As usual, Muslims will probably not be scanned with new scanners

Here is the typical pattern:

Muslims do some anti social act in non Muslim nation, whether it is terrorism, or wear clothing symbolizing an allegiance not connected to the appropriate institution such as a government office. The agency, whether it is an airport security service or government building, makes some kind of rule it deems fair, in order to deal with the problem without singling out Muslims. For example, they may pass a rule saying that all religious clothing or symbols will be banned, or that all people will have to be subject to bomb sniffing dogs.

Then, Muslim groups will produce one of the following arguments or one like it:

1. Muslims do not have a choice about wearing Muslim garments. Muslim women must wear the burkha Jibab hijab or whatever, and therefore, to ban all religious clothing means discriminating against Muslims. Or, Islam does not tolerate dogs, and any attempt to make a Muslim come into contact with a dog is anti-Islam and discriminatory.

Both arguments are patent lies of course. All religious behaviour is voluntary. Islam is not a race. One can always choose between one’s religious practices and devotions and the other aspects of ones life that may be selected against, by those choices. If you do not like dogs sniffing you, you can always walk to mosque or prey at home. However these arguments work. Typically, Muslims win exemptions from the very rules created to protect us, from them. You can bet that Muslims will win an exemption from being scanned at airports and only the 85 year old Jewish women will have to endure this indignity while some jihadiye in a Burka manages to slip on board with a pound of PETP

Here is just the most recent example. H/T to Islam in Europe with thanks. The bold in the article below is mine.

Eeyore for Vlad

Calls for Full-Body Scanners Re-Ignite Privacy Concerns

FOXNews.com

The calls for airports to expand the use of full-body scanners in the wake of the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight have re-ignited privacy concerns from groups and lawmakers who have long said the scanners produce graphic images that could make their way onto the Internet.

Staff at the Transportation Security Administration Systems Integration Facility, one playing the role of a passenger, demonstrate a full-body scanning machines in Washington Dec. 30. (Reuters Photo)

The calls for airports to expand the use of full-body scanners in the wake of the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight have re-ignited privacy concerns from groups and lawmakers who have long said the scanners produce graphic images that could make their way onto the Internet.

The Transportation Security Administration currently has only 40 of the scanners in operation, but it has purchased another 150 and plans to deploy them next year. The agency plans to buy another 300 next year, and some officials are calling on the agency to move quickly in using the new technology, which allows TSA officials to peer under clothing for any contraband. It is believed that the machines would have detected the PETN explosive sewn into the underwear of the alleged would-be bomber last week.

But privacy groups have renewed their complaints about the machines. The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday ticked off its many misgivings with the devices:

— They say the scanners produce “strikingly graphic images” of “virtually naked bodies”;

— They say they reveal sexual organs and “intimate medical details”;

— They say they represent an “assault on personal privacy.”

“While it’s important to react quickly, it’s also important to react wisely and to adopt procedures that will be both truly effective and the least invasive to Americans’ privacy,” Michael German, ACLU’s Washington legislative office counsel said in a statement.

The group wants the devices, if used at all, to be employed only when “absolutely necessary” for certain travelers.

Some officials, though, say the near-catastrophe last Friday should make privacy concerns moot.

“There have been privacy concerns expressed about the use of these whole body imaging devices, but I think those privacy concerns, which are, frankly, mild, have to fall in the face of the ability of these machines to detect material like this, explosive on this individual,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said on Fox News. “Just think about it. Three hundred people could have been killed and untold more on the ground in Michigan if this plane had crashed.”

Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in an interview with NPR, complained that the devices aren’t as widely used as they should be because of “aggressive” campaigns against them from the ACLU and other groups.

The TSA currently has a number of restrictions on the machines it has in use. Only six of the 19 airports that use them employ them as the primary method of screening. Even then, the machines are optional, and passengers who don’t wish to go through them can opt for a pat-down.

And the officer who helps the passenger through the machine does not view the image it produces. That image is sent to a remotely located officer in a secure room who does not actually see the passenger, according to the TSA. The technology blurs facial features, and the image is supposed to be automatically deleted. Cameras and cell phones are not allowed in the viewing room.

That might not matter to some religious groups.

Isaac Yeffet, former head of Israel’s El-Al airlines, said Muslims would not stand for any widespread use of the device since it would, to some, represent a dishonor to women and their families.

“Realize that a Muslim will know that his wife was seen naked in this machine,” Yeffet said. “You know what would be the reaction? … Terrible.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who sponsored legislation that passed the House over summer prohibiting the machines from being used as a primary method of screening, told The Salt Lake Tribune that even after the attempted bombing he stands by the legislation, which is stuck in the Senate.

“I believe there’s technology out there that can identify bomb-type materials without necessarily, overly invading our privacy,” he said.

England exceeds Orwell’s wildest fantasies of big brother

H/T A Millar for this.

Im still trying to cope with the multiple ramifications of this. Do the British have computers that check every single email anyone writes for words that rhyme with words that might be derogatory?

Cheeses clucking heist as a bigger do!

From the Daily Mail:

Businessman is arrested in front of wife and son… for ‘anti-gipsy’ email that he didn’t even write.

By James Millbank
Last updated at 10:04 AM on 10th January 2010

Paul Osmond who made a comment about a gypsy planning applicationPaul Osmond who made a comment about a gipsy planning application

A wealthy businessman was arrested at home in front of his wife and young son over an email which council officials deemed ‘offensive’ to gipsies – but which he had not even written.

The email, concerning a planning appeal by a gipsy, included the phrase: ‘It’s the ‘do as you likey’ attitude that I am against.’

Council staff believed the email was offensive because ‘likey’ rhymes with the derogatory term ‘pikey’.

The 45-year-old IT boss was held in a police cell for four hours until it was established he had nothing to do with the email, which had been sent by one of his then workers, Paul Osmond.

But police had taken his DNA and later confirmed they would be holding it indefinitely.

The businessman, who has asked not to be named, was also fingerprinted in the police investigation estimated to have cost taxpayers up to £12,000.

He said two uniformed officers came to his house on a Sunday afternoon and said he would be handcuffed if he did not accompany them to the police station.

His computer and other internet equipment were also seized. Continue Reading →

Myleene Klass warned after brandishing knife to deter intruders

And like Canada, you can bet that she or we, would be treated more harshly by the police for defending ourselves than the intruders would for robing, terrorizing, beating or raping us. The fact is, if we were allowed to have a defencive weapon at home and taught how to use it, the number of intruders would drop dramatically. That and of course, stop importing people for whom a British or Canadian jail is a nicer place than life for them on the streets back where they came from.

Eeyore for Vlad

From The Guardian.

Police tell TV presenter she was acting illegally in waving kitchen knife at youths who were peering in window late at night

Myleene KlassMyleene Klass is said to be ‘aghast’ after receiving a police warning for using a kitchen knife to scare intruders at her Hertfordshire home. Photograph: Richard Saker

The TV presenter and Marks & Spencer model Myleene Klass has been warned by police for waving a knife at teenagers who were peering into a window of her house late at night.

Klass was in the kitchen with her daughter upstairs when she spotted the youths in her garden just after midnight on Friday. She grabbed a knife and banged the windows before they ran away.

Hertfordshire police warned her she should not have used a knife to scare off the youths because carrying an “offensive weapon”, even in her own home, was illegal. Continue Reading →

All rise in court – or would the Muslims like to sit this one out?

From The Telegraph h/t Grace

Faced with seven men in full Muslim dress, a District Judge bravely changed the rules to accommodate the accused, says Gill Hornby.

By Gill Hornby
Published: 8:06PM GMT 08 Jan 2010

It’s up to District Judge Mellanby to decide whether these men are guilty of “threatening abusive or insulting behaviour”, and we, of course, expect that she will do so in a fair and proper manner. But we should keep an eye on the case, to see if she brings in any other radical legal innovations, overturning centuries of common law, in the process.

Fascinating legal developments in Luton this week, where District Judge Carolyn Mellanby has created important judicial precedents – without receiving sufficient attention for her pioneering work.

You may know that Mrs Mellanby has been hearing the case of the seven Muslim men who are accused of disrupting the homecoming parade of the 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment last March. As the soldiers paraded through the town, the men were allegedly heard to shout: “British soldiers go to hell” and “They are killing babies”. They were also allegedly seen to display placards with slogans such as “Butchers of Basra” and “Cowards, Killers, Extremists”, and so face charges under the Public Order Act.

When the case opened, the accused refused to stand for Miss Mellanby. Their religion, they argued, forbids them to stand for anybody except Allah, and they were therefore unable to show their respect for the court’s officers in the customary manner.

Faced with seven men in full Muslim dress, the District Judge bravely changed the rules to accommodate the accused. She did not – as others might have – suggest they might be in contempt, but instead arranged that, thenceforth, the men would enter the court after her, so that the sticky issue of respect would not have to be dealt with again.

We at Vladtepesblog, would like to dedicate the following video to that brave judge for protecting the innocent, and maintaining the west’s fine traditions of legal history. Thank you Judge Mellanby

[kaltura-widget wid=”h13ro79dnk” width=”410″ height=”364″ addpermission=”3″ editpermission=”3″ /]

Ireland’s new blasphemy law being copied by Pakistan

Thanks Sean for this.

