SACW - 19 Nov 2012 | Deutscher Memorial Lecture 2012 / Bangladesh: Shariah Flirtation / Sri Lanka: freedom of expression / Myanmar: Rakhine state in trouble / Tributes to Iqbal Haider / India: State funeral for Bombay Fascist / Ireland's medieval abortion law / Workers rights @ Amnesty International / South Africa: The Strike Wave

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Sun Nov 18 21:31:55 EST 2012


  South Asia Citizens Wire - 19 Nov 2012 - No. 2765
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Contents:

1. ’Seasons of self-delusion: opium, capitalism and the financial markets’ by Jairus Banaji - 2012 Deutscher Memorial Lecture
2. Bangladesh: Awami League’s Shariah Flirtation
2.1 Shariah is the agendum of Islamist parties (Editorial in New Age)
2.2 Shibir strikes terror in capital
2.3 Dhaka's Hay Festival Opens At Bangla Academy Amid Protest
3. Bangladesh: Punishing the innocent | Govt response to communal attack in Ramu (Rahnuma Ahmed)
4. Sri Lanka: Shameful stifling of freedom of expression (Kishali Pinto Jayawardene)
5. Sri Lanka: 1000 days after the disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda
6. Unforgiving history - Why Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine state in Myanmar are at each others’ throats (Banyan)
7. Iqbal Haider (January 1945 - November 2012)
8. Cold War lessons for India and Pakistan (Vladimir Radyuhin)
8.1 The Gift - an anti nuclear play by Sagari Chhabra
9. Pakistan: The Bhagat Singh battle (Editorial, The Express Tribune)
10. Text of Memo to Irish Parliament by Indian Feminists Demands Abortion Rights
11. India: selected posts on Communalism Watch 
12. India: Plight of Muslim women - Challenge the ill-educated theologians (M A Siraj)
13. India: Constitutional validity of IT Act challenged
14. Nepal: The dog mother - For Gyani Deula and her 21 adopted dogs, it's Kukur Tihar every day (Trishna Rana)
15. I am ashamed that Ireland's medieval abortion law still stands (Emer O'Toole)
16. Amnesty International must respect its workers rights
17. South Africa: The Strike Wave and New Workers’ Organisations - Breaking out of Old Compromises (Leonard Gentle)  
  
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1. ’SEASONS OF SELF-DELUSION: OPIUM, CAPITALISM AND THE FINANCIAL MARKETS’ BY JAIRUS BANAJI - 2012 DEUTSCHER MEMORIAL LECTURE
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The 2012 Deutscher Memorial Lecture was delivered by Jairus Banaji as part of the Historical Materialism conference on Friday, 9 November 2012 at the Khalili Lecture Theatre, School of Oriental and African Studies, in London.

http://www.sacw.net/article3308.html

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2. BANGLADESH: AWAMI LEAGUE’S SHARIAH FLIRTATION
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http://alalodulal.org/
November 16, 2012 by deyalpotrika

The worst defender of secularism is increasingly the party that claims itself to be secular. Have a look at PM’s latest statement about shariah law. Is this the AL counter-offensive against BNP? A grab for the Islamist vote? Who are the “friends” advising these steps? Do they live on Embassy Row? Which street?

“We know the alternative way if the limit is crossed. We know what we need to do. Action will be taken as per the Sharia law, if necessary. There is Qiyas (in the Islamic law),” she said at the beginning of the Awami League Central Working Committee at her official Ganabhaban residence. Qiyas is used in Islamic law to deal with new situations as they arise.

Action under Sharia law for excesses: PM
http://bdnews24.com/details.php?cid=2&id=236429&hb=top

And from Wikileaks:
Hasina “pandered to the son of Azizul Haque, a hard-line leader of Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) whose anti-Jamaat-e-Islami views have driven him away from the BNP-led four party alliance,” noted the cable quoting Hasina’s adviser Salman F Rahman….Directed by Hasina, the then AL general secretary Abdul Jalil signed the deal with Khelafat-e-Majlish, a splinter faction of IOJ, triggering a huge outcry both in and outside of AL…. The agreement stipulated that if the AL-led alliance is elected, no law will be enacted that contradicts Quranic values and sharia; steps would be taken to ensure the government recognises the certificates and degrees from kwami madrasas; laws would be enacted acknowledging Mohammad (PBUH) as the last and greatest prophet; laws would be introduced criminalising criticism of the “prophets and their associates” and certified Islamic leaders will be permitted to issue fatwas, the embassy wrote to Washington.
Hasina in childhood admired Shaikhul!
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=202269

Awami League earned huge flak from the people of the country on December 2006 after signing a pact with Khelafat-e-Majlish allowing alems (experts on Islamic law) to issue fatwa (religious edict) if the AL-led grand alliance was voted to power.
Shaikhul Hadith passes away
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=245412

