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Yemeni Women Set Veils Ablaze in Protest at Saleh Crackdown
Women's protest in Sana'a comes after overnight clashes in the capital and in Taiz leave as many as 25 people dead
Hundreds of Yemeni women set fire to veils on Wednesday in protest at the government's crackdown on demonstrators, after overnight clashes in the capital and another city left 25 people dead, officials said.
Yemeni women burn veils in Sana'a. (Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA) The women spread a black cloth across a main street in Sana'a and threw their full-body veils, known as makrama, on to a pile, sprayed it with oil and set it ablaze. As the flames rose, they chanted: "Who protects Yemeni women from the crimes of the thugs?"
Women have taken a key role in the uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's authoritarian rule. This month the Yemeni activist Tawakkul Karman was awarded the Nobel peace prize along with two Liberian women, for their struggle for women's rights.
Wednesday's protest was not related to women's rights or issues surrounding the Islamic veil. The act of burning their clothing is a symbolic Bedouin gesture signifying an appeal to tribesmen for help, in this case to stop the attacks on the protesters.
The women who burned clothing in the capital were wearing traditional veils at the time, many covered in black from head to toe.
The protest came as clashes intensified between Saleh's forces and renegade fighters who have sided with the protesters. Medical and local officials said up to 25 civilians, tribal fighters and government soldiers died overnight in Sana'a and the city of Taiz, despite a ceasefire announcement by Saleh late on Tuesday. Scores of others were wounded.
A medical official said seven tribal fighters were among those killed in the Hassaba district of the capital. Another medical official said four residents and nine soldiers also died in the fighting there.
Government forces also shelled houses in Taiz, a hotbed of anti-Saleh protests, killing five people, including four members of one family, a local official said.
A group of female supporters of Saleh marched to the UN office on Wednesday to voice their opposition to international pressure on the president to step down. The women entered the building to hand in their protest note.
During a meeting with the US ambassador on Tuesday, Saleh offered to sign a power-transfer deal giving him immunity from prosecution if he steps down. The meeting was Saleh's first since he returned last month from Saudi Arabia, where he was treated after an attack on his presidential compound in June left him badly wounded.
Saleh has repeatedly backed away from a power-transfer deal at the last minute, and the opposition has dismissed his latest offer.
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20 Comments so far
Show AllAnd high time, too. You go, girls!!!
yet in all the photos I've seen they are still wearing them
seems they burnt some spares they had
They were making a statement. People burn tires at protests but that doesn't mean they don't keep the ones they need to ride home on.
It's a symbolic action.They weren't just getting rid of all the old laundry.
Didn't any of you read the article? It specificaly points out this is not a feminist protest, it's a traditional way for people in that culture to call the men of their tribe to their aid. I wish it were a protest, but it's not.
I guess this line had everyone fooled: "Who protects Yemeni women from the crimes of the thugs?"
Good for these women! It takes so much courage to do actions like this. Burning bras was a pretty big deal too, in it's day.
Burning bras didn't really happen. The women dumped their bras into trash bins but did not set them alight. But the one bra that was burned was part of a collection of feminine items used in a protest in California. "Bra-burner" became a handy cliche for "feminist". It was the draftees who burned things-their draft cards.
redballoon, sweet film, regardless we including myself did indeed set our bras on fire, speak from your own experience or please respect how hard, as in dying, to give our daughters something we were forced to abide by or denied by force because of our gender. Thank you for your story um opinion I actually don't know except you relayed what sounded like a paragraph from a link you'd find in the site for editors that never read an actual book, I think it's name is Hickapedia(sic).
Why, thank you for so kindly condescending to correct me. However, I do not recall seeing directly or in a news report the burning of bras. I do not know in what eastern backwater bra-burning was practised, or when - apparently, it had no effect. I do recall the burning of draft cards. You are most offensive to accuse me of disrespect or failing to read books. Your unsubtle venom will not gain you much support, I'm afraid. And, by the way, the term, "gypsy" is considered offensive in the West.
I think there is some cultural differences here that might explain how this is interpreted differently. I always thought that "gypsy" referred to a different sect. These women have nomadic origins and maybe not the eastern european gypys most people equate with the word.
Some of them trace their origins back to India and Parthia. In Europe, the terms, Zigeuner, cigany,tsigane, etc., are insults - like the N-word in the US. Romany, Dom, Travellers, Sinti. I think the preferred term in Europe is Sinti. I admit I've never even heard of Bedouin "gypsies". I understand that some desert peoples live nomadic lifestyles - following wadis, moving herds to water and forage, but does that qualify them as "gypsy"? The context is so different: the Sinti in Europe and Asia tend to be permanently displaced people who can't herd livestock anymore because of way the land is divided and owned, but the herding tribes of Africa can still pursue their activites freely. Maybe Inshallah had a different way of using the term; maybe there's a language barrier that interfered.
