LONDON: A coordinated effort to bring an end to violence against women and girls gets underway this Saturday as campaigners across the world participate in the UN’s 16 Days of Activism against gender-based abuse.
On Nov. 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, buildings and landmarks across the world will be illuminated in orange — the color of the campaign, which this year runs under the theme “Leave No One Behind: End Violence against Women and Girls.”
In the Middle East, there has been some cause to celebrate in 2017, with the long-campaigned-for repeal of rape-marriage laws in Tunisia (article 227), Jordan (article 308) and Lebanon (article 522) marking an end to penal code provisions that allowed rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims.
The decisions, which took place within the space of a few months, “heralded new change for the region” said Rothna Begum, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. “Now we’re seeing momentum to do away with these clauses in other Middle East countries,” she added, pointing to pressure building in both Bahrain and Palestine.
Middle Eastern countries including Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya and Syria still have versions of the rape-marriage clause.
“The 16 Days campaign allows women’s rights NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and activists around the world to galvanize and really address this incredibly egregious abuse that pervades all countries around the world,” Begum added.
Zoya Rouhana, director of Lebanon-based NGO KAFA (enough) Violence and Exploitation, described the “huge amount to be done to eliminate all forms of gender-based violence and exploitation and achieve gender equality.”
KAFA will spotlight issues surrounding sexual violence for the 16 Days campaign to raise awareness and “counteract the culture of victim blaming and shaming,” Rouhana said.
The campaign will also highlight the “existing laws that can protect women from certain types of sexual violence and call for new laws that protect women and hold perpetrators accountable,” she added.
According to the World Bank, the MENA region has the lowest number of laws protecting women from domestic violence of any region in the world, while UN Women claims that 37 percent of Arab women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime, with indicators that the real percentage might be significantly higher.
In Jordan, figures from a recent population census reveal rising rates of child marriage, particularly among Syrian refugee girls pressured into early wedlock to reduce financial pressure on struggling families.
Salma Nims, secretary-general of the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) explained that the issue of child marriage does not just affect children.
Speaking at the launch event for JNCW’s 16 Days campaign “Too Young to be Married,” she said “it has a negative impact on women at all stages of their life as they cannot enjoy their youth or finish their education, and the majority of them are subject to gender-based and sexual violence.”
As part of its 16 Days campaign, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has launched a global cartoon competition calling on participants to illustrate the negative effects of child marriage and domestic violence — the two most common forms of gender-based violence (GBV), according to Fatma Khan, the GBV officer at UNFPA in Amman.
Speaking to the Jordan Times, Khan said that violence against women is highly underreported in the country, making the figures available unreliable.
It is a situation reflected across the region, where a culture of victim-blaming and normalized perceptions of GBV prevents many women and girls from speaking out about assault.
“Certain forms of violence are still (seen as) justified and women themselves believe it’s still ok for men to hit women in some situations,” said Begum, who stressed the responsibility of governments to tackle GBV at all levels, including challenging the stigma surrounding reporting gender-based violence in families and communities.
“The abolition of article 522 in Lebanon won’t be effective without tackling the existing survivor-blaming norms,” said Saja Michael from ABAAD, a gender equality NGO which spearheaded the campaign to repeal the rape-marriage law in Lebanon.
She also underlined the importance of raising awareness, citing “lack of information and knowledge about women’s rights and GBV at both the institutional and community levels.”
“Law amendment or law abolishment, does not automatically result in its effective and fair implementation. For instance, although Egypt has abolished similar legislation in 1999, the practice still takes place in marginalized areas,” she added.
Last summer, ABAAD attracted international attention after hanging ripped wedding dresses along Beirut’s corniche in an eerie public demonstration against the now-repealed rape-marriage law.
For the 16 Days campaign, it plans to highlight issues surrounding incestuous rape and sexual violence, building momentum behind a push to increase the penalty, which currently ranges from two months to two years for offenders.
Changing the laws is just part of the battle according to activists in the Middle East, who emphasized the need for coordinated efforts to implement and enforce legal changes.
“These laws are not enough — we need to keep the political momentum going to implement and then monitor these laws,” said Tunisian activist Ikram Ben Said, describing the danger of allowing women’s rights to be pushed down the political agenda.
“There are a lot of economic and security issues in the region and there is a tendency to forget about women’s issues. In Tunisia, we always hear from politicians that this is not the priority now.
