Muslim groups demonstrated in several Islamic countries Monday, as religious fundamentalists escalated criticism against the U.N population conference in Cairo, Egypt.
"The conference . . . is poison coated with sugar," says Abdel-Hayy el Faramawi of Egypt's fundamentalist group `Clergymen Front.'
"It claims to defend the family and individual rights but twists this around to sanction unmarried couples, unwed mothers and homosexual-lesbian liaisons as families."
While the Vatican has campaigned against the plan for months, radical Muslims now bitterly attack what they call a Western, liberal plan to population control.
Not all Muslims are opposed to the approach, however.
The plan, focus of this week's U.N. Conference on Population and Development, wants to raise the status of women and promote family planning, including abortion, and economic development.
"The plan is a serious deviation from the rules of Islamic law," says Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Baz, a top Saudi Arabia cleric, who is asking Muslims to boycott the conference.
The Islamic holy book, the Koran, and several Muslim societies strictly limit the role and authority of women. The radical Muslim group Hamas says women exist as "a factory for producing men."
Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Sudan and Iraq are boycotting the nine-day conference. Radical Egyptian Muslims threaten to kill delegates.
Monday, hundreds of veiled women, many holding their veiled daughters, protested in Karachi, Pakistan, and in Khartoum, Sudan, against the conference calling it "a Western plot to destroy Islam."
"(This conference aims) to transform (Islamic) chastity . . . into (Western) societies that suffer from diseases of sexual abnormality and unruly behavior," says Saudi Arabia's Council of Religious Scholars.
But several U.N. and Muslim women groups call the clerics' complaints "hogwash." They say they are speaking out, even at risk of death:
-- "Conscious women living in this patriarchal, male-prejudiced society are frustrated by the injustice inflicted upon them only for being women," says U.N. Women's Program specialist Najwa Kefaya of Amman, Jordan.
-- "Bedouin women are ready, grandmothers are ready, young girls are ready (for their rights)," says Kuwaiti veteran women's rights campaigner Najat Sultan.
They point to recent gains by Muslim women as the beginning of what they hope is a trend toward independence:
-- Three countries - Pakistan, Turkey, and Bangladesh - have female prime ministers or leaders.
But only Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto is attending the conference. Tansu Ciller of Turkey and Khalida Zia of Bangladesh have backed out, bowing to radical Muslims.
-- Women in Jordan, Turkey, and Kuwait hold top posts in civil service, education, and industry. But women in Kuwait are still not allowed to vote.
Even in Saudi Arabia, one the world's most Islamic country, women have taken a stand. In 1990, 47 women defied a ban on female drivers by getting behind the wheel for a day.
But women have been arrested, reportedly beaten and even had passports seized.
"This is the beginning of standing up for what we know is right," says homemaker Hanan Al-Khalid, 32, of Riyadh.
"We are tired of having a status lower than dogs. Cairo is a godsend, regardless of what the men think."
Muslims, Catholics: Huge alliance
Muslim and Roman Catholic leaders have issued a statement decrying abortion in connection with the world population conference in Cairo, Egypt. Of the world's 5.6 billion population, the affiliation of the 4.4 billion people who adhere to some religion:
(in billions)
Roman Catholics 1.042
Muslims 1.014
Hindus .751
Protestants .382
Buddhists .334
Other Christians .445
Other religions .453
Fast-growing Muslim nations Many Muslim countries are expected to outpace the world's 72% projected population increase by the year 2050. Projections for some predominantly Muslim countries:
