Category Archives: Viva!

New Controversy Rages around the Hijab in Egypt

Add this to the list of how stupid and insipid men can be.

Nervana

( Dr.Ali Gomaa’s comments with English subtitles)

The debate around Islamic headscarves (Hijab) and an Islamic dress code for women is still raging in Egypt. Sheikh Ali Gomaa, an internationally known Islamist jurist and Egypt’s ex-Grand Mufti (top interpreter of religious edicts issued by Muslim clerics), recently joined the debate with some very surprising and alarming comments. In his own television program, Sheikh Gomaa not only reaffirmed that headscarves (Hijab) are mandatory in Islam; he labeled any woman who disputes this interpretation as an infidel. His comments have raised fears among non-Islamist Egyptians that supposedly moderate mainstream scholars are now giving their blessing to new institutionalized Islamism.

In Egypt, the dress code for women has been controversial for nearly 100 years. The controversy started in 1919, when many women took off their veils as a gesture of support for Egypt’s freedom from British occupation. Political Islamist groups, however, such as…

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Mexico’s Yaqui People Launch Defence of Water and Territory

dorset chiapas solidarity

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Mexico’s Yaqui People Launch Defence of Water and Territory

Reina Lourdes, Yaqui activist, affirms the defence of water is the defence of the Yaqui's existence | Photo: Clayton Conn / teleSUR Reina Lourdes, Yaqui activist, affirms the defence of water is the defence of the Yaqui’s existence | Photo: Clayton Conn / teleSUR

Dozens of social organizations, unions and indigenous groups are backing the defence of Mexico’s natural resources and indigenous peoples’ rights.

The Yaqui indigenous people launched three simultaneous routes this week as part of a National Caravan for the Defence of Water, Land, Work and Life.

The convoy aims to reach the historic Zocalo square in Mexico City on May 22nd.

It will travel through 23 states of Mexico with the goal of bridging different social struggles into a so-called “National Process”.

Specifically the caravan seeks the cancellation of all mega-projects that affect life, water, land and air; the cancellation of recently approved neoliberal structural reforms; an end to the militarization of the country; the presentation alive of the…

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Cherokee Language Now Available on Google Android 

Principal Chief Bill John Baker and the Tribal Council honored the department’s 13 full-time translation specialists for the milestone during May’s Tribal Council meeting Monday.

“Cherokees have always been early adopters of adapting our native language onto the newest device of the time, from one of the first printing presses to manual typewriters and now the Android,” Chief Baker said. “It’s important that tribes preserve and share our language because it’s our identity, such a big part of who we are.”

via Cherokee Language Now Available on Google Android .

German Green, CDU politicians launch cannabis legalization initiative | News | DW.DE | 13.05.2015

In a policy proposal for parliament which was obtained by German public broadcaster ARD on Wednesday, Christian Democrat Joachim Pfeiffer and Green party member Dieter Janecek put forward their plan for the liberalization of cannabis products, questioning whether making criminals out of people for posession and purchase of the drug for recreational purposes made sense.

“Each year we spend between one and two billion euros on prosecuting [cannabis] consumers, although it’s really the criminal sector which we should be focusing our efforts on,” the Bundestag members said.

“More often, we arrest the witnesses than the offenders, so from that we need to realize that prevention through deterrence doesn’t really work in practice,” they added.

Janecek and Pfeiffer estimated a state-regulated market for cannabis would bring in up to two billion euros in tax revenue.

via German Green, CDU politicians launch cannabis legalization initiative | News | DW.DE | 13.05.2015.