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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 July 2000 Issue No. 489 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 July 2000 Issue No. 489
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Focus International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Kuwaiti women fight on
KUWAIT's highest tribunal, on Tuesday, rejected a plea by women for full political rights. The Constitutional Court, whose verdicts are final, upheld an electoral law that denies women the right to vote. With this decision, four legal cases were dismissed. All the cases were filed by women.The Constitutional Court's rejection of the cases was based on procedural flaws. However, activists and lawyers said a fifth case brought by Adnan Al-Issa, a Kuwaiti man, could meet all the procedural requirements to produce a more substantive ruling. It will be heard in September.
Kuwaiti women activists are determined to bring new cases before the courts. Rola Al-Dashti, a 36-year-old Kuwaiti woman with a doctorate in economics from the United States, said her legal team was preparing a new case which would be presented to the courts next week. She is demanding the nullification of a parliamentary vote that denied women voting rights.
"This is not over ... every February we will register on voter lists and will come back here to file new cases if we are denied the right to participate in the political process. We are learning the procedures and how it is done and will keep after our rights," said Dashti.
In February, Kuwaiti women started filing numerous court cases after being banned from registering on voters' lists. Last November, tribal and Islamist deputies in the all-male parliament twice narrowly killed laws -- including a decree by the country's ruler, Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah -- that would have granted women full political rights.
Kuwaiti women make up almost 30 per cent of Kuwait's working force. The next parliamentary and municipal elections will be held in 2003.
Iraq-Syria rapprochement
AFTER talks with Syrian president-designate Bashar Al-Assad on Sunday, Iraq's Foreign Minister Mohamed Said Al-Sahaf said that Syria had an important role to play in lifting the decade-old embargo on Baghdad. Sahaf was in Damascus for the second time since 25 June. On his first visit, Sahaf and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Al-Shara discussed mending bridges between the two countries.Syria and Iraq, which are governed by rival wings of the Baath Party, severed ties in 1980. Syria backed Iran in its 1980-88 war with Iraq and participated in the international US-led coalition that ousted Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.
The first steps toward a rapprochement occurred in 1997. Borders were opened for trade and, in March, Baghdad opened an "interest section" in Damascus. In 1998, Syria and Iraq signed a deal to reopen the pipeline connecting the Kirkuk oil field in the north of Iraq with the Syrian port of Banias on the Mediterranean. The pipeline had been closed since 1982.
At the 13 June funeral of Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad, Iraqi Vice-President Taha Mohieddin Maaruf represented his country. He was the highest-ranking Iraqi official to visit Syria since the breaking of ties.