Madness…

o o o

2.1  SHARIAH IS THE AGENDUM OF ISLAMIST PARTIES

Editorial in New Age (Bangladesh) 19 November 2012

The recent threat of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to Jamaat-e-Islami that her government might invoke the Shariah and apply its provision of ‘qisas’ against Jamaat activists has caused a stir in different sections of society. The democratically-oriented section of h people, who aspire to see a clear separation between earthly politics and divine religion, have, indeed, reasons to be worried about the prime minister’s statement. While many believe that the statement, made at her party’s central working committee meeting on Friday, was nothing but a rhetorical utterance by the prime minister and, therefore, there is no reason on part of the Awami League, which still talks about secularism, to impose any religious law on the people who had once fought for a secular, democratic state in Bangladesh. Many others, however, cannot rest assured because the same Awami League has endorsed the Islamic character of the state, imposed gradually on it by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jatiya Party, through the adoption of the 15th amendment to the constitution. Besides, the prime minister’s statement has reminded many of the forgotten fact that the Awami League in a pre-election arrangement in late 2007 had entered a written agreement with Khelafat Andolan for introducing Islamic laws in Bangladesh. Political opportunism, after all, can lead any political party to ideological deviation.
When all the democratic forces and individuals are worried about the prime minister’s statement, apparently against Jamaat-e-Islami, the threat must have made Jamaat and other Islamist parties happy because Jamaat and the like have been working for decades now to enforce in the country exactly what the prime minister has said: introduction of the Shariah. Those who have fought the war of independence for a representative democracy, secular democratic state and political and cultural pluralism, and those who still hold the spirit of the independence war close to their hearts have no reason to be enthusiastic about the news on the Shariah, even though it has come from the top leader of the Awami League that politically presided over the war of national independence.
The prime minister, however, made the statement in the context of the recent Jamaat excesses on the streets and the ongoing trial of senior Jamaat leaders accused of committing crimes against humanity during the independence war. There can be no question about the fact that Jamaat’s political excesses need to be contained and that the accused Jamaat leaders need to be tried. But to do the jobs properly, the government has to proceed politically and judiciously, and that too with a clear conscience. In that case, the ruling Awami League needs to avoid its tendency to do politicking about both the issues of national importance. For that to happen, there is no need for introducing the Shariah, or any religious law for that matter. Besides, the Shariah is the agendum of Islamist parties while no democratic organisation can plead for introducing such laws under any circumstances. The democratic section of the people, therefore, needs to remain alert to such undemocratic ideas, no matter where it comes from.

o o o

2.2 Islamist Thugs Strike Terror in Dhaka

SHIBIR STRIKES TERROR IN CAPITAL
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=257423

o o o

2.3 [Dhaka's Hay festival may be elitist but so what; why dont the old world Bangla literati organize a counter festival, why the xenophobia about English?]
see report from New Age (Bangladesh) of 1§ November 2012

HAY FESTIVAL OPENS AT BANGLA ACADEMY AMID PROTEST
DU Correspondent

The 2nd Hay Festival was opened on the Bangla Academy premises on Thursday amid protest from a section of cultural activists and poets.
Under the banner of Conscious Poet and Creative Society, the protestors held a rally in front of the academy premises at around 11:00am.
At one point of the agitation, police took away their microphone at about 6:00pm, when the festival began.
The protestors later brought out a procession on the academy premises, where writers from different countries converged to share their experience as writers.
The protesters at the rally placed their seven-point demand including prime minister’s intervention to refrain Bangla Academy from being the host of the Hay Festival on the academy premises, resignation of Bangla Academy director general Shamuzzaman Khan and brining charges of anti-state activities against him.
They also demanded organising an international literary conference for at least seven days during Amar Ekushey Book Fair in February in 2013, taking initiatives to publish translations of the Bangla literature, making the academy a real autonomous institution and announcing the academy premises a national area to prevent all types of global imperialism.
Renowned poet Muhamamd Nurul Huda, also former Bangla Academy DG, Dildar Hossain, Tokon Thakur, Sraban Publishing House proprietor Robin Ahsan, little magazine editor Monir Yousuf and journalist Monojit Mitra, among others, addressed the rally.
They alleged that Bangla Academy was showing disrespect to Bangla through patronising the ‘showcase of global diversity of literature and culture’.
They also alleged that the academy officials in exchange of money supported the Hay Festival, jointly organised by two dailies — the daily Prothom Alo and The Daily Star.
They also recited protest poems and rendered patriotic songs.
At the grave of national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, the writers and poets also vowed to continue with the protest against imperialistic aggression on culture.
Meanwhile, the festival was inaugurated in the evening.
The main sessions would take place on November 16 and 17 from 10:00am to 7:30pm at Bangla Academy and would be open to all.
The festival first began in a quaint little town, Hay-on Wye, in Wales 25 years ago as a small get-together of writers. Since then, it has become one of the most beloved and defining literary festivals in the world, travelling across five continents.
The Second Hay Festival, a three-day literary feast of bilingual panel discussions and author events, featuring Vikram Seth, Syed Shamsul Haq, Nandita Das, Philip Hensher, Kamila Shamsie, Basharat Peer, Zafar Iqbal, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Clarke, Kaiser Haq, Sharbari Ahmed, Farah Ghuznavi, Shaheen Akhtar, Selina Hussein, Shehan Karunatilaka, Mahmud Rahman, Anis Ahmed, Anisul Hoque, Audity Falguni, Tahmima Anam and others.


