Memorandum on Equal Citizenship Rights for Libyan Women in the Constitution

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Dec 28, 2014 Libya
Memorandum on Equal Citizenship Rights for Libyan Women in the Constitution

Memorandum on Equal Citizenship Rights for Libyan Women in the Constitution

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following is an English translation of a memorandum that was issued by a group of concerned Libyan citizens to the Constitutional Drafting Assembly on 20 August 2014 with respect to the right of Libyan women to pass on citizenship to their children. The introduction that precedes the memorandum was written by Hanan Ghosheh, one of the people involved in the drafting of the memorandum. The original Arabic memorandum is reproduced at the end.]

In the three years following the February 17 Revolution of Libya, the status of women’s rights has endured severe setbacks including unprecedented violence and crimes against the female population. The fact that seventeen percent of the seats in Libya’s first congressional elections went to women had initially inspired great hope for their future.  However, this has proven to be a hollow victory as Libyan women in all public spheres from politics and civil society to the workforce and education have been exposed to increased discrimination and oppression.

From the removal of a young female presenter at the official congressional handover ceremony back in 2012 because her hair was uncovered, to the murder of prominent civil society and political activists, threats to the freedom of expression, movement, dress and safety of Libyan women have spiked significantly within this period. Amid the proliferation of armed militias acting with impunity and the present backdrop of warfare and political chaos, women are being further silenced and marginalized.

However, with the drafting of the new constitution, there exists a unique opportunity to reset the starting point not only for Libya but for the reemergence of women in post-Gaddafi Libya—by enacting their full and equal Libyan citizenship rights including the ability to pass their Libyan nationality onto their children (regardless of their husband’s nationality). This pivotal move would automatically empower and improve the standing of all women in Libya not just symbolically but legally.  It would also serve as a giant step towards the country’s development as a modern nation and set a precedent for other countries to embrace.

The following memorandum outlines the many arguments in support of this measure and was submitted this past summer to the Constitutional Drafting Assembly. As Libyan women remain under increased threat, it is more imperative than ever that their unalienable, equal civil rights are enshrined in the new constitution. Not only will this offer them the legal protection of the state, but it will serve as a solid platform for them to stand firmly upon as they continue their struggle for social equality and justice.

 

Memorandum

August 14, 2014

To: Honorable Members of the Libyan Constitutional Drafting Assembly
Re: Equal Citizenship Rights for Libyan Women in the Constitution

Dear Honorable Members,

We would like to congratulate you on your role as members of Libya’s Constitutional Drafting Committee and commend you on the hope and confidence your work has inspired in the Libyan public thus far.  Under your trusted leadership the nation is anxiously awaiting what is hoped will be a pivotal step in guaranteeing the rights and civil liberties of the Libyan people and helping Libya to achieve a foundation for stability on which to rebuild our society.

We are writing to you today specifically on behalf of the women of Libya.  As you know, women were at the forefront of the February 17th revolution and without their support, it may not have succeeded.  However, the social climate of subservience and inequality towards them is an unfortunate characteristic of our society that has not only continued after the war, but actually reached criminal levels.   Now we have even seen violence and murder committed against ladies in the sanctity of their own homes in an effort to intimidate and silence them.  The recent murder of civil and women’s rights activists Salwa Bugaighis in Benghazi  and former General National Congress Representative, Fariha Berkawi in Derna are only two such terrifying examples (may God have mercy on their souls). 

Misogynistic social attitudes in Libya may take quite some time and effort to overcome as has been the case for other countries that now benefit from achievements in women`s rights.  However, the new constitution can play an important role in facilitating this process by setting a new legal standard that will instantly elevate the status and role of Libyan women by ensuring their full and equal citizenship rights. 

As it stands right now, all Libyans are deemed equal citizens before the law.  However, there is a blatant contradiction to this statement as it is also stipulated that Libyan women who are married to non-Libyan men are barred from passing their Libyan citizenship to their children while the offspring of Libyan men with foreign mothers are automatically deemed Libyans.  So by this very important measure, all Libyans, i.e. women, are actually NOT equal citizens while the children of those with foreign husbands are not even citizens at all.

Thousands of Libyan women are married to non-Libyans and are being disenfranchised by this law.  If it continues unchallenged, children within the same extended family will have their property and inheritance rights, ability to operate businesses, residence status, etc. determined by the nationality of their father even if their mother is Libyan.  On what rational basis should women who for whatever reason choose non-Libyan spouses be penalized while Libyan men are free to marry whom they desire without any negative restrictions? 

It is also fair to point out too that as a result of the Gaddafi regime, many Libyans were forced into exile all around the world.  Isolated from their homeland, and living far from the few Libyan communities scattered abroad, this naturally resulted in the marriage of many Libyan men and women to foreign Muslims for a lack of Libyan options.  Upon returning to Libya after the revolution, it is simply nonsensical and unjust that the affected Libyan women are held to a different standard than the men for the same matter of fate and circumstance.

