Ghada_Jamsheer
Ghada Jamshir (Arabic: غادة جمشير) is a Bahraini women's rights activist and an ardent campaigner for the reform of Sharia courts in Bahrain and the Arab States of the Persian Gulf. Jamshir heads the Women's Petition Committee lobbying for a law that would shift jurisdiction over family and women's affairs from Islamic Sharia court to civil courts.
Jamshir has called the Al Khalifa government's reforms "artificial and marginal". In a statement in December 2006 she said,
The government is using the family law issue as a bargaining tool with opposition Islamic groups. This is evident through the fact that the authorities raise this issue when ever they want to distract attention from other controversial political issues. While no serious steps are taken to help approve this law, although the government and its puppet National Assembly had no trouble in the last four years when it came to approving restrictive laws related to basic freedoms. All of this is why no one in Bahrain believes in government clichés and government institution like the High Council for Women. The government used women's rights as a decorative tool on the international level. While the High Council for Women was used to hinder non-governmental women societies and to block the registration of the Women Union for many years. Even when the union was recently registered, it was restricted by the law on societies.[1]
Jamshir has been outspoken in criticizing the Bahraini government for its role in the Bandargate scandal. In 2007 she alleged that the Interior Ministry was attempting to spy on her.[2]