Dilip Simeon's blog

This is what we know about Qandeel Baloch: She liked the water, she swam. In her videos and photos, she wore the same clothes over and over — a white bathrobe, a pink polka-dot dress. She had a sense of humour. Her real name was Fauzia Azeem. She was born into a perfectly ordinary, socially conservative family. She married young, had a son. She walked away from that marriage when it didn't work out. She wanted,  in her own words , "to be able to stand on my own two feet, to do something for myself." Qandeel Baloch murdered by brother in Multan: police Pakistanis on Qandeel Baloch: The problem is society Pakistan's law as informed by the Islamic practices allows the family of the deceased under certain circumstances to forgive the accused murderer. When it comes to honour killing, India is neck and neck with Pakistan When it comes to honour killing,  India is neck and neck with Pakistan,  literally. According to experts, every years at least 1000 women g...

Hailing from the restive province of Balochistan and being a vocal critic of the Pakistani State on the issue of forced disappearances, Karima Mehrab had for long received threats and intimidation in Pakistan. She was forced to leave Pakistan but continued to receive threats on her life in Canada. Her uncle was  killed , her home was raided more than twice, and her family in Pakistan was repeatedly threatened to persuade her to give up activism...   Karima Mehrab Baloch was a known crusader of justice, relentless in her demand for equality for persecuted residents of Balochistan in Western Pakistan. Her  death  in Canada this week caused an uproar, even as the Toronto police said the incident appeared to be a “non-criminal” matter without any foul play. For Karima’s supporters in Balochistan and elsewhere, though, that is hardly reassuring. Karima Mehrab, who had been living in exile in Canada, is not the first Pakistani human rights activist who faced death t...

India has one of the highest female foeticide incidents in the world. The female child population in the age group of 0-6 years declined from 78.83 million in 2001 to 75.84 million in 2011. During the period 1991-2011, the child sex ratio (0-6 years) declined from 945 to 914. Apart from Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 (PNDT Act) to address the issue of sex-selective abortion, India also enacted the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act in 1971 to regulate access to safe abortions. The MTP Act of 1971, amended in 2002, allows abortion up to 20 weeks of pregnancy in cases where “the continuance of the pregnancy would involve a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or of grave injury to her physical or mental health”. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has acknowledged that illegal abortions still outnumber legal abortions and thousands of women die every year due to complications resulting from unsafe abortions. Acco...

Reading Harsh Mander (‘Sonia, sadly’, IE, March 17) and Ramachandra Guha (‘Liberals, sadly’, IE, March 20), one cannot avoid the feeling that the issues need to be redefined and expanded. Mander stops at a frightening narrative of invisibility while Guha is content with a reformist platform irrespective of political context. It is only to be wished that this debate continues and that it helps the liberals and supporters of diversity in shaping their stand in the dual battle - with illiberal ideas and with majoritarianism. As a nation, we lost one moment of introspection on the so-called “Muslim question” in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri masjid in 1992; now is the second moment we are almost about to lose — and this time around, we shall not only lose the grasp on the Muslim question but on the larger riddles of religion and modernity, difference and democracy. Let us begin with Guha’s concern about the burka. One need not hesitate to posit that if women are dictated a ...

Almost a quarter of a million girls under five die in  India  every year due to neglect resulting from society’s preference for sons, a gender discrimination study has found. The figure does not include those aborted simply for being female, researchers wrote in the Lancet medical journal. “Gender-based discrimination towards girls doesn’t simply prevent them from being born, it may also precipitate the death of those who are born,” said co-author Christophe Guilmoto.. India: 40 million gender imbalance due murder of babies   “Gender equity is not only about rights to education, employment or political representation, it is also about care, vaccination, and nutrition of girls, and ultimately survival.” Guilmoto and a team used population data from 46 countries to calculate how many infant girls would have died in a society where there was no discrimination impact, and how many died in reality. The difference, about 19 deaths out of every 1,000 girls born betwee...

Police have detained at least seven people, including a  Nikah Khwan  (marriage officiator), suspected of involvement in the alleged abductions, forced conversions from Hindusim to Islam, and underage marriages of two minor sisters reported in Ghotki. On Saturday, the  government took notice  of the incident after two separate videos started doing rounds on social media. The father and brother of the girls in videos circulating on social media said that the two sisters were abducted and forced into changing their religion from Hinduism to Islam. However, a separate video of the girls went viral, in which they said that they accepted Islam of their own free will. In the video, a cleric can be seen next to the girls and two men who they were married to. The cleric said the girls were inspired by Islam and alleges that their family is spreading "false propaganda" and is threatening their lives. The truth about forced conversions in Thar Faiza Mirza: Memoir of a ...

In July, shortly after Turkish society emerged from COVID lockdown, members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) proposed withdrawing the country from the Istanbul Convention. Signed by Turkey in 2011, the Convention creates a European legal framework for preventing, prosecuting and eliminating violence against women and domestic violence.  Arguments that the convention ‘weakens the institution of the family’ and ‘encourages homosexuality’ were consistent with the culture of anti-feminism and patriarchalism long encouraged by the AKP.  However, in the context of a recent wave of femicides, the prospect of losing one of the few legal protections for vulnerable has women provoked outrage, reaching all the way into the conservative camp. What follows is the English translation of a comment published in the September issue of Turkish journal Varlık by the poet and philosopher Betül Dünder, together with an open letter signed by 155 female writers and poets, ...

Not too long ago, Pakistan and  Afghanistan  were called Af-Pak: two countries joined at the hip, doomed to live and die together. You didn’t get to choose your neighbours, we were told. Geography, we were taught, was our destiny. There was a lot of talk about geostrategic significance – which was the  Pakistan  military’s way of saying there were great advantages to be derived from our unfortunate neighbours. More than four decades ago, our leaders insisted we had to help the Afghan mujahideen fight the Soviets because that would help us ward off communism in our own country. Having lived most of my life in Pakistan, I have probably come across half a dozen communists – and even they never agreed with each other. That first jihad made generations of Afghans homeless but it also made some people in Pakistan very rich. The Soviet-Afghan war also sustained our brutal military dictatorship, brought us abundant supplies of cheap and high-quality heroin, and introduce...

We have seen it before with brothels being bombed and nightclubs being shot at. This is a message to “know your place”. I fear that people will soon listen. And I don’t think these crimes will be solved.' Sura Ahmed, a Baghdad university student Even to a country inured to violence, the images were shocking. A man on a motorbike pulled up next to a car window and fired three shots at Tara al-Fares, killing her on a Baghdad street. The  daylight assassination, captured by a surveillance camera, was both brazen and familiar to Iraqis who lived through the civil war and painful decade since. Yet it was also shockingly distinctive; the body slumped in the car seat was not a politician, official, insurgent or warlord. She was a former beauty queen; a young woman with both profile and attitude, one of four high-profile Iraqi women to have been killed across the country in quick succession. The four were unknown to each other, but their lives – recently at least – had share...

Loujain al-Hathloul always likes to ask questions, her brother Walid says. “Growing up, she always pointed out the hypocrisy around driving in  Saudi Arabia , trying to understand why women were banned from driving. She kept questioning.” But when Hathloul, now 29, was pulled over while driving in neighbouring United Arab Emirates last April before being deported back to Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s rulers began the latest in a series of increasingly brutal efforts to silence her. Dubai princess, who tried to flee UAE, believed to be dead // Indian Action Under the Scanner as UN Rapporteur Probes Fate of Dubai Princess (Beti Bachao government in action) Hathloul says she was detained for three days, freed and then seized again from her family home in Riyadh. She says she was blindfolded, thrown into the boot of a car and taken to a detention centre she has called a “palace of terror” and has been  tortured, and threatened  with rape and death. Hathloul has now b...

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A well-known Afghan journalist and political adviser was assassinated in broad day light over the weekend, demonstrating once again the poor state of women’s safety in the war-ravaged country. Mina Mangal – who had worked as a presenter for several Afghan television channels before becoming cultural adviser for parliament – was gunned down by unidentified gunmen on Saturday when she was leaving home for work in the nation’s capital, Kabul. Police in Afghanistan have launched a manhunt for Mangal’s ex-husband after her parents said he was responsible for her killing. Mangal’s brother, Shakib Mangal, said that his sister had once been abducted by her ex-husband’s family. “Her in-laws had abducted her two years ago but we were able to get her released with the help of some government officials and tribal elders,” Mangal said. “Her ex-husband, however, continued threatening Mina Mangal.” Committee to Protect Journalists He said his family has now filed a com...