“Having these laws is very important but the most vital thing is implementing them and having the tools to do so.”
This will be part of the focus at a regional conference taking place during the 16 Days campaign on Dec. 5 and 6 in Beirut, where high-profile women’s rights campaigners will discuss ways to transform new laws into enforceable and budget-backed policies to protect women and girls from violence.
“It is of utmost importance to increase coordination between women’s rights organizations and exchange best practices in terms of advocacy and policy implementations,” said Michael, “There is much more work to be done in order to attain gender equality for women, girls, men and boys.”
Mideast campaigners confront violence against women
Mideast campaigners confront violence against women
Lawyers denounce ‘fabricated’ Tunisia trial of opposition
- Among those sentenced were well-known opposition figures, lawyers and business people. Some have already been in prison for two years while others are in exile or still free
TUNIS: Lawyers and relatives on Monday denounced the hefty sentences handed down to Tunisian opposition figures in last week’s mass trial as “fabricated” and “unfounded,” and said they will appeal.
A court in Tunis in the early hours of Saturday handed down jail terms of up to 66 years to around 40 defendants, including vocal critics of President Kais Saied.
They were accused of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group” among other charges, according to their lawyers.
Defense lawyer Samir Dilou said on Monday the trial was “unprecedented in Tunisia” as “it handed the defendants a total of 892 years in prison.”
He said key evidence in the case was still missing, as lawyers had complained that they did not have full access to the case file.
“They still haven’t told us how the defendants conspired against the state,” Dilou told journalists.
He said an appeal could be filed as early as Tuesday.
Among those sentenced were well-known opposition figures, lawyers and business people. Some have already been in prison for two years while others are in exile or still free.
Several were arrested in February 2023, after which Saied labelled them “terrorists.”
Abdennasser Mehri, another defense lawyer, called the trial a “blatant violation of the law.”
“It’s a fabricated, unfounded case with a plan set in advance,” he said. “The scales of justice are broken.”
Dilou said Ahmed Souab, also a defense lawyer, was arrested early Monday after police raided his home.
Local media said he was accused of “threatening to commit terrorist crimes” in a statement made on Saturday after the trial, criticizing political pressure judges were allegedly under.
Online videos showed Souab saying that “knives are not on the necks of detainees, but on the neck of the judge issuing the ruling.”
Souab, a former judge, is expected to remain in detention “for five days and he won’t be allowed to communicate with his lawyers for 48 hours,” Dilou told AFP.
Human Rights Watch said on Saturday the court “did not give even a semblance of a fair trial” to the defendants.
Defense lawyer Dalila Msaddek said the trial was used “to lump together everyone they wanted to get rid of.”
Politicians Issam Chebbi and Jawhar Ben Mbarek of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition, as well as lawyer Ridha BelHajj and activist Chaima Issa, were sentenced to 18 years behind bars.
Activist Khayam Turki was handed a 48-year term and businessman Kamel Eltaief received the harshest penalty — 66 years in prison, according to lawyers.
Some defendants are abroad and were tried in absentia, like French intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy who received a 33-year jail term, lawyers said.
Since Saied launched a power grab in the summer of 2021 and assumed total control, rights advocates and opposition figures have decried a rollback of freedoms in the North African country where the 2011 Arab Spring began.
RSF shelling kills over 30 in besieged Sudanese city
- Sunday’s attack involved ‘heavy artillery shelling’ and targeted El-Fasher’s residential neighborhoods
PORT SUDAN: Paramilitary shelling of Sudan’s besieged city of El-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, has killed more than 30 civilians and wounded dozens more, activists said on Monday.
The attack, which took place on Sunday, involved “heavy artillery shelling” and targeted the city’s residential neighborhoods, said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan.
Since April 2023, the war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, uprooted 13 million, and created what the UN describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, remains the last major city in the vast Darfur region that the paramilitary group has not conquered.
Last week, the RSF launched a renewed offensive on the city and two nearby displacement camps — Zamzam and Abu Shouk — killing more than 400 people and displacing some 400,000, according to the UN.
In a bloody ground offensive, the RSF took control of Zamzam camp, where aid workers say up to 1 million people were sheltering.
According to the UN, most of the displaced fled just north, to El-Fasher city itself, or 60 km west to the small town of Tawila.
By Thursday, more than 150,000 people had arrived in El-Fasher, while another 180,000 had fled to Tawila, the UN’s migration agency has said.