From Mr. Obrien’s Thinking Emporium

Ireland’s new blasphemy law – which was passed in July 2009 – came into force four days ago on 1 January 2010. It makes blasphemy a crime punishable by a fine of up to €25,000. It has been the subject of some controversy, to say the least. I’m not going to delve into the whole debate here except to say my position on the law is that I’m agin it. The subject of this post is a couple of interesting comments that appeared on this thread at Politics.ie.

‘FutureTaoiseach’ voices a suspicion about the new blasphemy law, which is similar to comments I had made earlier in the same thread:

The radical Islamists want it [the law]. The govt is concerned about a Danish-style cartoon row blowing up in this country. At the UN, Islamic countries are pushing for a global ban on blasphemy.

To which ‘Half Nelson’ helpfully replies:

Statute
For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.

Pakistan’s Submission to UN
State parties shall prohibit by law the uttering of matters that are grossly abusive or insulting to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion (p11.1)

Somebody is watching us.

Indeed. When one of the most illiberal police states in the world is plagirising your country’s laws in order to further its global theocratic agenda, that may be a sign that you’re doing it wrong.

Hate rants by Alleged al-Qaeda boss Anwar al-Awlaki on sale in London

MIRROR… Rantings by the terror chief accused of coaching the Christmas Day syringe bomber are on sale in London.

Alleged al-Qaeda boss Anwar al-Awlaki was hailed a hero by fanatic Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to explode a bomb concealed in his underpants on Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Yesterday our investigators found a wide selection of al-Awlaki’s hate-filled tirades on sale in an Islamic bookshop yards from the East London Mosque which was regularly attended by Abdulmutallab.

We found DVDs of his chilling speeches prominently displayed next to the counter at Al-Furqan books on Whitechapel Road.

They included Constants on The Path To Jihad – described as “a virtual bible” for terrorists.

UK: Muslim MP: security profiling at airports is ‘price we have to pay’

A modicum of brains can be very efficacious. From the Telegraph:

A Muslim MP has opened up divisions within the Islamic community by saying it is reasonable for Muslims to be singled out for extra airport security measures following the Detroit bomb attempt.

By Patrick Sawer
Published: 9:00PM GMT 02 Jan 2010

A Muslim MP has opened up divisions within the Islamic community by saying it is reasonable for Muslims to be singled out for extra airport security measures following the Detroit bomb attempt.

Khalid Mahmood Photo: BPM

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said it had become necessary to ‘profile’ passengers from certain racial and religious groups in order to weed out possible terror suspects.

He said: “I think most people would rather be profiled than blown up. It wouldn’t be victimisation of an entire community.

“I think people will understand that it is only through something like profiling that there will be some kind of safety.

“If people want to fly safely we have to take measures to stop things like the Christmas Day plot. Profiling may have to be the price we have to pay.

“The fact is the majority of people who have carried out or planned these terror attacks have been Muslims.”

Muslim opinion on the subject was split yesterday, with some groups objecting to any such move for fear of alienating large sections of the community.

Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: “It’s not true that all terrorists are Muslims.

“Any such measure would not only alienate people, it would also be ineffective in terms of stopping terrorists. What’s to stop them dressing up as orthodox Jews in order to evade profiling-based searches?”

However, many British Muslims now agree with Mr Mahmood.

Dr Shaaz Mahboob, of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, said: “We have seen that certain types of people who fit a certain profile – young men of a particular ethnic background – have been engaged in terror activities, and targeting this sort of passenger would give people a greater sense of security.

“Profiling has to be backed by this type of statistical and intelligence-based evidence. There would be no point in stopping Muslim grandmothers.”

The Airport Operators Association and BAA, the UK’s largest airport operator, are in favour of passenger profiling.

The UK Border Agency says profiling is one of the security measures used in the case of people coming into Britain, but the Department of Transport refuses to say whether it is used on passengers leaving the country.

Canadian university campus and out of fashion views:

From The International Free Press Society

There are 17 of these videos in this series or more and all can be viewed here. I have not seen them all yet and I am willing to bet there are better moments on some of the videos than the moments that were picked on this. However this short segment gives a pretty clear indication what will happen to you if you attempt to give a calm reasoned speech for a point of view currently out of fashion at a Canadian university. In fact, in Calgary worse has happened including harassment by the police by those who would hold openly anti laissez-faire views on abortion.

CBN knocks it out of the park again on Free speech and Islam in Europe

Please take the eight minutes to watch this. It is more than good, it is important.

Detroit terror attack: A murderous ideology tolerated for too long

(Paraphrasing) ‘See at last, see at last, thank god almighty, they see at last.’

Eeyore

Telegraph View: Jihadist Islamism is comparable to Nazism in many respects. The British public realises this; so do the intelligence services.

Published: 6:33AM GMT 29 Dec 2009

Friday’s attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner by a British-educated Islamist was foiled by the bravery of its passengers and crew. We cannot assume that we will be lucky next time. And the indications are that there will be a next time. According to police sources, 25 British-born Muslims are currently in Yemen being trained in the art of bombing planes. But most of these terrorists did not acquire their crazed beliefs in the Islamic world: they were indoctrinated in Britain. Indeed, thousands of young British Muslims support the use of violence to further the Islamist cause – and this despite millions of pounds poured by the Government into projects designed to prevent Islamic extremism.

Is it time for a fundamental rethink of Britain’s attitude towards domestic Islamism? Consider this analogy. Suppose that, in several London universities, Right?wing student societies were allowed to invite neo-Nazi speakers to address teenagers. Meanwhile, churches in poor white neighbourhoods handed over their pulpits to Jew-hating admirers of Adolf Hitler, called for the execution of homosexuals, preached the intellectual inferiority of women, and blessed the murder of civilians. What would the Government do? It would bring the full might of the criminal law against activists indoctrinating young Britons with an inhuman Nazi ideology – and the authorities that let them. Any public servants complicit in this evil would be hounded from their jobs.

Jihadist Islamism is also a murderous ideology, comparable to Nazism in many respects. The British public realises this; so do the intelligence services. Yet because it arises out of a worldwide religion – most of whose followers are peaceful – politicians and the public sector shrink from treating its ideologues as criminal supporters of violence. Instead, the Government throws vast sums of money at the Muslim community in order to ensure that what is effectively a civil war between extremists and moderates is won by the latter. This policy – supported by all the main political parties – does not seem to be working. The authorities, lacking specialist knowledge, sometimes turn for advice to “moderate” Muslims who have extreme sympathies; supporters of al-Qaeda are paid to disseminate their ideology to young people.

Radical Islamist leaders are not stupid: they know how to play this system. The indoctrination of students carries on under the noses of public servants who are terrified of being labelled Islamophobic or racist. Therefore they fail to do their duty, which is to protect Muslims and non-Muslims alike from a terrorist ideology. If providing that protection requires fewer “consultations” with “community leaders” and more arrests, then so be it.

Pajamas TV Bill Whittle speaks on Hiroshima

I post this as a form of ammunition to those who get into arguments with the all too familiar post-modernist idiots who use the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and oddly not the firebombing of Tokyo and a dozen other Japanese cities which were much more devastating, as an excuse to hate the USA and western nations.

This is PJTV always is, very well done. Someday there should be a university course that uses PJTV material, if universities ever get back to the business of facts and education. I might add, that for those of you who are paying anything from $30.00 to $100.00 a month for cable where all the channels are the same except (if you are in Canada) the ones in French you never watch and the leftist propaganda ones, now could be the time for a gift to yourself, cut the cable and give $5.00 a month to Pajamas Media and help support a truly worthy cause while getting quality education.

The video below was from the free section. Imagine what you can get if you fork out a fiver a month.

bombing of Japan from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.

New movie Avatar downright racist. It would never be shown in public if they changed any of the roles.

A good friend of mine came over for a visit the other night and told me about a film he had seen the night before called ‘Avatar’. He was utterly stunned at how racist and anti white it was. How all the good people in it where black women or amer-Indian males who cared about the environment like that US crying Indian did for the anti-throw-your-garbage-out-the-window commercials in the early 80s.

He was aslo stunned by how all the white male dialogue was so blatantly about profit over, well anything really. I in fact am planning on ripping a few scenes after what he told me and doing a bit of a movie review of my own complete with illustrations once I can find a decent stream of the damn thing. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered this wonderful gem at Tundra Tabloids by one of my favorite thinkers and authors of the 20th century, Fjordman, who wrote a review of this very film and for the same reasons. Again, this movie even from the 20 odd minutes I watched online, was the most racist thing I have seen since The Birth of a Nation, the first ever hollywood feature length motion picture, and made by the Ku Klux Klan.

Basically, if you want to see Avatar just watch this clip but imagine you can see all the people throwing trash as white males who get paid for it, and that each crying Indian has a black woman telling him exactly what to do, and how to pray for the land at all times.

