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As musicians, politicians and fans remember Sinead O’Connor, some Muslims are disappointed that the Irish singer and lifelong activist’s religious identity is not being highlighted in tributes.

UK police on Wednesday said the 56-year-old was found unresponsive in her London residence on Wednesday and that there her death was not being treated as suspicious.

Since the news of her death, Muslim fans of the 90s superstar have said her conversion to Islam, a cornerstone of her identity, was inspiring, but that some media reports have failed to note her religious beliefs in obituaries.

O’Connor, whose chart-topping hit “Nothing Compares 2 U” helped her reach global stardom, converted to Islam in 2018.

“This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian‘s journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant,” the songstress tweeted on October 19, 2018.

At that time, O’Connor tweeted selfies donning the Muslim headscarf, the hijab, and uploaded a video of her reciting the Islamic call to prayer, the azan.

She took on the Muslim name Shuhada’ Davitt – later changing it to Shuhada Sadaqat – but continued to use the name Sinead O’Connor professionally.

One social media user said imagery of the singer without the hijab points to the glaring lack of Muslim reporters in newsrooms.

Meanwhile, some said that O’Connor was an inspiration for queer Muslims globally.

In 2000, she came out as a lesbian during an interview. But the singer, who was married to multiple men throughout her life, later said that her sexuality was fluid and that she did not believe in labels.

Some found joy in O’Connor’s conversion growing up, seeing themselves represented, while others, just learning about her Muslim identity at the news of her death, also took inspiration.

O’Connor was no stranger to controversy.

A lifelong nonconformist, she was outspoken about religion, feminism, and war, as well as her own addiction and mental health issues.

In 2014, she refused to play in Israel.

“Let’s just say that, on a human level, nobody with any sanity, including myself, would have anything but sympathy for the Palestinian plight. There’s not a sane person on earth who in any way sanctions what the f*** the Israeli authorities are doing,” she told Hot Press, an Irish music magazine.

Her iconic shaved head and shapeless wardrobe defied early 90s popular culture’s notions of femininity and sexuality.

In 1992, she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II during a television appearance on Saturday Night Live, vocal against the Catholic Church’s history of child abuse.

The late former star was also a firm supporter of a united Ireland, under which the United Kingdom would relinquish control of Northern Ireland.

Street musicians singing Russian songs in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv could soon face problems. Likewise, bars and restaurants playing Russian background music may end up getting in trouble.

The reason is that Kyiv city council has issued a temporary ban on performing or showcasing Russian-language art and culture — such as books, music, plays and concerts — in public. This ban also encompasses cultural and educational programs. The restriction not only applies to works by Russian authors and creators, but to all cultural products publicly presented in or translated into Russian.

Ukrainian MPs said the move was designed to protect Ukraine from Russian influence. "Russia is the language of the aggressor and it has no place in the heart of our capital," said Vadym Vasylchuk, the deputy chairman of the Standing Committee on Education and Science, Youth and Sports. Mere symbolism?

The move is backed by Ukraine's Vidsich (Defense) movement, which began calling for a ban on the Russian language and Russian goods, films and music in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea. "A ban on Russian-language cultural products is necessary," Vidsich activist Kateryna Chepura told DW. "This is an additional lever for activists working to boycott everything Russian, so we can say: shut it down, remove Russian from public life."

The Kyiv city council ban, however, is temporary, lending it a symbolic quality only. A permanent, legally binding ban would require support from Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

As a result, Chepura calls Kyiv's temporary ban "an ineffective instrument, because you cannot be held accountable for disregarding it." She regards it as a "moral factor encouraging people who do not want to continue tolerating Russian music on the streets or in theater."

In fact, certain Russian-language cultural products are already prohibited in Ukraine. The bans date back to September 2019, when the first restrictions were imposed in the region of Lviv. Subsequently, other cities like Ternopil and Zhytomyr in the Volhynia region, followed suit. Cause for controversy

Human rights activist Volodymyr Yavorskyy of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, however, said such bans are discriminatory and unconstitutional. "These are illegal decisions, because local authorities have no right to regulate such issues and impose such bans," Yavorskyy told DW. "That is why they have no legal consequences." The judiciary, he added, had already deemed such local bans illegal.

A person violating the Kyiv city council moratorium on Russian cultural products cannot be held accountable, Yaworskyy said. "These bans issued by local authorities are nothing but political gestures — only the Ukrainian parliament can turn such bans into law." Only then, he said, would they become legally binding and enforceable.

In June 2022, the Ukrainian parliament already banned publicly playing songs by Russian artists. The restriction does not, however, apply to Russian singers who condemn Russia's war against Ukraine. Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also signed a law banning the import and distribution of Russian books. It was passed by parliament last year.

Regardless of whether or not local bans are in place, playing Russian music in public is bound to cause controversy. Take, for instance, a recent disagreement between a 17-year-old busker and Ukrainian MP Natalya Pipa. She complained when the teenager performed songs by Russian rock legend Viktor Tsoi on the street in Lviv, who in return insulted the woman, saying he was allowed to play whatever music he liked. Later, however, the busker published a video in which he apologized to the lawmaker.

Another altercation occurred in the village of Pohreby, in the Kyiv region. There, a young woman was thrown out of a cafe for complaining that the establishment was playing a song by Russian pop singer Grigory Leps supporting Russia's war against Ukraine. Do not copy Russian aggression

Yevgenia Belorusets, a Ukrainian artist, translator and author who works in Ukrainian Russian and German, says the Russian-language ban is discriminatory. "These bans perpetuate the myth that Ukrainian culture is always being discriminated against," she told DW. "This then supposedly gives it the right to discriminate against other forms of cultural expression." Yevgenia Belorusets is seen looking into the camera

"Ukrainian-language culture knows too well how discrimination feels," she added. "It should not try to overcome this trauma by inflicting similar pain on others." The creator said Ukraine should not mirror Russian aggressors and refrain from "projecting Russia's aggressive intentions onto Ukraine's complex cultural situation."

Belorusets said language bans could divide Ukrainian society, warning that "it's getting harder and harder to talk about this in Ukraine, because doing so is immediately labeled as a hostile act." Ukraine's future as a democratic state, she said, depends on granting everyone their rights and accepting their own complicated past. "The challenge consists in accepting competing views within society."

Published On 18 Jul 202318 Jul 2023

Wetlands just outside India’s Kolkata city have for generations provided tonnes of food daily and thousands of jobs as they filter sewage through fish ponds.

But rapid urbanisation is threatening the ecosystem.

Conservationists warn that pollution and strong-arm land grabs are putting a lifeline for the megacity’s 14 million residents at risk.

“We are destroying the environment,” said Tapan Kumar Mondal, who has spent his life farming fish in the ingenious system of canals and ponds stretching across about 125 square kilometres (48 square miles).

“The population … has increased, there is a pressure on nature, they are ruining it,” the 71-year-old added.

Listed as a wetland of global importance under the United Nations Ramsar Convention, the waters offer natural climate control by cooling sweltering temperatures – and act as valuable flood defences for low-lying Kolkata.

But Dhruba Das Gupta, from the environmental group SCOPE, said short-sighted building development was encroaching on the wetlands.

“The wetlands are shrinking,” said the researcher, who is trying to finance a study of what is left of the waters.

Every day, 910 million litres of nutrient-rich sewage flow into the wetland, feeding a network of about 250 hyacinth-covered ponds.

“Sunlight and the sewage create a massive plankton boom,” said K Balamurugan, chief environment officer for West Bengal state, explaining that the microorganisms in the shallow fish ponds feed rapidly growing carp and tilapia.

Once the fish have had their fill, the water run-off irrigates surrounding rice paddies and the remaining organic waste fertilises vegetable fields.

“The sewage of the city is being naturally treated by the wetlands,” Balamurugan said, giving them the nickname the “kidneys of Kolkata”.

The community-developed system was created by “the world’s foremost connoisseurs of wastewater wise use and conservation,” according to its UN Ramsar listing, which also warns it is under “intense encroachment stress of urban expansion”.

The wetlands system processes about 60 percent of Kolkata’s sewage free of charge, saving the city more than $64m a year, according to a 2017 University of Calcutta study.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/