NEW DELHI: A court in a southern Indian state told students on Thursday not to wear any religious clothing until it delivers a verdict on petitions seeking to overturn a ban on hijabs, headscarves used by Muslim women.
The court in Karnataka state is considering petitions filed by students challenging a ban on hijabs that some schools have implemented in recent weeks.
“We will pass an order. But till the matter is resolved, no student should insist on wearing religious dress,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi as saying.
The court also directed the state to reopen schools and colleges which the chief minister had shut for three days as protests over the ban escalated earlier this week.
The issue grabbed headlines last month when a government-run school in Karnataka’s Udupi district barred students wearing hijabs from entering classrooms, triggering protests outside the school gate. More schools in the state followed with similar bans, forcing the state’s top court to intervene.
The uneasy standoff has raised fears among Muslim students who say they are being deprived of their religious rights in the Hindu-majority nation. On Monday, hundreds of students and parents took to the streets to protest the restriction.
The dispute in Karnataka has set off protests elsewhere in India. A number of demonstrators were detained in the capital, New Delhi, on Thursday, and students and activists have also marched in cities including Hyderabad and Kolkata in recent days.
It also captured attention in neighboring Muslim-majority Pakistan. “Depriving Muslim girls of an education is a grave violation of fundamental human rights,” its foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, tweeted on Wednesday, calling the situation “absolutely oppressive.”
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai also condemned the ban. “Refusing to let girls to go to school in their hijabs is horrifying,” the 24-year-old Pakistani human rights campaigner tweeted.
For many Muslim women, the hijab is part of their faith and a way to maintain modesty. It has been a source of controversy for decades in some Western countries, particularly in France, which in 2004 banned them from being worn in public schools.
In India, where Muslims make up about 14 percent of the country’s almost 1.4 billion people, they are not banned or restricted in public places and are a common sight.
Some rights activists have voiced concerns that the bans could increase Islamophobia. Violence and hate speech against Muslims have increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Hindu nationalist party, which also governs Karnataka state.
India court: No religious clothes until hijab row settled
https://arab.news/zjeaz
India court: No religious clothes until hijab row settled
- The court in Karnataka state is considering petitions filed by students challenging a ban on hijabs
- The uneasy standoff has raised fears among Muslim students who say they are being deprived of their religious rights in the Hindu-majority nation
Putin made ‘mistake’ sending ‘low-level’ team to Ukraine talks: NATO chief
“He knows extremely well that the ball is in his court, that he is in trouble, that he made a big mistake by sending this low-level delegation,” Rutte told reporters at a gathering of European leaders in Tirana. “He has to be serious about wanting peace. So I think all the pressure is now on Putin.”
Rubio meets top Turkiye, Ukraine officials ahead of war talks
ISTANBUL: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was meeting with top Turkish and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul Friday, ahead of the first direct Russia-Ukraine talks in three years, officials on both sides said.
Rubio had on Thursday played down hope of progress at the meeting, saying "we don't have high expectations," but has nonetheless flown in to throw his weight behind the effort.
After landing in Turkey's largest city, Rubio went straight into talks at Dolmabahce Palace with his Turkish and Ukrainian counterparts, Hakan Fidan and Andriy Sybiga, respectively.
Also present at the meeting were Washington's envoy to Turkiye Tom Barrack and the US envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg as well as Ukraine's presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, a Turkish foreign ministry source said.
Official photos from the meeting showed that Turkiye's spy chief Ibrahim Kalin was also present as was its former Moscow envoy, Mehmet Samsar.
Rubio himself was not expected to join the peace talks.
A source at Turkiye's foreign ministry had initially said the Russia-Ukraine talks would begin at 0930 GMT, although other officials said the exact timings appeared to be in flux.
Also ahead of the talks, Michael Anton, the State Department head of policy planning, was to hold a meeting with the Russian delegation at Dolmabahce, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Zelensky sent a pared-down team to the Istanbul talks after Russia showed up with a relatively low-level delegation.
Neither Sybiga nor Yermak are part of the Ukrainian delegation to the talks, which will be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov.
The Russian side is headed by Vladimir Medinsky, a hawkish adviser to Putin who has questioned Ukraine's right to exist and led failed talks at the start of the war.
