From Bangledesh Corespondent Rezwan…

Bangladeshis were shocked by widely published photographs of the dead body of a 15 year old Bangladeshi girl hanging on the India-Bangladesh border Fence. According to news reports the girl named Felani was shot dead by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) at Anantapur while she was illegally crossing the border with her father while traveling back to Bangladesh.

Mahmud Faisal elaborates how the girl was caught in this tragic fate:

Her father managed to cross the barbed wire, but Felani’s clothes got stuck in the wire and she started screaming in fear. Noticing her BSF shot instantaneously and a bullet went through her body. But she did not die. If BSF wanted it could end her misery by putting more bullets into her. But they waited four hours to be sure that she stopped screaming and she is dead. She was screaming “water, water” while she was hanging in the barbed wire, hurt. Nobody listened to her and BSF finally took away her dead body. After 30 hours she was brought back to Bangladesh like hanging a dead cow (in a bamboo poll).

In a recently published 81-page report titled, “‘Trigger Happy’: Excessive Use of Force by Indian Troops at the Bangladesh Border,” Human Rights Watch found numerous cases of indiscriminate use of force, arbitrary detention, torture, and killings by the Indian Border Security Force, without adequate investigation or punishment.

“The border force seems to be out of control, with orders to shoot any suspect,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The border operations ignore the most basic rule of law, the presumption of innocence.”
Bangladeshi human rights organization Odhikar says in a report that BSF kills one Bangladeshi in every four days. It also says that BSF killed 74 innocent Bangladeshi citizens in 2010, injured seventy-two and kidnapped 43. In the past decade more than 1000 Bangladeshis were killed in the border regions by BSF.

Alfaz Anam says:

In Saturday’s Naya Diganta (Bangla News Daily) we see a photograph of the body of little Felani in red cloth hanging on the barbed wire of India-Bangladesh border. Seems like a piece of Bangladesh hanging. Why was she killed? [..]

Bangladeshi citizens are being subjected to this inhuman atrocity out of extreme hatred towards them. BSF could easily arrest Felani and take necessary legal measures. But they did not as she is a Bangladeshi. Death is her ultimate punishment.
In this way Parul (another 13 year old civilian Bangladeshi girl killed in 2009 by BSF) and Felanis die everyday. These are not highlighted in the news prominently. They do not have any security. Six Bangladeshis were killed in the first week of new year (2011). [..] India has also borders with alleged enemy state Pakistan. In Kashmir there are regular shootouts between border guard. But no civilian is killed like this. It seems that unarmed Bangladeshis are greater enemy than Pakistan to the Indian guards.
Rahnuma Ahmed highlights in a post titled “Killing Thy Neighbors” why despite all these threats people cross border between Bangladesh and India legally and illegally:

The fence divides and separates. Villages. Agricultural lands. Markets. Families. Communities. It cuts across mangrove-swamps in the southwest, forests and mountains in the northeast.

It split up Fazlur Rehman’s family too, the fence snaked into their Panidhar village homestead, his younger brother who lived right next door, is now in another country (Time, February 5, 2009). Other border residents have had their homes split in two, the kitchen in one country, the bedroom in another.

Banner of the Blog Platform Amar Bornomala

Netizens are also frustrated with feeble government response. Helal M Rahman at Blog Platform Amar Bornomala complains:

After all these incidents the highest authorities of the government remain silent and they are not doing anything to stop these indiscriminate killings.
Blogger Arif Jebtik writes [bn]:

This will continue to happen. Nothing will change. A long highway will be built with loans from India. Cars from neighboring states will roll into Bangladesh on that highway. We are civilized hosts, we will never treat them with bullets rather with steamed fine rice and Hilsha fish curry.

The BSF chief will continue to preach about peace and friendship after bagging Jamdani Sari as gifts for his wife.

Via SMS we will merrily spread the information that the Bangladesh cricket captain Shakib Al Hasan has been sold in auction of the Indian Premier League for 30 million Taka ($425000). Our housewives will continue to watch Indian TV serials and shed their tears during tragic scenes.

But we will never shed tears for our sister who was butchered in the border inhumanely.

We will just utter the magic words like parrots, long live India-Bangladesh friendship.

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan… 

I was invited by the German Foreign Ministry to spend ten days in Berlin as part of a blogger tour initiative. I’ve never been to Germany before as a tourist, let alone a guest of the government. It was an educational experience in which I learned a lot about Germany and also the countries of the 14 other bloggers who were invited too.

