HRW noted that the government should formally clarify its position on sports for girls in government-funded schools and announce a national strategy to promote sports for girls at all levels of education.

The official Saudi Press Agency announced on May 4, 2013, that female students enrolled in private girls’ schools could take part in sports so long as they wear “decent clothing” and are supervised by female Saudi instructors within the tight regulations of the country’s Education Ministry.

“All of Saudi Arabia’s women and girls should be able to enjoy the social, educational, and health benefits of taking part in sports,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “If the government can take down this barrier for private schools, it should give girls and women in publicly funded schools the same benefit.”

Although two women competed for Saudi Arabia at the Olympics in 2012 for the first time, women and girls are still not free to practice sports in the kingdom. The government should follow its announcement about private schools with a removal of public school barriers and an announcement of a strategy to make it happen, Human Rights Watch said.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that still effectively bars girls from taking part in sport in government schools. There is no state sports infrastructure for women, with all designated buildings, sports clubs, courses, expert trainers, and referees limited to men. Discrimination against girls and women in sport still takes place at multiple levels in the kingdom.

The Saudi authorities should extend the health and educational benefits that the Education Ministry cited to girls in public schools as well as private schools, Human Rights Watch said.

The government has carried out encouraging recent modest reforms for women, Human Rights Watch said, including on combatting domestic violence and licensing a female lawyer trainee.

But as Human Rights Watch has documented in the report “Perpetual Minors,” the “guardianship” system and strict gender segregation limit women’s ability to take part in public life. Under this discriminatory system, girls and women are forbidden from traveling, conducting official business, or undergoing certain medical procedures without permission from their male guardians. All women remain banned from driving in Saudi Arabia.

Human Rights Watch has long urged the International Olympic Committee to use its leverage with Saudi Arabia to press its sports leaders to conform to the values and principles of the Olympic Movement by adopting policies that will benefit all Saudi women and girls. These include establishing a timeline and benchmarksfor introducing physical education as a subject for girls in public and private schools.

“The world cheered when Saudi women shared the Olympic spotlight, but millions of women and girls in Saudi Arabia are still stuck on the sidelines,” Worden said. ”This is a moment for the global sporting community to press Saudi Arabia to allow sports for women and girls, once and for all.”

In a press release announcing the decision, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) stated that it “regrets” the cancellation of the third edition of the race, originally scheduled for 10 April.

“This disappointing decision follows discussions with the authorities in Gaza who have insisted that no women should participate,” UNRWA stated.

In the previous two marathons, professional and amateur athletes from the Middle East and around the world raced along the 42-kilometre long Gaza Strip in order to raise funds for the UNRWA 2012 Summer Games.

Organized by UNRWA, the Games allow some 250,000 Gaza children “to have fun and express themselves freely and safely, an experience that is rare for children growing up in the territory under an Israeli blockade,” according to the Agency.

Last year’s marathon drew the participation of nearly 2,200 children and 500 adults, including two Olympic competitors – Nader Al Masri and Bahaa al-Farra.

UNRWA nevertheless encouraged registered participants to travel to Gaza and attend an alternative programme of events which it said it was still working on and would make public shortly.

With the London Olympics coming to an end and Rio de Janeiro now four years away from its debut as the first South American city to host the Olympics, the report explored the possibility of a majority Muslim nation hosting the popular sports event for the first time in Olympics history. Never before has an Olympics been held in a majority Muslim nation.

Kasim Randeree, a researcher at the internationally renowned Said Business School, said in a study that Istanbul, which has lost four previous bids, tops the list.

“From the perspective of the broader international community, engagement with the Muslim world could not be more necessary or timely … and sport has historically been demonstrated as an effective tool in achieving similar goals,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Randeree, as saying.

“It is potentially in their long-term geopolitical and socio-economic interests for a [Muslim] nation to host the Olympics. I think Istanbul rates highly because of Turkey’s history of Olympic participation,” he added.

Randeree claimed that fierce summer temperatures would work against the Gulf cities, and even though the oil-rich states could climate-proof venues, signature Olympic events such as the marathon would still be negatively affected.

Earlier this year, Doha, capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, and Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, were cut from the list of cities bidding to host the 2020 Olympic Games after failing to make the final list for the 2016 Games.

Even though Qatar had the financial means to carry off the 2020 bid, it could not convince the IOC to take a chance on holding the Summer Games in October. Apart from the temperature problem was the prospect of low television ratings due to potential conflicts with television and other sports events going on during that time of year.

