An attempt to ban a relatively honest and liberal novel about the lives of young women in the Saudi capital, Banat al-Riyadh (“The Girls of Riyadh”) has failed.
There are some interesting comparisons in this piece and the comments between Fifties/Sixties Britain and Saudi Arabia. Now who has their proper, respectable hat on?
This evening I took a cycle across Hampstead Heath, as dusk shaded into evening*. The sky was a slight sweep of water-clour blue, shading with delicacy into velvet purple/black. The ponds were sculpted into neat ripples that might have been obsidian.
Looking out over the blaze of London – dominated by the distant Canary Wharf towers – flickering as the conifers blew in the wind. I had a foreground of a couple of rabbits on the grass, unsure as to whether to regard me as a threat or a minor curiosity. An owl hooted from in the forest.
This is something I should do more often…
* If you read some of the horror stories you might think I was taking my life into my hands, but it didn’t feel at all dangerous – the hair on the back of my neck (which I consider highly reliable) remained perfectly flat.
That Iraqi women are now having an extremely tough time is hardly new news, but a piece in the Observer today contains some new tales of horror, and an overall picture of the Talibanisation of the country…
It is not only the religious militias that have turned women’s lives into a living hell – it is, in some measure, the government itself, which has allowed ministries run by religious parties to segregate staff by gender. Some public offices, including ministries, insist on women staff wearing a headscarf at all times. A women’s shelter, set up by Yanar Mohammed’s group, was closed down by the government.
Most serious of all are the death threats women receive for simply working, even in government offices. Zainub – not her real name – works for a ministry in Baghdad. One morning, she said, she arrived at work to find that a letter had been sent to all the women. ‘When I opened up the note it said, “You will die. You will die”.’
The situation has been exacerbated by the undermining of Iraq’s old Family Code, established in 1958, which guaranteed women a large measure of equality in key areas such as divorce and inheritance. The new constitution has allowed the Family Code to be superseded by the power of the clerics and new religious courts, with the result that it is largely discriminatory against women.
… who has been threatened with an Asbo should she set one toe inside her ex-school’s grounds. That’s despite the fact that she escorts several children to school.
No doubt there’s a bit more to this story, but it does demonstrate how these are misused – an Asbo is in effect a threat of jail, hardly appropriate in such a case, not to mention that our jails are now in an emergency state of overcrowding.
… on women’s issues in Australia in reforms to the treatment of victims in sexual assault cases:
The historic reforms will include specially devised sex assault educational courses for court staff including judges, new consent laws and “objective fault” laws, which will require the accused to detail the steps taken to ensure consent was given.
Mr Debus will also change committal procedures to reduce the number of times victims must give evidence and be cross-examined.
Over on My London Your London a review of a festival of short plays at the Union Theatre. Generally good stuff, and a couple of little gems.
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