Friday Links — July 30, 2010

• In Pakistan, a court has freed a mentally ill woman who has been held without trial for 14 years on allegations of desecrating the Qur’an.

• Muslim Voices reports that a Saudi sheikh has called for only Muslim women to work as maids in Saudi Arabia. More from the Los Angeles Times.

• Muslim women in the U.K. attend armed forces memorial. More here.

• On polygyny in Bahrain.

• The memorial  to Marwa el-Sherbini in Dresden, Germany was desecrated last week.

• The Wall Street Journal talks about pray-ins.

• The lawyer defending Sakineh Ashtiani faces arrest after many of his relatives have been arrested. The BBC reports that her lawyer is now missing and that there are worldwide rallies for her release.

• A bus firm has rejected allegations one of its drivers refused two Muslim women from traveling on board because one had her face covered by a veil.

• This isn’t something you see every day: a PETA activist that’s fully covered!

• The man who egged Baroness Warsi is sentenced to jail for six weeks.

• Photographer Tiana Markova-Gold and writer Sarah Dohrmann have won this year’s highly prestigious Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize for their investigation of female prostitution in Morocco.

• Hamas bans lingerie displays in the Gaza strip. More from AFP.

• Hani Khan, the woman who was fired from a Hollister for her hejab, tells her story.

• The National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) stepped up the agency’s response to the needs of its constituents with the launching of a legal program to visit and provide assistance to some 1,000 Muslim women inmates languishing in Metro Manila jails.

• District Chronicles discusses the double standard of “gazing.”

• Saudi cleric tells women not to defy the burqa ban. How the burqa ban can help ease pressures to keep up with appearances. One last burqa ban link (enshallah)!

• The USA Today reports that a respected Saudi cleric issued a fatwa allowing women who live in countries that ban the full Islamic face veil to wear the head veil instead.

• A man who ripped off a Muslim woman’s veil and threw it on the ground has been sentenced to jail for two years.

• With temperatures soaring in the Kingdom, a number of Saudi women have called for special women-only swimming pools for them to cool off.

• On hijab in Eurasia.

• On Muslim women’s quiet resistance to Islamic fundamentalism.

• Shaista Gohir launches a new website for Muslim women.

• Samina Pure launches halal cosmetics in the U.K.

• Also…happy birthday to me.

If we’ve missed any Muslim women in the news, feel free to post links in the comments!