Many of us might find these details not extraordinary, but in reality they are. Female athletes were not accepted at the Games for a long time; it was a boys’ game. There have been The Women’s Olympic Games, of course, but those games seem to be completely forgotten.

The woman who envisioned the Games was Alice Milliat, founder and president of La Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale (FSFI); and she created them as her response to the refusal of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) to put women’s track and field on the program of the Olympic Games.

The Women’s Olympic Games took place in the 1920s and 1930s, and gave women an opportunity to improve their sporting performances by competing against each other. The first Games were held in Paris, France, in 1922. They included 11 events, and the participation of female athletes from 6 countries. Eighteen athletes broke world records and were cheered by more than 20,000 spectators. Four years later, the Games were held in Gothenberg, Sweden; 10 nations were represented, including Japan.

As ‘Milliat’s women’ broke new records, and their prestige rose, the IAAF started to push for more and more women in the IOC’s games. However, at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, Netherlands, women competed only in 5 events, when they were promised 10. The response was immediate and severe: the British Women’s Athletics Association refused to take part in the Games as a protest against the false promise given by the IOC. It was the first, and only, Olympic Games that recorded a feminist boycott.

The last Women’s Olympic Games took place in London, in 1934. These Olympics Games are especially significant for the female 800m race that took place – banned till then due to the physical strength it requires. It might be worth noting that at Summer Olympic Games women were allowed to compete in this kind of race only in 1966.

Time seems to bring transformation, evolution. The status of women in the sports is improving with every new gathering, every Summer and Winter Olympic Games. However, some Arab countries find the idea of sending female athletes to compete in games still very problematic, and they justify it taking into the equation issues apparently related to their culture. As a result, several Muslim countries did not send any female athletes to the IOC’s games till now.

It so happened then, that when Khadija Mohammed qualified for the Olympics at the Al Shabab stadium in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), and was announced as the first Emirati to participate, the news reached the press at God’s speed.

When Qatar and Brunei announced they would send female athletes to attend the Games for the first time, a feeling that something important was happening spread among journalists. When it was confirmed that Bahiya al-Hamad will carry the Qatari flag at the opening ceremony, the world knew it’s going to be a truly historic moment.

As we learned that Brunei’s Maziah Mahusin will compete in the athletics; Qatar’s Nada Arkaji will compete in swimming, Noor al-Malki in athletics, Aya Magdy in table tennis, and Bahiya al-Hamad in shooting, we knew. For the first time, it seemed possible to have female athletes in every one of the 205 National Olympic Committees that were about to participate in the London’s games. The Olympics could suddenly change, and they would not be the same ever again.

It was a domino effect. Saudi Arabia also announce it would send women athletes to the Olympics for the first time. The excitement remained contained, though. In fact, the government had chosen two athletes, runner Sarah Attar from Pepperdine University in California (800-meter) and Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani (judo) who were either living outside the country, or carried almost no influence as sports’ figures inside Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the government’s decision seemed a clever attempt to quiet the international pressure, and essentially have an all-male Olympic team.

Nevertheless, Minky Worden of the New York-based Human Rights Watch states that this Olympic Games are truly important for Saudi women: “It’s an important precedent that will create space for women to get rights, and it will be hard for Saudi hardliners to roll back.”

Much more could have been done, but as Sarah Attar said from her training base in the US: “It’s such a huge honor and I hope that it can really make some big strides for women over there to get more involved in sport.”

It seems the London’s games will go down in history as important for women’s rights, and as a real step towards the day the Games will be completely gender equal. In the meantime, we will have the honor to admire the strength and the resilience of many women, several of them fantastic Muslim athletes: Hayat Lambarki (athletics) from Morocco, Amina Ferguen (athletics,) from Algeria, and Nisrine Dandan (basketball) from Lebanon, only to name a few.

Let us enjoy some great Olympic Games this summer, and many formidable performances by the most committed female athletes on the planet!

“If people and nations can set aside their differences, if they can place harmony over hostility, if they can do it for one day, or for one event, they can do it forever,” Mr. Ban said in his remarks at an event on the Olympic Truce and Sport for Social Change in London.

“That is the message of the Olympic Truce. That is the dream on which the United Nations is built, and the goal of our daily work,” he added.

Based on the ancient Greek tradition whereby athletes, artists, their relatives and pilgrims could travel safely to the Olympic Games and afterwards return home safely, the Olympic Truce called for the cessation of all conflicts during the sports event.

The modern-day version of the Truce has been promoted annually through a General Assembly resolution since 1993, and it was extended to the Paralympic Games for disabled athletes in 2006.

The resolution for this year’s Games was the first time that all 193 UN Member States co-sponsored it and passed it unanimously. Member States exhorted nations to observe the Olympic Truce individually and collectively, starting with the opening of the XXX Olympiad on 27 July and ending with the closing of the XIV Paralympic Games, which start in late August and end on 9 September.

The resolution calls on Member States “to cooperate with the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee in their efforts to use sport as a tool to promote peace, dialogue and reconciliation in areas of conflict during and beyond the Olympic and Paralympic Games period.”

“The Truce may sound like something from the distant past that has no place in our times,” Ban said. “It may seem naive to think that hardened fighters and their patrons will listen, but relevant it is, and try we must.”

Ban said he was particularly concerned with the situation in Syria and the escalating violence in the city of Aleppo, and urged the Syrian Government to halt their offensive. “The violence from both sides must stop for the sake of the suffering civilians of Syria,” he said.

In addition, the UN chief emphasized that the Olympics should remind nations of the power of sport and physical activity as an investment in better health, education and skills, as well as a way to build inclusive and tolerant societies.

“We often take sport, play and leisure for granted, yet millions of people around the world do not have access to sports, or are actively denied their right to participate,” Mr. Ban said. “I call on all Governments and sport organizations to provide opportunities for sport, physical activity and play. This is not a luxury. It is an investment in better health, education and skills for coming generations – critical for building inclusive societies grounded in mutual tolerance and respect.”

He added, “When you see the magic that a ball can create among children in a shantytown or refugee camp, you see potential that we must harness.”

London 2012 took a different approach. Some would say due to a lack of ancient history. True again. But not all peoples around the world have the privilege of looking at ancient ruins with nostalgia. Some are obliged to put serious efforts to work, to achieve progress on economic and social level. Other reasons are in play as well. British land was never conquered at least since Julius Caesar. Greek lands have been turned again and again in a theatre of wars and extreme politics; so different peoples, different storytelling.

In my view, London 2012 ceremony focused on two things: first, what made Great Britain what it is today and second, on today’s world reality and change.

They depicted change via constructing images that described progress, embraced differentiality and promoted contemporary culture elements. From the agrarian economy to the “dark satanic mills” of the industrial revolution, which began in the UK in the middle of the 18th century and swept throughout the rest of the world -transforming society and laying the foundations of the modern world in its wake- to post-industrial pop society and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, British computer scientist and the inventor of the World Wide Web.

In my opinion, there were two key moments of the ceremony that made a difference. The one was the ‘Mortality’ section by choreographer Akram Khan that featured 50 specially selected professional dancers, a 9-year-old boy and Khan himself, accompanied by the voice of Emeli Sandé singing Abide With Me. Khan’s work brought an infectious stillness to the Ceremony, a reminder of our own mortality and the transfer of possibilities and hopes between generations.

The second moment was the final stage of torch relay with the young athletes leading the way to the future. River Thames cruiser with Beckham and the young female footballer on board delivered the flame to an older but strong athlete who entered the stadium and handed over the torch to a group of young athletes, who, as a group, shared the final meters towards the final task. It was a symbolic mystagogy that praised values, beliefs and the human factor.

A lot of comments are already made about the British Olympic party. Cross-cultural differences allow for too many interpretations and expression of national complexes. My preferred was the one tweeted by UK’s Conservative MP Aidan Burley, who was sacked as a ministerial aide last year after he took part in a Nazi-themed stag party in the French Alps. He said the Olympics opening ceremony was “multicultural crap”, The Guardian writes. He described it as “the most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen”.

Well, if the ‘Isles of Wonder’ managed to upset the extremists, it means that the social and political symbolisms were properly in place.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com

Among the approximately, 60, 000 audience watching the event, were celebrities, dignitaries including U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama as well as presidents, prime ministers and European royalty, according to Reuters.

More than a billion more people around the world watched the official start to 17-day event where  16,000 athletes from 204 countries around the globe will compete.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth arrived at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, applauded by  the crowd as she appeared in the stadium to formally declare the games open. She walked into the opening ceremony and before a choir sang the national anthem.

The traditional parade of nations at the opening ceremony saw the athletes marching behind the flags of the 204 participating nations. Greece had the lead, as the spiritual home of the games, and Team Great Britain was last, as the host.

Brunei and Bahrain featured female flagbearers. The London Games 2012 is set to be the first Olympics in history whereby every participating nation will have at least one female representative. Three Saudi women marching behind the men in their delegation flashing victory signs with their fingers.