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3. BANGLADESH: PUNISHING THE INNOCENT | GOVT RESPONSE TO COMMUNAL ATTACK IN RAMU
by Rahnuma Ahmed
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A two part article by Rahnuma Ahmed. ". . .a jump, from the individual to the community, one which constructed the entire community of Baruas (Bengali Buddhists) as being a unified whole, as being guilty of a crime which demanded collective punishment. The unified whole extended to include Rakhain Buddhists too, as Bengali Muslim men, mostly youths, poured into Ramu town, some on motorbikes, many in hired buses and trucks. The gathering at Choumuhoni swelled, speeches were delivered, the mood grew angrier; groups armed with sticks, curved swords, stones, gunpowder, petrol and home-made cocktails broke away and entered streets and lanes, they attacked Buddhist monasteries and temples belonging to both Baruas and Rakhains, they struck down statues of Lord Buddha, beheaded some, looted those made of gold, broke open donation boxes, helped themselves to the cash. Some moved from one monastery to another, other groups went directly to ones more distant from Choumuhoni Chottor. They ransacked, looted and burned, their actions seem to have been well-coordinated."

http://www.sacw.net/article3311.html

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4. SRI LANKA: SHAMEFUL STIFLING OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
by Kishali Pinto Jayawardene
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It is heartening to witness an element of angry vigor emanating from Sri Lanka’s legal profession against the pending impeachment of the country’s Chief Justice. The resolutions issued by the general membership of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka yesterday expressing concern over the impeachment and the indignation displayed by provincial Bar Associations show that decency and sanity is not yet lost in the country.

http://www.sacw.net/article3305.html

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5. SRI LANKA: 1000 DAYS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF PRAGEETH EKNALIGODA
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Appeal on behalf of families of the disappeared in Sri Lanka

http://www.sacw.net/article3307.html


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6. UNFORGIVING HISTORY - WHY BUDDHISTS AND MUSLIMS IN RAKHINE STATE IN MYANMAR ARE AT EACH OTHERS’ THROATS
by Banyan
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(The Economist, Nov 3rd 2012)
IN THE morning sunlight, the panorama from the Shwethaung pagoda, on the highest hill in Mrauk-u, looked magical: lush rice paddy, sparkling lakes and wooded hills, many topped by other glinting gilt pagodas. But in one spot, black smoke was billowing. Another village was burning. From October 22nd-24th Mrauk-u, a tourist centre in Rakhine state in Myanmar, and former capital of the independent kingdom of Arakan, turned into a war zone.

Below the pagoda a spontaneous, medieval army was massing. Hundreds of young men were on the march: packed on the backs of pickups, on motorcycles, on trishaws, tuk-tuks and bicycles, but mostly on foot. They carried spears, swords, cleavers, bamboo staves, slingshots, crossbows and the occasional petrol bomb. Violence between the Buddhist majority and the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority has wracked Rakhine since June. These were angry Buddhists seeking to avenge the deaths of three of their kin, killed, they said, by Muslims. One tugged at an imaginary beard and made a grisly throat-cutting gesture.

Within days the trouble had spread across Rakhine, a strip of Myanmar’s western coastline that borders Bangladesh in the north. The government reported 82 killed, 4,600 houses burned and more than 22,000 people displaced—all almost certainly underestimates. Satellite imagery shows the utter destruction of a Muslim quarter of the coastal town of Kyaukphyu, from where oil-and-gas pipelines are to cross Myanmar to China.

Many of its residents had fled by sea for the state capital, Sittwe, to join some 75,000 others, mostly Rohingyas, who have been confined to squalid camps since June, when the conflict flared up after the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman. A state of emergency was imposed. Sittwe has been under curfew ever since, as now are some other parts of Rakhine. Some blame the central government for fuelling the violence: some ministers made inflammatory statements, perhaps hoping to derail Myanmar’s democratic reforms. The need to contain ethnic strife and separatism was long used to justify the army’s 50-year dictatorship. Some must mourn its passing.

Both sides in this dispute have long memories. For most Rakhines, Rohingyas do not really exist. They say the term was coined in 1951 to describe Bengali settlers who had been brought in by the British Raj. Many more followed, they say, as illegal immigrants. So for Rakhines, the struggle, as one tract puts it, is “about an invasion of Bengali land-grabbers”. The north of the state, near the Bangladeshi border, is already more than 90% Muslim, despite a government rule limiting Muslims to two children.

Many Rakhines also resent the central government, dominated by ethnic Burmans. They see themselves as victims of serial invasions: by the Burmans in 1784, by the British in the 1820s and by Bengalis ever since. That most of the Bengali immigrants are Muslims adds religious tension. In Sittwe Aung Kyaw Zan, a writer, says Rakhines are “sandwiched between Burmanisation and Islamisation”. Shwe Maung, of a Rakhine political party, says “they are trying to Islamise us through their terrible birth rate.”

Seeing the children reciting the Koran in Arabic at a madrassa in the teeming Thet Kay Pyin camp outside Sittwe for displaced Rohingyas, the fears of ethnic and religious swamping become comprehensible. But Rohingya politicians say it is nonsense that Muslims have more children than Buddhists. And Kyaw Min, who is based in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, also argues that “Rohingyas have been in Rakhine from the creation of the world. Arakan was ours; it was an Indian land for 1,000 years.”

Both sides exaggerate. Some Rakhines claim no Rohingyas deserve to be citizens; Rohingyas assert that there is not one illegal Bengali immigrant. Internationally, the Rohingyas have sympathy but little support. Nationally, the Rakhine arguments have won. At independence the new rulers of what was then Burma tried to limit citizenship to those whose roots in the country predated 1823 and British rule. The 1982 Citizenship Act does not recognise Rohingyas as an ethnic group, though those in Burma for three generations could become citizens. In practice, most of the 1m or so in Burma are stateless—far more are already overseas.

Rohingyas are not allowed to leave the northern towns or the camps in Sittwe. Buddhist monks have led a campaign for a commercial boycott. Khayk Marsara, the influential head of the Dhetkaung monastery, portrays it as a religious duty to mobilise popular anger against “greedy merchants” selling to Muslims. In Mrauk-u, where the trouble started with the mob killing of a trader caught selling rice to Muslims, one local Rakhine resident concedes that Muslims are “hungry and thirsty”.

In October Rakhine Buddhists won another victory when the government backed out of an agreement to let the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation open an office to help Rohingyas. Some frankly say they want the Rohingyas gone. They see other countries using foreign aid as a way to avoid offering them a home.

A matter of time

In the absence of mass deportation, Rakhine’s Buddhists are intent on absolute segregation. “How can we live with these terrorists?” asks one young woman in a camp in Sittwe for displaced Rakhines. That question lours over the cordoned-off quarter of Aung Mingala, Sittwe’s sole remaining Muslim district. At Friday prayers the mosque is packed—others in town, even if not destroyed, are out of bounds. The mood is subdued and desperate.

With the rainy season over, many Rohingyas are already risking their lives as boat people. This week dozens may have died when their boat sank in the Bay of Bengal. Others will try to sneak across the land border to Bangladesh. If the past is any guide, most will be turned back. Those left behind in towns as yet untouched by the violence in Rakhine find themselves shunned by their Buddhist friends and neighbours. The one belief both groups still share is that more trouble will come, at any time.


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7. IQBAL HAIDER (JANUARY 1945 - NOVEMBER 2012)
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Iqbal Haider the distinguished Pakistani democrat who campaigned for peace, human rights and secularism, died on 11 November 2012 in a Karachi. In the past few years Iqbal Haider lobbied the governments of India and Pakistan to address human rights of prisoners jailed in the each other’s country.
http://www.sacw.net/article3304.html

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8. COLD WAR LESSONS FOR INDIA AND PAKISTAN
by Vladimir Radyuhin
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(The Hindu, 19 November 2012)

Russian experts insist that continuous engagement even in the face of deep mistrust is the key to nuclear arms control

Russia’s missiles may still be trained on the United States but it is the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan that worries Russian experts more than American nukes.

Scholars gathered at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (Imemo), a top-rated Russian think-tank advising the Kremlin, rang alarm bells about the threat of nuclear war in South Asia, which today is greater than anywhere else in the world.

It was pointed out that India and Pakistan are the only two nuclear weapon states locked in a permanent conflict that occasionally escalates to armed confrontation, making the nuclear standoff particularly dangerous. Pakistan’s refusal to make a no-first-use pledge, its development of tactical nuclear weapons, India’s missile defence programme were all seen as factors driving the nuclear arms race in the region and heightening the risk of nuclear conflict.

Well-positioned

At the same time, it was felt that India and Pakistan are well positioned to embark on bilateral arms control because, much like the United States and the erstwhile Soviet Union, they have comparable nuclear forces meant to contain each other.

A senior Indian expert on nuclear disarmament who took part in the discussion (the event was conducted under the Chatham House rule, not disclosing the participants) said the road of talks was strewn with obstacles such as lack of trust between India and Pakistan, different roles the two countries assign to nuclear weapons and the China factor. While Pakistan’s nuclear arms serve to contain India, India’s nuclear programme is directed at China. India is also concerned over the absence of any transparency about China’s nuclear arms.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, Russian experts believe that India and Pakistan could do more to enhance transparency ontheir nuclear arsenals and set up a verification mechanism, at least for confidence-building measures already agreed upon, such as the commitment not to attack each other’s civil nuclear installations and exchange secret lists of such sites.

The Indian participant argued that the dearth of trust between India and Pakistan was so gaping that it was impossible for India to reveal how many nuclear weapons it has, where they are sited or to accept what Pakistan tells it about its nuclear weapons.

