Iranians Converge in New York to Protest Ahmadinejad Visit - washingtonpost.com

By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 24, 2009

NEW YORK, Sept. 23 -- Turaj Zaim woke up Wednesday in a Days Inn in Queens and took a cab to the United Nations, determined to meet Iran's leader. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was scheduled to address the General Assembly in the afternoon, and Zaim, a lanky, blue-eyed hip-hop artist, wanted to talk to him face to face.

"I want to ask him why they held my father for 90 days," said the 33-year-old, who had flown in the night before from San Francisco. His father, a democracy activist in Iran, was arrested in June as Iranians took to the streets to protest a disputed presidential election.

The streets of Midtown Manhattan were filled with other Iranians who had traveled to New York to protest Ahmadinejad's presence. Some had demonstrated there against the shah three decades ago. Some said they, too, hoped to get the president's attention. They staged a sound-and-light show Tuesday night in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, projecting images of Iranian unrest on the white T-shirts of volunteers and declaring, "Ahmadinejad is not my president." They sang songs Wednesday outside Iran's U.N. mission and marched with green banners -- the Iranian opposition's signature color -- as close as they could get to where he would be speaking.

Along the way, there were whispers. Did you hear he's been kicked out of two hotels? Do you know where he's staying?

When the Iranian president comes to the United Nations each year, he often meets with handpicked guests, including American academics and Iranian expatriates. But this year, many who were accustomed to receiving invitations didn't get them. Others who did declined in protest.

It was hard to find anyone in the crowd who knew anyone attending, but some said they had moles.

"We have people that are in the U.N. who are keeping us apprised. And there are also people who work in New York City hotels who will tip people off," said Sheida Jafari, a protest organizer. The organizers had been bombarded by messages in recent days from all over the world, including Iran. "They say, 'Why don't you barricade this door or that door or attack his motorcade?' " Jafari said, adding that the organizers did not promote such actions. "They have a lot of anger, but we want to focus on human rights rather than espionage."

Most protesters appeared more intent on raising awareness than raising hackles. Zaim spoke at a rally about his recent hunger strike, which ended Sunday when his father was released on bail. Zaim had left Iran at age 6, crossing the mountains with his mother into Turkey.

As the day progressed, the crowd grew larger. One group had cycled in from Toronto; several had flown in from Iran. "We hear they didn't give him a room," said Hassan Alizadeh, 38, who had come from Iran and planned to bike to Washington, Charlotte and Atlanta in protest. Over the summer, he had taken part in the demonstrations in Iran. "We asked, 'Where's our vote?' and they answered us with tear gas and batons."

Ali Reza Sadr, a 30-year-old dentist, had flown in from Tokyo on Tuesday. He said he had hoped to move back to Iran but now had no intention of returning.

"We're all displaced," he said. "If I had a chance to meet Ahmadinejad, I would say to him, 'You don't deserve to be Iran's president, because you are a cheat and a liar.' "

Some wanted to go further.

"If I see him, I'm going to throw my shoe, minimum," said Vahid Nasir, a real estate agent from Los Angeles. Nasir also planned to serve Ahmadinejad with a summons to appear in court and answer charges of human rights violations.

The atmosphere across from the U.N. building was festive, with songs and speeches. Around 5, when Ahmadinejad was scheduled to give his speech, a man ran over and pulled Zaim and his friends toward a barricade. Zaim whipped out his phone. "I just heard that Ahmadinejad is going to walk by here," he said excitedly.

A motorcade passed. The protesters yelled. But there was no sign of the Iranian president. The crowd buzzed with new information. Ahmadinejad was meeting with a group of students at the Intercontinental Hotel two blocks away.

"I want to get there before anyone else," Zaim said, striding off with two friends in tow. "I believe, because of the kind of guy he is -- he's kind of cocky -- if I can get a message to him, he might talk to me."

At the hotel doors, he ran into a wall of security. One by one, he asked the guards politely whether he could meet Ahmadinejad.

"No," said a man in a police uniform.

"They don't have any vacancies," said a man in a blue blazer.

A Dutch diplomat smoking on the sidewalk said he had seen some men in the hotel who looked Iranian, but he didn't know where they had gone.

Finally, Intercontinental's global director of security, Brad Bonnell, took Zaim's business card and promised to pass it on to the Secret Service.

"Yes!" Zaim crowed as Bonnell walked away. "Where there's a will, there's a way. I hope I don't get roughed up." A few minutes later, Bonnell returned. "I told them you're here," he said. With 500 students waiting inside to talk with Ahmadinejad, he doubted Zaim would get in.

A Secret Service man came out. Had Zaim tried making a request through the mission?

He had not.

"You want to go straight to the top?"

"Man to man," Zaim said.

More Secret Service agents came out.

"I mean no harm," Zaim told them. "I think he is the type of guy who would want to talk to me if he had the time."

Night fell. Protesters gathered across the street and started chanting. The Secret Service agents told Zaim they could not facilitate a meeting. Zaim understood. He shook the agents' hands. If the Iranian president was too busy tonight, he said, his number was on the card. Ahmadinejad could phone him.

Iranian Nuclear Scientists Willing to Meet With International Experts - washingtonpost.com

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 24, 2009

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 -- Iran is willing to have its nuclear experts meet with scientists from the United States and other world powers as a confidence-building measure aimed at resolving concerns about Tehran's nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday.

At international talks next week on its nuclear ambitions, Iran also will seek to buy from the United States enriched uranium needed for medical purposes, Ahmadinejad told reporters and editors from The Washington Post and Newsweek. Agreement by the Americans, he suggested, would demonstrate that the Obama administration is serious about engagement, while rejection might give Iran an excuse to further enrich its stock of uranium.

"These nuclear materials we are seeking to purchase are for medicinal purposes. . . . It is a humanitarian issue," Ahmadinejad said in the interview. "I think this is a very solid proposal which gives a good opportunity for a start" to build trust between the two countries and "engage in cooperation."

Nuclear research reactors are used to create radioactive isotopes for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The Iranian president said that about 20 medical products are created at a reactor in Tehran but that more fuel is needed.

Ahmadinejad made his proposal against the backdrop of increasingly urgent efforts by the United States and other major powers to prod Iran to fully disclose its nuclear program or face stricter sanctions. On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday discussed the possibility of what Obama called "serious, additional sanctions," while France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, told French television that the "dialogue is achieving nothing. There will be a timeline, a date limit. In my mind, it's the month of December."

Medvedev, echoing a statement he made last week, said: "Russia's position is simple: Sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable."

On Oct. 1, a senior Iranian diplomat will meet counterparts from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in Geneva to discuss the nuclear program, and Ahmadinejad said he will bring the new proposal. In a meeting Wednesday evening at the United Nations, foreign ministers and senior officials from the six countries met to plot strategy for the session.

"We expect a serious response from Iran" and will decide on "next steps" if it is not forthcoming, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a statement approved by the six nations.

Obama singled out Iran and North Korea as nuclear outliers in his speech before the General Assembly on Wednesday. "If they are oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms races in both East Asia and the Middle East, then they must be held accountable," he said as Ahmadinejad sat in the fifth row of the chamber. "The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced. We must insist that the future does not belong to fear."

Iran's medical reactor was supplied by the United States during the shah's rule. But according to David Albright, a former weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, Iran received additional uranium only from Argentina after the 1979 revolution. Argentina cut off those supplies sometime in the 1980s.

Albright said Iran's latest move is "clever" because there is "implied blackmail" behind the idea. If the material is not supplied, Iran could announce that it has no choice but to make the material, which is nearly 20 percent enriched; the material Iran is now producing is 3 to 5 percent enriched and suitable only for energy purposes. Allowing Iran to purchase the new material would require a waiver of international sanctions.

While weapons-grade material is more than 90 percent enriched, making material for the medical reactor could put Iran on the next step to reaching that level.

Albright said the proposal to make Iran's nuclear experts available to answer questions from international scientists is also potentially significant because Iran has not previously allowed such a meeting, even in an unofficial setting.

U.S. officials declined to comment on the proposal. The Iranian president did not mention the proposal during a speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday night; instead, he spent much of the address ranting against Israel and capitalism. Many diplomats, including those from the United States, left the chamber.

In the one-hour interview, Ahmadinejad appeared relaxed and confident, frequently bantering with and challenging the interviewers as he spoke through an interpreter. He also talked in detail about various technical reports on Iran's nuclear programs by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

He insisted that Iran has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons but did not directly answer whether his government would pledge never to acquire them. "We fundamentally believe nuclear bombs are the wrong thing to have," he said.

He also asserted that the attention focused on Iran's uranium enrichment is misplaced, because, he said, it is only for electricity and cannot be used for bombs. "Don't you think it is hilarious to say that it is potentially dangerous for Iran to possess one nuclear warhead for the whole world, but that the fact that the United States possesses 10,000 of them poses no threat whatsoever?" he jibed.

Ahmadinejad expressed some hope for a change in relations with the United States with the election of Obama, but he warned that the new administration should not simply repackage old proposals with new language.

"Cosmetic or superficial changes will not be able to resolve any of the problems we face today. It will only complicate them," he said.

"We hope Mr. Obama is seeking real change," he added. "We are of the belief that if he decides he will at least be able to change at least a segment of the changes he had his mind set on. And we are willing to help bring about those changes."

At that point in the interview, Ahmadinejad announced Iran's readiness to purchase nuclear material from the United States and to have its nuclear experts hash out issues with other experts. "Why not just let them sit and talk and see what kind of capacity they can build? I think it is good thing to happen," he said.

When the subject turned to the war in Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad seemed almost to gloat about the dilemma facing the United States.

"Everyone knows that NATO is close to final defeat in Afghanistan," he said. "We could just stay silent about it and be an onlooker because at the end of the day, some NATO states happen to be our enemies. So we can be happy they are getting defeated there. But we are not happy. It saddens us."

But, he said, "we are ready to assist, provided, though, that the policies being pursued change. . . . Afghanistan does not have a military solution to it."

Ahmadinejad expounded at some length about the sad history of foreign invaders in Afghanistan. When it was pointed out to him that more than 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he shrugged.

"Have they managed to sort of reappear and be alive again after the crimes that were carried out in Afghanistan?" he said. "Not only that, but tens of thousands after have been killed as a result. You cannot wash blood with blood."

Staff writer Colum Lynch contributed to this report.

Asian Universities Court International Students Within the Region - NYTimes.com

By LIZ GOOCH

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Attending a university overseas has long been an aspiration for many Chinese.

“My father said: ‘Why do you want to stay in China? Open your mind, look at the world,’ ” said Bao Qianqian, a 25-year-old woman from the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo.

The predictable choices for her might have been Australia and Britain, countries where her two sisters and thousands of other Chinese students have studied. But Ms. Bao decided on a destination that would keep her closer to home and cost substantially less, while giving her the chance to improve her English and converse with Chinese speakers. She chose Malaysia, where she is a third-year business student at HELP University College.

With the appetite for higher education showing no signs of abating among the growing Asian middle class, some Asian countries are seeking to attract more students like Ms. Bao.

In 2007, more than 2.8 million students were enrolled in institutions of higher education outside their home country, a 53 percent increase from 1999, according to a Unesco report released in July. The United States, Britain and other Western countries continue to draw the most Asian students, but the report showed that Asians were increasingly attending Asian universities.

In East Asia and the Pacific, 42 percent of students who left home remained in their region in 2007, according to the 2009 edition of Unesco’s Global Education Digest.

Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong all want to attract thousands more international students. Malaysia wants 100,000 foreign students by the next academic year, compared with the current 71,000. Singapore hopes to have 150,000 by 2015, up from 97,000 in 2008. Hong Kong has not set specific targets, but recently doubled its quota for nonlocal students in its public universities.

All three are trying to capitalize on being able to offer a university education in English, and for considerably less than what many Western institutions charge, but each has its own selling points.

Singapore, which has only three public universities, has made attracting the involvement of foreign institutions central to its “Global Schoolhouse” policy. Some institutions, like the University of Nevada and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, have established branch campuses in Singapore, and others, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford, offer joint degree programs through local universities.

