Shortly after the downfall of the Taliban regime, the media relayed many stories illustrating the great liberties given to Afghan women by democracy: their newfound ability to drive and go to school, their right to not wear the burqa and bizzarely, the establishment of beauty parlours.

Last month Roja Bandari blogged about Iranian women's rights campaigner Jelveh Javaheri as part of our 16 Days Against Gender Violence coverage. Jelveh had been summoned to court and taken to the Evin prison on the charges of disrupting public opinion, advertising against the system, and publishing lies.

Jelveh and her colleague and journalist Maryam Hosseinkhah were finally released on bail last week - meaning their activities will be restricted until they go to trial. Both were members the One Million Signatures Campaign. [more...]

Roja Bandari tells us that "two other activists, Ronak and Haana, are still in custody in Kurdistan region and we are very concerned about their conditions".

Elsewhere: Reporters without borders' take on the case, pictures of Maryam and Jelveh at World Picture News, and an interview with Jelveh conducted before she was arrested.

Healthy discussion: In the fantastic sex education site Scarleteen (which I personally can't recommend enough for teenagers and young adults), Heather Corinna writes about rape with boys (and men) in mind:

"Those articles about rape prevention telling women all they can do to prevent rape? This isn't one of those articles. This one’s for the men."

A global generation of women: Imagining ourselves is an online multimedia project ran by the International Museum of Women, full of stories, photographs, films and much more. A true gem.

Women fighting violence: MADRE lists 16 ways women are fighting against violence

Feminist men: The concept makes some feminist bloggers raise their eyebrows at the mention of a "feminist men's blog", but here's one - Feminist Allies blogs 16 days.

A call to men: an men organisation working on ending violence aginast women. To read: 10 things men can do to end VAW. Shakesville's blogger Melissa comments on it.

Any links you want to share with us? Please post them in the comments... 

- Take back the tech: one of the campaign's daily contribution to "16 days" is the fascinating Who males history? Something to bare in mind: historical invisibility is a form of violence against of women, whose legacy to the world has been erased or conveniently not recorded and/or celebrated.

"The field of science and technology is particularly steeped in the culture of elevating ‘father figures’. Think of all the notable names in computing, and chances are, you’ll come up with Bill Gates, Richard Stallman, Steve Jobs, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing etc. It’s less likely for us to know names of women such as Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Betty Holberton, Kathleen Antonelli and more, who also played critical roles in the expansion of knowledge and innovation in this field".

- Interview with Imam Cheick Mohamad Diallo: Every Day a New Battle against Circumcision in Mali (via Qantara.de)

"The religious authorities must change their views, otherwise our education efforts will never succeed. I myself have been excluded from the Association of Imams since 2000, because I called circumcision non-Islamic in a televised sermon. This exclusion persists today."

The first march took place in 1977, and has been organised by the London Feminist Network since 2004. It reportedly had 1200 participants last year. Lacking the ability to accurately count the number of people in a crowd I wouldn't dare estimate how many women demonstrated this year, but the result was impressive (the streets surrounding Trafalgar Square and Soho were temporarily closed, dozens of police officers escorted the participants and dozens of curious bystanders took pictures with their cell phones).

This week the International Women's Media Foundation awarded its "courage in journalism" awards to eight nominees: Lydia Cacho from Mexico, Serkalem Fasil from Ethiopia and six journalists from the McClatchy Bagdad Bureau in Iraq (NYT link).

This is Sahar Issa's speech, who accepted the award on behalf on her colleagues (via the IWMF'S site):

[quote]"None of the funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortions as a method of family planning or to motivate and coerce any person to practice abortions.

None of the funds made available to carry part I of the Foreign Assistance Act may be used to pay for any biomedical research which relates in whole or in part, to methods of, or the perfomance of, abortions...

None of the funds made available... may be obligated or expended for any country or organisation if the President certifies that the use of these funds by any such country or organization would violate any of the above provisions related to abortions" [more...]

Abortion as a human right

A lot of the speakers at the Global Safe Abortion Conference addressed the right to safe abortion as a human right.

Luisa Cabal, director of the Center for Reproductive Rights' International Legal Program, underlined the fact that human rights are a universal language, a common ground to build on, and a tool for governments to save women's lives. [more...]

An eternal clash

Upon our arrival at the conference at an early 8.30 in the morning we were greeted by a group of anti-choice women silently picketing the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, holding a huge banner stating that "women deserve better than abortions" (ironically enough, my colleague Jane Gabriel remarked that the banner was folded in such a way that at the right angle it read "women deserve better abortions"). I was also handed misguided pro-life leaflets stating (amongst other things) that Marie Stopes was racist. [more...]

Dr. Hilary Bracken, Senior Program Associate with Gynuity Health Project, opened the session titled "Ensuring Women's access to medical abortion in their own communities" declaring that medical abortion (the abortion pill, or RU486) is the most important revolution in women's medical health since the commercialisation of the contraceptive pill. [more...]

A lot of the breakout sessions organised by the Women Deliver conference focused on AIDS/HIV treatment and prevention for women and girls, and how it should be treated as an integral part of the fight for reproductive rights for all women, everywhere.

One of the most important and recurrent issues underlined by speakers is that the spread of HIV/AIDS is directly linked to gender based violence, especially in unstable regions where rape is used as a weapon of war, or where women have to sell their bodies as a means to survive and provide for their families. [more...]

I am currently at "Women Deliver" in London's docklands, a strange setting for this, the first global conference in 20 years which aims to combat maternal mortality. So far Douglas Alexander, the UK's Secretary of State for International Development, has pledged to give $200 million over five years to the United Nations Population Fund to tackle the health of women and mothers worldwide. You can read the press release here. [more...]

Picture by John Perivolaris

You might to hear about the new openDemocracy FlickR group, which we will use to pick pictures for our frontpage. This is a chance for oD readers to have their own pictures used on our site - and be credited for their effort. [more...]

This week Beijing is hosting the seventeenth Communist Party congress - an event gathering more than 2,200 party members from across the country. openDemocracy published an analysis of the global relevance of the event, in which Kerry Brown underlined the challenges which the new generation of leaders will have to face as China elevates its economic status to the third largest economy in the world. This problem was also picked up by The International Herald Tribune blogger Daniel Altman who remarked that "training new generations of regulators, business people and planners is a process that can’t easily be accelerated" and that changing culture is a long, difficult and complex job. [more]

Yesterday Amnesty UK launched its "unsubscribe me" campaign, which aims to use social media networks to unite a new generation of human rights campaigners. Their hope is to set up a viral virtual campaign gathering as many names as possible from participants saying "I unsubscribe from torture, rendition, discrimination and unlawful detention".

In other words, Amnesty wants to be down with the kids and reach out to a young(er) audience using social network-inspired platforms to spread their message. [more...]

Yesterday was International Bloggers' Day for Burma, so the day after is a good moment for oD Today to look at the range of voices gathered in support of the democracy movement inside and outside the country. We at openDemocracy support the free circulation of information, debate and reporting that blogging Burma (much of it by Burmese living in exile) represents, and as we have tracked the unfolding story in Burma we have also published several items about the political crisis: [more]

Welcome to the 50.50 blog. Here you will find ongoing discussions involving men and women concerned with gender parity, as well as reports from conferences, news and commentary. Blogs which are also part of our 50.50 initiative:

In 2007, openDemocracy covered the G8 process from a women's perspective. This blog gathers contributions from women across the world, writing about what they would like the G8 to adress.

The first international conference of the Nobel Women's Initiative took place in Ireland in June 2007. The openDemocracy team live-blogged it.

The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. openDemocracy observed the process closely.

The 7th World Social Forum brought the world to Africa as activists, social movements, networks, coalitions and other progressive forces converged in Kenya. Patricia Daniel blogged live from Nairobi.

The new amendment of an immigration related bill, which is set to be observed by the French parliament today, is creating furore amongst scientists and the activist sphere: it would allow French authorities to incite immigration candidates to provide a genetic test proving their blood-relation to a French citizen (or immigrant with a valid French visa). Candidates would have to pay 1000 Euros for it - an equivalent of 750 Pounds ($1494). [more...]

openDemocracy members are having a lively and interesting conversation on the forums, trying to imagine a world without the West.

Will there be a convergence to the stereotypical American way of life running in parallel with the economic empowerment of countries like India, China and India, or will we find ourselves starring at a profound cultural and religious gap separating our two (or three or four...) different worlds? Some excerpts: (more...)