CAMPAIGN TO END HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Mongezi Mhlongo (BTM Senior Reporter)

AFRICA ABROAD - 18 November 2009: In a plea to safe guard human rights within the Muslim community, more than 20 international NGOs held concurrent events on Monday, 09 November, in opposition to the evident disregard of human rights in the Muslim community.

Themed “One Day One Struggle” the campaign was organised by the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR) calling for the abolishing of “discriminatory and life threatening laws like stoning or lashing of women, and calling for LGBTI rights, the right to sexuality education and the right to bodily and sexual integrity of all people.”

Explaining reasons for holding these events the network highlighted that, “Human rights, including sexual and reproductive rights have been under attack in all Muslim societies”, read the statement.

“Rising conservatism fueled by militarism, increasing inequalities, the politicization of religion and Islamophobia have strengthened patriarchal and extremist religious ideologies”, further highlighted the statement.

CSBR is a global solidarity network of various NGOs and academic institutions in the Middle East, North Africa, South and Southeast Asia, working to promote sexual and bodily rights as human rights in Muslim societies.

The network includes 38 organisational members from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and the Philippines.
 
According to the statement hundreds gathered at university campuses in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Lebanon and Sudan. Furthermore press conferences were held in Cyprus, Egypt and Malaysia and in Tunisia and Pakistan people gathered in concert halls and in Turkey and Palestine people marched the streets, and all this was done “to assert that sexual and reproductive rights are universal human rights based on the inherent freedom, dignity and equality of all human beings”, according to the statement.