Following a bid headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe and the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, London was selected as the host city on 6 July 2005 during the 117th IOC Session in Singapore, defeating bids from Moscow, New York City, Madrid and Paris. London will become the first city to officially host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948.

Two female athletes will represent Saudi Arabia: Wujdan Shahrkhani in judo and Sarah Attar in track and field. Attar, who lives and trains outside the kingdom, has said, “I hope it can really make some big strides for women over there to get more involved in sport.” The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said the women were invited to compete under the “universality” clause, which allows athletes who do not meet qualifying times to compete when their participation is deemed important “for reasons of equality.”

“That two women will compete for the Saudi team for the first time in the history of the Olympics is a first step,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch “But the race for gender equality in Saudi Arabia cannot be won until the millions of women and girls who are now deprived of athletic opportunities can also exercise their right to practice sports.”

On July 5, 2012, an official from the Saudi sports ministry denied a request by private citizens to hold a women’s Ramadan sports tournament featuring basketball, volleyball, and football (soccer). The organizers had said the event would “comply with Sharia requirements and national laws, such as non-mixing of genders, [obtaining] guardians’ approval, and compliance with modest dress.” The Sports Ministry official gave no reason for denying permission for the tournament.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bars girls from taking part in sport in government schools. There is no state sports infrastructure for women, with all designated buildings, sport clubs, courses, expert trainers, and referees limited exclusively to men.

The ban on women’s private, for-fee and fully equipped sports clubs has forced women to largely restrict themselves to “health” facilities, usually attached to hospitals that rarely feature swimming pools, a running track, or playing fields for team sports. Membership fees there are beyond the means of many ordinary Saudi women and girls

Official sporting bodies hold no competitive sports events for Saudi women athletes in the kingdom and do not support Saudi sportswomen in regional or international competitions.

These forms of gender discrimination clearly violate the Olympic Charter, which states in the 6th Fundamental Principle of Olympism that “any form of discrimination,” including on the basis of gender, is “incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”

Saudi Arabia has one of the worst records on women’s rights, as Human Rights Watch has extensively documented, including in the report “Perpetual Minors.” The government does not allow women to drive, and it enforces a male guardianship system that treats women as minors in all aspects of life. In addition, there is strict gender segregation in public, limiting women’s freedom to leave the house, to work, to participate in public life, to government offices, to courts, or to seek medical treatment.

“Saudi women and girls cannot play sports – and they cannot even watch sports in stadiums,” Worden said.

Human Rights Watch has long urged the IOC to use its leverage with Saudi Arabia to get the country’s sports leaders to conform to the values and principles of the Olympic Movement by adopting policies that will benefit all Saudi women and girls including:

- Establishing a timeline and benchmarksfor introducing physical education as a mandatory subject for girls in public and private schools.

- Allowing the creation of women’s gyms and sports clubs.

- Creating women’s sectionsin the sports ministry (General Presidency for Youth Welfare) and the National Olympic Committee.

“The world should cheer Wujdan Shahrkhani and Sarah Attar as they make history in London, but we must also remember millions of women and girls inside Saudi Arabia who can only watch from the sidelines,” Worden said. “The IOC can move the ball down the field for women’s sports by making it clear for future Olympics that if you don’t play by the rules, you should not play at all.”

“Failure to allow women to play sports violates the Olympic Charter, which prohibits gender discrimination, and would have triggered Saudi Arabia’s banning from the London Games,” Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

The Saudi concession that “qualified” women could compete comes only weeks before the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Games.

“This is an important step forward, but it also fails to address the fundamental barriers to women playing sports in the kingdom,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives.

While calling the Saudi announcement an important advance for women, Human Rights Watch cautioned that gender discrimination in Saudi Arabia is institutional and entrenched. “Alone in the world, millions of girls are still banned from playing sports in Saudi’s schools,” Worden said. Women are also prohibited from playing team sports and denied access to sports facilities, including gyms and swimming pools.

According to Human Rights Watch, these obstacles to sport are underpinned by the government’s so-called “guardianship” system, under which women must obtain permission from a male guardian (a father, husband, or even a son) to work, study, marry or access health care. Saudi women are banned even from driving a car.

Human Rights Watch said Saudi Arabia should demonstrate its commitment to human rights and the Olympic Charter not just by sending a team of female athletes to the London Olympics, but by adopting new policies that will create real, systemic change to benefit all Saudi women and girls.

“With the Saudi Olympic reversal as momentum”, Human Rights Watch said, it “will continue to push Saudi Arabia to allow women to play sports and participate in public life.”