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Survey on gender segregation at Universities in the UK

Survey on gender segregation at Universities in the UK

Fitnah, in conjunction with Southall Black Sisters and One Law for All, is conducting a survey as part of a research project investigating the nature and impact of segregation, specifically gender segregation, at universities in the United Kingdom.

If you have experienced gender segregation at a university, please take a few moments to respond to the questionnaire online: http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/101896LDKHG by 31 March 2014. This research project is conducted in full compliance with the Ethics Guidelines of the Social Research Association. Your data will be treated as confidential and your participation will remain anonymous.

For more information about this research or to provide more in depth information, please contact: gendersegregationsurvey@gmail.com.

Thank you for your participation.

News Flash November 2013

News Flash November 2013

Afghanistan   Egypt   India   Iran   Iraq   Israel   Libya   Morocco  Pakistan  Palestine  Saudi Arabia  Sudan  Syria  Yeman

Afghanistan

Twelve years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s government is considering bringing back stoning as a punishment for sex outside marriage. The sentence for married adulterers, along with flogging for unmarried offenders, appears in a draft revision of the country’s penal code being drawn up by the ministry of justice. It is the latest in a string of encroachments on hard-won rights for women, after parliament quietly cut the number of seats set aside for women on provincial councils, and drew up a criminal code whose provisions will make it almost impossible to convict anyone for domestic violence.  

Locals shot dead a girl and her boyfriend in northern Baghlan province after they eloped. Javed Basharat, the provincial police spokesman, said police tried to mediate and rescue the pair, but tribal elders promised to surrender both victims yet failed to do so.

Egypt

A survey of 22 Arab states by the Thomson Reuters Foundation found Egypt lowest in the women’s rights listing and with the highest rates of violence against women – including sexual harassment and female genital mutilation (FGM). Egypt was followed by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen.

India

Aboobacker Musaliya, one of Kerala’s most influential Sunni leaders and general secretary of the All India Sunni Jam-Iyyathul Ulema said “…Islam has not changed its decrees regarding the life of women. Muslim women should not work in a place where only a woman and a man are present. They should work only in a place where there are enough number of women and trustworthy men. Ninety per cent of jobs do not require men and women to mingle. These rules cannot be changed.” The cleric also said that women should travel only if it was unavoidable. Even then, these journeys must be for purposes ratified by Islam.

Iran

A document adopted by the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council with president Rouhani’s signature has been forwarded to the education and health ministries to “reduce the unnecessary mixing of males and females.” The section on gender segregation included the expansion of the culture of chastity and the veil.

Majlis (parliamentary) social affairs committee head Abdulreza Azizi said: “Almost 20% of marriages in Iran end in divorce, as a result of promiscuity, sexual license, perversion, and a tendency to favour Western values.” Azizi quoted from the Koran, claiming that the holy book stipulates that women have no right to seek divorce. If they did, it would mean they could ask for a separation on any pretext, whenever they chose to. Azizi also blamed drug addiction, unemployment, economic hardship and foreign satellite television for the high divorce rate.

Following mounting criticism of the Iranian police’s harassment of women who refuse to abide by compulsory veiling rules, the ‘modesty project’ has been transferred to the Interior Ministry. Police commander Brigadier Ismail Ahmadi-Moghadam said: “The government has decided to hand the project over to a social council, which is in the process of organising staff and procedures. We will still be available to play a role if required. We are optimistic about this move, and hope the modesty project will be conducted more efficiently in future.” Over 26 government agencies have been involved in imposing hijab, spending millions of dollars over several decades in the process. However both sociologists and politicians now admit that harsh campaigns have failed to force Iranian women to submit to the guidelines. In the past, Iranian officials have accused women who defy hijab of making a political statement in an attempt to ridicule the regime.

Ghulam Ali Hadad, a close advisor and confidante to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his son’s father-in-law who was a candidate in last June’s presidential election has said Iranians and many other people around the world tend to adopt the cultural values of  the West. Addressing students at Payam Noor University in Mashad, he said: “Women who observe Islamic hijab are currently under considerable pressure to change their appearance. This is a consequence of the harmful influence of Western culture on our society. Western values have even influenced architecture and interior decoration. Some people’s dreams and aspirations are inspired by the West.”

Over 15% of homeless in Tehran are women addicted to drugs or alcohol. Most fled their families in the smaller Iranian towns and villages and went to the Iranian capital in search of better social and economic conditions.

Iranian women are banned from attending football matches. Some disguise themselves as men to attend facing arrest and imprisonment if found out. On social media, women football lovers asked FIFA’s head to raise the issue on his visit with Iranian authorities, which he did.

Iraq

The Iraqi Justice Ministry announced that it had sent a copy of a draft law on Shiite jurisprudence and personal status to the cabinet for approval. The draft law stipulates that Iraqi Shiites would refer to Islamic Sharia, and specifically principles of Jaafari jurisprudence, for personal status issues — which include marriage and divorce, as well as issues of inheritance and adoption. The pending legislation threatens to further divide Iraqi society on the basis of sectarianism and ethnicity and violate women’s and children’s rights, including potentially making the latter susceptible to sexual abuse through child marriage.

Israel

Seventy-two percent of Jewish Israelis do not trust the police in protecting women victims of domestic violence and their children, according to a survey. According to the data, half of Israelis know at least one woman who experiences violence of some kind from her husband. Among them, about a third indicated that the woman they know suffers from physical violence, while the rest said the violence was verbal and emotional.

Libya

Hundreds of women turned out in Algeria Square in Libya to protest against the presence of armed militias in Tripoli streets and across the country. They called for a complete end to the country’s militias.

Morocco

Forced to marry the man who had raped her, a 16-year-old Moroccan girl committed suicide last month. As Abdel Ali El-Allawi, director of the local chapter of an international NGO, the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, said, the rapist was first put into prison but that his family “entered negotiations with the family of the victim” and proposed that their son marry the teenager; her family assented.

Pakistan

A human rights activist stated that fifty-six women have been killed in Pakistan this year for giving birth to a girl rather than a boy.

Palestine

The Palestinian Authority banned the Islamist Hizb ut Tahrir from holding a seminar in Bethlehem under the title: “Women’s groups and societies seek to corrupt women.” The group recently launched a campaign against women’s organisations and societies, accusing them of corrupting Palestinian women. The campaign is being held under the motto “Women’s honour must be protected and the infidels and their tools are conspiring against women.” The campaign by Hizb ut Tahrir drew strong condemnations from women’s rights groups in the West Bank. The groups accused the party of inciting against women and appealed to the Palestinian Authority to take action to stop the fundamentalists from pursuing their campaign.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi religious police arrested two young men offering a “free hug” to passers-by in the capital. Free Hugs Campaign is a movement for individuals to offer hugs to strangers in public places,

especially in big cities, “to brighten up their lives.”

Sudan

Two activists in Sudan are due to stand trial for ‘indecent behaviour.’ They are at risk of imprisonment or flogging. Najlaa Mohammed Ali, a lawyer and human rights activist, and Amin Senada, also an activist, were arrested on 21 October in Port Sudan after they were found to be travelling in the same car together. Initially, members of Sudan’s police and security forces took the pair into custody after accusing Senada of placing his hand on Ali’s shoulder. The arresting officers later claimed they had found them kissing in the car, charging both with ‘indecent behaviour’ under Article 152 of Sudan’s 1991 Criminal Code.  It is believed that the charge is a response to Ali’s political activism, including her participation in countrywide demonstrations that took place in September.

Under the guise of protecting morality and preventing the co-mingling of the sexes, which is deemed “prostitution,” government officials have deployed the public order regime against unmarried men and women alike who dare to share office space and taxi rides or attend parties together.

Syria

A new report estimates 6,000 women have been raped since March 2011 however during the Syrian conflict; the actual number is likely to be much higher given most cases go undocumented.

 

Yeman

A Yemeni court ordered the release of an eloping Saudi woman and her boyfriend and gave 22 year old Huda Abdullah three months to rectify her legal status in the country. Huda had fled her family home in Saudi Arabia and headed to Yemen to meet her beloved. She was arrested in Yemen for illegal entry and placed on trial, amid mounting pressure from her family and Saudi authorities for her to return home. But she stuck her ground, pleading in court to be able to stay and marry her boyfriebd, and applied for asylum through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

We will continue our fight against gender apartheid at universities

We will continue our fight against gender apartheid at universities

More than a 100 protestors rallied outside the office of Universities UK (UUK) to condemn their endorsement of segregation of the sexes and demand gender equality on 10 December 2013, International Human Rights Day. The rally was organised by Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation, One Law for All and London School of Economics Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society.

The protest was in response to guidance issued by Universities UK (UUK) (a body representing UK universities) which said that external speakers can ask for segregation between women and men and it wouldn’t be discriminatory as long as “both men and women are being treated equally, as they are both being segregated in the same way.” They also said that refusing to segregate the hall may curtail the speakers’ freedom of expression!

The rally quickly followed an open letter signed by well-known personalities such as scientist Richard Dawkins and Music Producer Deeyah Khan condemning the endorsement of gender apartheid by Universities UK. The letter said that any form of segregation, whether by race, sex or otherwise is discriminatory. Separate is never equal and segregation is never applied to those who are considered equal. A petition opposing sex apartheid followed which has until now gathered over 9,000 signatories: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Universities_UK_Rescind_endorsement_of_sex_segregation_at_UK_Universities/

At the rally, Pragna Patel, director of Southall Black Sisters, said:
“For me, today is a particularly emotional moment. I stand here reminded of the heroic struggle waged against racial apartheid in South Africa, and yet find myself protesting against another form of apartheid that is also being justified with reference to that ubiquitous but flawed logic ‘separate but equal’. Who would have thought that in the 21st century, we would be protesting against policies adopted by institutions that should be in the business of producing and nurturing truth and knowledge, but which are instead endorsing the subjugation of one half of the human race? Who would have thought that in the 21st century, gender apartheid would become the new battleground?”

Maryam Namazie, co-organiser of the protest and Spokesperson for Fitnah and One Law for All added:
“Whilst people have an absolute right to their beliefs, they don’t have the right to manifest it when harmful or impose it on others, particularly not in a public space such as a university. Also, it is important to remember that Muslims are not a homogeneous group (many oppose sex apartheid) and gender segregation is a demand of the far-Right Islamist movement. It is ironic that whilst sex apartheid is challenged the world over, including by many Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa, UUK insists on endorsing it here. UUK must rescind its guidance immediately.”

Comedian Kate Smurthwaite said:
“The word equality has only one meaning. It’s not the back of the bus and it’s not the side of the lecture theatre. This is not about telling women who want to sit separately that they can’t. This is about allowing external speakers to demand that the audience be segregated.”

James Bloodworth, editor of Left Foot Forward, said:
“Opposition to gender segregation is an issue of fundamental freedom: people should be permitted to sit with who they like in a publically funded university. It’s also a question of politics, though: we shouldn’t pretend that those who wish to segregate men and women view us as equals. They don’t. They think women are little more than a temptation to men; and they view men as uncontrollable predators whose view of women is on a par with that of uncovered meat.”

Marieme Helie Lucas, a founder of Women Living Under Muslim Laws and Secularism is a Women’s Issue sent a solidarity message saying: “By bending to the Muslim Far-Right’s supposedly-religious diktats of segregating sexes on university premises, UUK also endangers further the women and men of Muslim descent – believers and unbelievers alike – who stand both against fundamentalism and against xenophobia and discrimination, in increasingly difficult circumstances.”

In another message of solidarity, Human Rights Campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “Gender apartheid is as abhorrent as race apartheid. The people who approved this policy are unfit to hold any public office – and should resign. Universities once pioneered the Enlightenment and liberal, progressive values. Now, it seems, they appease misogyny and cave in to religious sexism and intolerance. The right of women and men to sit where they like is not negotiable.”

Other speakers at the rally included: Ahlam Akram, director of Basira; Charlie Klendjian, secretary of the Lawyers’ Secular Society; Georgi Laag, founder of London Atheist Activist Group; Sean Oakley, founder and former president of Atheist, Humanist and Secularist society; Helen Palmer, chair of the Central London Humanist Group; Abhishek Phadnis, President of the LSE Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society; Erin Saltman, Research Project Officer at Quilliam Foundation; and Anne-Marie Waters, Council Member of the National Secular Society. Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre at Oxford and an Imam at the Oxford Islamic Congregation was one of those who sent messages of solidarity.

Soon after the rally, which received widespread coverage, including when Prime Minister David Cameron intervened to oppose sex segregation at universities, UUK was forced to withdraw its guidance. Whilst this fight has been won, the battle continues particularly since sex segregation is still taking place at universities and UUK has said it hopes to redraft the guidance.

The Campaign against Gender Segregation at UK Universities will continue to press on until it is made very clear that there is no room for segregation of the sexes in public places like universities, including by organising teams of sex apartheid busters to break up gender apartheid at universities and hold a huge march against sex apartheid on 8 March 2014, International Women’s Day. We are also getting legal advice.

Below is some of the media coverage received so far:

Gender segregation guidelines u-turn following PM warning, Channel 4 News, 13 December 2013 [external news]

Universities pull back from sex segregation as Cameron weighs in, Daily Telegraph, 13 December 2013 [external link]

On the niqab, Community Channel, 13 December 2013 [external link]

Sexual apartheid: Is there any room for gender segregation, This Week, 12 December 2013 [external link]

A future labour government will ‘not tolerate’ gender segregation at our universities, Left Foot Forward, 12 December 2013 [external link]

Sex segregation at university debates is not okay, Care2, 30 November 2013 [external link ]

Outcry at ‘gender apartheid’ in new guidance for UK universities, The Independent, 11 December 2013 [external link]

University gender segregation ‘violation of women’s freedom’, BBC, 11 December 2013 [external link]

Backlash grows over university gender segregation guidelines, Daily Telegraph, 11 December 2013 [external link]

Gender Apartheid is real in UK universities so why aren’t more people fighting it? Daily Telegraph, 11 December 2013 [external link]

‘We will fight them like the suffragettes’: Protesters target Universities UK over sex segregation policy, Politics, 11 December 2013 [external link]

The segregation of women and the appeasement of bigotry at UK’s universities, The Spectator, 11 December 2013 [external link]

Sex apartheid in British universities deemed acceptable, Voice of Russia, 11 December 2013 [external link]

Gender Segregation protests against university guidelines, Channel 4 News, 10 December 2013 [external link]

Why we are protesting against gender segregation this evening, Left Foot Forward, 10 December 2013 [external link]

British universities shouldn’t condone this kind of gender segregation, Guardian Comment is Free, 26 November 2013 [external link]

For more information, contact:

Maryam Namazie
Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation
One Law for All
maryamnamazie@gmail.com
077 1916 6731

Chris Moos
Secretary of LSE Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society
c.m.moos@lse.ac.uk
074 2872 0599

End sex segregation at UK Universities

End sex segregation at UK Universities

24 November 2013

Universities UK (UUK) has issued guidance on external speakers saying that the segregation of the sexes at universities is not discriminatory as long as “both men and women are being treated equally, as they are both being segregated in the same way.” The guidance has been supported by the National Union of Students.

UUK add that universities should bear in mind that “concerns to accommodate the wishes or beliefs of those opposed to segregation should not result in a religious group being prevented from having a debate in accordance with its belief system” and that if “imposing an unsegregated seating area in addition to the segregated areas contravenes the genuinely-held religious beliefs of the group hosting the event, or those of the speaker, the institution should be mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully.”

We, the undersigned, condemn the endorsement of gender apartheid by Universities UK. Any form of segregation, whether by race, sex or otherwise is discriminatory. Separate is never equal and segregation is never applied to those who are considered equal. By justifying segregation, Universities UK sides with Islamist values at the expense of the many Muslims and others who oppose sex apartheid and demand equality between women and men.

The guidance must be immediately rescinded and sex segregation at universities must come to an end.

Join initial list of signatories below by signing the petition here.

Initial List of Signatories:

A C Grayling, Philosopher

Abhishek N. Phadnis, President, London School of Economics Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society

Anissa Helie, Academic

Charlie Klendjian, Secretary of Lawyers’ Secular Society

Chris Moos, Secretary, London School of Economics Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society

Deborah Hyde, Editor of Skeptic magazine

Deeyah Khan, Film Director and Music Producer

Dilip Simeon, Chairperson of the Aman Trust

Elham Manea, Author

Faisal Gazi, Writer and Blogger

Fatou Sow, International Coordinator of Women Living Under Muslim Laws

Gita Sahgal, Director, Centre for Secular Space

Harsh Kapoor, South Asia Citizen’s Web

Helen Palmer, Chair of London Humanists

Kate Smurthwaite, Comedian and Activist

Marieme Helie Lucas, Coordinator, Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Maryam Namazie, Spokesperson for One Law for All and Fitnah

Mina Ahadi, International Committee against Stoning

Nadia El Fani, Tunisian Filmmaker

Nahla Mahmoud, Spokesperson of Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain

Ophelia Benson, Writer

Pavan Dhaliwal, Head of Public Affairs of the British Humanist Association

Peter Tatchell, Director of Peter Tatchell Foundation

Polly Toynbee, Journalist

Pragna Patel, Director of Southall Black Sisters
Richard Dawkins, Scientist

Rohini Hensman, Social Activist

Rory Fenton, President of The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies of the UK and ROI

Safia Lebdi, Founder, “Les insoumis-es”

Salil Tripathi, Writer

Soad Baba Aissa, President, of Association pour l’ Egalité, la Mixité et la Laicité en Algérie

Terry Sanderson, President of National Secular Society

Yasmin Rehman, Women’s Rights Campaigner

 

*  There will be a protest in London on 10 December 2013, International Human Rights Day, to oppose sex segregation. You can join Facebook Events Page here.

 

* Teams of Sex Apartheid Busters are being organised to break segregation wherever it is instituted. To join email maryamnamazie@gmail.com

Stop Stoning Now

Stop Stoning Now

According to the Independent, two months ago, a young mother of two was stoned to death by her relatives on the order of a tribal court in Pakistan. Her crime: possession of a mobile phone. Arifa Bibi’s uncle, cousins and others hurled stones and bricks at her until she died. She was buried in a desert far from her village. It’s unlikely anyone was arrested. Her case is not unique. Stoning is legal or practised in at least 15 countries or regions. And campaigners fear this barbaric form of execution may be on the rise, particularly in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. You can find a list of death by stoning in Iran since 1980 compiled by the International Committee against Stoning here.

Sign a petition by Women Living Under Muslim Laws calling for an end to stoning. This particular campaign to end stoning follows the pioneering work of Mina Ahadi and the International Committee against Stoning over many decades.

fitnah.movement@gmail.com