Humanitarian aid is nearly nonexistent in both famine-threatened towns.
On Monday, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, described the situation in the region as “horrifying.”
He said he had spoken by phone with army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his rival paramilitary commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who committed to giving “full access to get aid in.”
Throughout the war, both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war against civilians.
International aid agencies have long warned that a full-scale RSF assault on El-Fasher could lead to devastating urban warfare and a new wave of mass displacement.
UNICEF has described the situation as “hell on earth” for at least 825,000 children trapped in and around El-Fasher.
Following the army’s recapture of the capital Khartoum last month, the RSF has intensified efforts to seize El-Fasher, a strategic target for the paramilitary to consolidate its hold on Darfur.
The RSF already controls nearly all of the vast region, about the size of France, and parts of the south.
The army holds the country’s center, east, and north.
However, the UN warned of a catastrophic humanitarian situation as the fighting escalated.
“The humanitarian community in Sudan is facing critical and intensifying operational challenges in North Darfur,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, said on Sunday.
She added that “despite repeated appeals, humanitarian access to El-Fasher and surrounding areas remains dangerously restricted,” warning that the lack of access was increasing the vulnerability of hundreds of thousands of people.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders has called for aid airdrops into the city in the face of access restrictions.
Saudi, Middle East, global leaders offer condolences following Pope Francis’ death
- Countries across the region sent their condolences to the Vatican City
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent cables of condolences on the death of Pope Francis on Monday, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The Muslim World League secretary-general Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, who met the Pope at the Vatican in December 2024, told Arab News that their friendship had strengthened cooperation between the League and the Vatican in “shared goals ... championing just humanitarian causes and promoting the values of coexistence and global peace, in the face of the ideas and practices of religious and civilizational conflict and strife.”
The Pope was a man of “wisdom, just stances, and positive contributions, particularly to the Islamic world and its causes,” Al-Issa said.
The Muslim Council of Elders, headed by Egypt’s Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, also mourned Pope Francis’ passing and extended their condolences to “the leaders of the Catholic Church, our Christian brethren, and all advocates of peace and coexistence worldwide.”
Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed co-authored the historic Document on Human Fraternity, widely regarded as one of the most significant documents in modern human history.
“Pope Francis devoted his life to serving humanity and advancing the values of dialogue, tolerance, coexistence, peace, and human fraternity while he also tirelessly supported the vulnerable, needy, refugees, and the displaced, embodying a singular example of compassion and becoming a historic religious figure whose enduring humanitarian legacy will inspire future generations,” the group said in a statement on X.
Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi also offered his condolences following the death of Pope Francis on Monday.
“Pope Francis was a voice of peace, love and compassion,” said El-Sisi.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, President of the UAE, said Francis dedicated his life to promoting the principles of peaceful coexistence and understanding.
“I extend my deepest condolences to Catholics around the world on the passing of Pope Francis, who dedicated his life to promoting the principles of peaceful coexistence and understanding. May he rest in peace,” said Sheikh Mohamed via statment on X.
I extend my deepest condolences to Catholics around the world on the passing of Pope Francis, who dedicated his life to promoting the principles of peaceful coexistence and understanding. May he rest in peace.
— محمد بن زايد (@MohamedBinZayed) April 21, 2025
Prime minister of UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum said Pope Francis was a great leader whose compassion and commitment to peace touched countless lives.
We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis @Pontifex , a great leader whose compassion and commitment to peace touched countless lives. His legacy of humility and interfaith unity will continue to inspire many communities around the world . pic.twitter.com/5LwoJq2Hxr
— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) April 21, 2025
In a statement on X, Sheikh Mohammed said “his legacy of humility and interfaith unity will continue to inspire many communities around the world.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah II, on X, meanwhile said: “Deepest condolences to our Christian brothers and sisters around the world. Pope Francis was admired by all as the Pope of the People. He brought people together, leading with kindness, humility, and compassion. His legacy will live on in his good deeds and teachings.”
Deepest condolences to our Christian brothers and sisters around the world. Pope Francis was admired by all as the Pope of the People. He brought people together, leading with kindness, humility, and compassion. His legacy will live on in his good deeds and teachings pic.twitter.com/6Qlaj6QTCH
— عبدالله بن الحسين (@KingAbdullahII) April 21, 2025
Lebanon’s Christian President Joseph Aoun mourned the death on Monday of Pope Francis, a “dear friend and strong supporter” of the crisis-hit multi-confessional country.
“We will never forget his repeated calls to protect Lebanon and preserve its identity and diversity,” Aoun – the Arab world’s only Christian president – said in a statement on the presidency’s X account, calling Francis’s death “a loss for all humanity, for he was a powerful voice for justice and peace” who called for “dialogue between religions and cultures”.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas meanwhile paid tribute to Pope Francis, calling him a “faithful friend of the Palestinian people,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Palestinian Christians in Gaza on Monday mourned the death of the Pope, who had maintained close and consistent video contact with the small Christian community in the territory throughout the ongoing war.
Since the outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas, Francis had regularly called Gaza’s Christians, often several times a week, offering prayers, encouragement, and solidarity.
“Today, we lost a faithful friend of the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights,” Abbas said, noting that Pope Francis “recognized the Palestinian state and authorized the Palestinian flag to be raised in the Vatican.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed Pope Francis for his efforts to further dialogue between different faiths.
Iran also offered its condolonces. Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised the deceased pope on Monday as “a man of deep faith and boundless compassion.”
Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto on Monday expressed condolences over the death of Pope Francis.
“The Pope’s message of simplicity, pluralism, favoring the poor and caring for others will always be an example for all of us,” the president said in an Instagram post.
Grief-stricken Argentines massed at Buenos Aires Cathedral early Monday to collectively mourn their late pontiff, compatriot and hero, Pope Francis.
In his final years, Francis had often tussled with political leaders, including Argentina’s current libertarian president, Javier Milei.
But there was a rare sense of political unity Monday in what is still a deeply polarized nation, with even Milei too acknowledging that his political differences with the late pontiff “today seem minor,” as he prepared to decree seven days of national mourning.
GALLERY: Pope Francis: The world mourns
Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church died after suffering from pneumonia.
In 2019, Pope Francis was the first pontiff to lead a mass in the Middle East, more specifically the UAE.
Francis charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope on March 13, 2013, surprising many Church watchers who had seen the Argentine cleric, known for his concern for the poor, as an outsider.
He sought to project simplicity into the grand role and never took possession of the ornate papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace used by his predecessors, saying he preferred to live in a community setting for his “psychological health.”
Gaza civil defense describes medic killings as ‘summary executions’
- Israel also accused of seeking to ‘circumvent’ its obligations under international law
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out “summary executions” in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.
“The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation’s narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions,” Mohammed Al-Mughair, a civil defense official, said, a day after an Israeli army probe denied any execution-style killings. He also accused Israel of seeking to “circumvent” its obligations under international law.
The Palestine Red Crescent also rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that blamed operational failures for the killing of 15 Gaza emergency service workers, denouncing the report as “full of lies.”
“The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, said.
Israeli opposition leader fears political violence over Shin Bet affair
- The supreme court froze the government’s initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general’s office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise
TEL AVIV: Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he feared an outbreak of political violence connected to what he called a campaign of hate against the country’s internal security chief, whom the government has moved to sack.
“The red line has been crossed. If we don’t stop this, there will be a political murder here, maybe more than one. Jews will kill jews,” Lapid said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, adding that “the most serious threats are directed at the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar.”
Bar’s dismissal as head of the internal security agency has been challenged in court by the opposition, which decried it as a sign of anti-democratic drift on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
Bar has suggested his ouster was linked to investigations into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack “and other serious matters,” while Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has warned of “a personal conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister due to the criminal investigations involving his associates.”
The supreme court froze the government’s initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general’s office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise.
Bar could resign soon, according to media reports, which would bring the matter to a close.
Lapid, leader of the center-right Yesh Atid party, argued that Bar should resign over his agency’s failure to prevent the October 7 attack, and acknowledged the government had the legal authority to dismiss him, provided it was done through due process and “approved by the court.”
But he also held Netanyahu responsible for a campaign of threats levelled at Bar.
Lapid presented screenshots of social media posts containing death threats against the security chief, telling Netanyahu: “Stop this.”
“Instead of supporting incitement (to hatred), support the Shin Bet, the security forces, the systems that keep this country alive,” he added.
In 1995, the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist after a campaign of violent rhetoric against him sent shockwaves through Israel.
Some accused then-opposition leader Netanyahu of not doing enough to discourage incitement to violence at the time.
