clinic run by a husband and wife, who had been illegally involved in abortions for years. 

• PM Makes Plea to Stop Female Foeticide. [NDTV.com, India] In the backdrop of the shocking discovery of female foetuses dumped in a well in Punjab, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said female foeticide must be stopped and gender disparities eliminated. "We must end the crime of female foeticide. We must eliminate gender disparity," Singh said in his address to the nation on the 60th Independence Day.

• BJP Voices Concern Over Drug Abuse, Female Foeticide. [Chandigarh Newsline, India] The opposition Bhartiya Janata Party voiced serious concern over the increasing incidence of drug abuse and female foeticide in Himachal Pradesh and asked the state government to tackle the problems on a war footing. BJP MLA K D Dharmani also made a specific mention of female foeticide cases showing an alarming rise in some of the border districts like Bilaspur and Una.

• Speedy Trial of Those Committing Female Foeticide Demanded. [SikhSangat News, Canada] Coming out strongly against the menace of female foeticide, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) has said a special court should be set up for the speedy trial of those who indulge in foeticide.

• Independence Day Women. [Indian Express, India] Among the defining images captured by Margaret Bourke-White, intrepid documenter of the sub-continent’s partition and India’s birth, were those of women. Exhausted women holding skeletal babies to their breasts, frail old women carried in slings, sari-clad women keeping brisk pace with Mahatma Gandhi. They flowed fadelessly into the great melting pot of a new nation.

• Women Bootleggers Thrive in Jharkhand. [Monsters and Critics.com, UK] Women involved in selling hooch in Jharkhand have put the state excise department in a piquant situation - the officials don't know how to deal with the eves. Excise officials say the women bootleggers can press charges of molestation or indecent behaviour against them when they raid their premises unaccompanied by any female cop, who are few in number.

• Apex Court Upholds Death Sentence of Two Women. [Hindu, India] The Supreme Court today confirmed the death sentence on two women from Maharashtra for murdering 13 children whom they used to commit theft and robbery. A bench comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice G P Mathur upheld the judgment of the Bombay High Court concurring with the trial court verdict awarding death penalty to one Renuka Bai and her sister. The Court also vacated the stay on the execution of the death sentence. The two women were tried along with their mother for the offence, but the mother died during the trial.

• Signature Drive Targets Gender Discrimination. [RadioFreeEurope/ RadioLiberty, Czech Republic] Activists in Iran have started a petition drive calling for changes to laws that discriminate against women. Organizers hope to attract the signature of 1 million Iranians -- a challenge that they say public officials could not ignore. Authorities blocked the gathering at which the launch was supposed to take place on August 27 on a technicality. But women's rights defenders are collecting signatures and vowing to broaden their campaign nevertheless. This new initiative is aimed at pressuring lawmakers. Organizers want to demonstrate that many Iranian citizens -- women and men –- are unhappy with laws that treat women as second-class citizens.

• International Support for Women’s Campaign. [Pendar.net] Iranian women’s rights activists are initiating a wide campaign demanding an end to discriminatory laws against women in the Iranian law. The Campaign “One Million Signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws” is a follow-up effort to the peaceful protest of the same aim, which took place on June 12, 2006 in Haft-e Tir Square in Tehran.

• Last Month, 64,000 Women in Tehran Were Reprimanded on Charges of "Mal-Veiling". [NCR-Iran.org, UK] “In one month, 63,963 mal-veiled women were either warned or reprimanded, and 1,149 vehicles whose occupants were either mal-veiled or creating noise pollution were confiscated.” The NCRI’s Women’s Committee Chair Ms. Sarvnaz Chitsaz described these vulgar remarks and the aggression by the regime’s suppressive forces against the country’s women under the pretext of mal-veiling as yet another form of suppression by the regime and an excuse to create fear in society and take control in order to prevent an increase in social protests in which women play a very active role.”

• Iran Cracks Down on Women's Dress. [United Press International] Police in Tehran have been ordering Iranian women to cover up, stopping those they perceive as "badly veiled." Hadi Ghaemi of Human Rights Watch said that the penalty for violating a code that requires the complete covering of women's heads and bodies in public depends on the officers involved and the women's political connections.

• Iran's Hard Line Begins At Home. [TIME] When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office last summer, everyone nervously watched to see whether Islamic dogma would shape domestic policy. Over the past few months, various branches of the government have stealthily rolled back freedoms with moves like the reinstatement of gender segregation in public institutions. Because the Iranian system comprises ministries with overlapping mandates and security apparatuses that operate independently, it's hard to say whether this is a government-wide crackdown or whether some officials are just feeling emboldened by Ahmadinejad's conservatism. Nonetheless, the tone is being set on high--and the impact is being felt throughout society.