LAST week, Khalid Hameed, head of the English department at Bahawalpur’s Govern­ment Sadiq Egerton College, was  stabbed to death  by his student who accused him of promoting un-Islamic activities (a mixed welcome gathering). After the shocking incident, opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif said that the fatal consequences of the difference of opinion should lead to a moment of national reflection. But you cannot reflect if you don’t know how to reason. Reasoning is a form of internal debate. It is a discursive practice that requires acknowledging and accommodating dissenting views. And this practice, of recognising, respecting and perhaps reconciling differing opinions, is something that Pakistanis have forgotten how to do. Mashal's death is a result of the regression of our student politics They are no longer taught to think critically, they are no longer allowed to speak freely, and their political representatives no long engage in debate, so how can we expect better...

In 2008, when Pakistan transitioned from nine years of military rule under Pervez Musharraf to an elected civilian government led by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), many believed that Pakistan’s ‘culture of military coups’ was headed in a decisively more democratic direction. The transition came about as a result of the ‘Lawyers’ Movement’, a mass protest initiated by lawyers from March 2007 to 2009, following the unconstitutional suspension of Pakistan’s Supreme Court justice. These hopes for democracy were strengthened when the 18th constitutional amendment was unanimously passed by the Parliament in April 2010.  The amendment not only constitutionally blocked military coups by strengthening Article 6 of the 1973 Constitution – which barred any person from abrogating, suspending or holding the constitution in abeyance, and stripped Pakistan’s higher courts of their powers to legitimise military coups – but also added a number of other provisions to strengthen the hold of the ci...

The family of a 12-year-old girl in  Pakistan  who was chained up in a cattle pen for more than six months, after allegedly being kidnapped and forced to marry her abductor, have attacked the authorities for refusing to act.  The case is among those now being examined by a government inquiry into the forced conversions of religious minority women and girls, after police released the man, saying they believed the girl had married him of her own free will. The child was taken from her home in Faisalabad last June and had been held at the home of 29-year-old Khizer Hayat, where she was made to work clearing animal dung. Her family are angry that no further action has been taken against the man.  Police investigators initially held Hayat but then released him, saying there was no evidence the girl had not consented to the marriage and that a medical report said she was 16…. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/10/family-of-girl-12-forced-to-marry-abd...

Female genital mutilation (FGM) refers to “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” [1]  FGM is a violation of girls’ and women’s human rights. While the exact number of girls and women worldwide who have undergone FGM remains unknown, at least 200 million girls and women have been cut in 30 countries with representative data on prevalence. However, the majority of girls and women in most countries with available data think FGM should end and there has been an overall decline in the prevalence of the practice over the last three decades, but not all countries have made progress and the pace of decline has been uneven...  https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/female-genital-mutilation/ see also 240,000 girls a year die in India due to gender discrimination, excluding those aborted India: 40 million gender imbalance due murder of babies   Co...

Two Saudi sisters who say they were beaten and treated like slaves by their brothers and father have been granted asylum in an undisclosed country. The women, aged 18 and 20, ran away from their family last September while on holiday in Sri Lanka and have been  stranded in Hong Kong  since an abandoned attempt to reach Australia, where they hoped to secure asylum. The sisters, who are known by the pseudonyms Reem and Rawan, have asked for the country which granted them asylum to remain confidential. “I was so happy,” the younger sister told Reuters in  Hong Kong , describing how she felt when she was told she had been given asylum. “I screamed, ‘It’s real, it’s happening’ ... It was just relief and unforgettable.” The women arrived in Hong Kong in September after planning their escape over several years and secretly hoarding around $5,000. They were blocked from continuing their journey to Australia by Saudi consular agents at Hong Kong international airport an...

NB: Arshia Malik's essays on religiosity, communalism and geo-politics in the South Asian region are timely and thought-provoking. They deserve a wide readership.  The best reaction to them I can think of is contained in two proverbs:  The yes-man is your enemy, but your friend will argue with you - Russian proverb What you run away from, runs after you - Romanian proverb -  DS Source:   http://nation.com.pk/Blogger/arshia-malik Source:   http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/author/arshiamalik/ Deconstructing Islamophobia MARCH 05, 2017, 10:36 PM Fear is a feeling induced by perceived danger or threat that occurs in certain types of organisms, which causes a change in metabolic and organ functions and ultimately a change in behavior, such as fleeing, hiding, or freezing from perceived traumatic events. Fear in human beings may occur in ... Shutting down debate FEBRUARY 11, 2017, 9:11 PM What is it about criticism of religion that g...