...Or Does It Explode?

The Girl in the Stadium

Sign the petition to allow women to attend Iranian soccer games.

Ben Ali Releases 22 Political Prisoners, Including Abbou

The great news is that Mohamed Abbou's ordeal is over - at least conditionally. And it's precisely the conditions surrounding his release, along with 21 other pardoned Tunisians, that makes the moment somewhat bittersweet:

All 22 prisoners were released by a presidential pardon on 24 July to mark the 50th anniversary of the Republic of Tunisia. All of the releases are conditional. Any former prisoner who breaches the conditions of his release can be re-arrested and made to serve the remainder of his sentence by decision of the Minister of Justice, without any judicial process, or placed under house arrest for the same period...

Despite these releases, former political prisoners continue to be subjected to arbitrary measures denying them the right to work or travel as well as access to medical care. Former political prisoner and human rights activist Lassad al-Jouhri has been denied an identity card since his release in 1998 and the authorities refuse to issue his wife and children with passports. He has repeatedly been harassed in an attempt to intimidate him. In June 2007, he was arrested and detained for several hours and asked to sign a written commitment to give up his work on behalf of political prisoners and their families, which he refused.

Other former political prisoners have been subjected to administrative control as an additional sentence whereby the authorities can choose their place of residence and change it as they deem appropriate. Former prisoners subjected to administrative control cannot leave the residence to which they have been assigned without authorization. This practice has often clearly been used as a pretext for persecution. Former political prisoner and journalist for Ennahda's al-Fajr newspaper Abdallah Zouari has been subjected to five years of administrative control after he had served his 11-year prison sentence for membership to Ennahda. After his release, he has been forced to take up residence in Lakhriba, a remote village near the southern Tunisian town of Zarzis, some 500km south of his home in Tunis where his family live. He has been under tight control with a police car and a motor cycle stationed in front of his house, and has constantly been followed. His request to visit his wife and children in Tunis has been routinely left without an answer. His five year administrative control, which was supposed to end in June 2007, was again extended by another 26 months without any justification being given to him by the authorities.

Algeria Snapshot: Looking out on the Desert

The Rosa Parks of Iranian Fathers

A breakthrough for men's rights (actually, more likely women's rights) in Iran: for the first time, a father-to-be has been allowed into the delivery room for his child's birth:

Sarem hospital in Tehran last week became the first in Iran to allow a father inside a delivery room for the birth of his child. The hospital is offering couples the chance to stay together during childbirth after being told that it is permissible under Iran's Islamic laws...

Dr Sarem said the fears about pain could be eased by fathers attending the births. "Our hospital advertised that we had all the latest facilities to make natural childbirth painless but patients were still insisting on caesareans, despite the high risks of infection and serious side-effects," he told the Guardian. "I remembered that when I worked in Austria and Germany, women were forgetting about the pain when their husbands were present at the births. The atmosphere in delivery rooms seemed so peaceful and I wondered if it was because the fathers were there. So I offered it to the husband of one of my patients.

"He agreed after we asked if it was religiously permissible and were told that it was. We gave the mother a low epidural. The environment was very spiritual and friendly, with husband and wife laughing and joking. The mother was able to help the medical team a little and delivered the baby, a girl, without great discomfort. The husband was emotional and in tears."

Friday Follies: Tomato Unrest in Tehran

With a title as good as "Tomato Unrest in Tehran," do you really need more description to get you to click on the photo below to watch the latest video from Current TV?

Mufti-Faceted: Did He or Didn't He? (Plus: Libya Ransom Update)

Two updates on stories we touched on earlier this week. The Grand Mufti of Al Azhar's Newsweek column on apostasy continues to generate controversy. He either stands by his comments that individuals who choose to change their religion are free to do so - or he doesn't stand by them. First the Middle East Times:

The Grand Mufti of Egypt said he stands by his comments on apostasy and the right to choose one's religion in his On Faith article last Sunday despite reports in the Egyptian press to the contrary.

Egypt's official religious advisor has ruled that Muslims are free to change their faith as it is a matter between an individual and God...

Hossam Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who is involved with a case of 12 former Christians who converted to Islam and are now trying to revert, said: "This (ruling) is significant, especially coming from Gomaa."

The current opinion opens the possibility of converting without threatening "the foundations of society."

A spokesman for Dar al-Iftaa, the body headed by Gomaa which is responsible for issuing religious opinions, maintained that the mufti's stance has not changed.

"The posting is consistent with the mufti's past fatwas," he said. "Apostasy is only punishable when it is considered akin to subversion."

Then there's the AFP:

The body headed by Egypt's official religious advisor on Tuesday denied he had said that Muslims were free to change their faith, as had been reported by a US Washington Post-Newsweek forum on Islam.

