At last, a vote for Qatar women
In March 8, International Women’s Day, women in Qatar went out to vote for the first time in history. Qatar is the first country in the Gulf to grant adult franchise rights to women. The elections to the local municipal council also saw six women candidates in the fray for the first time. Separate polling booths were assigned to women for voting, in order to avoid any ‘mixing of the two sexes’.

China sticks to one child norm
China’s one–child norm, which has been widely criticised because of the prevalent practice of brutal infanticide — the victim being the ‘unwanted’ girl child — is to stay. At a recent conference on Population Control and Resource and Environmental Protection, President Jiang Zemin, ruled out any relaxation in the rule. In fact, he directed that population planners concentrate on the rural areas of China so as to further curb population growth and enforce the rule stringently in these areas. He also said that the population control policies dealt with a wide range of difficult issues and, therefore, long–term efforts should continue to be in line with well–established goals. Last year, China managed to keep its population growth rate below one per cent for the first time since the introduction of the stringent measures. But the rising number of cases of female infanticide has been a direct result of these stringent laws. The falling male–female ratio indicates the new dangers that China may well be creating in an attempt to solve its population problems.

Death ruling to a white racist in US
In late February, John King, a self–proclaimed white supremacist, was sentenced to death by lethal injection in Jasper, Texas. King had chained a black man, James Byrd, to a truck and dragged him to his death along a paved road in June last year. King, a member of a racist group known as the Confederate Knights of America, expressed no remorse for the murder. Instead, he maintained his innocence in a written statement released through his lawyer. He said in the note that it was "obvious from the beginning that this community would get what they desire". Quoting a Nazi sympathiser the note added, "The promise of success is with the man who is determined to die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly".

Death sentence back in Sri Lanka
Even as a world–wide debate continues against capital punishment, Sri Lanka, one of the few countries which had discontinued the system, has decided to return to it. On March 13, President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government chose to revert to death by hanging in the country after a gap of 22 years. No law had been passed against capital punishment but Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist country, was averse to the death sentence. Successive Presidents, who are required to sign the black warrant after the sentence had been passed, had simply refused to do so since 1977. Thus, the death sentence had been automatically transformed into life imprisonment. At least 12 people are currently facing the death sentence. The call for resuming the death sentence had mounted after the murder of an Indian woman, who was honeymooning with her Sri Lankan husband on the island, and the conviction of a soldier for raping and murdering a Tamilian family.

Protest against Talaaq in Singapore
Early last month, protests against a Tamil language play, Talaaq — about divorce in the Muslim community — rocked Singapore. Writer, Elangovan, and the play’s leading actress, Nargis Banu, received anonymous death threats subsequent to the opening of the play. Both the play and the book have been extremely successful. But some Indian Muslim groups in Singapore reportedly held secret meetings criticising the play as they saw it as an attack on Islam and Indian Muslims. Elangovan said his objective was to portray the ordeal of women suffering in silence while being victimised by their husbands. He is the recipient of the 1997 Southeast Asian Write Award, the region’s premier literary prize. Other poems and books of the author, full of strong social satire have also run into problems before. In 1992, the government bowed to public pressure and banned his play about India’s untouchables working in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia during British and Dutch colonialism. The writer was unrelenting despite the threats. "I would not compromise at the expense of my search for truth and my art. I’ve been walking too long in mine–fields ignoring the stones that have been thrown at me from behind."

Call for a jihad against the West
A gathering of more than 500 young British Muslims attended the ‘Second Conference of Islamic Revival’ on March 1, in central London, where they were exhorted to join the jihad against the United States, Britain and other ‘anti–Islamic’ forces. Sheikh Omar Bakri, ‘Islamic activist’ and former spokesperson for Osama bin Laden, thundered, "America and the West declared war against Islam, and we declare war against them."

The gathering was also shown a half–hour video of a military training camp in Afghanistan and told they must enlist in the war against un–Islamic regimes in Muslim countries, and the "occupying forces" of the Western powers. They went on to unveil a plan to blow up military and civilian aircrafts, in a bid to "challenge the Western monopoly of the sky", in the context of the air strikes on Iraq. The plan was to use flying mines in small balloons, which were being tested in Afghanistan, said Abu al–Masri, an Egyptian–born cleric. Al–Masari, whose group, Supporters of Shariat, organises Islamist training from its headquarters at a north London mosque, said later, "Of course it is terrorism. It is terrorising the terrorists". Ironically, Al–Masari finds refuge in ‘enemy’ land Britain, as he is wanted in Yemen for ordering 10 Muslim militants (including eight Britons) to bomb various British and US targets in the Yemeni city of Aden, on New Year’s Eve. The conference, in spite of the explosive views propagated, went completely unnoticed by the British authorities as under British legislation it is an offence to plot terrorist activity or to collect money to support terrorists, but the incitement to terrorism itself is not banned.