Category — General

After 3 awesome years of our good old website, we are switching to a new content management system. So you’ll be seeing daily change to this space, till we can officially go live in the new year. Happy 2011 everyone!

About Jismi.net
This website is dedicated to the annual “One Day, One Struggle” campaign, a unique effort to underscore the joint struggle against the violation of sexual and bodily rights in Muslim societies, which takes place on November 9. (The Arabic word “Jismi” means “My Body” in English.)

This year, the Lebanon-based groups Nasawiya, Helem and Meem developed an online video campaign focusing on bodily autonomy and sexual rights of individuals.

The videos feature people of different ages, gender expressions, religious affiliations and professional fields talking about the various experiences they were subjected to in terms of sexual and bodily oppression and the ways they were able to overcome these imposed restrictions to achieve complete autonomy and independence in their sexual and bodily choices.

The campaign aims to fill the gap created in dealing with issues related to the body and sexuality, as they are always considered private matters and taboos that shouldn’t be discussed. In addition to them being an integral part of human rights, sexual and bodily rights are a political matter regulated by legislations, rules, institutions and the state, as well as inherited social and cultural restrictions which affect the individual’s relationship with their body and sexuality and reshapes it using oppressive measures, stripping the individual of their autonomy.

Last year, groups held a panel on sexuality at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

Activities around the World

This year, 12 countries across Middle East, North Africa, South and Southeast Asia, are taking part in the campaign. With diverse, groundbreaking actions and events, almost 50 participating human rights organizations, universities and municipalities will simultaneously call for public attention to issues like: Right to Information, Sexuality Education, Sexual Health, Bodily Autonomy and Sexual Rights of Individuals, LGBTTQ Rights, Sexual Diversity and Islam, Sexuality and Shari’a as well as the struggle to stop sexual rights violations ranging from Polygamy to killings of women, gay people and transsexuals.

Hundreds will gather at panels, workshops, video and film screenings, theater performances, photo exhibitions and press release hearings in Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestine, Sudan, Tunisia and Turkey to assert that sexual and reproductive rights are universal human rights based on the inherent freedom, dignity and equality of all human beings.

Why Launch the “One Day, One Struggle” Campaign

Human rights, including sexual and bodily rights and freedoms continue to be under fierce attack in Muslim societies. Rising conservatism fueled by militarism, increasing inequalities, the politicization of religion and Islamophobia have strengthened patriarchal and extremist religious ideologies that use sexuality as a tool of oppression. This has manifested itself in various forms over the last year, be it as the revocation of the permit for the regional Asia Conference of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association (ILGA) by the police in Indonesia, or the harassment of conference participants by radical Islamist groups, or political pressure on a women’s group promoting women’s rights in Islam in Malaysia, or women like Sakineh Ashtiani being sentenced to death by stoning in Iran, or killings of hundreds of women and transsexuals in Turkey under the pretext of honor and morality.

Despite the differences among Muslim societies in terms of the progress made or the backlash encountered regarding sexual and bodily rights at the national levels, in the post 9/11 social and political context, religion is misused as a powerful instrument of control and sexual oppression with the goal of legitimizing human rights violations in the domain of sexuality. This indicates that sexuality is not a private issue but rather a site of political, social, and economic struggles for equality, human rights, democracy and peace at the national and international levels.

“One Day, One Struggle” was conceptualized by the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR) in response to this context and launched on November 9, 2009. Over 20 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) successfully staged bold actions in 11 countries to promote sexual and reproductive rights in the scope of the 1st international campaign organized by the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR). The 1st succeeded in stirring international public attention and was very positively reviewed by national and international media and organizations who defined it as a historical and timely event. The ongoing human rights violations, as well as the international public appraisal of the 2009 campaign, have encouraged CSBR to continue this initiative and organize the 2nd “One Day, One Struggle” on November 9, 2010.

About the CSBR

CSBR is a globally renowned solidarity network of progressive NGOs and premier 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.

Jun 15th, 2010

Below is a statement from Arab queer organizations. You can help by writing a letter to the US Social Forum or emailing them.

We, the undersigned queer Arab organizations, are appalled by the US Social Forum’s decision to allow Stand with Us to utilize the event as a platform to pinkwash Israel’s crimes in the region. Stand with Us is cynically manipulating the struggle of queer people in the Middle East through its workshop entitled “LGBTQI Liberation in the Middle East.”