"The quotes attributed to the mufti were never said during the interview published by the Washington Post," Dar al-Iftaa said in a statement carried by the official Egyptian news agency MENA...

However, according to the denial, "the mufti said that Islam forbids Muslims from renouncing their faith ... and that if a Muslim did they would be committing a mortal sin."

"Sheikh Ali Gomaa said apostasy is a kind of subversion and a sort of crime that requires punishment," the statement said, while also clarifying that Islam allows other religions to practise freely.

A spokesman for Dar al-Iftaa, which is responsible for issuing religious opinions, had earlier told AFP the posting was "consistent with the mufti's past fatwas" and that "apostasy is only punishable when it is considered akin to subversion."

The issue of apostasy is a thorny one in the Islamic world, with one extremist interpretation declaring that apostates should be killed.

Attempts by Muslims in Egypt to convert to other religions have been hindered by the state's refusal to recognise the change in official documents and in some cases have led to arrests and imprisonment.

Ummm... So if you're a Muslim in Egypt contemplating publicly changing your religion, here's the $64,000 question: which statement of the Mufti do you have faith in?

BONUS: The latest update on the Libya ransom scam includes this Bulgarian pay-off:

Bulgaria is considering writing off Soviet-era debt it is owed by Libya to contribute to a deal that led to the release of six medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV.

After more than eight years in jail, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who recently took Bulgarian citizenship were freed on Tuesday under a cooperation accord between Tripoli and the European Union.

"Undoubtedly, the issue of (forgiving) the Libyan debt is one of the possible ways for Bulgaria to contribute," Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev told a news conference on Wednesday.

"The debt amounts to about $54 million. We will look at other possibilities too ... because this is a humanitarian act, not a ransom." He did not elaborate.

No need to elaborate.

Muscat Night

An unusual view of Sultan Qaboos's digs

Libyan HIV Medics Crisis

The issue of six foreign medics sentenced to death in Libya has outraged the European public (while the American press has largely overlooked the issue). Today, the crisis appears to be over. But the terms of the settlement leave the impression that this was a case of extortion and torture, rather than achieving justice for Libyan children infected with HIV. Another reminder of the utterly corrupt judiciary under Qaddafi's rule:

Six foreign medics convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV were freed on Tuesday after a partnership deal between Tripoli and the European Union ended their eight-year ordeal.

Their return to Bulgaria ends what Libya's critics called a human rights scandal and lets the long-isolated north African state complete a process of normalizing its ties with the West...

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov pardoned the five nurses and a Palestinian doctor who recently took Bulgarian citizenship after they arrived in Sofia on a French jet. The medics have always said they were innocent and had been tortured to confess.

...The deal involved EU support and assistance for the more than 400 infected children in European hospitals for the rest of their lives.

It also provides for the rehabilitation of two hospitals and a medical centre in Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city where the HIV outbreak occurred. The EU also offered assistance to Libya in education, archaeology and stemming illegal migration...

Nineteen Bulgarian medical workers were initially detained in 1999 and six stood trial. One Bulgarian doctor was released in 2004 when the six medics were sentenced to death.

Foreign HIV experts testified the infections started before the six arrived at the hospital, and were more likely the result of poor hygiene.

Now that a "deal" has been struck, diplomats are expressing optimism that relations with Libya can now be "normalized." Somehow, with Qaddafi at the reins, now for over 37 years, "normal" seems a state that cannot be achieved. But at least the captives have been traded back across the sea in return for some ransom...

Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights

Thanks to a comment by "Barney" on yesterday's post, we learned of a new initiative: The Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights. Check out the site.

There's a nice statement in the About section: "We don’t believe in the Baha’i faith, yet we respect those who do. There are minorities within our societies who are practicing Baha’is and for that, their rights are very rarely recognized, simply because of their religious differences. We do not approve of this."

Al Azhar's Grand Mufti on Personal Rights

The Grand Mufti of Al Azhar, a religious institution of the Egyptian government, answers a series of questions for Newsweek on human rights. In regards to apostasy, he states:

...Religious belief and practice is a personal matter, and society only intervenes when that personal matter becomes public and threatens the well-being of its members. In some cases, this sin of the individual may also represent a greater break with the commonly held values of a society in an attempt to undermine its foundations or even attack its citizenry. Depending on the circumstances, this may reach the level of a crime of sedition against one’s society. Penalizing this sedition may be at odds with some conceptions of freedom that would go so far as to ensure people the freedom to destroy the society in which they live. This is a freedom that we do not allow since preservation of the society takes precedence over personal freedoms.

Such argumentation is used in a slightly different way by many of the region's dictatorial regimes, who use lines like: "We respect civil rights except when an action threatens 'the public order.'" It's a slippery slope, as any action by a freethinker or human rights activist becomes a "break with the commonly held values of a society." And if a person makes a "break," then he or she must be broken.