The Battle of Women in a Man's World

A T H E N S, Greece, Jan. 17 -- For women in some of the world's staunchly Islamic countries, stonings still happen and they don't have the right to vote to effect change.

In Iran this week, the Supreme Court upheld a death sentence by stoning for a woman convicted of murdering her husband.

She will be buried up to her armpits and stoned, the Iranian news agency reported. However, a quirk of Islamic law says she can go free if she manages to escape while the stoning is taking place.

Fear of Dismemberment, Disenfranchisement

The death sentence by stoning is just one of a number of instances this week that illustrate the state of play for females living under the strict laws of Islam.

On Monday in Saudi Arabia, three people, including a mother and her daughter were beheaded in Saudi Arabia for murder. Decapitation for capital crimes such as murder and adultery in Saudi Arabia are routine.

Public amputations of fingers, hands and sometimes feet are performed in Iran, the Saudi kingdom and by the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. Strict rules are also applied in Sudan.

Men also face harsh punishment under Sharia law in countries such as Saudia Arabia and Iran, but sentences delivered by the courts tend to be biased against women.

In Kuwait on Tuesday, amid 10th anniversary celebrations of the U.S.-led attack on Iraqi forces in Kuwait, the Constitutional Court rejected a new bid in a 40-year-old battle to give women the vote.

The plaintiff in the case was a male — Adnan Hussein al-Issa — who sued Kuwait's interior ministry for refusing to write the names of five women, including his own wife, into the parliamentary electoral rolls last year.

He said he had expected the verdict because conservative Islamists "control the government."

The Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) quoted Kuwait's chief justice as stating the decision, by an all-male, five-judge panel, was unanimous.

The same court, the highest in Kuwait, has thrown out four similar pleas filed by female activists who claimed Kuwait's electoral law barring female voting was discriminatory and unconstitutional.