Tunisia scraps ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslims

Yahoo – AFP, September 14, 2017

Tunisia is viewed as being ahead of most Arab countries on women's rights
(AFP Photo/FETHI BELAID)

Tunis (AFP) - Tunisia has abolished a decades-old ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslims, the presidency said Thursday.

"Congratulations to the women of Tunisia for the enshrinement of the right to the freedom to choose one's spouse," presidency spokeswoman Saida Garrach wrote on Facebook.

The announcement comes a month after President Beji Caid Essebsi called for the government to scrap the ban dating back to 1973.

Until now a non-Muslim man who wished to marry a Tunisian woman had to convert to Islam and submit a certificate of his conversion as proof.

Human rights groups in the North African country had campaigned for the ban's abolition, saying it undermined the fundamental human right to choose a spouse.

Tunisia is viewed as being ahead of most Arab countries on women's rights, but there is still discrimination particularly in matters of inheritance.

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"Listening to the Voice of Spirit" (2) - Feb 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (DNA Efficiency is on average at 35 percent now) - (Text version)

“… With free choice, the percentage of DNA efficiently started to go down as humanity grew. As soon as the DNA started to lose percentage, the gender balance was dysfunctional. If you want to have a test of any society, anywhere on the planet, and you want to know the DNA percentage number [consciousness quota] as a society, there's an easy test: How do they perceive and treat their women? The higher the DNA functionality, the more the feminine divine is honored. This is the test! Different cultures create different DNA consciousness, even at the same time on the planet. So you can have a culture on Earth at 25 percent and one at 37 - and if you did, they would indeed clash. …”

“… You're at 35. There's an equality here, you're starting to see the dark and light, and it's changing everything. You take a look at history and you've come a long way, but it took a long time to get here. Dear ones, we've seen this process before and the snowball is rolling. There isn't anything in the way that's going to stop it. In the path of this snowball of higher consciousness are all kinds of things that will be run over and perish. Part of this is what you call "the establishment". Watch for some very big established things to fall over! The snowball will simply knock them down. …”

Two men may get 100 lashes after gay sex in Indonesia

Two men may be in line for up to 100 lashes of the cane after being caught having sex in Indonesia's Shariah-ruled province of Aceh. The province is the only one allowed to impose Shariah after a change in the law.

Deutsche Welle, 8 April 2017

If found guilty, two men from the Indonesian province of Aceh who were discovered having sex together will be the first to be caned for gay sex under a new code implemented two years ago, Marzuki, the Shariah police's chief investigator, said on Saturday.

"Based on our investigation, testimony of witnesses and evidence, we can prove that they violated Islamic Shariah law and we can take them to court," said Marzuki, who goes by a single name.

The new code allows up to 100 lashes for morality offenses including gay sex, adultery, gambling, drinking alcohol, the wearing of tight clothes by women and skipping Friday prayers in the case of men.

Homo sexualityis not illegal in Indonesia, but a judicial review being considered by the Constitutional Court is seeking to criminalize sex outside marriage and sex between people of the same gender.

Read:The invisible scars left by strikes of the cane

Civilian vigilantism

Residents caught the men having sex on March 28 in a rented room in the provincial capital Banda Aceh, an official at the provincial public order department told the German press agency DPA.

The men - aged 23 and 20 - were reported to the police on March 29, Marzuki said. He added that the men had "confessed" to "being a gay couple." This was supported, he said, by video footage taken by a resident showing one of the men naked and distressed as he calls for help on his cellphone. The second man is repeatedly pushed by another man who is preventing the couple from leaving the room.

Under the code, sex out of wedlock is punishable by up to 100 strokes of the cane. An earlier version of the code did not regulate punishment for gay sex.

