Gaza marathon cancelled because Hamas bans women runners

The report by the BBC is followed by one from Reuters.

Palestinian Woroud Sawalha running in her 800m heat at the 2012 London Olympics.

Gaza marathon: UN cancels race over Hamas ban on women

By BBC News, Middle East
March 05, 2013

The UN agency which organises Gaza’s marathon has cancelled the event, blaming the refusal of the territory’s governing Islamist Hamas movement to allow women to run.

The marathon was scheduled for Sunday and would have been Gaza’s third.

Hamas said the marathon could go ahead if “local traditions” were respected.

Conservative elements in Gaza have sometimes complained about mixing between the sexes, especially in schools and at sporting events.

The UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) said in a statement that it had taken “the disappointing decision” after “discussions with the authorities in Gaza who have insisted that no women should participate”.

Unrwa “is working on a programme of other events, which will be forwarded to those interested as soon as possible,” the statement adds.

‘No mixing’
“We regret this decision to cancel the marathon but we don’t want men and women running together,” Abdessalam Siyyam, cabinet secretary of the Hamas government, told AFP news agency.

“We did not tell Unrwa to cancel the marathon and we haven’t prevented it, but we laid down some conditions: We don’t want women and men mixing in the same place,” he added.

The Palestinian territory is almost exactly marathon length from top to bottom.

Last year, thousands of runners braved freezing conditions to take part, including some women. Palestinian runner Nader al-Masri won the event on its first two occasions.

In previous years, Hamas has supported the race and provided security.

In the past there have been attacks on the UN’s summer camps for children in Gaza after complaints that boys were allowed to mix with girls, the BBC’s Jon Donnison reports.

The marathon was due to be part of the UN’s fundraising efforts in order to run those camps, our correspondent adds.

Gaza marathon cancelled after Hamas bans women runners

By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters
March 05, 2013

GAZA – The main United Nations agency in Gaza has canceled the annual marathon in the small Palestinian territory after ruling Hamas Islamists banned women from the race.

Hamas said having women in the annual event, scheduled for April 10, contravened Islamic tradition even though dozens of Palestinian schoolgirls had started the two previous marathons.

“This disappointing decision follows discussions with the authorities in Gaza, who have insisted that no women should participate,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which sponsors the race, said in a statement.

This year’s field of 1,500 schoolchildren and 800 adults was to have included a record number of women – 260 Palestinians and 119 foreigners, UNRWA said. The children’s participation is symbolic – they begin the race but run only a few hundred meters, while the adults do the full 42 km (26 miles).

“The marathon was an annual event to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and to raise funds for summer camps organized by UNRWA which serve at least 250,000 schoolchildren,” said Adnan Abu Hasna, the agency’s media adviser in Gaza.

Relations between UNRWA and Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is shunned by the West over its hostility towards Israel, have been strained at times.

Some Hamas officials have accused UNRWA of failing to include representatives of the Gaza government when UNRWA has hosted meetings with international visitors. Several Hamas lawmakers have been critical of the curriculum in UNRWA-run schools.

Founded in 1949, UNRWA provides food and other emergency assistance to more than two-thirds of the 1.6 million population in the cramped, coastal territory.

Human rights groups have accused Hamas of pressuring women to cover their heads in public and using police to harass young couples in the streets and on beaches. Hamas has denied it is trying to enforce any modesty code.

(Reporting by Nidal Almughrabi; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Mark Heinrich)