Polio outbreak declared in Papua New Guinea
SYDNEY: A polio outbreak has been declared in Papua New Guinea, sparking concern about the disease's spread in a country with low vaccination rates, health officials said.
Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious and potentially fatal.
It can cause deformities and paralysis and mainly affects children under five years old.
The virus was detected in wastewater and environmental samples in the Pacific nation's capital Port Moresby and second largest city Lae, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
In subsequent testing, two children in Lae were found to have the poliovirus type 2 strain, according to the WHO representative in Papua New Guinea, Sevil Huseynova.
The confirmation of community transmission in the children "constitutes a polio outbreak", Huseynova said in briefing notes provided to AFP on Friday.
The health agency "expresses deep concern over the confirmed outbreak", she said.
Genetic testing showed the polio strain detected in Papua New Guinea was linked to one circulating in Indonesia.
Papua New Guinea was certified as polio-free in 2000, but immunisation rates among children are low -- less than 50 percent, according to the WHO.
"Polio is a highly infectious disease, and in communities with low polio immunisation rates, the virus quickly spreads from one person to another," Huseynova said.
Papua New Guinea Health Minister Elias Kapavore said the situation was "serious but manageable".
"We've dealt with this before and know what works," he told reporters on Thursday.
"Vaccination is safe and effective, and we're acting quickly to keep children protected."
Thai monk arrested over $9 million temple embezzlement
- Temples in Buddhist-majority Thailand rely heavily on income from “merit-making” ceremonies where worshippers make donations in hopes of gaining good fortune and better reincarnation
- The arrest from one of the Bangkok suburb’s most prominent temples has triggered significant backlash on social media
BANGKOK: Thai police have arrested a Buddhist monk over allegations he embezzled more than $9 million from the prominent temple he ran which was funded by donations from devotees.
Investigators from the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) accuse Abbot Phra Thammachiranuwat from Wat Rai Khing of siphoning more than 300 million baht ($9.05 million) from the temple’s bank account into his own.
Investigators traced funds from the temple on Bangkok’s western outskirts to an illegal online gambling network running baccarat card games, local media said.
Temples in Buddhist-majority Thailand rely heavily on income from “merit-making” ceremonies where worshippers make donations in hopes of gaining good fortune and better reincarnation.
Police charged Phra Thammachiranuwat with corruption and malfeasance, CIB deputy commissioner Jaroonkiat Pankaew told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.
“This (arrest) is to help purify our religion,” Jaroonkiat said.
Authorities have arrested a second suspect and are investigating whether others were involved, while local media reported the abbot has now left the monkhood.
Wat Rai Khing, believed to have been founded in 1851, houses a replica of the Buddha’s footprint.
The arrest from one of the Bangkok suburb’s most prominent temples has triggered significant backlash on social media.
“Next time I will donate to a hospital or school for good causes, not a temple,” one user posted on social media platform X.
Others cautioned their fellow Buddhists to remain firm in their faith.
“Not all monks are bad. Don’t generalize,” another X user wrote.
France sues Iran at top UN court over detained citizens
- The announcement comes as Iranian negotiators are set to meet with their counterparts from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany
PARIS: Paris has filed a case against Tehran at the top UN court over two French citizens who have been held in Iran for three years, the French foreign minister said on Friday.
The announcement comes as Iranian negotiators are set to meet with their counterparts from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany in Turkiye on Friday for talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Cecile Kohler, a 40-year-old literature teacher from eastern France and her partner Jacques Paris, in his 70s, were arrested on May 7, 2022, on the last day of a tourist trip to Iran.
They have been held on spying charges, which they have vehemently denied.
In its case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), France accuses Iran “of violating its obligation to provide consular protection” to the pair, who “have been held hostage... detained in appaling conditions that amount to torture,” Jean-Noel Barrot told France 2 television.
They are among a number of Europeans still held by Iran in what some European countries, including France, regard as a deliberate strategy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from the West at a time of tension over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.
Kohler and Paris are the last known French detainees in Iran after some recent releases and are regarded as “state hostages” by the French government.
The two are jailed in extremely tough conditions, according to their families.