As a Saudi coming from a strict Islamic country, it took me a couple of days to get into the swing of things–like walking around without my mandatory black cloak on and not stopping to wonder when the next prayer break is when everything has to shut down for thirty minutes.

Once I settled in, I truly enjoyed the presentations and tours we were taken on. I found especially intriguing our visit to the Stasi Archives where I was amazed at how thorough the Germans are in preserving this piece of their history. I was also taken aback by the Parliament Watch project. All I could think was wow what a force of good! Nothing gives transparency and fights corruption like giving so much access and direct communication to the average citizen.

We also got a chance to meet Markus Löning, the Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights. Hearing his point of view was interesting, and I do agree with him that sanctions against a country punish the innocent citizens rather than the government. However I was disappointed that he prioritizes the prevention of the death penalty. As a Saudi, I have yet to formulate my opinion on the death penalty seeing that people in my country are legally discriminated against just for being born female.

What really struck me though is that Germany was able to rise above the Third Reich and its Holocaust and then again rise above the Berlin Mauer until it eventually became a democratic state that values human rights and freedom. After that horrific past, there finally was a light at the end of the tunnel. The glass dome and all the inner glass of Reichstag with its old exterior symbolize everything that is Germany. Being able to see that inspires me and renews my hope that Saudi too will be able to overcome its religious fundamentalism and its systematic discrimination against women.

Saudi Arabia is a beautiful country with a rich heritage. There are villages here that go back more than a thousand years. It’s the birthplace of the Arabic language and literature, and from it rose empires. Unfortunately this is all hidden behind a thick curtain of extremism that might differ superficially from Nazism but has the same debauched core.

From a country where 78% of all female college graduates have little to no chance of finding a job, where women are banned from driving cars and public transportation, where getting a job, getting married, and travelling has to be signed off by a male guardian, this Saudi woman wants to thank Germany for the inspiration and hope for a better future.

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan…

Gender Apartheid is the best word to describe the situation in Saudi Arabia. I don’t believe there is any other place in the world where gender decides everything a person does on a daily basis and to the minutest details. To the outside world this manifests in the ban on women driving and the compulsory abaya. However it goes much deeper than that in that gender discrimination is institutionalized in every sector of the Saudi government.

The majority of government ministries are off limits to women, both as visitors and as employees. Women are assigned a side building that is usually in the back with a separate entrance and it’s usually cramped. Moreover, when a woman needs to get her own papers done, these women sections are only authorized to do the most routine and mechanical administration. As an example let me tell you about a close friend of mine; she happens to be a Saudi who was born in another country and as such carries dual nationality. She went to renew her other passport and the embassy noticed that there was a discrepancy between her Saudi passport date of birth and her birth certificate by a few days. They insisted that this discrepancy had to be corrected before they could issue her a new passport. So naturally she took her Saudi passport and her original birth certificate to the ministry of foreign affairs. Of course she didn’t go through the main door like the men but to a small building to the side, added like an afterthought. That’s bad but it can be tolerated since it’s basically an aesthetic issue. But what was really frustrating for my friend was that the women working inside told her they were powerless to help her. They told her that her husband, brother, or father has to go to the men’s section to get her passport birth date corrected.

Of course, she got upset because at the time she was separated from her husband, she does not have a brother and she didn’t want to bother her father with such a mundane errand.

This scenario is extremely common; Najla Barasain here gives an account of how pointless the women’s section is at the ministry of higher education. And I’ve personally visited the women’s section at the ministry of education and they too had no decision-making power. Neither did female heads of departments at the women’s sections of universities. They were there just for appearances sake. Any real decisions had to come through the men’s section.

This translates to the impossibility of Saudi women getting hired, transferred, starting a business and even properly quitting without the total support of a man. When I had to get some paperwork done, I resorted to hiring a stranger and giving him a cell phone and my file. He would go to the offices that I directed him to, call me and then hand the cell phone to the official behind the desk. I couldn’t call the officials at their office numbers because frankly they rarely answered. And so this guy I hired would go from one official to the next at my instructions like a remote controlled robot. All this because as a woman, I am prohibited from entering a government ministry.

There is little likelihood that this will change anytime soon. Shiekh Al Barrak recently issued a fatwa stating that those who call for the mixing of genders even in the workplace should be killed. The Fatwa led the government to censor the shiekh’s website, but that did not stop him. He just moved to another website.

