An Alarming statement by Muslimbrotherhood in Eygpt on CEDAW calling it against Shariat principles
As we know UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) convened its 57 session in early March in New York. Tens of women and NGOs from around the world attended the sessions and held various venues to celebrate women's achievements and also to fight for those women who are deprived of equal rights in their home countries. As the final documents were being discussed, Muslimbrotherhood which came to power after the fall of Hossni Mubark issued a statement against the UN Convention on Elimination of Violence Against Women and called the document non-Islamic. A number of women organisations and individuals have urged the international community to raise their voices against such alarming stance. Here is the complete version of the statment and emails of the organisations your objections should be sent to.
Muslim Brotherhood Statement (translation from Arabic):
In the name of God the Merciful
Statement of the Muslim Brotherhood about The Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) which violates all principles of the Islamic Sharia
and the Islamic community
The Commission on the Status of Women holds a conference in
the period from the 4th to the 15th of March 2013 to approve
a
document titled (The Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women), a deceptive headline
that includes items collide with the principles of Islam and
its basic unanimous elements of Quran and Sunnah, destroy
Islamic ethics, and seek to demolish the institution of the
family, which the Egyptian constitution confirmed it is the
building block of the society, and hence achieve the
dismantling of the community, and end to the last step of the
intellectual and cultural invasion, and eliminate the privacy
that preserve elements of Islamic societies and its cohesion.
It is enough to give a closer reading at these items to
realize what is meant to us, and these items are:
1. Grant girls their complete sexual freedom, as well as the
freedom to choose their sex and the freedom to choose their
sex
partners (i.e., choose to have a normal sexual relationship or
atypical) with rising the age of marriage.
2. Provide contraception for adolescent girls and train them
on
how to use it with the legalization of abortion to abort
undesirable pregnancy under the name of sexual and
reproduction
rights.
3. Equality between an adulterous and a wife, and equality
between adultery children (outside of marriage children) and
legitimate sons in all rights.
4. Granting homosexuals all their rights, protection and
respect, and grant protection for women in prostitution.
5. Grant wives all the right to sue their husbands with
charges
of rape or harassment, and the competent authorities should
grant same penalties similar to raping or harassing a
stranger.
6. Equality in inheritance.
7. Replace guardianship with partnership, and fully share the
roles within the family between men and women such as:
spending, child care, home affairs.
8. Equal access to the marriage legislations such as: Stop
polygamy, Iddah, mandate, and the dowry, and stop obligatory
spending of man on the family, and to allow Muslim women to
marry a non-Muslim and others.
9. Withdraw the authority of divorce from husbands and
authorize it to judiciary and share property after divorce.
10. Cancel the obligatory authorization of the husband in:
travel, work or going out or use contraception.
These are the destructive means of the institution of the
family and community that calls for the return for the first
ignorance.
The Muslim Brotherhood call upon rulers of Islamic countries
and Foreign Ministers and their representatives in the United
Nations to reject this document, and also we invite this
organization to live up to the level of the pure family
relations prescribed by Islam.
Also Muslim Brotherhood calls al-Azhar to act according to
its
leading role and to condemn this document and declare the
position of Islam towards its articles, as it is the
reference
for Muslims.
As well we call other Islamic groups and associations to take
a decisive stand against this document and the like.
We also call for women's organizations to adhere to their
religion and the morals of their communities and the elements
of our social life and not to be seduced by the deceptive,
misleading and destructive calls for urbanization.
The Muslim Brotherhood
Cairo: 13 March 2013
Dear Friends,
Most of you must have woken up to the statement the Muslim
Brotherhood issued (see translation below and attached) which
takes a stance against CEDAW, and blatantly delegitimizes the
language used in the not-yet-finalized CSW statement on the
grounds of religion and cultural relativism!
We still have a chance to counter these conservative
"traditional" forces! Please help us gather momentum around
two
very solid statements that have been circulating in the past
few days, and which WLUML and partners have already endorsed.
Please write to cwgl@rci.rutgers.edu to sign:
1. STATEMENT OF FEMINIST AND WOMEN'S ORGANISATIONS ON
THE
VERY ALARMING TRENDS IN THE NEGOTIATIONS OF OUTCOME DOCUMENT
OF
THE 57TH SESSION OF THE UN COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN
drafted by Center for Women's Global Leadership
(CWGL)International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific
(IWRAW Asia Pacific)
Please write to coordinator@csbronline.org to sign:
2. A Call from the Arab Caucus at the 57th Commission
on
the Status of Women
In solidarity,
Women Living Under Muslim Laws
International Coordination Office
Unit 23, 25-27 Bickerton Road, London N19 5JT, United Kingdom
Tel:+44 (0)207 263 0285 - Fax:+44 (0)207 561 9882
Website/Facebook/Twitter
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Hi, I would really appreciate it if you could kindly let me know where the original post by the Muslim Brotherhood (in Arabic) can be found? I looked for it on their Facebook page amongst posts dated the 13 March 2013 and in the few days before and after that, and it is not there. I am researching the implications of the new constitution for women's rights in Egypt and am interested in it for this purpose, but I cannot refer to a statement that I am unable to verify, so I would appreciate any assistance with this. Thank you in advance.
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