Toh Wee Khiang, executive director for human capital at the Singapore Economic Development Board, said the government aimed not only to attract and develop talent, but also to retain it. “The war for talent is at the heart of economic growth, and education plays an important part in creating and sustaining talent in Singapore,” he said, adding that another government agency was linking graduating students with Singaporean employers in key growth industries.

Although Malaysia’s schools are not well known internationally, the government liberalized its education sector in the 1990s, allowing the establishment of more private institutions, and the number of schools has since expanded to 20 public universities, 36 private universities and 5 foreign branch campuses.

Morshidi Sirat, director of the National Higher Education Research Institute at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, said that now that more Malaysians of Chinese and Indian ethnicity could enroll in public universities, as a result of the removal in 2004 of a quota system that favored ethnic Malays and indigenous groups, the local enrollments at private institutions had dipped. Those universities have been trying to attract more foreigners to take their place, he said.

Hong Kong may be better positioned to attract international students, with three of its institutions ranked among the world’s top 50 universities in the Times Higher Education rankings for 2008, an annual list from a magazine published in London. Still, in part because of a quota on nonlocal students at public universities, Hong Kong enrolled only about 8,400 nonlocal students in the 2008-09 academic year, more than 90 percent of them from mainland China.

Currently, Malaysia may have an edge among price-conscious students; Mr. Sirat, of the research institute, identified Thailand and Vietnam as future low-cost contenders. Japan has also been admitting large numbers of Chinese and South Korean students, as its domestic enrollments have declined.

“There are more suppliers coming into the industry,” said Chris Nyland, a professor of international business at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, “but there are more and more people in China and India who can afford higher education.”

Despite the best efforts of universities around the region, their success may be influenced by factors beyond their immediate control. Education researchers say that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the subsequent tightening of United States visa rules, some students began looking for alternatives. Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation, was among the countries to benefit.

Visit by Top Burmese Official Signals Softening of U.S. Policy - washingtonpost.com

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

For the first time in nine years, the United States allowed Burma's foreign minister to come to Washington, a sign of softening U.S. policy toward the military junta that has run that Asian nation for nearly five decades.

Maj. Gen. Nyan Win quietly arrived in Washington on Friday night and left the next day after meetings with Burmese Embassy staffers, a U.S.-Asian business council and Sen. James Webb, the Virginia Democrat who has advocated closer ties to the junta, according to Kyaw Win, an embassy spokesman. The foreign minister also took in some sightseeing, visiting the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. A State Department spokesman said Nyan Win did not meet with administration officials.

The main goal of the trip was to evaluate the Burmese Embassy, which needs repairs, Kyaw Win said. "The approval is a good sign though," he said. "We didn't get permission for many years."

Nyan Win's 24-hour sojourn appears to be part of a new policy by the Obama administration toward Burma, said officials and sources familiar with the trip. The policy encourages U.S. officials to engage the government of Burma, also known as Myanmar, on a higher level.

To that end, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is scheduled to attend a meeting of the Group of Friends of Burma, established by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, on Wednesday. In addition, Burma's prime minister, Gen. Thein Sein, will appear at the ongoing U.N. General Assembly, making him the most senior junta member to attend the annual gathering since the nation's second-in-command did so in 1995. He is expected to meet there with Kurt M. Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, according to a source briefed by U.S. officials.

U.S. policy toward Burma has been under review for nine months; American officials met Friday to iron out the final details, and the results are expected to be announced soon.

U.S. officials and other sources said the Obama administration decided that economic sanctions first imposed on the junta in the 1990s will not be lifted but will not be tightened either. More humanitarian aid may be approved, too. Administration officials would not comment on the possible changes.

The United States had been considering bolder moves, including resuming military-to-military relations and counter-narcotics cooperation, according to a Senate source familiar with the administration's deliberations. But earlier this year the junta again arrested and convicted opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on security charges, sentencing her to an additional 18 months of house arrest. Most international observers view the sentence as a way to keep the Nobel Peace Prize winner off the campaign trail during next year's elections. Suu Kyi has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years and the junta is committed to avoiding a repeat of 1990, when her party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory.

The charges against Suu Kyi stemmed from an incident in May, in which an American, John W. Yettaw, swam to her lakeside home in Rangoon and stayed there for two days. Yettaw said that he had a vision that Suu Kyi was to be killed by terrorists and that he wanted to warn her. He was detained and later deported after Webb visited Burma in August and secured his release.

Burma recently launched a charm offensive in what some officials call an attempt to improve ties with the West. Over the past two weeks, The junta has released 119 political prisoners out of an estimated 2,000.

Since the late 1990s, as part of the sanctions, Burmese officials have been banned from traveling to the United States and the European Union except to attend meetings of international organizations such as the United Nations. Under the 2003 Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, the White House needs to approve a waiver to allow Burmese officials attending the U.N. General Assembly to travel more than 25 miles out of New York.

In Pakistan's Swat Valley, an Eid Tempered by Recent Dangers - washingtonpost.com

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

MINGORA, Pakistan -- Girls in bright dresses pushed each other on swings, and boys in pastel tunics played soldier with toy rifles. Neighbors hugged, families gathered and vendors sold scoop after scoop of sweet custard.

This week is the first time in three years that people in Pakistan's Swat Valley have been able to celebrate Eid al-Fitr -- the joyous three-day festival that follows the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and its daily fasting -- without looking anxiously over their shoulders for armed religious vigilantes in pickup trucks.

But the Taliban-free holiday has been bittersweet for many Swatis, still shellshocked from the summer-long army operation that drove the Islamist militants from this verdant northwest valley but also left a path of death and destruction and sent hundreds of thousands of inhabitants fleeing for their lives.

"It doesn't really feel like Eid, because we cannot forget so soon," said Sadiq Khan, a fruit seller in the town of Batkhela. "They are still finding bodies in the Swat River. We had to spend weeks in those hot tents, and some of our women had to give birth on the road as we ran from the fighting. There is too much sorrow and shame for us to celebrate."