Jakarta signed a peace agreement with Aceh separatist rebels in 2005, ending decades of conflict that killed more than 15,000 people.

jbh/tj (AP, dpa)

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D66 MPs Pechtold (l) and Koolmes take a stand. Photo: David van Dam/HH

N.E.C. keert geweld tegen homo's de rug toe. #allemannenhandinhand #handinhand @3FM pic.twitter.com/ADxjti0iMO

— N.E.C. Nijmegen (@NEC_Nijmegen) April 3, 2017

Male colleagues of @NLatUN walking hand in hand in New York protesting against violence directed at LGBTI #allemannenhandinhand pic.twitter.com/AYThVsymep

— Lise Gregoire (@LiseGvH) April 3, 2017

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"The Akashic Circle" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, The Humanization of God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)  - (Text version)

“… Gender Switching

Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."

It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”

"Listening to the Voice of Spirit" (2) - Feb 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (DNA Efficiency is on average at 35 percent now) - (Text version)

“… With free choice, the percentage of DNA efficiently started to go down as humanity grew. As soon as the DNA started to lose percentage, the gender balance was dysfunctional. If you want to have a test of any society, anywhere on the planet, and you want to know the DNA percentage number [consciousness quota] as a society, there's an easy test: How do they perceive and treat their women? The higher the DNA functionality, the more the feminine divine is honored. This is the test! Different cultures create different DNA consciousness, even at the same time on the planet. So you can have a culture on Earth at 25 percent and one at 37 - and if you did, they would indeed clash. …”

“… You're at 35. There's an equality here, you're starting to see the dark and light, and it's changing everything. You take a look at history and you've come a long way, but it took a long time to get here. Dear ones, we've seen this process before and the snowball is rolling. There isn't anything in the way that's going to stop it. In the path of this snowball of higher consciousness are all kinds of things that will be run over and perish. Part of this is what you call "the establishment". Watch for some very big established things to fall over! The snowball will simply knock them down. …”

Iran's new parliament has more women than clerics

Yahoo – AFP, May 1, 2016

After the second round of elections in Iran a record 17 women will become
 lawmakers in the 290-seat parliament -- one more than the number of clerics,
which has hit an all time low (AFP Photo/Atta Kenare)

Tehran (AFP) - Iran's new parliament will have more women than clerics when its members are sworn in this month, a first in the Islamic republic and a sign of the country's evolving politics.

Official results Saturday showed that reformist and moderate politicians allied with President Hassan Rouhani won a big victory in second round parliamentary elections.

Iran parliament after the first round

election results (AFP Photo)

The outcome saw them outnumber their conservative rivals -- many hardliners lost seats -- for the first time since 2004 and capped a remarkable comeback for reformists after years of isolation.

After the second round of elections a record 17 women will become lawmakers in the 290-seat parliament -- one more than the number of clerics, which has hit an all time low.

In the first parliament that followed the Islamic revolution in 1979 there were 164 clerics elected.

Some of the country's most prominent politicians are clerics and have previously been lawmakers including Rouhani who was an MP between 1980 and 2000.

Two earlier presidents, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, are also past members of parliament.

However clerical numbers have steadily fallen since 1980 with 153 elected in the second parliament, 85 in the third, 67 in the fourth and 52 in the fifth.

The outgoing legislature had only 27 men of the cloth. Of the 16 who will enter parliament next month 13 have conservative political leanings and three are reformists.

Although the 17 women, nearly all reformists, elected represent only nine percent of the total it is a high for the Islamic republic and almost double the nine conservative women in the outgoing chamber. The previous high for female MPs was 14.

Results show there will be 133 reformists in the new parliament, 13 shy of a majority but more than the conservatives' 125 MPs. The remaining seats went to independents and minorities.

The second ballot on Friday was needed because no candidate won the minimum 25 percent required during the first round of voting on February 26.

