Friday Links — May 29, 2009

• The Khaleej Times profiles Maryam bin Fahad, the executive director of the Dubai Press Club.

• The Times of India recounts the political gains made by Muslim women recently.

• Speaking of politics, Iran’s presidential election is down to four candidates, one of which promises to pay housewives. Meanwhile, the Coalition of Iranian Women has stated the changes they’d like to see in Iranian womens’ futures.

• Saudi women are pushing harder against the rule requiring a male head of a company.

• The Sydney Morning Herald tells the story of the clothing line Baraka. Via Hijab Style.

• The high educational statistics of Emirati women are not reflected in the workplace.

• The torture pictures that the Obama administration refuses to release apparently show rape of male and female prisoners.

• Asharq Alawsat discusses the implications of Kuwaiti womens’ success at the polls. Yemen Times compares the Kuwaiti success to Yemen’s quota system. Gulf News weighs in, too.

• Afghanistan’s only private university has graduated its first class of female business students.

• An interview with Sussan  Tahmasebi of the “One Million Signatures Campaign”.

• Yemeni women use Arab pop stars as fashion inspiration.

• Iraq’s first-ever women’s wrestling club has been established.

• Female Saudi law students call for women to be given greater opportunities in the law system.

• The San Francisco Chronicle examines the conditions of women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Iraq’s dearth of nurses is part of the country’s healthcare woes.

• Female banking is big business in the Gulf, but are there enough female executives to handle it all?

• Afghanistan’s female entrepreneurs just need investors. Know any?

• A panel of Turkish journalists highlights the role of women in the media.

• The Washington Post interviews Asra Nomani in video and in print.

• Someone in New Delhi believes in Muslim women.

• The next Doha Debate is focusing on Muslim women’s right to marry anyone they choose.

• A year-old program to educate Muslim women with job skills in Bihar, India, is a huge success.

• NPR follows Iraqi women handball players.

• Women Make News follows the Open Shutter project.

• A conservative Norweigian political party proposes a ban on hijab in schools and deportation for girls and their parents who refuse to remove their headscarves. This is straight-up insanity.

• The Age looks at Indonesian fashion designers. Via Hijab Style.

• Bitch magazine profiles artist Shireen Samia.

• The father of a minor was sentenced to jail time for marrying her in a religious ceremony when she was 14.

• An interesting love story. Via Euro-Islam.

• Nuseiba writes about the gains Iranian women have made.

• Shahrazad ponders on Michelle Obama vs. Dr. Zahra Rahnavard. The Associated Press covers her celebrity status.

• How media coverage often makes things worse for Muslim women.

• A girl who underwent forced female genital cutting on a trip back to Somalia has won damages. Via Islam in Europe.

• A university in Uganda plans to continue its policy of not allowing girls to wear headscarves during exams.

• France’s oldest Muslim school, which allows girls who wear hijab to attend school while public French schools do not, is on the verge of closing.

• Two students who wear hijab have been dismissed from a university in Tajikistan.

• The Khaleej Times argues that Muslim women need to be taken seriously.

• A young woman has been caned in public on a fatwa for claiming paternity of her child. May Allah give her justice.

• A Muslimah prom!

• Amal Amireh writes for Arabisto on the power of Arab women.

• Bitch magazine profiles Lila Ghobadi.

• epiphanies writes about travel literature and Orientalism.

• According to AKI, headscarf-wearing women are the secret success of Indonesia’s upcoming presidential race.

• Dr. Salwa Al Jasser tells Arab women to empower themselves. Her plans as a brand-new parliamentarywoman include making women play a larger role in the economy.

• Malaysia Today reports on temporary Saudi marriages with Indonesians.

• The Food for Education program is doing well for young girls and their families in Yemen.

• Two out of four awards of the World Health Organisation (WHO) were grabbed by Bahraini women this year.

• On increased digital literacy for Gulf women.

• An American expatriate in Saudi has had her blog censored by the government.

• A Muslim woman who wears hijab will run for local elections in Perugia, Italy.

• Roxana Saberi speaks on her imprisonment in Iran.

• A Saudi employer whose wife tortured the family’s Indonesian housemaid to death has been sentenced to nine months in prison for failing to intervene and save the maid’s life.

• How Dubai has increased chances for Emirati women in business.

• More on the mourchidates’ interfaith meetings in the U.S.

• Dr. Sakina Hasan has recently died of cancer. May Allah give her peace.

Tags: Muslim women, News

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