American understanding of any tribal or nomadic people is very limited even though they still somewhat exist on the continent. (here they have a matriarchal lineage that confounds history) I believe the Bedouin is patriarchal. I did a quick look at Bedouin sects and was amazed at the diversity. There are some people from Yemen in my neighborhood and they are very nice to everyone. I don't know if you know this, people that have a very kind nature. The young men will go back to Yemen to marry and they love their country. I think it might be cultural differences. Thank you for that information as it does help to understand this topic.
Thank you very much. You're right of course. I have met and work with people from Palestine,Iran,Yemen,Lebanon, and find them all very kind, friendly, family-oriented and very pleasant colleagues. I wish we could get off the Muslim-bashing habit we see all around us. Peace.
Just in case we forgot (self included),
WOMEN in Saudi Arabia have WON MAJOR CONCESSIONS, THEY CAN VOTE TOMORROW IN SAUDI ARABIA & PROBABLY DRIVE TOO. THESE TWO CHANGES ON THEIR OWN ARE NOTHING SHORT OF AN EVOLUTION REVOLUTION.
I have not seen enough literature about it ALMOST ANYWHERE.
It is extraordinary they are beyond technicalities or metaphors, & more to come they've got a taste of something they only dreamed of, NOW, bizarre enough just when those very rights have become meaningless in the so called west or are they?
thanks TAHRIR thanks NEW YORK.
No terror no torture just truth.
They keep it hidden so Western women don't get encouraged to get uppity.
Keep dreaming! There is a long way from allowing women to vote locally, or even drive to getting equal rights. As long as polygamy is sanctioned by Islam and misogyny is proscribed in Koran and Hadith, women in the most countries of the Muslim world will not treated according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is contrary to sharia, which many other those countries practice. Osama bin Ladin had 4-5 wives and his father had 52 children in Saudi Arabia. The Radical Islam is misogynist as well as against life (Koran disses Jews for liking life and instructs true Muslims to yearn for eternal life....which is an inspiration to those young men to blow themselves up in order to reach Paradise with 72 virgins.
Unless Islam undergoes reformation, nothing will change for the better either for women or democracy in the Muslims world. Islam does not recognize the separation between the State and Religion! and demands SUBMISSION to Islamic authorities!
Cheers to the women in Yemen and women everywhere.
Makrama, you used this word then said they were dressed head to toe in Black, huh? First they're Bedouins which are travelers or gypsys, Makrama is colorful and where Americans started the obfuscation of makrama using instead macramé.
Of course they'd use old Makramas in protest because as the author stated as Bedouins the burning of their head coverings is not protestation of any type of women's rights it's in protest to get the authorities to stop the attacks on the protesters it's how Bedouin women express themselves in protest of something, a gypsy woman's way to show their anger and to stop whatever they feel is politically wrong or harmful to their tribe as a whole.
Makrama is used in Turce' for towel.
It in no way had been used to show distaste for women followers of Islam needing more freedom to express themselves as independent feminists! They're Bedouins for the 15th time, those women are free as birds, they live a hard yet uncaged life. Colorful and free.
If they had been dressed from head to toe in black they would have been clothed in niqab and abaya, not the dress of Bedouins. The dress of the House of Saud all black from head to toe with only slits for vision, Burqa is Afghanistan, USA'ns never read or study outside their tiny box, pardon me 70% of USA'ns. They think all Muslims are Arabic, a woman covered from head to toe is in any country that follows Islam, go to the west side of Turkiye' its the European part of Turkiye' you'd think you were in France or Germany and they are not Arabs, they've bastardized the meaning from the Qur'an of Jihad and Shar'ia, the entire homicide bombers martyrdom and saying things that are blatant lies with the 72 virgins and such nonsense.
So reread the article but if you want to see the women as they protested and set the extra Makrama ablaze, use 'The Google' about pg 5 or 6 on the mobile version of Al Jazeera and you'll notice the Makrama of this particular tribe was mainly red ergo not in black, quite beautiful and colorful. Again not an act against Islam and women wanting to drive. Quite a sight to behold that would be a tribal clan or gypsys in a car, haha! Anger about the treatment of fellow tribesmen, it's their rituals not anything to do with Islam. Moshallah!
Thanks for the information. I wondered about the factual content of this report. It sounded like western spin to me.