Two months after the Pakistani army declared that people could return home from their makeshift camps and lodgings, Swat still looks like a war zone. In towns and villages leading to this regional center, dozens of buildings lie in ruins. Some were schools destroyed by the militants; others were homes and shops blasted by army shelling.

The main road through the valley winds past peach orchards, rice paddies and fragrant eucalyptus groves. But drivers must navigate a succession of military barricades concocted from boulders, trees, car parts and iron pipes. Every few miles, soldiers flag down long lines of vehicles, peer inside and check each passenger's face against photos of fugitive Taliban leaders.

Although there is no visible sign of the armed and turbaned militants who once freely roamed Swat, enforcing Islamic laws and meting out punishment to miscreants, the specter of the Taliban hovers close. Three weeks ago, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a police training center here, killing 16 recruits.

Although the 7 p.m.-to-11 a.m. army curfew has been briefly lifted for Eid, few people go out after dark and most shops remain closed until midmorning.

"There is less fear now, but people are still worried the militants will come back, so they don't feel completely free," said Shah Zia ul Haq, 40, a shop owner in Balogram whose house was partly destroyed by army shelling. "My family is still in mourning because my brother was killed when he went outside after curfew one night. We still don't know what happened to him in the dark."

The enjoyment of Eid here was also marred by a political and religious dispute over exactly when the holiday began and people could end their month of daily 15-hour fasts. Officially, Eid is declared when a national committee of Islamic scholars announces that the new moon has been sighted. But local committees in the northwest -- led by conservative clerics aligned with Afghan and Saudi religious practices -- strove to prove the moon had appeared sooner.

As a result, Swatis who obeyed the local mullahs broke their Ramadan fast on Sunday and began celebrating; others remained fasting until the government declared Eid on Monday, leading to awkward social situations, semi-opened markets and general annoyance.

"Everything is confused," said Noor Rehman, a butcher in Batkhela, where many shops were closed Monday. "Some mosques announced it was Eid yesterday, but others said we should still fast. It is because the government is too weak. We need to have one Eid to unify the country."

During three years of Taliban control here, Eid began whenever the militants said so. But their arbitrary behavior took far more abusive forms, which Swatis remember vividly. People recounted how militants bombed a girls school, dragged hashish addicts off to be whipped, beheaded a government clerk as a spy, and beat a couple who ventured outdoors and could not convince the stern moral vigilantes that they were married.

In Mingora, a once-thriving town full of banks and colleges that became Taliban headquarters, people said they dreaded passing a certain traffic circle where each morning the militants left dead bodies, often with notes pinned to them warning that no one should touch or remove the corpses for a certain number of days or hours. No one dared disobey.

"Sometimes they had no heads," said Rozi Khan, 50, a cobbler bent over a sole-less leather shoe at his customary sidewalk spot, half a block from the notorious circle. "Whenever I saw a body, I just put away my tools and went home," he said. "Things were tense all the time, and there were few customers anyway."

The atmosphere of this post-Taliban Eid in Mingora was a mix of muted celebration, religious contemplation and reemerging commercial freedom. Many shops remained closed, but Indian movie posters were back up on the walls, and young men browsed through racks of pop-music CDs where just a few months ago only recordings of Islamic chants were sold.

At the Saidu Baba Shrine, a famed sanctuary of cool white marble, a steady stream of men and boys entered all day. They knelt to wash in a stone trough of running, ice-cold spring water, then knelt again to say their Eid prayers.

A white-bearded man outside the shrine recalled the days when Swat was peaceful and full of foreign tourists who came to see its ancient Buddhist ruins, climb its green craggy hills and enjoy its bracing alpine air. He also mentioned proudly that England's Queen Elizabeth II had visited in the 1950s.

"That all seems like a dream now, like rocking on a swing with your eyes closed," said the man, a retired police officer named Sherzada. "We tell our young people about those times, but they don't believe us. I worry that our new generation has been so psychologically damaged by all this violence and disturbance that they will never be the same."

Just down the hill from the shrine, a dozen adolescent boys in new yellow and blue tunics were playing in an old cemetery. As they hid behind the jagged gravestones and jumped out in ambush, each brandished a plastic, Taliban-style assault rifle -- the hottest-selling gift item in Swat this Eid.

Special correspondent Haq Nawaz Khan contributed to this report.

Violence Feared With Overthrown President Back in Honduras - washingtonpost.com

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

In a battle of wills that threatened to explode into bloodshed, the two men who claim to be leader of Honduras both insisted Tuesday that they would not back down, as soldiers in the country's capital fired tear gas to disperse supporters of the leftist president who made a dramatic return three months after being flown into exile by the military.

The de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, said in an interview that he would not cede his office to Manuel Zelaya, the president who was ousted because of what the country's Supreme Court viewed as his efforts to stay in power beyond the one-term limit. Zelaya is now holed up in the Brazilian Embassy.

Still, as U.S. and Latin American diplomats worked feverishly to defuse the crisis, the de facto president acknowledged that unofficial contacts had been established between his side and the Zelaya camp.

"We are content this is going on," Micheletti said from the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. He said, however, that he would not accept "impositions" from those close to Zelaya.

The coup in small, impoverished Honduras has brought unified condemnation from a hemisphere determined to prevent a return to the military takeovers of the past. But Honduras's neighbors -- and its most important trading partner, the United States -- have appeared impotent in the face of the crisis.

On Tuesday, Honduran soldiers used truncheons, water cannons and tear gas to disperse thousands of Zelaya supporters outside the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, according to news reports from the country. Zelaya, who was inside with about 70 friends and relatives, told reporters, "We are ready to risk everything, to sacrifice."

He had suddenly appeared in the capital a day earlier, after a secret 15-hour trip through the country. Police and soldiers quickly swarmed the area around the embassy, raising fears of violence.

"Given the reports we have received, and the poor track record of the security forces since the coup, we fear that conditions could deteriorate drastically in the coming days," Jos? Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The U.S. government appealed to both sides to remain calm and urged Micheletti's government to respect the Brazilian diplomatic premises, which it agreed to do. U.S. diplomats in Washington and at the United Nations -- including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- met with Latin American diplomats to try to resolve the crisis.

