women's rights
June 19, 2009
- Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamanei, is rightfully grabbing the spotlight today, but the speech he gave in Tehran, earlier today, couldn't help but make me think of the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination, and how much progress we, in the west, have made in how we treat our women.
Okay, so nobody's ever accused me of being a feminist. Some have even suggested that Arthur ...
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May 24, 2009
- The opacity of oppressive regimes obscures truth and harsh realities. But last month a video implicating Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the President of the United Arab Emirates, in the torture of an Afghani grain dealer was smuggled out of the country by a Houston businessman. Supposedly the dealer had shorted Sheikh Issa out of US$5,000 worth of grain. For his alleged sin, he ...
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May 7, 2009
- Last week, while I was traveling and incommunicado, John Coyne and Lawrence (Lorenzo) F. Lihosit of Peace Corps Writers published a nice Q&A with me. All thanks to fellow Red Roomer and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Michael Schmicker for playing the role of matchmaker.I served in the Peace Corps in the 1980s. No latrine building, no bridge building as in the goofy 1985 Tom Hanks/Rita ...
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April 23, 2009
- I have watched CNN these days and I have heard lots of things about the Talibans wanting to ban girls from going to school. Those who live in the Swat Valley want the Shariah Law in the whole Pakistan. The Pakistani governement might cave to the Taliban's silly demands because they have fear. Musharaf was not bad after all, even if he is a dicatator. I do ask myself, if the current president is ...
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April 13, 2009
- To mark the two-year death anniversary of Du'a Khalil Aswad on April 7th (http://www.redroom.com/blog/ellen-r-sheeley/the-dishonor-killing-dua-khalil-aswad), I recently re-read Norma Khouri's Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan (a.k.a. Forbidden Love in some countries). I'd first read it in 2004, before working and living in Jordan. In the meantime, it had become the subject of ...
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March 22, 2009
- The seventh known Jordanian dishonor killing of the year occurred yesterday in Zarqa, a city perhaps best known as the birthplace of the late al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Apparently, a 19-year-old woman--unnamed, as is always the case in Jordanian dishonor killings--was beaten by her father and two minor brothers for more than two hours. She fell unconscious, was rushed to the ...
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March 12, 2009
March 8, 2009
- As Red Roomer Karen Tintori and others have reminded me, today is the 98th International Women's Day, a global day celebrating the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future. In Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam, it is an official holiday, ...
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February 17, 2009
- The Middle East Quarterly just published a timely article by Ms. Phyllis Chesler about the differences between dishonor killings and domestic violence. The article contains some interesting charts of cases in North America and Europe, though I can tell by eyeballing them that she's missed some of the cases (i.e., the charts aren't necessarily comprehensive).I don't necessarily agree with all ...
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February 14, 2009
- In a hideous irony, the Pakistan-born founder and CEO of Bridges TV--launched in the USA in 2004 to portray Muslims in a more favorable light--was charged with second-degree murder in the grisly beheading death of his wife on Thursday, February 12th, in Orchard Park, NY.Aasiya Hassan, age 37 and the mother of four, had dared to file for divorce from her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, age 44. There ...
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