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"Listening to the Voice of Spirit" (2) - Feb 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (DNA Efficiency is on average at 35 percent now) - (Text version) - New

“… With free choice, the percentage of DNA efficiently started to go down as humanity grew. As soon as the DNA started to lose percentage, the gender balance was dysfunctional. If you want to have a test of any society, anywhere on the planet, and you want to know the DNA percentage number [consciousness quota] as a society, there's an easy test: How do they perceive and treat their women? The higher the DNA functionality, the more the feminine divine is honored. This is the test! Different cultures create different DNA consciousness, even at the same time on the planet. So you can have a culture on Earth at 25 percent and one at 37 - and if you did, they would indeed clash. …”

“… You're at 35. There's an equality here, you're starting to see the dark and light, and it's changing everything. You take a look at history and you've come a long way, but it took a long time to get here. Dear ones, we've seen this process before and the snowball is rolling. There isn't anything in the way that's going to stop it. In the path of this snowball of higher consciousness are all kinds of things that will be run over and perish. Part of this is what you call "the establishment". Watch for some very big established things to fall over! The snowball will simply knock them down. …”

Kathmandu's 'living goddess' survives quake

Yahoo – AFP, Paavan Mathema, 2 May 2015

The Kumari, considered a living goddess, attends festivities on the last day of

 the 2014 Rato Machindranath chariot festival on the outskirts of Kathmandu (AFP

Photo/Prakash Mathema)

When a devastating quake hit Nepal last week, a nine-year-old girl worshipped as a living goddess was preparing to receive devotees at her home in the heart of Kathmandu's Durbar Square.

As the earth shook, the ancient temples and statues that packed the square collapsed, sending a massive cloud of rubble and dust into the air. But the home of the living goddess, or Kumari, escaped with just a few cracks.

"She protected us," said Durga Shakya, the 55-year-old caretaker of the Kumari house, who like all her entourage is from the Newar community indigenous to the Kathmandu valley.

More than 6,621 people were killed by

the massive eathquake which devastated

 Kathmandu's Durbar Square, a UNESCO

 world heritage site damaged by the 

earthquake in Kathmandu (AFP Photo/

Matthieu Alexandre)

"Look around, the Kumari home is intact. There is a little crack on the other side, but otherwise nothing has happened," she told AFP in Kathmandu.

"Even inside, nothing has fallen down, everything is fine."

The Kumari, a pre-pubescent Newar girl, lives in isolation in her small palace and emerges only on feast days when she is paraded through Kathmandu in ceremonial dress.

The popular tradition combines elements of Hinduism and Buddhism and selection criteria are strict.

Priests say that to become a Kumari, a girl must have a number of specific physical attributes including an unblemished body, a chest like a lion and thighs like a deer.

Even if they fulfil all the physical requirements, aspiring Kumaris must then prove their bravery by not crying at the sight of a sacrificed buffalo.

'Fearless goddess'

Kamal Tara Shakya, a 48-year-old Newar woman who looks after the young girl in her palace, said she appeared unafraid when the quake hit.

"I was in the kitchen, after the quake struck I ran towards her, it (the house) was shaking so badly," Shakya told AFP.

"I took her on my lap. All of us huddled around her and prayed. She didn't say anything. She didn't seem scared."

Once the shaking subsided, Shakya took the young girl to the courtyard of the house where they have remained ever since for fear of aftershocks causing further destruction.

A Hindu devotee offers prayers in front of a statue of Hindu diety Kaal Bhairab

 in the Durbar Square neighbourhood of Kathmandu, on May 2, 2015 (AFP Photo/

Roberto Schmidt)

When AFP visited the house early on Saturday a priest was performing a blessing in the courtyard as staff chopped vegetables in the corner.

Mattresses and blankets lay on the floor, but the house appeared intact.

"I believe in her, she has protected us," said Anupa Shrestha, a 28-year-old housewife who had come to pay her respects.

"It is amazing to see the house okay, it shows her power... I was hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but I was very happy that her house is not damaged."

Durga Shakya believes the quake was a punishment from the gods, and that the Kumari knew it was coming.

"We will have to do an apology puja (blessing), she said.

"This has happened because people have disrespected the gods. This is a religious site, but people were holding all sorts of concerts and gatherings here. They should have been more respectful."

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