"The fact is, Zelaya is there. . . . We have to now try to take advantage of the facts as we find them," said one U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He said that the United States and other governments were urging talks between Zelaya and Micheletti and that there were "initial feelers" between the two sides.

Asked if he was willing to negotiate with Zelaya, Micheletti said in the interview that he would impose conditions: "We want to hear from Mr. Zelaya first, before negotiations, that he's ready to accept the elections on the 29th of November, that he's ready to support the next government."

Zelaya has said he will not recognize the presidential election unless he is allowed to return to power, as envisioned under the "San Jose accord," which was brokered in U.S.-backed talks this summer in Costa Rica's capital. Under the pact, Zelaya would be allowed to conclude his term as scheduled in January, but his powers would be reduced and the election would be moved up by a month. Zelaya has said he is willing to sign the accord, but Micheletti has refrained.

The de facto leader said he did not trust that Zelaya would leave office as scheduled. He also said officials had discovered numerous cases of corruption linked with Zelaya. Under the San Jose accord, amnesty would be granted to people on both sides for political crimes.

But Micheletti made clear he did not envision amnesty for Zelaya.

"We have laws in the country. If he presents himself to the authorities, the courts, I think he's going to have a fair trial," Micheletti said.

Webb Sets Hearing on U.S. Policy Toward Myanmar

Senate Foreign Relations East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee Chairman Jim Webb (D-VA) has announced in a press release a hearing on United States policy toward Myanmar (Burma).

On Thursday, October 1 at 10:00am, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) will chair a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, entitled “U.S. Policy toward Burma: Its Impact and Effectiveness.” Webb serves as chairman of the Subcommittee.

Senator Webb intends the comprehensive hearing to evaluate the effectiveness of U.S. policy toward Burma. It will examine Burma’s current economic and political situation and discuss how the country’s long history of internal turmoil and ethnic conflicts has affected the development of democracy. In addition, it will review the current policy of U.S.-imposed economic sanctions unmatched by many other countries, discuss what role the United States can and should play in promoting democratic reform in Burma, and hear testimony on how to frame a new direction for U.S.-Burma relations.

The Burmese military authority has continued arresting Arakanese youth and students on Monday

Arrests Continue in Arakan

9/23/2009
Sittwe: The Burmese military authority has continued arresting Arakanese youth and students on Monday, with the number arrested reaching 16 after a youth from Buthidaung Township in northern Arakan was taken into custody on Monday.

21-year-old Maung Naing Soe, the son of U Maung Tha Pru from Nyung Chaung Village in Buthidaung Township was arrested by officers from Special Police Force No. 2 in Rangoon.

A relative of the youth told Narinjara over the phone that a special force police officer from Rangoon came to the village of Nyung Chaung and arrested him with the help of local police.

Afterwards, Maung Naing Soe was taken to Buthidaung and detained at the police lock-up there.

According to the source, the youth will be brought on Tuesday from Buthidaung to Rangoon where at least ten Arakanese youth have been detained since the first week of this month. The Burmese special police force has arrested many Arakanese youth in Rangoon and Arakan State since early this month on suspicion that they have connections with exiled Arakanese student groups based on the Thai-Burma border.

On 7 September, special police forces arrested seven Arakanese youth and students from Layden Ward near the former University of Rangoon Art and Science in a raid of a hostel where they were living.

The youth and students were identified as Ko Tun Lin, Ko Kyaw Zaw Oo, Ko Kyaw Win, Ko Khin Maung Htay, Ko Kyaw San Hlaing, Ko Zaw Tun Oo, along with one other unidentified youth. All are from Arakan State and some of them are college graduates.

On 13 September, special police forces arrested another four youths in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State. Those youth are Htoo Htoo Chay, Khing Moe Zaw, Kalur Chay, and Maung Thu.

Among them, Htoo Htoo Chay is a son of well-known businessman U Kyaw Thein, who is known by local Arakanese people as Kiss Kyaw Thein. Htoo Htoo Chay is also a singer and owner of the Kiss Internet Cafe in Sittwe. A student from Sittwe said a police team raided his internet cafe and seized many documents from the shop after he was arrested.

On 15 September, two youths from Mrauk U, the ancient city of Arakan, were arrested by Special Police Force No. 2 in their town and were brought to Rangoon for interrogation.

On 19 September, Ko Aung Moe Zaw and another unidentified student, both from Ponna Kyunt 20 miles north of Sittwe, were arrested by special police forces.

A lawyer from Sittwe confirmed the arrest and said that all the youths will be brought to Rangoon for interrogation because the case is being investigated by police there.

Because authorities have been arresting Arakanese youth and activists in Arakan, many other youth and students have gone into hiding to avoid arrest themselves.

It has also been learned that a youth who had been working at the Thai-Burma border revealed the inside networks of the All Arakan Student’s and Youth Congress to the Burmese military junta after he surrendered and was taken into custody. The arrests began shortly thereafter.

Narinjara

Alarm bells in Malaysia over club spreading polygamy

by Indo Asian News Service on September 23, 2009

Kuala Lumpur, Sep 23 (IANS) Emergence of a club that advocates polygamy has set alarm bells ringing in Malaysia where the top clergy sees it as a ‘front’ for an armed outfit that preached ‘deviant’ Islam till it was banned in 1994.

Ikhwan Polygamy Club urges all Muslim women to keep an open mind about polygamous marriages.

‘Polygamy is the most practical approach, an effective cure to a woman’s desire,’ says Hatija Aam, second wife of Ashari Mohammed, who was also one of the leaders of the former Al-Arqam that was banned for being a cult preaching ‘deviation’ in Islamic practices.

She proposes polygamy ‘as an alternative to those who practise free sex’ and also invites prostitutes to join the movement since it wants to ‘free everyone’.

Polygamy is permitted for Muslims who are the majority population in Malaysia, but it remains a subject of animated debate.

Opened last month, the club is managed by Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd, a corporate body.

Its emergence, however, is viewed by the government as an attempt to revive the banned outfit.