Moreover 27 other fundamentalist shiekhs signed a petition in support of Al Barrack’s violent fatwa. Al Barack himself is the last living member of the traditional, misogynist eighties rat pack of sheikhdom. However he has a loyal following within the muttawas of Nejd. His call for the death of gender mixing people has been linked by some to the burning of a literary club tent in Al Jouf. Feelings run high when it comes to women’s rights issues in Saudi Arabia. For every Saudi willing to speak up for women’s rights, there is a Saudi willing to attempt murder to shut them up.

To read more about Saudi gender apartheid check a translation of Dr. Fawzia Al Bakr’s article here.

Basic human rights are often taken for granted.  Further still, hospitals to go to, schools to attend and even clean drinking water are things many of us count as the entitled norms of daily life. For many of our fellow human beings however, this is simply not the case.  Some of our brothers and sisters do not enjoy such basic human rights as liberty, freedom of expression, or personal security. Proper medical care and an education are little more than a far off dream. RELATIVTY OnLine’s Tanzanian correspondent Lute wa Lutengano pulls back the tattered velvet curtain of Africa to reveal the plight of many in his region. His words should remind those who have more to be thankful for pulling a winning ticket in the grandiose lottery of birth.     

It was cloudy and chilly morning when I walked into the offices of Mr. Alatanga Nyagawa, a charming young political activist in Njombe town in Southern Tanzania. I had gone to enquire about the several NGOs based in Njombe. And Alatanga was and is the Chairman of the association of NGOs in the district.

Sitting before him in his office was a middle aged white lady who I was to later learn was a German volunteer. Mrs Angela Gierl, told me she was in the business of helping a health centre in Uwemba – the St Anna’s Health Centre, some 20 or so kilometres south of Njombe town.

From the brief exchange we had in that office it occurred to me that Angela was gravely concerned with the life of the Centre which caters for about 25,000 in the area. In my good stride and for the sake of being polite I casually told her I would also try in my small way to assist in solving the problems of the Centre.

Angela was, to my surprise, delighted and her sad face lightened up, on getting this promise. She explained that she was sadly on verge of returning to Germany because her visa could not allow her to continue with her efforts. She would try coming again next year. We exchanged contacts and she promised to follow up with me on the matter.

That was a few months ago and I’d almost forgetten the whole incident, when the other day I received a message from one Sister Bernarda Hyera, a sister and overseer of the St. Anne’s Health Centre at Uwemba. The message reminded me of my earlier meeting with Angela.

But hers was, to be more precise, a lightening a bolt to my conscience on the plight of the Centre. She narrated to me the need for urgent assistance to the Centre which she described as being in a very sorry state. And this she explained was adversely affecting the people’s lives.

The story begins some seventy seven years ago, in 1932 to be precise, when the German Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing established a dispensary in Uwemba in the then Tanganyika. Later in 1976 this establishment was made into a Health Centre. For a long time it was supported by the families of the Benedictine Sisters from Germany . But the most of these Sisters died, and now the community consisted of mainly local Tanzanian Missionaries. 

Unfortunately and predictably they, the local missionaries and their families are poor and cannot financially support such an enterprise. With no Government support, funding has naturally decreased to an extent that the Sisters themselves do not even have salaries. Sister Hyera now says medical equipment and medicine is inadequate if not there. Premature and unnecessary deaths therefore occur because of this and even when there are referral cases, no transport in available. Poor peasants simply return home to suffer and die.

She adds that if she and her fellow Sisters could provide an improved health service, there would be fewer premature deaths, fewer orphans, higher productivity and a better quality of life. 

To illustrate this tragedy Sister Hyera writes; “In September 2009 the local medicine man came into the hospital because his 11^th wife was giving birth and needed medical attention (which he, of course, couldn’t give). Then he proceeded to explain how women had come to him for medical attention and were unable to pay his fees; in compensation for the services offered by him, he married them – so he acquired 11 wives.”

This, Sister Hyerasays, is just one example of the violation of women’s rights and a direct result to the fact that the hospital is right now not always in a position to help these women. This coupled with ravaging HIV/AIDS, at 21% in Uwemba, the Centre is a lone and fragile cry in the wild, which needs everybody’s support.

“I have no doubt that with better health care, the economic situation of the population will improve; and then the patients will be able to contribute adequately for the health care they are receiving. However, there will always be a certain amount of people who are too poor to contribute, but will be treated anyway, as we do,” Sister Hyera cries out.

How to help: call 0767 725199

E-mail hyerabern@yahoo.com.