NEW DELHI, India, Jul 9 2021 (IPS)* – When Turkish- Norwegian writer and filmmaker Nefise Ozkal Lorentzen heard about Seyran Ates’ mixed gender mosque in Berlin, Germany, she immediately decided to make a film on Seyran’s life.
It took three years to produce the film, ‘Seyran Ates: Sex Revolution and Islam’ a portrait of a female Imam and her struggles in activating revolution within Islam.
In an interview given to me, Nefise says, “Gender” was the key concept in her quest into the mystery of Islam as a religion.
“Seyran Ates is a very powerful woman, but besides being powerful, she is so real, and I found that so fascinating. This film is a journey through Seyran’s life from her humble beginning as a Muslim girl in Turkey’s slums to a female leader daring to challenge her own religion.
“It took me some time to penetrate through the fortifications of bodyguard protections and the thick walls of media interest in her work and to really bring her into “our living room”.
9 July 2021 (openDemocracy)* — The UK government’s controversial new policing law will increase the unjust criminalisation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, Labour’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy has warned.
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The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which passed through the House of Commons this week, has been condemned by experts over the controversial new powers it gives to police and judges that would allow them to place restrictions on demonstrations and increase sentences for children.
The targets of the new 2030 Strategy of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) are in alignment with blue transformation, a pillar of FAO’s new Strategic Framework
The GFCM’s ambitious new 2030 Strategy will boost fisheries and aquaculture in the Black Sea and Mediterranean region.
ROME (FAO)* – An ambitious commitment adopted 9 July 2021 by 22 countries plus the European Union aims to secure a sustainable future for fisheries and aquaculture in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
9 July 2021 — Ten years ago, on July 9, 2011, South Sudan gained its long-fought independence from Sudan. Since then, the new country descended into a bloody seven-year civil war, and while a peace deal was inked by warring parties in 2018, fighting between communities, as well as government human rights abuses, rage on.
Cox’s Bazar (IOM)* – Almost 900,000 Rohingya refugees in congested camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar District desperately need urgent action to secure their future, nearly four years after they were forced to flee Myanmar, a senior International Organization for Migration (IOM) official said.
(UN News)* — Nearly a third of all children in Haiti – numbering around 1.5 million – are in urgent need of emergency relief due to rising violence, insufficient access to clean water, health and nutrition, said the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF on 9 July 2021.
It took three years to produce the film, ‘Seyran Ates: Sex Revolution and Islam’ a portrait of a female Imam and her struggles in activating revolution within Islam.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 