Islamic Development Department (Jakim) director general Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz said it was founder Ashari Mohammed’s ‘modus operandi to use a front in an attempt to breathe new life into the proscribed deviant sect’.

‘We view the existence of the club as proof of Ashari’s Al-Arqam.

‘Believers of the ajaran sesat (deviant teachings) feel they need continuity so they are trying everything to get new members,’ he told the New Straits Times Wednesday.

‘The name and the packaging may be different, but the people leading it are the same ones behind the banned Al-Arqam movement,’ Zabidi Mohammed, a former legal advisor of the banned Al-Arqam told The Star newspaper .

He said the home ministry and the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) should embark on a pro-active stance to curb the club’s activities before things get out of control.

Ashari, who is referred to as Abuya (father in Arabic), founded Al-Arqam in 1969.

At its height in the 1990s, the Al-Arqam, with 10,000 members globally, was likened to the communist threats that Malaysia eliminated in the 1960s.

The government banned it in October 1994 with the National Fatwa Council issuing a fatwa against Al-Arqam for its deviant teachings.

Extolling on the virtues of polygamy, Hatija Aam told New Straits Times that this was ‘because a woman had nine nafsu (internal desires) and one intellect whereas men had nine intellect and only one nafsu.

‘When women are upset, they make a lot of noise, but men don’t. The emotional nature of women makes them broadcast their problems. They rant and rave.

‘Because this is their character, God allowed polygamy to challenge women to control their desires,’ said Hatija.

‘A woman when left to her desires becomes very dangerous like a tiger. In fact, even fiercer than that. If the world is left to women, we will be open to continuous war.’

Polygamy, said Hatija, would ensure that women were not controlled by their nafsu.

‘When I feel sad that my husband is with another wife, he (my husband) will remind me that the pain God bestows upon us is a way to eradicate our sins.

‘The husband is the leader who saves women from being consumed by their desires. There is a verse in the Quran which says that if the nafsu are not controlled, then ‘nafsu itu akan menjadi Tuhan’ (the desires will become God),’ she warned.

Ashari has 38 children, eight of them with Hatija. Twenty-three of the children are in polygamous marriages.

Malaysia: Don’t Censor or Harass Independent Website - Human Rights Watch

September 22, 2009

Related Materials:

Malaysia: End Intimidation of News Website

Malaysia: End Ban on Opposition Papers

The government’s investigation of Malaysiakini is nothing short of media harassment and it needs to stop.

Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch

(New York) - The Malaysian government should drop its order to a popular news website to remove videos of a recent protest and of a government minister's reaction, Human Rights Watch said today.

The website Malaysiakini has refused to comply with a September 3, 2009 order by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission to remove a video showing an incident where protesters in Selangor state marched with a severed cow's head to oppose the building of a Hindu temple and another in which the home minister stated that the actions were legal. The minister later reversed himself and police charged some of the protesters.

"The government wants to make the problem disappear by taking the videos off the internet," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "But Malaysians have a right to see for themselves what happened and hear what was said - the government shouldn't be suppressing this information."

According to the Communication and Multimedia Commission, the videos are in violation of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998, which prohibits "content which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person." Violations carry fines of up to RM50,000 (US$14,325) and up to a year in prison.

The commission's letter ordering Malaysiakini to remove the videos from its website stated that the videos "contain offensive contents with the intent to annoy any person, especially Indians."

One of the videos, "Temple demo: Residents march with cow's head," taken on August 28, 2009, shows Muslim Malay residents protesting plans to relocate Sri Maha Mariamman Hindu temple to their neighborhood. About 50 people, including several carrying a bloody cow's head, march 300 meters from the state mosque in Selangor to the state secretariat building.

At the state building, the protesters presented their demands and threatened violence against the Hindu community and the Selangor government if the relocation went forward. Some marchers spat on and stomped on the head, an act clearly aimed at Hindus, who regard cows as sacred. The organizers had not requested a permit as required by Malaysia's Police Act. Police monitoring the event made no move to intervene.

The second video, "Hisham: Don't blame cow-head protesters," recorded Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein's news conference on September 2, exonerating the protesters of any wrongdoing. He said: "All they wanted was to voice their unhappiness and the unwillingness of the state government to consider their request. ... This day and age, protests should be accepted in this world as people want their voices to be heard. If we don't give them room to voice their opinions, they have no choice but to protest."

Responding to a domestic outcry, Hishammuddin on September 3 reversed his position and ordered a further police investigation and "uncompromising punishment" of the protesters. On September 9, police charged 12 participants with illegal assembly. Six of the 12 were also charged with sedition and face fines of up to RM5,000 (US$1,430) and up to three years in prison.

"It's time for the government to stop using sedition charges against protesters and to consistently uphold free expression," said Pearson.

Malaysiakini has refused to remove the videos. The editor-in chief, Steven Gan, told the media: "Our intent ... was not to ‘annoy,' but to do our job as journalists to draw attention to the protest and to ensure action is taken so that incidents like this will not happen again in Malaysia."

The commission has embarked on a thorough investigation of Malaysiakini. Over a three-day period, eight commission staffers, acting in teams, extensively questioned the chief executive officer, Premesh Chandran, as well as editors, reporters, the video team, and technical support staff. Gan was questioned separately. Investigators also copied parts of the hard disks from two computers that edit and upload videos, and demanded the original tapes.

This is not the first time that Malaysiakini reporting has resulted in a heavy-handed response by government officials. In 2003 the government carried out a 10-month investigation of the news site for posting a letter to the editor criticizing the government (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2003/10/07/malaysia-end-intimidation-news-website ). In June 2009, the government temporarily banned Malaysiakini journalists and other critical media from entering parliament.

"The government's investigation of Malaysiakini is nothing short of media harassment and it needs to stop," said Pearson. "Malaysians are entitled to know all sides of a story. It is not up to the government to approve what news is fit to air, print, or post."

