News

On the 24th of March 2015 The British Guardian Newspaper as well as The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (Occrp), run by a group of investigative journalists, reported that the daughter of the leader of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov is "facing fresh allegations of corruption after an investigation accused her of accepting more than $1bn from telecoms companies. " The Occrp has accused her "of diverting money from Uzbekistan's national coffers in to banks, an offshore hedge fund and luxurious real estate around the world. The investigators accuse Karimova of demanding percentages of companies and extorting cash for her "personal services and lobbying efforts".

Comment

News of Gulnara Karimov's charges of corruption and other political indiscretions are nothing new and have been internationally documented with hundreds of aids assisting her in her criminal network that has global reach. What should be the focus of these new allegations is that, whilst she may not have official office in the Uzbek government, it is clear that the argument that more women who have financial and political access does not by default improve the lives of women and children in any nation. What we find is that women without the Islamic model of politics will, just as men do, serve their own personal interests at the expense of the needs of the ordinary citizens. The British government has tens of female members of parliament under investigation for declaring expenses that where not due to them or having shady business connections with companies to serve the desire of the corporate elite. In October 2006, British National Archives made a mistake by declassifying a document that revealed large-scale corruption under Margaret Thatcher, the UK's only female Prime Minister, extracts of which were published by the Guardian Newspaper before it was withdrawn from public circulation. The documents revealed a UK arms deal to Saudi Arabia by British arms firm BAE. It showed that their cost had been inflated by nearly a third in what has now come to be known infamously as "The Al Yamamah" deal. These democratic despots are alive and well in the eastern hemisphere as well as the west. The luxurious lifestyle of Imelda Marcos, the ‘first lady of the Philippines, has been exposed with her 3000 plus designer shoes collected over time whilst millions languished in abject poverty. We are well aware of the Muslim countries that have had females leaders such as Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto whose two terms of ruling was plagued with corruption allegations whilst the women of Pakistan suffered no improvements in their economic, health or security matters. Current female leaders do not stand the test of time in learning any lessons from their predecessors. The current Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina was arrested in July 2007 on charges of corruption and extortion and among her many abuses of power she betrayed thousands of fellow Burmese Muslim women and children in denying them military rescue and aid as they suffered the genocidal tactics of her Buddhist neighbors. Internally one of her most heinous crimes against women was to legalize the right of Muslim women to sell their bodies as a legitimate way to earn money, all under the guidance of the Kufr western principles of liberal feminism as outlined in the useless and defunct CEDAW treaty which she has submitted to. All of these example show that being a female in power does not save women from political abuse and neglect; it is the ideological thinking, not gender that is the key to the progress of women in any society. As such, it is only the Sharia Law that can truly deliver this correct vision and solve the sickness of corruption and self-interest as the guiding force in ruling a country. Under the Sharia law of the Khilafah "Caliphate" a women can never be Khalif but, as we have seen in history, when Allah's laws are the guiding principle of ruling and the method of accountability is observed as defined by Sharia law, all citizens have their rights, including the elevated status of women. It is the process of following man made laws such as those represented in the democratic systems that create systems based on gross corruption and misuse of power, an affliction that neither male or females are immune to. This is a matter that Allah (swt) the creator or the universe reveals in Surah Al Mu'minun.

((وَلَوِ اتَّبَعَ الْحَقُّ أَهْوَاءهُمْ لَفَسَدَتِ السَّمَاوَاتُ وَالْأَرْضُ وَمَن فِيهِنَّ بَلْ أَتَيْنَاهُم بِذِكْرِهِمْ فَهُمْ عَن ذِكْرِهِم مُّعْرِضُونَ))

"If the truth were to follow their whims and desires, the heavens and Earth and everyone in them would have been brought to ruin. No indeed! We have given them that by which they are remembered [i.e. their honor, eminence and dignity], but they have turned away from it." [Surat al-Mu'minun: 71]

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Imrana Mohammad
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir