WORLD
Page 10
THE BATTALION
Feminist killing focus of women’s rights debates
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Even in death,
Konca Kuris was denied her last wish — that
women be allowed to pray alongside men.
It was a desire that cost the religious feminist
her life.
Police dug up Kuris’ naked body from the
basement of a hideout used by an Islamic group
who videotaped weeks of abuse they inflicted be
fore suffocating her.
The bodies of dozens of male victims also have
been found and a second female victim was dis
covered Friday.
The killings have horrified the country, but
Kuris’ slaying also has focused attention on the
role of women in Islam, a flashpoint that was un
derscored when male relatives at her funeral last
week refused to allow her eldest daughter to pray
beside her coffin.
“Who are the real Muslims, those who have
killed Konca or those who go to mosque togeth
er, women and men?” asked Necati Dogru, a
columnist for the newspaper Sabah.
“One more person paid with her life for being
different and searching for her own voice,” Sibel
Eraslan, a female commentator, wrote in the Is
lamic newspaper
But at Ankara’s main
Kocatepe mosque, wor
shipper Nese Ince spoke
out against Kuris’ feminist
brand of Islam.
“I don’t want the Islam
that I have believed in for
years to be changed,” she
said.
“I will carry out my
mother's last will/'
She demanded the right to pray alongside men
and that prayers be said in Turkish and not the tra
ditional Arabic, which few Turks understand.
Kuris’ feminist views infuriated Hezbollah,
which is dominated by tradi
tional, rural Kurds.
In early 1998, she began to
receive anonymous telephone
calls.
"Are you inventing a new
religion?” the voices asked,
according to the newspaper
Milliyet.
In July of that year, three
tlu
— Sirma Kuris
Konca Kuris' daughter
Kuris at first was a member of the group
Hezbollah, which seeks to establish an Islamic
state in southeastern Turkey and which is not re
lated to the Lebanese group of the same name.
She traveled to Iran with a delegation from the
organization but gradually became disillusioned
with the group’s attitude toward women.
people kidnapped Kuris from in front of her home
in the southern port of Mersin, and she was never
seen again.
Tapes of Kuris’ interrogation were discovered
about two weeks ago during a police raid on a
Hezbollah safe house in Istanbul, Sabah reported.
It said they showed people stuffing a picture of
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
Turkey, into her mouth.
The newspaper also said i
Kuris of seeking to become a
Taslima Nasrin, secular Mus
ered heretics.
Kuris was apparently suflc
or clothing in the basement ot
tral Anatolian city of Konya.
I ler body w as buried in a
the basement than those of thi
At her funeral, the dispu
erupted in full force.
“1 will carry out r
ed Kuris’ eldest daii|
But men blocked
the mosque.
Another female i
pushed the men asid
the Islamic preacher
hastily ended the fur
rused
»alman Ruslu
im writers co
After artil
blast, fem
weighs dm
Jittei
te o\
othei
News in Brief
Priests dying of
AIDS at higher rate
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Ro
man Catholic priests in the United
States are dying from AIDS-related
illnesses at a rate four times high
er than the general population and
the cause is often concealed on
their death certificates, The Kansas
City Star reported Sunday.
In the first of a three-part series,
the newspaper said death certifi
cates and interviews with experts
indicated several hundred priests
have died of AIDS-related illnesses
since the mid-1980s and hundreds
more are living with HIV, the virus
that causes the disease.
“I think this speaks to a failure
on the part of the church," Auxiliary
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of the
Archdiocese of Detroit said. “Gay
priests and heterosexual priests
didn’t know how to handle their sex
uality, their sexual drive. And so
they would handle it in ways that
were not healthy.”
The Star received 801 respons
es to questionnaires that were sent
last fall to 3,000 of the 46,000
priests in the United States. The
margin of error of the survey was
3.5 percentage points.
Six of 10 priests responding
said they knew of at least one
priest who had died of an AIDS-re-
lated illness, and one-third knew a
priest living with AIDS. Three-
fourths said the church needed to
provide more education to semi
narians on sexual issues.