Reuters AlertNet - Mindanao food security still a challenge, says WFP

22 Sep 2009 11:23:56 GMT

Source: IRIN

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

MANILA, 22 September 2009 (IRIN) - Food security will continue to remain a key concern for thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) on the southern island of Mindanao, despite moves towards possible peace talks, says the World Food Programme (WFP)."Our main concern is that those who remain IDPs receive the required assistance they need, while those who are able to return to their homes get the same," Stephen Anderson, country representative for the UN food agency, told IRIN in Manila.His comments come a week after the government and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) agreed to resume peace talks, brokered by Malaysia.The announcement prompted renewed hope that many IDPs might soon be able to return home, say observers.Negotiations collapsed in August 2008 after the country's Supreme Court declared a preliminary accord on an expanded Muslim autonomous region as unconstitutional, prompting fresh clashes and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in the decades-old conflict between government forces and the 12,000-strong MILF.While many IDPs have since returned home, according to government sources, more than 250,000 remain displaced due to the conflict and are now living in evacuation centres or with host families, the vast majority - 91 percent - in central Maguindanao Province.Early recovery and rehabilitationBut even if security does improve and more people return, many have lost everything, including their homes, property and livelihoods, and will continue to need assistance."If people have been out of their homes for over a year, it's not as though you just return, turn on the light and resume your life," Anderson said, citing the importance of early recovery and rehabilitation efforts."It will be a big challenge to get that geared up," he said, referring to the need for food-for-work programmes and other measures."This protracted period of displacement has put immense pressure on people's livelihoods. It certainly has had a food security impact," he said, noting the difficult time they will have in rebuilding their lives.For at least a few months they will need continued assistance, as well as regular monitoring thereafter, the WFP official said.Poor indicatorsYet conditions in many areas were already precarious before the resumption of the latest violence last year.The longstanding conflict has severely affected the health and nutrition of the people of Mindanao, where infant and maternal mortality rates are 30 percent and 80 percent higher respectively than national levels, and one-third of all children under five are stunted, according to WFP.Educational indicators are far below the national average, with only 33 percent of children completing primary school, compared with 67 percent in the rest of the country.Moreover, various assessments show that 40 percent of parents do not send their children to school, with lack of food cited as a contributing factor, according to WFP.Since August 2008, the UN food agency has supported the government-led relief response, providing 17,500MT of food assistance to affected families.At the height of the displacement, WFP reached some 89,000 families or more than 530,000 people in August/September 2008.ds/mw

Cambodian scholars ask Thai "Yellow Shirts" to respect international laws - People's Daily Online

Cambodian historians and scholars have appealed to the Thai "Yellow Shirts" protesters to stop demanding the land of 4.6 square kilometers near the 11th-century Khmer Preah Vihear temple, the website of DAP News said on Monday.

"Those Thai protesters have confused the history and their demands are incorrect," IV Chan, a deputy chairman and historian of the Royal Academy of Cambodia (RAC) was quoted by DAP Cambodia news as saying.

"We also requested those Thai protesters to respect international border treaty between Siam ( Thailand) and French colony (representative of Cambodia) in 1904-1907 and the verdict of international court which claimed in 1962 that Preah Vihear temple belongs to Cambodia."

"There is no overlapping area at the area and both countries have boundary line for over 100 years," he said.

Additionally, Kim Saron, a senior member of history and culture affairs department of RAC said that Cambodia and Thailand have already established the committee of Khmer-Thai culture and they have met each other for several times to write important documents of the two countries.

"Those Thai extremists have to know about their history and culture, and should also know the cultures and histories of neighboring countries like Cambodia," Kim added.

A group of Thai protesters from People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), also called "Yellow Shirts," held a rally near Preah Vihear Temple at the weekend to protest the mishandling of Thai governments over the disputed border area with Cambodia, and planned to move into the are that is claimed by Thailand to hold the protest rally at the areas.

Cambodian and Thai armed forces have tightened security at border near the temple to prevent any rally protests.

The two neighboring countries share a nearly 800-kilometer-longcommon border and they have never fully demarcated their land border.

The UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) approved Cambodia's bid to list Preah Vihear Temple as the World Heritage Site, in July 2008. Since then, the temple and its adjacent area have become the sites of border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand.

Source: Xinhua

Philippine senator wants to renegotiate US accord - SFGate

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

(09-23) 05:30 PDT MANILA, Philippines (AP) --

The head of the Philippine Senate's foreign relations committee called Wednesday for the renegotiation of a military accord with the U.S. that allows American soldiers to help Filipino troops fight al-Qaida-linked militants, saying it violates the country's constitution.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago presented a resolution from her committee urging the Department of Foreign Affairs to renegotiate the Visiting Forces Agreement or terminate it if the United States refuses.

The continued presence of U.S. troops in the country over the past 10 years since the approval of the accord circumvents a constitutional ban on foreign military bases unless covered by a treaty, she said.

"The Americans have been here for 10 years ... can we still call that temporary? Can we still call that a visit?" she said.

The agreement allows U.S. troops to engage in joint training exercises with Filipino soldiers and governs their conduct in the country. But Santiago said that U.S. troops are fully armed while embedded with Filipino combat troops.

"When they embed themselves ... they are actually baiting the rebels so that they can fire back," she said.

The Philippine Constitution prohibits foreigners from engaging in combat operations "in traditional warfare, or in unconventional warfare," she said.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Rebecca Thompson said the agreement is "an important element" in relations between Manila and Washington.

"It is important that our two countries have an open dialogue to make sure it continues to work well," she said.

An estimated 600 U.S. troops are currently stationed in the Philippines, mostly in the south where the Philippine military has been battling the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group and its ally, the Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah.

The Philippine military's gains against the militants — including the killing and capture of key leaders and operatives — have been credited to training and intelligence provided by the Americans.

The agreement came under fire in 2006 when it was cited as the basis for the U.S. Embassy's custody of a U.S. Marine while he was on trial on charges of raping a Filipino woman. He was later acquitted by the Philippine Supreme Court.

In a statement, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said the agreement, along with the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the U.S., "remain important, useful and relevant, not only for Philippine national interest but also for regional peace, security and prosperity."

It said the agreement has helped the country, whose military expenditure is the second lowest in Southeast Asia, to modernize its armed forces. It said it also has contributed to fighting the global war on terrorism and provided civil-military and humanitarian aid to impoverished southern communities.

"The Philippines' relationship with the United States in general, and its defense and security cooperation in particular, constitute a strategic partnership that is long-standing and mutually beneficial. With no other country does the Philippines have such deep and diversified ties," the statement said.

Thai leader says US moving toward engaging Myanmar - Yahoo! News

By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer Foster Klug, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 22, 6:15 pm ET

NEW YORK – Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Tuesday that the United States and Europe appeared toward engaging Myanmar rather than a policy of sanctions only as a means of encouraging political change in the military-run country.

Thailand shares a long border with Myanmar, and Abhisit told an audience at Columbia University he believes talks with the country's military leaders are the best way to affect political change, improve human rights and stem drug trafficking.

Senior lawmakers from both political parties in the United States favor a tough sanctions regime, but the Obama administration is reviewing a policy that top officials acknowledge has not produced results in Myanmar. The country, also known as Burma, has been ruled by military juntas since 1962.

"Engagement is more productive than alienation and isolation," said Abhisit, speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

The United States and the European Union, he said, appear to be questioning the "thinking that more and more sanctions" will cause change. He did not elaborate.

Abhisit also addressed Thailand's tumultuous politics, which have been in chaos since demonstrations three years ago helped spark a military coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Last year, after Thaksin's allies returned to power, demonstrators occupied the prime minister's office for three months and seized the capital's two airports for a week.

Abhisit, a Thaksin rival, took office after those demonstrations. He said that despite the chaos and occasional violence, Thailand has achieved greater stability under his rule. Recent conflict and political anger, he said, are not reflections of a failed democracy but one that is "vibrantly at work."

On Saturday in Bangkok, about 20,000 pro-Thaksin demonstrators marked the third anniversary of the military coup, which they believe set back the cause of democracy. They urge Abhisit to step down, claiming he came to power illegitimately.

Thaksin, who is in self-imposed exile, says Thailand "has gone backward to dictatorship."

Indonesia's Islamic Schools: More and More, Female Friendly - Yahoo! News

By CARLA POWER / CIREBON Carla Power / Cirebon 2 hrs 22 mins ago

When she was widowed two years ago, most people in the Javanese village of Babakan Ciwaringin expected Nyai Yu Masriyah Amva to marry again. They also assumed that the local pesantran, or traditional Indonesian Islamic boarding school, would close with the death of her husband, its head Islamic scholar. Neither happened. Bucking tradition, Amva decided that she would run the school. "If men can do it, then why can't I?" the 48-year-old recalls praying. "If you, Allah, are the source of all power, then why do I have to find someone else to run it? Just give me the power. I know that I can do it." After all, she reasoned Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia's ex-president, was a woman, joining the ranks of "Benazir [Bhutto], and Elizabeth, and the woman Madonna played in that movie" - Evita Peron.

Straight-backed, in red lipstick and maroon-and-white polka dots, a sheer black veil slipping off her hair, Amva strides around the campus of Pesantran Kebon Jambu, which takes its name from the guava orchards that stood there before the school's mint-and-white mosque and tile-roofed dormitories. Born in the village to a family of respected kyais, or Islamic teachers, she learned her Arabic and the study of the Quran and the Islamic traditions at her father's pesantran. "My grandfather and parents always hoped someday I'd become a respected scholar," she smiles, pouring tea in her airy her on-campus house. "But since my husband died, people say I have become a superstar." She recalls addressing a nervous student body the week she took over: "You don't have to be afraid because the kyai has passed away," she says she told the 700-odd teenagers. "You still have the greatest thing in this world: Allah. He is with us, and you will be guided by his light." (See pictures of modern Muslim societies around the world.)

This July's bombings at two five-star hotels in Jakarta and the 2002 bombings in Bali raised fears among counterterrorism experts that Indonesia's 12,000 pesantran were potential breeding grounds for radicalism. And while suicide bombers and radicals have been traced to a few schools notorious for their extremist teachings, others have been incubators for a more benign trend in the world's most populous Muslim nation: the development of feminist readings of the Quran and Islamic traditions. Indonesia's two largest Muslim political parties - the Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah - have intricate campaigns promoting women's rights. Indonesian feminists, male and female alike, have worked with progressive pesantran to develop women-friendly interpretations of shari'a - a radical break with the conservative notions of shari'a across the Muslim world, which tend to be heavily reliant on the world views of medieval - and male - jurists.

Feminism has found fertile soil in Indonesia, whose Islamic traditions are relatively porous, and whose traditional agricultural culture often had men and women working together in the fields , in contrast, say, to the segregated tribal customs of Arabia. It's not that these ideas don't find resistence: There's a strong tradition of male authority in Indonesia, as well as a more recent trend towards fundamentalism, so feminists have to be careful to pick kyais who will be open to their teachings. Jakarta-based feminist activist Lies Marcoes-Natsir says much of her work is protecting indigenous Indonesian Islamic culture from the spread of stricter, Saudi-style Wahhabi interpretations of Islam. "The good thing is that [Indonesia's religious scholars] are also worried about Wahhabism, so we can work hand-in-hand with them," she says. Tellingly, Marcoes-Natsir finds that traditional scholars are easier to get through to than many middle-class urbanites. Where classically trained scholars know of the diversity of interpretations of Islamic law, those less versed tend to insist that it's far stricter than it really is.

Together with Indonesia's most prominent male feminist cleric, Kyai Husein Muhammad, Marcoes-Natsir has developed a course for teaching gender equality in Islam. On a hot summer morning in Cirebon, Northern Java, she taught a workshop on reproductive health, which had her gamely sketching fallopian tubes on a white-board, and parsing Quranic verses on reproductive rights. From the young men and women students, there were nods, furious scribblings, and the odd giggle. And then there was the group of young women, all majoring in gender studies at the local Islamic college, who were snapping pictures to post on their feminist blog. "The patriarchy is very strong," concedes one blogger, Asih Baet, in John Lennon specs and a black hijab. But across Indonesia, in mosques, on blogs, and in former guava orchards, there are rebellions against it.