The scholar was clearly irked by demands for India to agree to greater transparency. He said it was “puzzling” that such proposals should come from Moscow and urged Russian experts to have “a reality check”.

Strong precedent

Russian experts, however, insisted that the trust divide should not stop India from engaging Pakistan in nuclear arms control. They recalled that there was no trust between the Soviet Union and the U.S. when they began nuclear arms talks in the early 1970s and it was the talks that helped the two superpowers to partially bridge the confidence gap. It was further argued that despite the centrality of China to India’s nuclear strategy it is unrealistic to expect Beijing to negotiate with New Delhi, because China’s nuclear forces are primarily aimed at countering the threat from the U.S.

A leading Russian strategic analyst called on India and Pakistan to negotiate a treaty to slash their arsenals of short and medium-range missiles. Such a treaty could be modelled on the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States, which led to the elimination of all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 km.

In the case of India and Pakistan, an INF pact could cap the number of missiles at 100 to 150, according to the Russian expert. The proposed cuts would not affect India’s deterrent against China — air and sea-based nuclear arms, as well as long-range missiles.

The organisers regretted the fact that Pakistan’s stand was not adequately articulated at the conference (a senior Pakistani diplomat had been invited but failed to turn up), but the debate was still interesting, especially in the light of the ongoing reassessment in Russia of its relations with India and Pakistan.

o o o

8.1 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/message/1546

This is to spread word regarding the anti-nuclear play, 'The Gift' by Sagari Chhabra. This play is waiting to be performed. 
here are the full details;
'The Gift' by Sagari Chhabra
published in 'Indian Literature' Sahitya Akademi's bi-monthly journal (pages 174 - 210) 
No 265: September-October 2011 Volume LV No 5.
Available at Sahitya Akademi's book-shop
Sahitya Akademi
35, Feroze Shah Road, New Delhi 110001.
or 
For copies/subscription 
Sahitya Akademi 
'Sales section, 'Swati'  Mandir Marg, 
New Delhi 1

For producing the play write to the playwright;
sagari.chhabra at gmail.com


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9. PAKISTAN: THE BHAGAT SINGH BATTLE
Editorial, The Express Tribune
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(The Express Tribune, November 18, 2012)

Bhagat Singh deserves to be remembered. The attempts to block this are absurd.

The belief that the Taliban or other militant forces alone are responsible for the spread of extremism in our country is a flawed one. In fact, the extremist mindset has taken over the people of Pakistan and is affecting every aspect of life. This is indeed what makes it a devastatingly dangerous force, distorting thinking and adding to bias in matters of everyday life.

Most recently, this has surfaced in the controversy over the renaming of landmarks in Lahore. In the latest development, on November 16, the Lahore High Court (LHC) restrained the City District Government of Lahore (CDGL) from renaming Fawwara Chowk in Shadman after Bhagat Singh. Singh was a hero of the Indian independence movement, which led to the freedom from colonial rule of both India and Pakistan in 1947. Singh, aged only 23, was hanged by the British at the said chowk in 1931, for killing a British officer and for other acts aimed to rid his nation of oppression. In Pakistan, his extraordinary courage is almost never acknowledged.

Hearing a petition filed by a Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool member, an LHC judge has stayed the name change. The petition states that it was earlier decided that the chowk would be named after Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, the man who coined the name of Pakistan. It also says that a “so-called” foundation had been established in the name of Bhagat Singh and that it has, with other “so-called” human rights associations, pressured the CDGL to name the chowk after him.

If anything, the petition illustrates our growing ignorance and sheltered approach towards other religions. Despite attempts to alter this attitude and include the story of Bhagat Singh in textbooks, this has not happened and large sections of the population have no idea about his achievements. Born near Jaranwala in Punjab and educated in Lahore, it is entirely illogical that his religion should exclude him from tribute in the land he grew up and died in. Bhagat Singh deserves to be remembered. The attempts to block this are absurd.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18th, 2012.

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10. TEXT OF MEMO TO IRISH PARLIAMENT BY INDIAN FEMINISTS DEMANDS ABORTION RIGHTS
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Dear Elected representatives of the Irish Parliament,

We, the undersigned, are deeply shocked at the callous treatment meted out to Savita Halappanavar who was refused a medical abortion in a hospital in Galway even though it was clear that her baby was miscarrying and had no chance of survival. We hope that the impact and serious consequences of your vote against the Medical Termination (Termination of Pregnancy in Case of Risk to Life of Pregnant Woman) Bill 2012 have fully registered with you now.

We call upon you to show leadership and bring in legislation urgently that is in tune with the Irish Supreme Court ruling that stipulates that when a pregnant woman’s life is in danger, including from the risk of suicide, she has the right to an abortion in Ireland. We ask that you not be governed by any sentiments and opinions beyond the human right to life of Irish women. You are no doubt fully aware that women’s rights have been internationally recognized as human rights. We believe it is wrong and unjustifiable for religion to interfere with women’s ability to live full, free lives and have control of their bodies, in any part of the world.

[The above statement will be released to the Media with its full list of signature in the coming days]

Lest death do us part
Arghya Sengupta

Savita Halappanavar was failed by the Irish Constitution, which is based on religious dogma that is discriminatory and leaves no room for rational argument. It is in need of urgent reform

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/lest-death-do-us-part/article4108879.ece?homepage=true

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11. India: selected posts on Communalism Watch 
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Bombay's fascist leader cremated with full state honours using tax payers money
The public cremation of Thackeray is a first for Mumbai and he was cremated with full state honours, including a 21-gun salute. 
http://communalism.blogspot.fr/2012/11/bombays-fascist-leader-cremated-with.html

Bal Thackeray - Leader who brought ethnic politics to Mumbai melting pot 
http://communalism.blogspot.fr/2012/11/bal-thackeray-leader-who-brought-ethnic.html

A troubling legacy
http://communalism.blogspot.fr/2012/11/the-troubling-legacy-of-bal-thackeray.html

Bombay's spineless capitalists who propped up the fascist shiv sena sad at the death of its leader Bal Thackeray 
http://communalism.blogspot.fr/2012/11/bombays-spineless-capitalists-who.html

Non-vegetarians lie, indulge in sex crimes, NCERT textbook says 
http://communalism.blogspot.fr/2012/11/non-vegetarians-lie-indulge-in-sex.html

Gujarat: religious programmes during elections keep's Hindutva sentiment brewing in the backdrop 
http://communalism.blogspot.fr/2012/11/gujarat-religious-programmes-during.html

Seven Videos: Public Service Ad's released to media by Anhad and Progressive films
http://communalism.blogspot.fr/2012/11/seven-videos-public-service-ads.html

Tracking that species of Hindutvawadi, obsessively trolling the Net 
http://communalism.blogspot.fr/2012/11/tracking-that-species-of-hindutvawadi.html

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12. INDIA: PLIGHT OF MUSLIM WOMEN - CHALLENGE THE ILL-EDUCATED THEOLOGIANS
by M A Siraj
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(Deccan Hearld, November 14, 2012)
A series of obnoxious edicts from various seats of Islamic learning and devotion in recent years have sought to deny the Muslim women social space that the Indian Constitution guarantees to its citizens regardless of their caste, colour, gender and faith.

While the latest revelation that Haji Ali Dargah has barred entry of women comes as a surprise, the Darul Uloom Deoband’s series of fatwas restricting women’s access to education, right to ride a bicycle and validation of triple talaq through sms, emails and over cellphone, have continued to embarrass the enlightened Muslims.

Haji Ali dargah management committee’s bar on entry of women is surprising because dargahs in the subcontinent have been centres of devotion for people from across the religious barriers, women being more numerous among them. Being syncretic in nature, dargahs were seen to be secular spaces within the cultural realm of Islam where people paid obeisance without distinction of their religious affiliation.

While whether Islam prescribed such practices is an academic discussion which can go on and on endlessly, the move to alienate the women is most deplorable and regrettable as it amounts to depriving people of a social space for interactions which is otherwise getting rarer in our communally volatile times. 

Muslim women today are caught between the misogynist interpretations of the Islamic law by ill-educated theologians and the misunderstood past that has been filtered through the eyes of the elite, resulting in their abuse in the family and the society at large. Family laws are stacked against them, cultural practices target them and political expediency subjugates them. In most cases, religion and the law play a major role in their continued exploitation and marginalisation inside and outside the fold of the community.

The conservative theologians, chiefly those who man the bodies like the All India Muslim Personal Law Board take some of the postulates by medieval jurists as settled precedents and consider them uncontestable. These precedents impede the integration of women into the larger society. These are in the form of legal rules and social practices. Most of these postulates evolved during the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties and were motivated by the contemporary politics rather than having anything to do with Islamic precepts.  

 The evidence from the time of the Prophet Muhammad suggests that women were treated differently not because of their gender, but because of their economic and social status.

The Prophet not only allowed them joining the congregational prayers in the mosque, but took opportunity to address them separately on special occasions in larger conclaves.

Not only this, he appointed one among the female companions Umme Waraqa as the imam (prayer leader) of a mosque in a village in the vicinity of Madinah. Waraqah led the mixed gender congregation for close to 17 years. The man who issued the azan (call for prayer) used to pray behind her.
Prominent role

Women continued to play prominent role in socio-political and economic sphere for the next two hundred years. Caliph Umar appointed Shifa Bint Abdullah as the Head Controller (office of Muhtasib) in charge of the markets in Madinah. Another woman Samra Bint Nahik Asadiyyah was appointed to the same post in Makkah. (It is reported that she went around whipping merchants, buyers, and sellers who violated the law). 

Women imams were not uncommon to be found in this period elsewhere too. Funeral prayer of Imam Shafii, the founder of the second most followed school of Islamic jurisprudence, was led by a woman, Nafeesah. Women participated in wars both as combatants and nurses. Women congregants have been reported to have challenged caliphs in mosques for several statements that they thought were not in sync with reason.

