'Head scarf was ancient sex symbol'

Turkey: Historian acquitted of charges of inciting religious hatred

Acquitted: Muazzez Ilmiye Cig

"My trial acted as a tool to display the strength of the secular tradition in Turkey against the fundamentalists. This will encourage people like me to think more, act more courageously and voice their opposition more openly", said Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, 92-year-old Turkish historian, after a court in Istanbul cleared her on 1st November after half an hour hearing of charges of inciting religious hatred.

Ms. Cig, a reputed specialist in Sumerian culture and history, had been accused for stating that the Islamic-style head scarf had been a sex symbol in pre-Islamic times. 5,000 years ago, she asserted in a scientific paper, a head scarf had been the identification sign of the temple priestess who had ritual sex with young men to celebrate fertility. Therefore it was not very suitable to indicate a woman's morality today, she concluded. This presentation provoked Yusuf Akin, a fanatic Islamic lawyer, to file a case against her and her Publisher Ismet Ogutcu. If convicted, the two could have faced jail terms up to 18 months.

Muazzez Ilmiye Cig is a strong secularist in the tradition of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, and has made public statements against wearing head scarves earlier. In Turkey, head scarves are banned in schools, universities and all state offices. Because of her head scarf, prime minister Erdogan's wife Ermine is excluded from state functions. Ms Cig has publicly criticized her for setting a bad example and misrepresenting the modern Turkish woman.

Since 2002, when the present government under prime minister Tayyip Erdogan came to power, secularists are alarmed about the rising Islamic influence. Erdogan, a devout Muslim, promised to lift the head scarf ban, but failed because of stiff resistance from the secular forces that are ruling the military and other institutions. He promoted religious schools and filled senior administrative positions with Islamists. It is expected that he will try to get elected as the next president in May. The secular forces want to stop him. On 4th November, a protest demonstration of 12000 marched with the slogan "Turkey is secular and will remain secular!" through the capital Ankara and ended in front of the Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Ataturk.

Nepal: Exploitation of Kumari girls under Supreme Court scrutiny

Child abuse: Girl goddess Kumari

Reacting to a petition of human rights campaigners seeking to abolish the traditional Kumari worship as it is exploitation of children, the Supreme Court of Nepal has ordered an investigation into the matter. Within three weeks, the ministry of culture has to table a detailed report about the Kumari worship that is part of the religious traditions of the aboriginal ethnic community of the Newaris, who are living in the Kathmandu valley.

Since centuries, the Kumari is residing in the Taleju Bhawani Temple in the heart of Kathmandu. She is said to have great powers. Through her fingertips, the powers of the Hindu god Vishnu would flow into a new king when he comes to visit her after his coronation. If she hesitates for a moment or smiles, before speaking the magic word "Taleju!" it is a bad omen for the king's future. But these "powers" come at a high price. The temple service is ruining the life of the Kumari girls. Chosen as a child at the age of five to six years according to traditional rules and rituals, the young girl lives for six or seven years in the temple. At the time of her first menstruation, she has to leave and a new girl is chosen as her successor. During her divine spell, the little goddess has only very limited contact with her family, is not allowed to go to school, engage in play and sport and mingle with children her age. She is kept under conditions that are bound to affect healthy growth and development of a child and cause psychological damage. Moreover, her being the Kumari is spoiling the girl's future. In most cases she will not be able to marry, as pleople believe that a retired Kumari brings ill luck and early death to her husband.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide about the petition within three to four months.

USA: How a state funded healthcare program turned into a global crusade

The powerful Christian Right in the USA has taken control of the government's flagship program to combat AIDS worldwide. Under their influence, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) that commands a five-year budget of $ 15 billion, is being misused for a crusade for conservative Christian values instead for fighting the disease.

The PEPFAR was launched in January 2003. Initially, the reputed world help organisation CARE was the government's contract partner for the fight against AIDS in Africa and Asia. CARE was to distribute $ 50 million over two years in competitive grants to suitable subcontractors and to oversee their work. But the CARE-contract was a thorn in the flesh of the Christian Right. In their eyes, CARE committed two cardinal sins: Though they tried to cooperate with President Bush's "faith-based initiative" and distributed a major part of the grants to religious organisations, they insisted that all grantees - secular or religious - should technically qualify for the entrusted work. The Christian Right would have preferred to see that the grant money was exclusively and unconditionally distributed within their ideological and political circles. CARE's second sin was to promote the use of condoms to prevent AIDS infection. This was in accordance with the earlier policy of the US government, but against the agenda of the Christian crusaders for sexual abstinence as the only way of AIDS prevention. Under their pressure, the official government policy shifted with the launching of the PEPFAR in 2003 from recommending condom use to promoting "abstinence, faithfulness, and, when appropriate, condoms". But this was still not enough of a concession. Meantime, condoms are - unofficially - banned and everybody considering them useful is eliminated from the program.

