Threats to Nosheen

The latest article by Magdi Allam once again brought to our attention by Stefania. Here is our translation:

Threats to Nosheen Who Helps Pakistani Women and Studies

She is 24 years old, lives at Carpi and forms part of the commission for equal opportunities.

Rome - She is the only Pakistani woman who writes for an Italian paper. Last February 16th, she received a death threat in a letter written in Urdu: "At the first opportunity we will slit your throat and cut your tongue out if you do not put a halt to your activities". By this they are referring to her cultural and social commitments for the emancipation of women and the integration of children. However, she, Nosheen Ilyas, resident at Carpi for the past six years, has filed a report and does not allow herself to be intimidated. A parallel with Hina Saleem immediately comes to mind. Hina Saleem was a Pakistani girl whose throat was cut by her father last August on the 11th in Brescia "guilty" of having integrated into Italian society, of having broken ties with her family, of dressing like her Italian peers of having an Italian fiance.

However, Nosheen's case is substantially different. 24 years old, she dresses like other Pakistani women ("I love our colours and then I think: If I already receive threats, what would happen if I dressed in Western clothing?"), is devoted to her family and her culture ("My father who is a mechanic, my mother who is a housewife and my four brothers and one sister sustain me and encourage me to persist") is bethroted to a first cousin who studies at the university of Lahore and who has never been to Italy ("I admit that that it is partly an arranged marriage but it 80% a love match, I find myself well with him. I am a modern woman and even he and his parents are so. However we will get married in three years when both of us are sorted out and we will settle down to live here").

Therefore if Hina was tragically an unhappy rebel, Nosheen has the vocation of a reformer. However she is a tenacious reformer who does not compromise with those she calls "ignorant Pakistanis". People such as "those who live on a lower floor in our appartment, who accuse me of leading astray their women just because I teach them the Italian language and render them independent of their husbands when they go to the supermarkets, to the municipality or to hospital". Or "those who on the evening of May 7th 2005 attacked my younger brother Iqeel, hitting him on the head with a bottle to force my parents to forbid me to work and get around socially. However, even in that case we filed a report with the police, we do not turn back."

Nosheen has always worked. "I was in employment and recently have set up a business importing clothes from Pakistan." However, her true passion is the cultural and social work. The merit of having discovered her journalistic tendencies belonggs to Ahmad Ejaz, director of the magazine "Azad", "Book" in Urdu which has a healthy circulation amongst Pakistanis in Italy. Recently, she started collaborating with the magazine "Voice of Carpi." The greater part of Nosheen's time and resources are dedicated to women. She is the first foreign girl to form part of Carpi's commission for equal opportunities.

In her article for "The Voice of Carpi" of the 12th March 2005, Nosheen wrote on schooling Pakistani women: "As it is important for men to go to school, it is likewise for women. Men and women are wheels of the same vehicle and if one fails to work, even the other grinds to a halt. (...) If the man studies, only one member of the partnership studies. If however the woman studies as well, it is as if the entire family studies because she can transmit her knowledge to her children." Nosheen always explains thus the teaching of the Italian language which she carries out in the permanent central territory of Carpi "It is important for the Pakistani girls to go to school. Only thus will they succeed in learning Italian and in future being able to help the family and the husband, making them independent. Learning the language is the first step to take, the most important. In this manner, one can solve, in an independent fashion, the many little problems which occur on a daily basis such as the doctor, shopping and kitchen errands without having to wait for the husband to accompany her evverytime.

The story of Nosheen teaches us that the Islamic extremists who threaten her will not be satisfied until she is completely submissive to their will. The real problem is not the Italianised lifestyle of Hina or the reforming desire on Nosheen but the fact that you are either completely with them or you will be condemned as an enemy of Islam. Equally, the story of Nosheen gives to lie to local beliefs according to which Islamic radicalism is the consequence of social and economic isolation especially since in the prosperous areas of Emilia, between Reggio, Sassuolo, Modena and Carpi, the power and activities of groups such as Minhaj-ul Quran, who have 17 mosques and madrasses throught Italy and are hostile to the emancipation of women, has been radicalised and itensified. Such also is Tabligh which preaches the Islamic Caliphate and which last April gathered over eight thousand disciples from all over Europe at the stadium of Bologna. Of the same type are the five of the seven Pakistani drug traffickers in Carpi who were arrested last October and who are involved in Operation "Khiber Pass" in which arrest was uncovered a chain of Islamic banks, with international links, having the ability to process some 2-4 million dollars daily. All this which happens in an Italy which does not have a model of social co-operation which protects the system of values that sustains our national identity, that is not in a position to protect emancipated or brave foreign women such as Hina or Nosheen, which shows indifference if not actual collusion with the creeping and growing penetration of the Islamic extremists.