Stand with Us is a self-declared Zionist propaganda organization which describes itself as “an international education organization that ensures that Israel’s side of the story is told in communities, campuses, libraries, the media and churches through brochures, speakers, conferences, missions to Israel, and thousands of pages of Internet resources”
(http://bit.ly/b9eAc4).

Stand with Us has no connection with the LGBT movement in the Middle East apart from ties to Zionist Israeli LGBT organizations, yet it claims to speak for and about our movements. It has no credibility in our region, and as organizations working in and from the Middle East, we condemn its attempt to use us, our struggles, our lives, and our experiences as a platform for pro-Israeli propaganda.

Since Israel’s brutal wars on Gaza and Lebanon in 2006 and particularly after the recent unprovoked attack on the flotilla of activists going to Gaza, the Israeli government has found itself increasingly marginalized by international condemnations and weakened through the growing success of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. To remedy this, it has launched a massive PR campaign using organizations such as Stand with Us to convince the world that Israel is not a brutal settler-colony state, but rather a free democracy where human rights in general, and LGBT rights in particular, are respected and upheld. Stand With Us deceptively uses the language of LGBT and women’s rights to obscure the fact that institutionalized discrimination is enshrined within the state of Israel.

Our struggle is deeply intertwined with the struggle of all oppressed people, and we cannot accept that we are being used as a tool to discredit the Palestinian cause. Stand with Us would have everyone believe that the Palestinian cause is an unworthy one because of the homophobia that exists within Palestinian society, as if homophobia does not exist elsewhere, and as if struggles for justice are predicated on some sort of inherent “goodness” of the oppressed, rather than on the principles of freedom, justice, and equality for everyone, everywhere. Stand with Us would have us all compartmentalize our beliefs, lives, and identities so that solidarity with the queer struggle would preclude solidarity with others.

While Stand With Us is quick to point out the oppression of queer Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, it conveniently forgets that those same queers are not immune to the bombs, blockades, apartheid and destruction wrought upon them daily by the Israeli government, and that Israel’s multi-tiered oppression hardly makes a distinction between straight and gay Palestinians.

We refuse to be instrumentalized by anyone, be it our own oppressive governments or the Zionist lobby hijacking our struggle to legitimize the state of Israel and its policies, thus providing even more fodder for our own governments to use against us. If you want to learn about our movements and struggles, engage with us, rather than with those who will use us as pawns in Israel’s campaign to pinkwash its crimes.

The inclusion of Stand With Us at the USSF is an egregious oversight on the part of the forum. We ask the forum to justify this inclusion given that it violates its own principles of anti-racism, uniting oppressed communities, prioritizing marginalized voices, and opposing US foreign policy. The USSF should be held accountable to its own standards. We look forward to hearing its plans to address the situation.

Helem, Lebanese Protection for LGBT
Al-Qaws, For Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society
ASWAT, Palestinian Gay Women
Palestinian Queers for BDS, pqbds.wordpress.com

Tue, 15/06/2010 – 16:27
Ahmed Ramadan

Assiut–In the realm of sexual taboos in Egypt, the issue of “intersex individuals”–or those born with “ambiguous genitalia”–is certainly somewhere near the top of the list. While medical professionals take an impartial approach to treatment and surgical operations, social and cultural factors pose a challenge for affected individuals and their families.

In Assiut, Upper Egypt’s largest city, where the local culture is among Egypt’s most conservative, various factors–from inbreeding to a lack of knowledge among pregnant women–have led to a disproportionately large number of cases of intersex children. But with exact figures unrecorded by the Health Ministry–and affected individuals not stepping forward–it remains difficult to determine just how large the problem is.

“In Upper Egypt, the family denies and often keeps secret that their children have this problem, since the condition is seen as shameful. They fear he or she will be a homosexual,” explains a senior official at the Assiut Department of Health. “But from a human and medical standpoint, these individuals are just patients. Unfortunately, this is not yet readily accepted by society.”

Nevertheless, some cases are beginning to come forward. Since 2000, doctors in Assiut have performed over 25 local intersex surgeries. Prior to that, cases were sent to Cairo for treatment.

“Male or female?” asks Dr. Mustafa el-Sonbaty, head of plastic surgery at Assiut University. Sitting in his private clinic, he covers one side of a thick photo album containing photographs of his past patients with one hand, and produces a photo of a naked individual of indeterminate gender.

As we are unable to formulate a response, the doctor, who has operated on 15 intersex individuals in Assiut since 2000, promptly comes to our aid, revealing the opposite page of the album.

“You see? This penis was not properly developed while in its mothers fetus,” he says enthusiastically, pointing to what looks like a small phallus. He then points towards the individual’s pelvis. “Do you see those two swollen spots? Those are the testes, but they’re inside–this is a male pseudo-hermaphrodite,” he concludes.

The term “hermaphrodite” is not to be confused with transsexual or transgender, which describe individuals who identify with a gender different to their biological one. While transsexuals are fully male or female in the physical sense, intersex individuals’ “gender dilemma” is rooted in their physiology.

True hermaphroditism is an extremely rare condition in which individuals are born with both male and female reproductive organs, embodying both XX (female) and XY (male) chromosomes. Medical professionals study the chromosomes and run tests to measure hormones, along with other indicators of sex, and usually restore the child to the more dominant gender. In his 15 years of medical practice, el-Sonbaty has witnessed only one such case.

Male and female pseudo-hermaphrodites are slightly more common. Such persons suffer from a congenital sexual disorder in which they are born with ambiguous reproductive organs, or “mixed” sex anatomy. The condition includes a wide range of symptoms, including undeveloped, underdeveloped or disfigured sexual organs.

The unusual genitalia of intersex babies may confuse doctors and midwives. Thus, a child may be mistaken for a male when she is in fact female–and vise versa.

According to el-Sonbaty, the causes of intersex disorders are 57 percent genetic, 16 percent predispository, and 27 percent unknown factors.

According to Dr. Abdel Moneim el-Haggagy, a urologist and pioneer of intersex operations in Assiut, intersexuality is one of many chromosomal disorders, including Downs Syndrome and cleft lip. The causes of these disorders vary, but according to el-Haggagy, inbreeding is one of the most significant.

“All of the cases of pseudo-hermaphrodite babies I’ve seen were born to third-degree relatives,” he says. “But other factors are also at play.”

High fertility rates in Egypt mean women are often unaware they are pregnant. Doctors, meanwhile, often fail to ask female patients whether or not they are pregnant before prescribing potentially harmful drugs or x-ray scans. Pharmacists, he points out, also rarely ascertain whether a woman is pregnant before selling over-the-counter medicine.

Exposing the fetus to radiation or harmful medication, such as certain antibiotics–especially during the first eight weeks of pregnancy–can cause damage to the development of an unborn child.

While elsewhere in the world most intersex disorders are immediately discovered and babies operated on within the child’s first two years, in Upper Egypt, the condition often goes undetected, says el-Haggagy. With the onset of puberty, intersex individuals usually begin to manifest signs of belonging to the opposite gender than the one they were assigned at birth.

“When a male pseudo-hermaphrodite child grows older and starts to show male characteristics, such as facial hair and boyish body structure, the family realizes its mistake,” says Tarek el-Gammal, chief of reconstructive microsurgery at Assiut University Hospital, who works closely with el-Haggagy on corrective surgery.

Exacerbating the issue for male pseudo-hermaphrodites (individuals born with disfigured male organs) is the widespread practice of female genital mutilation in Egypt, especially in the rural areas of Upper Egypt. Born with what is mistakenly assumed to be an unusually large vulva, the child is circumcised, losing what is in fact his disfigured penis.

Restoring the organs involves a complex, 12-hour operation, requiring a team of at least five medical personnel, including a micro-surgeon, urologist and anesthesiologist. Tissues from the patient’s arm are used to rebuild the missing part of the male organ and connect it to the nerves and veins. Post-operation recovery lasts four to five days in an intensive care unit, during which time the patient undergoes a “masculinization” process that involves cutting his hair and changing his clothes.

“They are extremely happy after the operation,” says el-Gammal. “They are relieved that their problems are over.”

Despite the positive outcome for recovered patients, the Assiut doctors interviewed for this article point out that many affected individuals fail to come forward, embarrassed by their condition and overwhelmed by the social stigma associated with their condition.

