Friday Links — February 8, 2008

Jezebel compares the Lebanese movie Caramel to Beauty Shop.

MEMRI finds some pretty disturbing stuff on conservative Islamic websites geared toward women and families.

An interesting article about why women wear and do not wear hijab.

Two Muslim women who agreed to be in a television program are concerned that they were tricked into participating in a program that portrays them as terrorists and traitors to their country.

Shareda Hosein, the chaplain at Tufts University, pushes to become a female Muslim chaplain in the U.S. military.

Muslim girls from disadvantaged backgrounds in Chennai, India, are given scholarships.

Female sports writers aren’t taken seriously in the Arab world.

President Ahmedinejad spits out gender stereotypes in an effort to honor women. Ew.

Saleem Ahmed of the Star Bulletin reflects on just how many Muslim women wear headscarves.

The Age takes a grim look at honor killings in the U.K.

MidEastYouth interviews Bahraini director Hala Matar.

The U.S.’s National Public Radio interviews the Saudi woman who runs the Facebook group “Saudi Women Can Drive” about women’s rights to drive in Saudi Arabia. See? Facebook can lead to activism!

Coffee with a man leads to jail. Seriously? Yes. Seriously. Sister should look into filing some complaints for all the trouble she’s been put through. May Allah give her justice.

Muslim tennis sensation Sania Mirza is boycotting tournaments in her native India because the media gives her problems whenever she plays. Leave a sister alone!

A panel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia looks into drafting a code of protections for women’s rights in the workplace.

Two sisters are sentenced to be killed as a punishment for adultery. Here’s what you can do to help stop this.

A Muslim woman known as the “Mother Teresa of Bahrain” helps out Bahrain’s migrant laborers.

1 in 10 Algerian women are beaten daily, according to a study conducted by the Algerian Ministry for Family Affairs and the Status of Women.

Germany’s Asli Bayram will play Anne Frank in an upcoming play.

This is disgusting. “We starved your daughter and didn’t pay her for five years. Here’s a diamond necklace and some money. Hope you feel better.”

This is a little late, but this stuff is hard to track down! Bahrain aims to appoint female judges to Shari’a courts.

Iraqi officials have decided to allow female officers to carry guns. This reverses an earlier plan to disarm them and give their male colleagues the guns.

Kuwaiti academic Ibtehal al-Khatib receives hate mail and threats over articles she wrote in which she demands a separation of religion and politics, aiming condemnation for the 2006 war in Lebanon at Hezbollah.

An investigation by Scotland Yard concludes that Benazir Bhutto was killed by an injury sustained from the blast set off by a suicide bomber.

Sisters in Bulgaria try to keep their traditional marriage rites alive in small Muslim villages. Traditional weddings require that a bride’s face be paint
ed white and covered in sequins (picture below).