• Kidnapped Female Iraqi MP "Released Without Ransom Payment". [Raw Story] Tayseer al-Mashadani, a female Iraqi MP from the (Sunni) Iraqi Accord Front who was held hostage for 56 days, said Sunday that she had "been released without the payment of ransom money." Al-Mashadani told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa her kidnappers had told her on Saturday that she would be released "as a gesture of support for the Iraqi Tribal Conference that was being conducted in light of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's National Reconciliation Plan." The conference was convened on Saturday.

• First Female Suicide Bomber Attack Reported. [Monsters and Critics.com, UK] Iraqi media Friday reported what was believed to have been the first-ever attack by a female suicide bomber, an attack which targeted joint Iraqi-US forces. The woman, wearing an explosives belt, approached a joint US-Iraqi forces patrol positioned near a bus stop and blew herself up, the report said.

• Decades of Solitude for Kurdish Women. [ABC News] For nearly two decades the women of Maha Baram were hoping their men were alive in a prison camp. But after Saddam's fall in 2003 the prisons were opened and it became clear that all the men who had been taken from the towns had been killed. The fury and bitterness lingers, but these women also know they have won a victory over the dictator they revile: They have survived.

• Israeli President Won’t Step Down Over Sexual Harassment. [Dispatch Online, South Africa] Israeli President Moshe Katsav was grilled by police for a second day in a row yesterday over allegations of sexual harassment. Police investigators questioned the 61-year-old over whether he had forced up to three women employees to have sex with him. Police are investigating allegations ranging from illegal consensual sex to rape.

• Women Refused Entry to Israel. [BBC News] An MP and eight other British women have been deported from Israel while on a trip to build links between Ramallah and Birmingham. Israeli authorities ordered them out of the country after they arrived at Tel Aviv airport from the Midlands.

• IDF Arrests Would-Be Female Suicide Bomber. [Ha'aretz, Israel] Security forces on Wednesday night foiled an attempted suicide bombing after arresting two Palestinian women at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus. The two women were making their way into Israel to carry out the attack. The women are believed to be members of the Fatah-linked Tanzim militant group.

• Protest: Women Cannot Be Bought Like Shawarma. [Ynetnews, Israel] Women rights activists held a demonstration against women trafficking, during which they chanted slogans such as "Police, women are not goods" and "Customers are rapists." "That's more than rape. Each and every one of these traded women here is potentially murdered. It's a disgrace for our country and society," said former MK Yael Dayan, the head of the welfare division at the Tel Aviv Municipality.

• Muslim Women Having Fewer Children. [Ynetnews, Israel] Data show Christian, Druze, Muslim women have had fewer children over last 10 years Central Statistics Bureau data show that 2005 saw a drop in the number of newborns in Israel. According to the data, 143,913 Israeli babies were born in 2005 – 70% of them were born to Jewish women, 24% to Muslim woman, 1% to Christian-Arab women, 2% to Druze women and the remaining 3% to woman of other religions not listed in the Interior Ministry. The number of children born in 2005 was 1% lower than the 2004 figures. The drop is mainly due to Muslim women having fewer children (5.6% decrease).

• Can Women Play Peacemakers? [DailyIndia.com] Can women don the role of peacemakers in the strife-torn Kashmir Valley? Can they succeed on the peace table where the men have let them down? Yes and no. While most speakers at a two-day convention on 'Women in Dialogue: Envisioning the road ahead in J&K' drew a picture of near utopia once women became more politically conscious in the state, there were some who were more than a little critical of their roles.

• Death Demanded for Bulgaria Nurses. [CNN.com] A Libyan prosecutor demanded the death penalty on Tuesday for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor on trial for infecting more than 400 children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. "The act was cruel, criminal and inhuman. It's a human catastrophe," prosecutor Omar Abdulkhaleq told the Tripoli court. "We demand the death penalty for the accused." A previous trial of the six ended with their conviction on charges of intentionally infecting 426 children with HIV when they worked in a hospital in Benghazi in the late 1990s. They were sentenced to death by firing squad. The supreme court overturned the convictions in December 2005, and ordered a retrial which began in May.

• Three Female `Terrorists` Arrested. [AngolaPress, Angola] Three Moroccan women, two of whom are married to Royal Air Maroc airline pilots, were arrested for their alleged involvement in terrorist plots carried out by the "Ansar Al Mahdi" group. A statement from the ministry issued here said the women provided "financial assistance" to the terrorist group`s alleged ring leader, Hassan Khattab, and to the other members of the organisation to carry out their "terrorists plans". The organisation was planning to embark on Jihad (holy way) in the mountains in northern Morocco, as well as attack sensitive targets, foreign interests and Moroccan personalities.

• Pakistan Moves Closer to Law Reform. [Gulf Times] Pakistan yesterday edged closer to reforming laws that discriminate against women, one of which makes rape victims liable to prosecution for adultery unless they produce four male witnesses. A cabinet meeting approved in principle a draft of amendments to the Hudood Ordinances, as the laws are called, that will be presented to the National Assembly.

• Law Minister Expresses Optimism About Development of Consensus on Criminal Law Amendment. [PakTribune.com, Pakistan] Law minister Wasi Zafar has indicated that the consensus will be developed among the members of select committee on the criminal law amendment (Protection of Women ) bill 2006.  Besides minister of law and parliamentary affairs, Wasi Zafar, minister for parliamentary affairs, Dr Sher Afgan Niazi, ruling PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Noor ul Haq Qadri, MNA, Kashmala Tariq, Mehnaz Rafi, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf of PPP-P, Sherry Rehman, Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, law secretary, Justice (Retd) Manzoor and secretary religious affairs, Wakeel Ahmad Khan also attended the meeting.

• ‘Hudood Laws Must Conform to Islamic Injunctions’. [Pakistan Dawn] President Gen Pervez Musharraf has called for a balanced approach in making the Hudood laws conform to the spirit and teachings of Islam and stressed the need for addressing key areas of concern to women. He was speaking at the launching of a research report on ‘Philanthropy by Pakistani Diaspora in the USA’ by the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy here on Wednesday.

• Pakistan's Shameful Forced Unions. [CNN.com] Her father said it would be a two-week holiday to learn about her Pakistani heritage. But the British woman soon found herself captive in a remote tribal village for over a year and promised in marriage to a first cousin she had never met. With the British High Commission's help this month, the woman escaped Pakistan shortly before her planned wedding, avoiding the phenomenon of forced marriage that befalls scores of foreign women, including Americans, annually in this deeply conservative Islamic country. More than 100 British nationals of Pakistani descent -- 20 percent of them males as young as 14 -- have been rescued in each of the past two years after being forced into marriages here. Americans with links to Pakistan are also made to marry against their will but in fewer numbers, the U.S. Embassy said.

• Women, Children Rally to Condemn Israel. [People's Daily Online, China] Hundreds of women and children marched in Islamabad to condemn Israeli military operation and express support for the people of Lebanon and Palestine. Organized by Imamia Students Organization (ISO) (women wing), Muslim Resistance Movement and several other organizations, the demonstration is the biggest since the Israeli attack on Lebanon beginning last month.

• Minister to Consult Women Intellectuals. [PakTribune.com] Minister for Women Affairs Hasan Bano Ghazanfar has said she will try to run the ministry’s affairs in consultation with women intellectuals and scholars. In her maiden press conference, the newly-appointed minister said she would travel to provinces and meet women in the provincial capitals to apprise herself of their problems and get their view point on a number of issues confronting women.

• Women’s Rights Bill to be Tabled. [Pakistan Dawn] Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that the bill to protect women’s rights, formulated in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah, would be tabled in the National Assembly. ‘The Protection of Women Bill 2006’ would ensure the rights of women and provide them more chances to play an active role in the national development. He added the government did not even think of enacting any law contrary to the Quran and Sunnah.

Turkey

• Pioneer Turkish Women Rights Defender Dies at 60. [Middle East Times, Egypt] Duygu Asena, a renowned Turkish journalist and writer who devoted much of her work to promoting women's rights, has died at the age of 60 after battling a brain tumor for the past two years. She won acclaim - and much criticism - with her first novel Kadinin Adi Yok (Woman Has No Name) in 1987, which dealt with gender inequality and women's sexuality in a male-dominated society.

• 'Honour Killings, a Scourge Which is Hard to Eradicate. [AKI, Italy] Turkish police released a report containing some grim facts regarding an age-old 'tradition'. Over the last five years 1,091 people - 710 of them women - have been murdered in what are known as 'honour killings'. "These murders are rooted in feudalistic and patriarchal structures," says Canan Arin, who runs  a women's refuge. Last year, Turkey introduced a new penal code which states that those found guilty of honour killings must be sentenced to life imprisonment - a belated move say those who question Turkey's ambitions to join the European Union.

• Driver Charged With DWF: Driving While Female. [Arab News, Saudi Arabia] Police caught a woman violating the law by being behind the steering wheel of a moving car. The woman, an Arab married to a Saudi, was immediately arrested. The husband was called to the police station to pick up his spouse. The cops instructed him to make sure his wife does not repeat such a terrible crime, which, according to the defenders of the law can lead to immoral behavior.

• Islamic Revival Led by Women Tests Syria’s Secularism. [New York Times] In corners of Damascus, women who identify one another by the distinctive way they tie their head scarves gather for meetings of an exclusive and secret Islamic women’s society known as the Qubaisiate. At those meetings, participants say, they are tutored further in the faith and are even taught how to influence some of their well-connected fathers and husbands to accept a greater presence of Islam in public life.

• Seminar Discusses Improvement of Knowledge of Female Farmers. [UzReport.com, Uzbekistan] Uzbek Liberal Democratic Party and Uzbek Farmers' Association hosted seminars on improvement of socio-political, economic and legal knowledge of women. The participants discussed achievements and problems of female farmer. The seminar proposed to solve these problems via improvement socio-political, economic and legal knowledge of women.