This is especially the case for female pseudo-hermaphrodites, whose conditions are often discovered when the child reaches puberty and begins to menstruate. While more common than male psuedo-hermaphroditism–and in fact much easier to treat medically, using a simple surgical intervention to restore the size of the female organ to normal–few such patients come forward, and of those, none seen by el-Haggagy agreed to the operation, he says.

“She is entirely female, with XX chromosomes and the complete appearance of a woman, except for an enlarged female organ. But the families refuse such operations, and ask for temporary solutions instead,” says el-Haggagy. “Years later, they just give up when they see the drastic changes their child is undergoing.”

Conversely, the doctors report that families are usually quite happy to have their “daughter” transformed into a son overnight.

“I had one father who was so happy that he kissed my cheeks until they nearly fell off,” says el-Sonbaty.

While the doctors view intersexuality disorders as a serious health problem and acknowledge the usefulness of corrective surgery to reverse the condition, transgenderism is not viewed so kindly.

Although sex-change surgery is legal in Egypt, the patients and handful of doctors who agree to operate face intense religious and social scorn, and the Physicians Syndicate has banned transsex operations altogether. The infamous story of Sayyed, an Egyptian who underwent such a procedure in the late 1980s to become “Sally,” is still recalled by doctors when asked about transgenderism.

The Assiut doctors all report being requested by at least one individual for a sex change operation. After finding chromosomal and hormonal results normal, they reject the request, and instead refer the patient to psychologists.

“How could I be complicit in such a sinful crime?” asks el-Sonbaty. “Altering the body of a man with no physical issues to accommodate his psychological problems is a sin, as we would be changing what God created.”

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/beneath-galabiya-intersex-operations-assiut

Iraqi police raid Karbala safe house
By Paul | Published: June 19, 2010

Press statement

There is growing concern that the Iraqi government is stepping up a witch-hunt against gays and lesbians in the country after a police raid on a Karbala safe house.

On Tuesday 16th June, twelve police officers burst into the house, then violently beat up, and blindfolded the six occupants sheltering there, before bundling them off in three vans. According to a source who witnessed the raid, the police also confiscated computer equipment before burning down the house.

According to reports, one of the arrested people has turned up in hospital. Nothing is known about the whereabouts of the other five individuals, which include two gay men, one lesbian and two transgender people. It is feared they may have been taken to the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, where, it is reported, many gay people have been tortured and executed in the last two years.
The one victim found so far – in hospital with slashed throat

Government forces have previously sized people particularly at roadblocks and handed them to militias who have then tortured them and their bodies have later been found.

None of the previous occupying powers have taken any action or delivered any criticism for these atrocities.

Iraqi LGBT feel that the reason the British and United States government in particular didn’t criticises the Iraqi government is because of the legacy of the occupation.

They have criticised the Malawian government and the Ugandan government.

In both those countries there is a strong religious opposition to homosexuality — as there is in Iraq.

Since the fall of Saddam, militias loyal to Shi’a clerics Grand Ayatollah al Sistani and Muqtada al Sadr, both of whom have called for homosexuals to be put to death, have been only too keen to carry out their leaders’ wishes. Over 720 LGBT people have disappeared or been murdered, many of whom have been tortured to death.

There is strong evidence that the government is colluding with these militia groups, by rounding up known homosexual and transgender people. A small number of safe houses, set up for LGBT people to live in relative safety, have been funded by Iraqi LGBT, a London based human rights group. In the current climate, these homes have been life-savers for those taking refuge in them. The house which was raided on Tuesday had been established in January this year.

With the arrest and the seizure of computers, it is feared the government will step up efforts to round up more of the country’s LGBT population.

Ali Hili, who is the leader of Iraqi LGBT, comments: “The UK media and politicians have been too quiet for too long about the violence LGBT people in Iraq. The militia and the powers that be know they can get away with it while that silence continues. It really is time for the Iraqi government to act on this and stop playing the role of guilty bystanders, while our brothers and sisters are murdered in silence”

Currently the UK Border Agency is deporting many Iraqis, some who left the country in fear of their lives after death threats from gangsters and religious militia. “The government is grossly underestimating the danger faced by Iraqi refugees.” says Ali. “The raid on Tuesday proves for LGBT people especially, Iraq is a no-go zone”.

http://iraqilgbt.org.uk/news-home/iraqi-police-raid-karbala-safe-house/