“How to be celibate and to be gay
at the same time, and how to be celi
bate and heterosexual at the same
time, that’s what we were never real
ly taught how to do. And that was a
major failing," Gumbleton said.
Demand for Ortho
Tri-Cyclen soaring
NEW YORK (AP) — Demand for
one brand of “the pill" is soaring,
with a little help from sales to
women who don’t want it as a con
traceptive.
Sales of Johnson & Johnson’s
Ortho Tri-Cyclen contraceptive pill
have tripled in the last three years,
making it by far the No. 1 brand,
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<. \n smith, It
Robert Shoal knelt ovc
craters now dottinghisp
sighed in disbelief as
jagged strip of am let)
"One hundred
would have hit tny
Saturday, pointing
he shares with his
100 miles southwest
Just days earlier, S
er family members
'00-acre cattle
cos cr as Army
away at fort Hood
of 155 mm Howii
tow ard their property.
"It roared like a
a bomb exploded,’
said. “I didn’t know
the next morning wha
partly because it is the only oral
contraceptive that also may be sold
as an acne fighter.
“It’s like getting two drugs in
one,” Darla Brown, 28, of Houston,
who has used the pill for two years,
said. “And it has worked wonders
on my skin.”
The Food and Drug Administra
tion gave Johnson & Johnson the
right to sell Ortho Tri-Cyclen for acne
in 1997 after studies found it
helped clear the skin of more than
80 percent of women who took it.
Although health experts say all
oral contraceptives probably help
fight acne, only Ortho Tri-Cyclen has
FDA clearance to advertise the
added benefit.
Medical ethicists doubt the dou
ble-duty pill is encouraging more
young girls to have sex, but one
says it may help them provide a
smoke screen for their parents —
allowing them to claim they want
the drug for acne when their real
aim is protection from pregnancy.
“Sex and lying have a long his
tory of association,” Arthur Ca-
plan, director of the Center for
Bioethics at the University of
Pennsylvania, said.
Johnson & Johnson has exploit
ed the pill’s pimple-fighting ability
with magazine ads promoting Ortho
Tri-Cyclen as a “beauty aid” for
women 15 and over.
Taiwan holds on
declaring freedom
TAIPEI. Taiwan (AP) — The pres
idential candidate for Taiwan’s pro
independence opposition party
promised Sunday that the island
would not declare independence
unless mainland China tried to re
take it by force.
Also Sunday. China warned Tai
wanese leaders not to try to write
the island’s claim to separate sta
tus into law.
In Taiwan, presidential candidate
Chen Shui-bian's statement against
independence marked a major shift
of the Democratic Progressive Par
ty’s stance ahead of the Mar. 18
election.
“We will not declare indepen
dence unless China wants to use
force against us and our people can
not tolerate or accept it.” Chen told
a news conference. If elected. Chen
said, he would like to visit Chit
A 4-fQoi length of a:
meet its leader before taking of
of his home cracked.®
Most recent polls have pl<
3C0U
shrapnel lodged mtheacr
Chen in a tie with independent
C3CV
his son Jay.
didate James Sooog. The rultnj
\ Nci-
"It was unreal, like a
tionalist party's candidate. Vice 1
said Ja\ ShoaTiai^lB
ident Lien Chan, is m third placx
The lone of Wdtat
Chen has tried to soften
his
blasts, which continuea
party’s stance on independe
hour, sfux'k pictures ti
to win voters worried that ten
broke a chandelier u fc 2
with China could rise if he is e
l^ct-
and cracked sections of :
ed. Chen has said he will lea
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The shelling happ?;
QU Y ROGERS & JEFI
Ala
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up to Taiwar
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breaks cor
with China.
China ant
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Je province and I
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insisted on reunincatioi
necessary.
Chen has said that if
will not alter the cc
DV
is wh' *:i
until ut
>nstiU
malize current President Lee Tent
the tw<
hui’s claim that
should treat each other as equ
states, a stance that has enragt
Beijing. He also has said he will n
change the island's official nam
the Republic of China. Some par
members have suggested renai
t th
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Repi
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