International Feminist Network
Starting from 1976, the International Feminist Network (IFN) has been active in helping mobilize international support and solidarity among women to fight against the
oppression of women and the violation of women's rights. Past experience shows us that international support does make a difference. The IFN is jointly coordinated
by Isis International and Isis-WICCE. We have recently received the following appeals:
In the Philippines:
Friends of the Filipino People is calling for international support in demanding immediate release of two Filipinas and one Filipino arrested by the Philippine government
on 6 August, 1984.
Mila D. Aguilar, a poet and one of the leading women journalists in the Philippines, was arrested by the military, together with her friends, Cynthia Nolasco, Director of theExtension Service Center of St. Joseph's College and Willy Tolentino, a high school student, in Quezon City in the Philippines. Aguilar was charged of subversion against the Marcos government.Amnesty International, Friends of the Filipino People, and other human rights groups are demanding human treatment for them, access to the press and immediate release. To help Aguilar, Nolasco and Tolentino, please send letters demanding their immediate release to:
- President Ferdinand Marcos
Manila, the Philippines.
For more information, please contact:
Friends of the Filipino People,
117 Davis Road, Storrs, CT 06268, USA.
In India:
International solidarity in support of the struggle in India against the discriminatory and misinterpreted Muslim Laws against women is in demand. December 198 3, Shehnaaz Sheikh, a Sunni Muslim woman in India, filed her challenge against the constitutionality of some distorted Muslim Personal Laws. The petition is still pending admission. Shehnaaz, supported by some women's organizations and other groups, claimed that religious principles have been systemically distorted and used as tools to oppress Muslim women. A nationwide signature campaign is now going on calling for the reform of Muslim Personal Law, in particular, the polygamy, talag. mehr and inheritance laws on divorce. An action committee formed by a group of Muslim women and women living under the Koranic law calls for your support.
For more information, please contact: Amrita Chhachi, c/o Institute of Social Studies, Women's Studies, 251 Badhuisweg, the Hague, The Netherlands.
In KUWAIT:
The colleagues of Dr. Norma Al Falah,a sociologist at Kuwait University, Kuwait call for the support of women worldwide in demanding the withdrawal of the Ministry of
WAKFS' charges against Dr. Al Falah. The Ministry of WAKFS (endowments) brought suit against Dr. Al Falah for questioning the existence of God in her public lecture at the Kuwait Workers' Union on May 21. 1984. The topic of the lecture was "The Image of Women in Literature". The Ministry demands that she be fired from her job as a professor and that she be put to death.
These charges "deny her rights as a professor and as a citizen to academic freedom, democracy and freedom of speech", said her colleagues.
To support Dr. Al Falah please send letters and telegrams to:
- the Ministry of WAKFS (endowments). SAFAT-KUWAIT
- Al-Qabas Newspaper, Telex - 23370, PO Box 21800, KUWAIT
- Al Watan Newspaper, al - Shweek - KUWAIT.