Moreover, if Libya is truly an Islamic society, there is absolutely no Islamic precedent preventing a Muslim woman from marrying a man of a different nationality as long as he is a Muslim.   So not only does this practice contradict the common precepts of equality between the sexes which govern modern societies but it also challenges the spirit of Islamic Sharia Law as it constitutes injustice by singling out certain Libyan women and their children and denying them their rights based on something that is permitted in Islam.   

Also, this differentiation in the citizenship rights of males and females sends and reinforces a subliminal message to Libyan society that women are less worthy, less capable and thereby inferior to men, thus subjecting them to varying levels of discrimination, intimidation and mistreatment while limiting their active participation in society.

Equality between men and women is the hallmark of any modern, civilized nation.  It is imperative that Libya’s new constitution serve as a positive agent for change on this matter- not just for the sake of Libyan women, but for the sake of the country as a whole.  It is a battle that has already been fought and won around the world countless times with the same result. 

There is no need for Libya to reinvent the wheel on this issue.  If the equal citizenship rights of women are enshrined in the bedrock of post-Gaddafi Libya through its new constitution, the backwards mentalities that have oppressed them for so long will begin to dissipate too.  The progress of the country will be buoyed by the unfettered contributions of all of its citizens on equal footing. 

We urge you, honorable members, to take the historic step of personally championing this cause in the deliberations of the drafting committee.  Equal rights for all citizens of Libya regardless of sex must be an established principle which Libyan society evolves from, not one that it clumsily struggles towards. 

We look forward to seeing the dawn of modern Libya where men and women work side by side for the betterment of their country and thank you very much for your patriotic service and dedication to this end.

 

 14 أغسطس 2014

إلى: الهيئة الليبية الوطنية التأسيسية لصياغة الدستور

الموضوع: المساواة في حقوق المواطنة للمرأة الليبية في الدستور

السادة أعضاء الهيئة بعد التحية

نود تهنئتكم على انتخابكم للهيئة التأسيسية لصياغة مشروع الدستور في ليبيا وإلى الأمل والثقة التي ألهمت العديد من الموطنين في ليبيا إلى غاية الآن.

تحت قيادتكم تنتظر كافة الأمة الليبية بقلق ما يعتقد أن يكون نقطة تحول في ضمان الحقوق والحريات المدنية للشعب الليبي ودعم ليبيا في تحقيق أساس الاستقرار الذي سيساهم في إعادة بناء مجتمعنا.

نكتب إليكم نيابة عن نساء ليبيا بصفتنا مواطنات مهتمات بهذا الشأن. كما تعملون، كانت المرأة الليبية في طليعة المساهمين في ثورة 17 فبراير، ولولا هذا الدعم لم يكن في الإمكان قيام هذه الثورة. لسوء الحظ فأن واقعنا الاجتماعي المتمثل في الحط من وتقليل شأن المرأة في ليبيا لا يخفى على أحد في مجتمعنا الليبي، وهذه الظاهرة في الواقع استمرت بعد الحرب وبلغت مستويات إجرامية. مؤخرا شاهدنا العنف والجرائم التي ارتكبت ضد المرأة وانتهاك حرمة بيوتهن وذلك سعيا لتخويف وإسكات أصواتهن. وتعتبر جريمة اغتيال سلوى بوقعيقيص الناشطة في مجال حقوق المرأة في بنغازي وفريحة البرقاوي عضو المؤتمر الوطني العام في درنة أمثلة على هذه الجرائم المرعبة ( ندعو الله أن يتقبلهن في واسع رحمته).

تتطلب ظاهرة اضطهاد المرأة في ليبيا بذل أقصى الجهود لمواكبة العالم الحديث. ولكن يمكن للدستور الجديد لعب دور هام في تسهيل وتسريع هذه العملية من خلال وضع معايير قانونية جديدة تعمل على رفع وحماية وضع المرأة الليبية وضمان المساواة في الحقوق والموطنة.

حاليا يعتبر كل الليبيون متساوون في الحقوق أمام القانون. ولكن هناك تعارض كبير في الواقع، مثال على ذلك تمنع المرأة الليبية المتزوجة من رجل أجنبي من حق إعطاء جنسيتها لأبنائها بينما يمكن لأبناء الرجل الليبي المتزوج من امرأة أجنبية الحصول على الجنسية بشكل أوتوماتيكي. بناء عليه، لا يمكننا القول أن كل الليبيون متساوون، وهذا يعني أن المرأة الليبية لا تتمتع بحقوق مساوية إذ أنه لا يمكن لأطفال المرأة الليبية من زوج أجنبي الحصول على الجنسية.

تقريبا هناك حوالي 80,000 امرأة ليبية متزوجة من أجنبي وهن بالتالي محرومات من حقوق شرعية بموجب هذا القانون. إن عدم الاعتراض على هذا القانون يعتبر وصمة عار وظلم فادح. حيث يمكن للأطفال في العائلة الواحدة المطالبة بحقوق الملكية والميراث والقدرة على العمل والإقامة، الخ. تحديد الجنسية من خلال الأب فقط حتى إذا كانت الأم ليبية،  وسيكون الأطفال من أب أجنبي محرومون من حقوق قانونية تتمثل في الارتباط الطبيعي والهوية.

يجب الإعتراف أنه نتيجة لحكم نظام القذافي اضطر العديد من الليبيين للعيش في الغربة في مختلف أرجاء العالم ،  بشكل منعزل عن وطنهم الأم والعيش بعيدا عن القليل من المجتمعات الليبية المنتشرة في الخارج، وهذا طبيعيا نتج عنه زواج العديد من الليبين والليبيات بمسلمين أجانب نظرا لعدم وجود ترابط اجتماعي وتواصل مع باقي الليبيين. وعند العودة إلى ليبيا بعد الثورة، ببساطة يمكن القول أنه من الظلم معاملة المرأة الليبية بشكل مختلف لأخيها (الرجل)  ومعاقبتها بسبب خوضها لنفس التجربة والمصير والظروف وذلك بسبب الإقتران بزوج( مسلم)  من أصل غير ليبي.

وبغض النظر عن العيش في الخارج أو في الداخل، على أي أساس يتم معاقبة المرأة الليبية التي تختار أن تتزوج من رجل مسلم غير ليبي بينما يتمتع أخيها (الرجل الليبي)ى بحرية الزواج من أي جنسية دون أي تأثير سلبي ؟ إن التمييز في حقوق المواطنة والزواج بين الرجل والمرأة في ليبيا يعتبر ظاهرة متخلفة وهي أن المرأة تعتبر أقل شأنا وقدرة من الرجل وهذا بالتالي يجعل المرأة عرضة لعدة مستويات من التمييز والسيطرة وسوء المعاملة والحد من مساهمة المرأة في المجتمع.

والأهم من ذلك، إذا كانت ليبيا مجتمعا إسلاميا حقيقيا، فإنه لا يوجد أي مانع في الإسلام يحرم على المرأة الزواج من جنسية مختلفة طالما كان هذا الرجل مسلما. إن هذا الممارسة تناقض المفاهيم العامة للمساواة بين الجنسين التي تحكم المجتمعات الحديثة وأيضا تخالف مبادئ الشريعة الإسلامية لأنها تعتبر ظلم من خلال التمييز ضد مجموعات محددة وحرمانهن من حقوقهن من خلال ممارسة هذه الحقوق التي منحها لهن الدين الإسلامي.

تعتبر المساواة بين الرجل والمرأة سمة الأمم المتقدمة والمتحضرة.ولذا فإنه من الضروري أن يقدم الدستور الجديد دفعة للأمام لليبيا في هذا الموضوع من خلال السبق في هذا المجال – ليس فقط من أجل المرأة الليبية ولكن لمصلحة البلد إجمالا. إن هذه المعركة ناضل من أجلها العديد وربحوها مسبقا في العديد من دول العالم – وبالتالي لا يوجد داعي أن تضيع ليبيا الوقت في هذا الموضوع المفروغ منه والمحسوم إطلاقا.

إذا أمكن حماية حقوق المرأة جوهريا في ليبيا بعد مرحلة حكم القذافي من خلال دستورها الجديد،  فإنه  بالتدريج سوف تختفي العقليات المتخلفة التي ساهمت في اضطهاد المرأة نهائيا. وسيدعم هذا تقدم البلد بالمساهمة اللامحدودة لكل المواطنين من خلال حماية كل حقوقهم.

نرجو من سعادة أعضاء الهيئة إتخاذ خطوات تاريخية من خلال طرح هذه القضية في مداولاتكم. وونرجو أن تكون المساواة في الحقوق بين المواطنين بغض النظر عن الجنس هي نقطة البداية التي ينطلق منها المجتمع الليبي نحو  التطور وتفادي التعثر نحو هذا الهدف في المائة سنة القادمة.

نتطلع بشوق لرؤية فجر ليبيا الديمقراطية المتطورة. حيث يعمل الرجل والمرأة جنبا إلى جنب لتطوير وطننا، بنفس الكيفية التي تعملون بها أنتم الآن.

نشكركم جزيل الشكر لخدمتكم الوطنية. ونرجو من الله عز وجل أن يبارك في مساعيكم ويحمي ليبيا.
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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412