Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/24680
MOHAMED NURELDIN/REUTERS global I SHORT TAKES ITALY In August, after decades of opposition from the Vatican, abortion drug RU-486 was approved for use. The Italian Drug Agency ruled that RU-486 be administered only by doctors in hospitals, however, not sold in pharmacies. The Roman Catholic Church still threatens excommunication for women who use the pill and doctors who prescribe it. SUDAN Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese journalist and U.N. press offi- cer, was arrested with 12 other women at a Khartoum restaurant in July. Their crime: wearing pants, which carries a penalty of 40 lashes under an article of the 1991 indecen- cy statute, part of Sharia law governing northern Sudan. Ten of the women were fined and accepted 10 lashes, but Hussein refused to plead guilty, resigned her U.N. post to avoid immunity and wore trousers to her trial. “Can anyone show me a verse in the Quran or the prophet’s teachings that speak of flogging women because of their dress code?” she asked, adding that she was ready to receive even 40,000 lashes to abolish the law and that she would appeal any con- viction to the Constitutional Court. Approximately 100 supporters, including many women in trousers, protested outside the court, where they were met with police beatings and tear gas. On September 7, Hussein was convicted, but released the next day with no reason given. She plans to appeal her conviction. The Arab Women Connection has posted a petition supporting Lubna Hussein at www.ipetitions.com/petition/lubna/index.html. MYANMAR/BURMA Nobel Peace Laureates Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Betty Williams and Jody Williams, members of the Nobel Women’s Initiative (www.nobelwomensinitiative.org), released an open letter to the U.N. Security Council denouncing the August 10 conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s democratically elected leader and a Nobel Laureate herself. Suu Kyi, 64, already under house arrest for 14 of the last 20 years, was sentenced to an additional 18 months under house arrest for offering temporary shel- ter to an uninvited American man—a Mormon who swam to her lakeside home carrying the Book of Mormon. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Feminists carrying signs reading “No Rosaries on Our Ovaries” have been protesting the severe abortion law passed in April. The new constitutional amendment states that “the right to life is inviolable from conception until www.msmagazine.com death.” Women who obtain abor- tions and doctors who perform them now face harsh penalties, including prison sentences. Introduced by President Leonel Fernandez, the amendment pitted civil society and med- ical groups against the Catholic Church. The nation’s Obstetrics Society warned that the number of maternal deaths will increase considerably with the law’s approval. ICELAND Parliament has passed a bill criminalizing the act of paying individuals for prostitution. Designed after the Swedish law that targets buyers, not those whose sexual services are being bought, the action was lauded as a historic moment in the international struggle against human trafficking. Icelandic feminists have been working toward this for 20 years, with the first bill of this nature having been pro- posed in 2000. SOUTH AFRICA Earlier this year, a report by the international NGO ActionAid, reinforced by the South African Human Rights Commission, condemned the cultural passivity around the country’s epidemic of rape. The report included such hate crimes as so-called “corrective” rape, committed under the guise of “curing” lesbians of their sexual orientation/pref- erence. Local women’s rights activists note that an increas- ingly aggressive patriarchal political environment is con- tributing to police inaction, part of a growing cultural lethargy that tolerates astronomical levels of gender-based violence in the country. SOURCES: The New York Times, The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Women’s International Perspective, The Women’s Media Center (womensmediacenter.com), RHRealityCheck.org, InterPress Service News Agency, The Guardian (U.K.) FALL 2009 | 27 Pants-wearing Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein