WUNRN
http://equalrights4womenworldwide.blogspot.it/2014/06/the-heroines-of-arab-world.html -
June 11, 2014
AMINA FILALI
Sixteen-year-old Amina Filali became a cause célèbre for Moroccan women's
rights activists when shecommitted suicide by swallowing rat poison
after she was forced to marry her rapist in accordance with
a court order. Her act triggered a human rights campaign -- including a sit-in
outside Parliament, a petition, and a Facebook group -- to repeal Article 475
in Morocco's penal code, which allows men to escape punishment for crimes if
they wed their victims. One week after Filali died in the northwestern city of
Larache, hundreds of women's rights advocates filled the streets in the capital, Rabat, to
protest the retrograde law.
MANAL AL-SHARIF
Computer security consultant Manal al-Sharif made headlines in May 2011 when a
colleague filmed her driving a car in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, as part of her
advocacy campaign for Saudi women's right to drive. The video was
posted on YouTube and Facebook, and it soon spread like wildfire. Four days
later, about 600,000 people had already watched the footage. Although
officials jailed her for nine days as punishment for
breaking the prohibition on female drivers in Saudi Arabia -- the only country
in the world with such a ban -- her actions successfully galvanized a rare bout
of popular protest in the kingdom. On June 17, several dozen Saudi women got behind the wheel to repeat Sharif's act of
defiance.
SALWA EL-HUSSEINI, SAMIRA IBRAHIM, and RASHA ABDEL
RAHMAN
On March 9, 2011, Salwa el-Husseini, Samira Ibrahim, and Rasha Abdel Rahman
were just peaceful protesters at a sit-in at Tahrir Square -- a small group of
thousands who had gathered to protest against the ruling military regime. But
that changed when they were arrested by the Egyptian military along with
15 other female activists, strip-searched, and subjected to "virginity
tests" in which the hymen is forcefully penetrated to check for blood. The
three broke long-standing social taboos by speaking out about their treatment:
Husseini agreed to be filmed as she recountedwhat
happened at a news conference, while Abdel Rahman gave graphic details of her abuse in court. Although a
military tribunal cleared the doctor who performed the tests of
all charges, Ibrahim won a major victory when a Cairo administrative court
heard her case and banned virginity tests on female detainees in
military prisons.
NAJWA FITURI
Pediatric consultant Najwa Fituri is in charge of treating premature babies at
the al-Jalaa maternity hospital in Benghazi, Libya, but when the revolution
against Muammar al-Qaddafi descended into a bloody civil war, she heeded a new
calling: smuggling drugs to treat anti-Qaddafi
fighters. A member of the female empowerment group Women for Libya, Fituri
hopes to be part of a new generation of Libyan women. "If [women] are
qualified, they should be leaders of Libya," she told the BBC
in December. "Everyone has the right to dream."
RAZAN ZAITOUNEH
Without the perseverance of human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh, the world
would be even more in the dark about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's
killings and torture of civilian protesters. Her daily reporting on the Assad
regime's atrocities -- which she posted to her website, the Syrian Human Rights Information Link -- served
as a critical source for foreign media. Although forced to go into hiding in
March 2011 after the government accused her of being a foreign agent, Zaitouneh
was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award for her human rights
activism in a conflict zone, and she was a co-recipient of last year'sSakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Foreign
Policy also
honored her in 2011 as one of its top 100 Global Thinkers. "I'm very proud to be Syrian
and to be part of these historical days, and to feel all that greatness inside
my people," she said in a video accepting
the award. "We highly appreciate all the help … of those who supported us
in any way around the world."
LINA BEN MHENNI
As one of the few Tunisian activists to blog using her real name under the
regime of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, linguistics teacher Lina Ben
Mhenni was risking her safety even before the uprising against the Tunisian
regime began. Although herblog -- as well as her Facebook and Twitteraccounts -- were censored under Ben Ali, Ben Mhenni forged
ahead with her reporting during the early weeks of the uprising as the only
blogger present in the cities of Kasserine and Regueb when government forces violently cracked down on
protesters in the Sidi Bouzid region, regularly posting photos and videos of
the violence. Today, Ben Mhenni continues to publicly condemn the widespread corruption in the current government.
"The majority of young people do not feel any change at all and I think
that they are right," she wrote in an October 2011 op-ed for the Guardian. "To talk of a revolution we have to cut
totally with the past and with the old regime."
ASMAA MAHFOUZ
The sharp rhetoric of Asmaa Mahfouz played a crucial role in galvanizing the
Egyptian revolution's massive protests in Tahrir Square. The activist and
co-founder of the April 6 Youth Movement famously posted avideo to YouTube challenging Egyptians to join
her in Tahrir Square on Jan. 25, 2011, to protest the human rights abuses of
President Hosni Mubarak's regime: "If you think yourself a man, come with
me on Jan. 25. Whoever says women shouldn't go to protests because they will
get beaten, let him have some honor and manhood and come with me."
Mahfouz may have helped topple Mubarak, but she still attracted the ire
of the military junta, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), that
came after him. In August 2011, she was court-martialed by the SCAF and charged with inciting violence, disturbing
public order, and spreading false information through social media. Later that
year Mahfouz was honored for her persistence when the European Parliament named
her a co-recipient of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
TAL AL-MOLOUHI
Tal al-Molouhi symbolized the Syrian regime's repressive policies long before
the revolutions of the Arab Spring. A high school student who blogged poems and
wrote articles advocating for Palestinian causes and a more just Syria, Molouhi
was arrested in 2009 for her writing. The Arab
blogosphere denounced her arrest as an example of the
capricious and fanatical crackdown on free speech in Syria. In February 2011,
Molouhi -- who was brought into court chained and blindfolded -- was sentenced to five years in prison. "This is
my Homeland, in which I have a palm tree, a drop in a cloud, and a grave to
protect me," says one of herpoems. "My master: I would like to have power
even for one day to build the 'republic of feelings.'"
TAWAKKOL KARMAN
Known as the "Mother of the Revolution" in Yemen, journalist and
activist Tawakkol Karman emerged as a leader of the Yemeni protest movement
after Tunisian activists ousted their president, Ben Ali, in January 2011. In
addition to organizing student rallies in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, Karman led
mass protests calling for the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime,
including an Egypt-inspired "Day of Rage." A grassroots organizer and
the chairwoman of Women Journalists Without Chains, Karman wasawarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011,
becoming the first Yemeni to win the prize and the youngest Peace Prize laureate.
ASMA AL-GHOUL
Asma al-Ghoul is not your typical Palestinian activist. A secular feminist who
writes for the Ramallah-based newspaper Al-Ayyam and blogs at AsmaGaza,
Ghoul is known for her vocal denunciations of violations of civil rights in the
Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, catching the media's attention when she walked on a public Gaza beach with a
mixed-gender group in 2009. When she publicly denounced her uncle -- a senior Hamas
military leader -- in an article, he threatenedto kill her. After she was beaten by
Hamas security forces in March 2011 while trying to cover rallies calling for
Hamas to reconcile with Fatah, an international outcry prompted the Hamas
government to apologize and
promise an investigation.