Religious sciences were influenced by women, and many of the architects of Islamic jurisprudence and theology were impacted by the contribution of Muslim women scholars.

Their role in transmitting narrations from the Prophet hardly needs evidence and their scholarly integrity was never questioned. A recent encyclopedia from the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies by Akram Nadvi has compiled 8,000 women who have been cited as narrators of Prophetic sayings.

In the early years of Islam, free thinking was the norm. Muslims negotiated their religion with their current situations and absorbed whatever wisdom they encountered. When the errors and abuse caught up with the ageing civilisation, it were the weak and the underprivileged that suffered first and most.

Emperors who replaced the caliphs, began to bank upon such sycophant clerics for religious opinion who mastered the art of progressively constricting the trajectory of religio-political authority.  Women were first to fall out of favour.

Then came the turn of those (for eviction from the charmed circle) who were not well-versed in Arabic in an Islamic empire which had by then grown multi-linguistic in the wake of conquests. Today, the entire secular-educated class is kept out of the process of interpretation of the theology for possessing no degree from madrassas.

It is this process of ossification of mindset within Islam that needs to be challenged. Only a narrow coterie, totally bereft of the knowledge of the issues and urges of the time, has come to monopolise the religious authority. No wonder then why such gender-unjust edicts are issued emerge from these centres with sickening regularity.   
It is time that political class stops pandering to these misogynist interpreters of Islam. Besides the contemporary fund of knowledge on gender, there is enough scope even within principal sources of Islam and the early history to restore or reassign a vibrant role for women in the social, political and economic life. 

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13. INDIA: CONSTITUTIONAL VALIDITY OF IT ACT CHALLENGED
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A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court Bench here challenging the Constitutional validity of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 
http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/constitutional-validity-of-it-act-challenged/article4078191.ece


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14. NEPAL: THE DOG MOTHER - FOR GYANI DEULA AND HER 21 ADOPTED DOGS, IT'S KUKUR TIHAR EVERY DAY
by Trishna Rana
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(Nepali Times #629, 09 - 15 Nov 2012)
At 5pm every evening, a plump, middle-age flower seller at the Ganesh Temple in Kamaladi brings out three pots of rice, dal, and meat. She sits on a mat on a corner of the street, and feeds her furry four-legged friends.

Like a mother tending her children, Gyani Deula talks to her 21 dogs, coaxing them to eat up. She heaps ladles full of rice and curry into their bowls. Bijuli is one of the shier dogs who prefers to eat alone, so Gyani gets up to feed her separately.

Gyani has lived on the temple grounds all her life, after being abandoned by her family she has found canine companionship more rewarding. "The dogs have been more loyal, caring, and protective than any friend or relative," says Gyani, hugging Sweety.

PICS: BIKRAM RAI
Gyani started adopting dogs three years ago after she found abandoned puppies in a carton dumped near the temple. The 54-year-old makes a meagre living selling flowers to pilgrims and sets aside part of her earnings to buy food for the dogs. The Seto Machhendranath committee pays her Rs 1,000 a month to look after the chariot, and others helped set up her flower stall.

Gyani adopts every dog that is dumped at the temple, and takes care of them as if they were her own children. The 21 dogs are all registered with a nearby vet, and Gyani makes sure they get their shots and the females are neutered. The dogs get a breakfast of milk and biscuits and even a bowl of Pedigree dog food. The puppies are handfed with human baby food and eggs.

All this costs Rs 7,000 a month, and she still owes the vet Rs 5,000 for the shots. Gyani's son and daughter-in-law left her because they couldn't handle the attention and resources she was devoting to her pets.

"It's difficult, but I will provide for them until I die, they are my family," she says matter-of-factly. "I worry about them once I am gone, what will my babies do? Who will feed them and love them?"

Gyani knows the names of all her dogs by heart. "That is Khaire, Kali, and Gore," she says, pointing out the mostly-female mongrels, "and those are Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, Sweety, Bijuli, Naulo, and Bhakta Bahadur."

Despite the fact that dogs are gods in Nepal, and are worshipped this year on Kukur Tihar on Tuesday 13 November, hundreds of mongrel puppies are discarded on the streets of Kathmandu every year.

Gyani's dogs are gentle and friendly, even with strangers. They like to playfully chase bikes that circle the temple which they guard at night. They get up at four every morning, lining up in front of the temple and howling in unison as the priest rings the bell.

The dogs are all devoted to Gyani, they pull at her sari if she is going out on an errand, and sulk when she is away. At night they sneak into her tiny room and snuggle at the foot of her bed.

As it got dark one evening this week, Gyani set out mattresses and blankets for her dogs under the shed where the chariot wheels are stored.

Gyani has seen people in fancy cars stop, dump the puppies on the sidewalk, and go inside the temple to pray. Threading a marigold garland, Gyani says: "What kind of dharma is that? God will punish them one day for their cruelty."


INTERNATIONAL

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15. I AM ASHAMED THAT IRELAND'S MEDIEVAL ABORTION LAW STILL STANDS
by Emer O'Toole
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(The Guardian, 15 November 2012)
Blame for denying Savita Halappanavar a termination lies with all of us who keep quiet about abortion rights

In beautiful Galway, my home town, Savita Halappanavar died in the hospital I was born in after being denied a potentially life-saving abortion. She presented with back pain, and was found to be miscarrying. A day of agony later, knowing her pregnancy couldn't survive, she asked for a termination, but was refused. "This is a Catholic country," she was allegedly told.

As long as the foetal heart kept beating doctors would not grant her wish. It beat for three days. Halappanavar vomited, shook and collapsed. On the third day the weak sound faded to nothing and doctors removed the dead foetus. A week after she was first admitted to hospital, Halappanavar died of septicaemia.

This is a Catholic country. If these were indeed the words used by the doctors, then the hospital did not feel the need to sugarcoat its rationale with references to Halappanavar's psychological health, or the wellbeing of her foetus. Its ideology was not veiled – as Youth Defence, Precious Life and Ireland's other powerful anti-abortion lobbyists have learned to do – in the language of care and concern for women. The rationale was not cloaked in academic arguments about the moment when human life begins.

Halappanavar objected that she was neither Irish nor a Catholic: a futile attempt to appeal for choice over what was happening to her body. As a medical professional, she most likely knew that her 17-week-old foetus would not be conscious of its existence ending. But her appeal to value her life over an insentient foetus's heartbeat was ignored. There is no abortion on the pope's own island and she had no time to get to England.

I am no longer a Catholic, so I need to look for earthly explanations as to what happened to Halappanavar. The medical technology to prevent this painful, senseless death was at hand. Yet doctors did not use it. Why? One could argue that they had to obey Irish law. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, speaking of defences mounted by the perpetrators of atrocities during the Holocaust, Hannah Arendt says that adult citizens cannot obey. Children and animals can obey, but adults have the capacity to morally assess the actions that their sociopolitical systems demand of them.

Adults do not obey, they consent. And yes, the system might punish you for failing to carry out its evil will – for choosing to remove a dying, insensate foetus from the womb of a woman in agony who is begging you to do so – but fear of consequence does not absolve you. To those doctors who continued to check for a heartbeat as Halappanavar deteriorated, this is also your fault.

I know what it's like to try to speak out against anti-choice hegemony in Ireland. I know how hard it is to even form pro-choice opinions at all. Like 95% of people schooled in Ireland, I had a Catholic education and was heavily propagandised against abortion. More, I had to navigate the biased information offered by the Irish press. RTÉ, our national broadcaster, did not even report on a 2,000-strong pro-choice march in Dublin earlier this year, while it continues to cover anti-abortion movements in the provinces. Teachers and journalists, this is your fault too.

Of course, this is made difficult in a country in which the entire political system, against the will of the electorate, enforces medieval attitudes to abortion. In 1992 the supreme court ruled that a suicidal teenage rape victim had the right to an abortion. In the referendum that followed, Irish people voted to uphold this judgment. Yet, 20 years later, no government has been brave enough to legislate. In 2010 the European court of human rights ruled against the Irish state in favour of a woman who had to travel to the UK to terminate a pregnancy while undergoing chemotherapy. Still Enda Kenny, our devoutly Catholic taoiseach, has said that abortion is "not of priority" for his government. Kenny, James Reilly, the health minister, and every other Dáil member – this is your fault too. You are responsible for the pain Halappanavar's loved ones are going through.

To her family, I want to say: I am ashamed, I am culpable, and I am sorry. For every letter to my local politician I didn't write, for every protest I didn't join, for keeping quiet about abortion rights in the company of conservative relations and friends, for becoming complacent, for thinking that Ireland was changing, for not working hard enough to secure that change, for failing to create a society in which your wife, your daughter, your sister was able to access the care that she needed: I am sorry. You must think that we are barbarians.

• This article was amended on 15 November 2012. The sentence 'That evening, Halappanavar died of septicaemia' in the second paragraph was incorrect and was changed to 'A week after she was first admitted to hospital, Halappanavar died of septicaemia'.


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16. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL MUST RESPECT ITS WORKERS RIGHTS
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Staff are striking in Amnesty offices across the globe, and a vote of no-confidence has been passed in its leadership. 
http://www.sacw.net/article3316.html

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17. SOUTH AFRICA: THE STRIKE WAVE AND NEW WORKERS’ ORGANISATIONS - BREAKING OUT OF OLD COMPROMISES
by Leonard Gentle 
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So worker rebellions against “their own unions” and against the “legal framework” for collective bargaining have a distinguished history. Since Marikana there has been a strike wave of some 100 000 workers across the country – from the platinum province, to the coal and gold mines of the North West, Gauteng and the Free State, and from the workers at Kumba in the Northern Cape; to Toyota in KZN; and even home-based textiles workers in Cape Town. And now farm workers in De Doorns. A common feature of these strikes has been that they were led and driven by self-organised workers’ committees in defiance of the existing unions and of signed collective agreements made with these unions.

http://www.sacw.net/article3315.html


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South Asia Citizens Wire
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