Tag Archives: muslim
UNWFP urge to help fight starvation during Ramadan
UNWFP urge to help fight starvation during Ramadan Sarah Young / 11 July 2013 The UN is appealing to the online community to help fight starvation around the world, as the holy month of Ramadan begins and people experience the kind of hunger others around the world face every day. A Ramadan online gift-matching campaign by the United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) is hoping to raise funds to the equivalent of 800,000 school meals during the next month, to help fight hunger in Muslim countries around the world. A Syrian girl gets her ration from WFP personnel at the Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp, Jordan; and (right) WFP personnel distributing food to Syrian refugee children at the camp. — KT file photos The Rotary Clubs of the UAE will match each dollar donated during the holy month. UNWFP Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia partnerships and business development manager Elise Bijon said the campaign would help families who most needed it, and wanted to celebrate Ramadan but did not have enough food to break their fast. “For hundreds of thousands of families celebrating Ramadan this month, Iftar is just a distant dream.” This is what “Ramadan is about”, she said. “Ramadan is a chance for anyone, regardless of religion, to connect with the poor. Through the experience of fasting, it’s a chance to feel in your body what hunger is like. It’s a chance to feel that connection — and to contribute.” She said she felt the target was feasible, particularly considering how active the Arab world was online. “We are a bit crazy but we are convinced hunger can be eradicated. Solutions exist, and they are affordable. It only costs one dirham to feed a child for a day.” Online donations to WFP campaigns from individuals in the UAE ranked the country the sixth most generous online donor country in the world, she said. The UAE comes in number one worldwide in the average gift amount donated. An average online gift from the UAE was a “super generous” $145. “And when it comes to social media, our Arab youth is our second biggest online Facebook community (behind England). If it follows this pace, it might be bigger than the English (Facebook WFP) community by the end of the year.” The programme’s largest operations were in Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen and Indonesia. Last year, WFP provided food to more than 97 million people in 80 countries — and more than half of the beneficiaries came from Muslim countries, she said. In particular, Yemen, Sudan and Indonesia were countries “people tended to forget.” Nearly half of Yemen’s population was hungry or on the edge of hunger, she said. “It’s a major, major food crisis that is happening next door. Nearly half of kids under five are stunted as a result of malnutrition. And this is so close (to us). “(And) literacy among Yemen women is a huge issue. So we are deploying the core of our efforts to send little girls to school, and we do that by giving take-home rations to families to act as an incentive to let their girls go to school. “It’s so important — if they don’t go to school, they will likely be married early, and remain illiterate like their mothers and grandmothers before them. How can we expect to build a better Yemen if the women cannot support and educate their children? Educated women are the key to the wellbeing of a nation, and this is a very specific example of what is going on in a Muslim country that is right next door.” President of the Rotary Club of Jumeirah, Ahmad Belselah, said Ramadan was “a precious opportunity to feel, with our bodies and hearts, a connection with the world’s hungry poor”. He hoped the club’s commitment would encourage more people to support the campaign this year. Last year’s inaugural Ramadan campaign raised enough funds to provide 400,000 school meals to children in the Middle East. To make a donation visit: wfp.org/Ramadan. sarah@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
Army ousts, detains Mursi
Army ousts, detains Mursi (AFP) / 4 July 2013 Egypt’s army ousted and detained the president Mohamed Mursi on Wednesday after a week of deadly clashes and mass protests calling for him to go after a year in office. His defence minister, armed forces chief General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, announced Mursi’s overthrow on state television, even as police began rounding up key Mursi aides and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Warrants have been issued for the arrest of a total of 300 Brotherhood officials, state media reported. The news that Mursi had been forced out drew a rapturous reception from thousands of protesters camped out on the streets of Cairo for days, some of whom celebrated with fireworks. But at least seven of Mursi’s supporters were killed in clashes with security forces in Alexandria and the eastern city of Marsa Matrouh, security officials said. Mursi and his senior aides were placed “under house arrest” in a military facility, a senior Muslim Brotherhood member said. The ousted president was later taken to the defence ministry, Gehad El Haddad added. His father, Essam El Haddad, a senior Mursi aide, is one of those detained. Mursi issued a defiant call for his supporters to defend his elected “legitimacy” in a prerecorded speech that appeared online after Sisi’s statement. Thousands of his supporters remained camped out in northern Cairo, but Egyptian television stations stopped broadcasting live feeds of the pro-Mursi rally after the military announced his overthrow. US President Barak Obama said he was “deeply concerned” over Mursi’s ouster and called on the army to refrain to “arbitrary arrests” of Mursi and his supporters. In May, Washington approved $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt. That was now under review, said Obama, as he called for a swift return to democratic rule. Police also began arresting leaders of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement, an interior ministry general told AFP. Saad Al Katatni, head of Mursi’s Freedom and Justice Party was already in custody , he added. In his speech, Sisi laid out details of the roadmap for a political transition. The armed forces, which had deployed troops and armour across the country, would “remain far away from politics,” he stressed. In the streets of Cairo, the response was immediate. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital to celebrate, cheering, whistling, letting off firecrackers and honking car horns in several hours of celebrations. “It’s a new historical moment. We got rid of Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood,” said one celebrator, Omar Sherif. In an amateur video posted online, Mursi declared: “I am the elected president of Egypt” and urged people to “defend this legitimacy”. Earlier, Mursi’s national security adviser Essam Al Haddad, said on Facebook: “For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let’s call what is happening by its real name: military coup.” But the opposition Congress Party of Amr Mussa insisted “this is not a coup”. Mursi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, came under massive pressure in the run-up to Sunday’s anniversary of his maiden year in office. His opponents accused him of failing the 2011 revolution by concentrating power in the hands of his Muslim Brotherhood. His year in power was marked by a spiralling economic crisis, shortages in fuel and often deadly opposition protests. The embattled 61-year-old had proposed a “consensus government” as a way out of the crisis, the worst since the 2011 uprising that ended three decades of authoritarian rule by Hosni Mubarak. But it failed to satisfy his critics and the army stepped in. Its commander named the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Al Mansour, as interim leader of the Arab world’s most populous country. Mansour, a previously little known judge, is expected to be sworn in on Thursday. Opposition leader Mohamed El Baradei, former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, sat beside army chief Sisi as he announced on state television that Mursi’s rule was over. So too did the heads of the Coptic Church and Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning. The choreography was designed to show broad civilian support for the military’s move against Mursi. It was a heavy blow to Mursi’s supporters, who a year ago saw his election as president one of the key achievements of the 2011 revolution. Already, the security forces had shut down broadcasts from a Muslim Brotherhood television channel, a Mursi aide told AFP. Continue reading
Muslim women from new angles
Muslim women from new angles Sarah Young / 15 June 2013 Artists in the UAE are calling people to visit a new online exhibition to expose themselves to the plight and success of Muslim women around the world, and challenge common stereotypes. Artist and University of Sharjah College of Fine Arts and Design lecturer Dr Fatima Zahra Hassan said Emirati women, in particular, should view a new online exhibition (http://muslima.imow.org) showcasing the stories of Muslim women from around the world. “I just feel that women here are not exposed, especially some Emirati women…they’re living in a cocoon…a utopia which is perfect and some don’t know what is happening outside and how women are suffering around the world.” Hassan is one of the three Sharjah-based artists featuring on Muslima: Muslim Women’s Arts and Voices, which is a global online exhibition from the International Museum of Women, incorporating art and the written word to explore identity and break stereotypes. Originally from Pakistan, Hassan trained at the London Royal College in Indo-Islamic, Mughal and Persian Painting techniques, with an emphasis on Art of Book. Hassan, Sharjah-based painter Haafiza Sayed and writer Dalia Merzaban will be holding workshops about their crafts and how their art forms have helped develop their identity, followed by a panel discussion, “How do you know who I am”, at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation today. Hassan added the exhibition had really opened her own eyes up to both positive and negative aspects of being a Muslim woman. “The texts, images and photos were really overwhelming. “But I got to know more about the positive things about Muslim women all over the world.” Hassan has done a lot of voluntary work in Pakistan and the UK, including in flood refugee camps with women and children. “So I had seen so much misery and tragedy… but this exhibition showed a much broader side of Muslim women. I came to know about a (Pakistani) woman who just reached the peak of Mt Everest… and then I did a lot of research about women in developing countries who had achieved a lot, and working in areas that are very uncommon for women to work in.” Despite the perception that art was not a career, meaning many creatives here went into interior design, multimedia or graphic design instead, there were a growing number of female Arab artists coming through, she said. However, not many newer Emirati artists were dealing with women’s issues. “Because most of these women are coming from privileged backgrounds so they can’t think of issues, apart from being more free and independent … they have got everything. “If you look at the (exhibition) website, the best works are from American, Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani American artists. The photos are really outstanding…really thought-provoking concepts and ideas.” Sayed, originally from India and who has lived in Sharjah for five years, said that even if a “a small part of worldwide opinion about Muslim women (is changed as a result of the exhibition), it (is) a step forward.” She got involved because it was a chance to challenge recognised stereotypes associated with Muslim women. “We’re constantly being judged by our appearances and attire… (people think) we’re oppressed, we don’t have a life, maybe we are not educated, that we belong to a society that dominates us. Yes there are some societies like that, but look at the UAE …women are working and having all kinds of jobs.” These stereotypes came from both outside and within their own community, she said. “If you don’t stick to a particular way of dressing, you’re labelled un-Islamic or astray…that’s what my second painting is about…she is judged in and out of her own community no matter what she wears.” Sayed will be talking at the workshop about how she found herself through art. After “getting lost” and losing the will to paint following her formal training, she became an interior designer and only years later picked up the paintbrush again, determined to ‘unlearn’ what she knew, and rediscover her own style. “Since then, I have grown spiritually through my art…10 years ago, if someone asked me what I liked, I wouldn’t know what to say…now I know what gives me pleasure, what inspires and drives me.” — sarah@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
