Word: malaysian
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...been worrying about bearded men with bombs in caves, a new jihad has quietly gained strength in the Muslim world: Islamic feminism. Earlier this week, 350 women and men gathered in Malaysia to launch Musawah - "Equality" in Arabic - a movement for justice in the Muslim family. Organized by the Malaysian Muslim feminist group Sisters in Islam, the conference, two years in the planning, is a kick-off to a campaign to enshrine Muslim women's rights within an Islamic framework. "We are here because we believe that Islam upholds the principles of equality and justice," said Musawah's project director...
...With women and men from 47 countries in attendance, the networking permutations were dazzling. Sessions with titles like "Sisters Doing It For Ourselves: Approaching the Holy Texts as Non-Experts," and "Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms," drew activists and lawyers, Islamic scholars and anthropologists. Malaysian investment bankers sat in seminars with social workers from New Zealand, Thai anthropologists and American law professors. Feminist activists traded business cards with Islamic scholars. U.N. officials attended lectures parsing Koranic verses. Catholic and Jewish progressives shared their strategies for taking on hide-bound religious authorities. "Being here, you feel we are not alone," says...
...front-line in the war between traditionalists and modernizers. Laws about women remain in the grip of medieval legal reasoning about the family. They vary by nation, but their message is consistent: the husband is the provider, and the wife submissive. It is Family Laws that mean a Malaysian woman who goes against the 'lawful' wishes of her husband can be judged 'disobedient', and lose her right to maintenance. It is Family Law that an unmarried woman in Jordan is legally under the control of a male guardian until the age of 40. It is under Family Law, as practiced...
...regarded courts had been beset by allegations of bribery and eroded independence. Then, in November, a top human-rights activist whose 13-year battle against charges of maliciously publishing false news - an allegation international human-rights groups decried as trumped up - finally won her appeal. The same month, a Malaysian court overturned the Home Minister's decision to jail a dissident journalist without trial. Two court cases may not sound like much, but their significance was not lost on longtime opposition politician Lim Kit Siang, who labeled the decisions "victories for free speech and judicial independence...
...speak Dutch, but we think the name means cute," says Kuala Lumpur native Jenny Chong, 32, who, along with friends (and former McCann Erickson advertising-agency colleagues) Jessy Yap and Samantha Wong, both 26, runs Mooie, the funkiest fashion destination in the Malaysian capital. On display is a wide range of Asian fashion labels, along with bandbox-striped changing rooms and blackboard walls on which the trio chalk up monthly messages informed by their design backgrounds. "We like to be creative in everything we do," Chong says...