This year, the propagandists of Christian morality launched a furious campaign against CARE, accusing the organisation of being "anti-American" and "promoting prostitution and drug use". The US government obliged. After all, the smear campaign was led by President Bush's strongest supporters. Among them is James Dobsen, one of the commanders of the Christian Right and head of the organisation Focus on the Family that sent out 5 million letters and e-mails to support Bush's reelection in 2004.

The CARE contract was discontinued and replaced by a $ 200 million program that aims at Christian groups subscribing to the abstinence-line. The new program is overseen by the government agency USAID. Under the guidance of the White House' "Faith-based office", USAID had been cleansed from "secular elements" and put under a politically reliable and strongly evangelical administration that obeys the directives of their political bosses and distributed grants to all the politically correct recipients.

In 2003, Congress passed and President Bush signed a law that has meantime been declared unconstitutional by several courts, but still stands. It makes it obligatory for any US-based group receiving anti-AIDS funds to sign a pledge that binds them to adopt an anti-prostitution policy. Several recipients of USAID grants are successfully educating prostitutes and seeking their cooperation in preventing HIV infection. Some of them refused to sign the pledge and lost their grants. Victim of the pledge is for example the American Jewish World Service, one of a very few faith-based, but non-Christian recipients, included under the CARE program. The AJWS tries to stop the spread of AIDS by providing education opportunities for children of prostitutes in Kenya, which can help mothers leave the brothels. The Brazilian government lost a $ 40 million grant. Brazil is running a very successful anti-AIDS program that has kept the infection rate among young adults under 1 percent. Pedro Chequer, national director of the program, gives the credit to the fact that the program includes prostitutes as essential partners in its HIV prevention efforts. In an affidavit in a lawsuit over the matter, he said his country strived to adhere to "the established principles of the scientific method and not allow theological beliefs and dogma to interfere."

India: Tsunami bishops trouble Tamil Nadu

The south Indian state of Tamil Nadu may have the worldwide highest rate of churches per capita. Though only a small minority of people call themselves Christians, there are said to be as many as 1500 independent Christian churches represented in the Independent Churches of India Association in Chennai (earlier Madras). Most of them belong to the huge and ever-growing group of evangelical churches that are founded and supported from abroad. Some are Anglican or Orthodox splinter groups. Many are Pentecostals of different origin. They have names like Calvari Mission Trust or Halleluyah Full Gospel Missionaries of India. Though quite tiny and never heard of, many of these independent churches have their own bishops. Nobody knows exactly, how many robed men are roaming around, who has appointed them and who is paying them.

Since some time, an increasing number of these "holy men" are attracting the attention of the police. During the last three months, several cases of betrayal have been registered against priests and bishops, who pretended to build houses for Tsunami victims and poor people and thereby cheated the public of huge amounts. Two bishops of the Moulin Mission Trust in Mahabalipuram and the Calvari Mission Trust in Vellore have been arrested. They are accused of swindling several hundred million Rupees from contractors. They collected huge deposits from them after promising them orders for house construction for tsunami victims. Some other bishops, who used the same trick, have so far escaped arrest by absconding.

Most of the independent churches emerged in the aftermath of the tsunami catastrophe and descended upon the affected areas. The phenomenon of bishops cheating locals marks the second wave of exploitation. The first wave flooded the accounts of the new churches with fat donations from their supporters abroad. The tsunami desaster unleashed the largest wave of donations in history. Worldwide more than 12 billion Dollar have been collected from state funds as well as from private purses. The biggest part of this money was in the hands of NGOs of all provenience, among them thousands of ad hoc created religious organisations.

Many of these small churches are still collecting money for house construction for tsunami victims. The houses, if they have constructed any, are often not up to the needs of the victims. The Evangelical church of India (ECI), for example, constructed without official permission 70 one-room hutments in Cuddalore that could not be used and had immediately to be sealed by the police as they were in danger to collapse. These ruins had obviously only one purpose: to carry shiny big boards with the proud inscription: "This house is a gift of the Providence Baptist Church, NC, USA, through ECI Relief Team". Similarly World Vision, the largest evangelical recipient of US state grants, donated a fleet of new and colourful fishing boats to the fishermen of Nagapattinam that turned out to be completely unfit for use in the sea and were after some days abandoned by the disappointed recipients. These are only two out of 160,000 cases that have been collected by the lawyers of the Tsunami Comittee Legal Action. Only a small part of them have so far been brought to court.