And now on to Fjordman:

Since I am a certified sci-fi geek and most science fiction movies are quite bad this habit unfortunately forces me to watch a large number of bad movies. It’s one of my little perversions. I have just watched the most expensive B-movie ever made, the US$ 237 million Avatar by director James Cameron, famous for having produced films such as The Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens and Titanic. Briefly summed up I would say that while it is visually spectacular, as is everything Mr. Cameron makes, Avatar has to be one of the most anti-Western and especially anti-white Hollywood movies I have seen in a long time.

The hero is the U.S. Marine Jake Sully who has been sent to the planet-like moon Pandora because humans desire the mineral resources found of Pandora, which is inhabited by a race of tall, blue-skinned aliens, the Na’vi. They have a non-industrial civilization technologically inferior to ours but apparently spiritually richer and in perfect ecological harmony with the natural environment. The hero predictably falls in love with the native culture and connects with a native girl.

“Going native” is in itself not an original theme; it resembles Dances with Wolves, only with aliens instead of Sioux. Neither is the preference for pre-industrial civilization, which was after all shared by a good man such as Tolkien in his The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien had personally experienced the meaningless horrors of trench warfare during the First World War and this naturally affected his view of industrialized society. What is different about the movie Avatar is how it portrays whites as a bunch of raging monsters, something which Tolkien never did.

Basically, the white characters are portrayed as brutal, greedy and insensitive beasts who rape the environment and destroy other cultures with a smile in the search for profit. The main antagonist is the white Colonel Quaritch, a brute who hardly possesses a single positive character trait. The final climax of the movie is when he screams “How does it feel to betray your race?” to the protagonist while he is trying to murder him. Although a few of the white characters such as Jake Sully are portrayed in a more redeeming light this is only because they totally reject their own civilization and join the other team in the fight. In other words: the only good whites are the ones who utterly turn their backs on their own destructive and evil culture. As reviewer Armond White put it, “Avatar is the corniest movie ever made about the white man’s need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt.”

Of course, back in the real world whites are among the most self-critical and least ethnocentric people on Earth, and have been so for a long time. Whites are also disproportionately represented in the environmental movement whereas many “diverse” Third World peoples couldn’t care less about the environment. But why let the truth get in the way of making a good anti-white movie? The fact that quite a few among the predominantly white audience cheered for this movie shows that anti-white hatred and stereotypes have become so widespread and accepted that most people cannot even see it, least of all whites themselves.

Gaza is not an Islamic state.

Esther from Islam in Europe was kind enough to translate an article from the Belgian press about all the various Islamic rules being enforced in Gaza and the reporter came to the astonishing conclusion that Gaza is not an Islamic state somehow.

Here is the link to the original story and below is Islam In Europe‘s translation. Many thanks to Esther.

Gaza hasn’t become an Islamic republic

Palestijnen toeren met de groene Hamas-vlag door Gaza-Stad. Voor vrouwen is een verbod op motorrijden ingevoerd. Ze mogen wel nog autorijden.epa

Saturday, Dec 19, 2009
Guus Valk, NRC Handelsblad
A year after the war with Israel, Hamas has the power in the Gaza Strip firmly in hand.  But the Palestinian fundamental movement hasn’t made an Islamic emirate from the area.  “It’s a complicated picture”.
Five Hamas soldiers, recognizable by their darker uniform, sit in a row in front of a sentry box with a barrier, about a kilometer from the northern border-crossing with Israel, Erez.  Here and there they stop taxis with foreign visitors, every day a handful of diplomats, volunteers and journalists.  In the guardhouse  several suras from the Koran hang on an A4.
A soldier finds a bottle of beer in the trunk of a foreign traveler.  He shows it to the other border soldiers.  They confer and go inside.  The bottle is registered on a form.  Then they open outside a hole above a deep pit, where they throw it.  They traveler looks with surprise on how the men get big stones in a routine manner, and pelt the bottle with them.  Once they’re finished, they smile and wish him a good trip.
“We must be consistent,” says Fawzy Barhoom, spokesperson and Hamas leader, in his office in Gaza City.  Portraits of Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh look down on his desk.  “Drinking alcohol is Haram.  It’s not available in the Gaza Strip.  We can’t impose that on our own people without also asking it of foreigners.  We are a moderate Islamic party.  But we take care of upholding several important Islamic values, that is our duty.”
Corrugated Iron
For two and a half years Hamas has had the power in the isolated Gaza Strip firmly in hand.  Though Israel a year ago tried to overthrow the Hamas government in a three week long war, the movement wasn’t forced to its knees.
On the contrary, you would say as you drive around the center of Gaza City.  Countless building lie in ruins or are damaged, but the Hamas police is visible everywhere.  Agents guard intersections, hotels and government buildings.  Police departments have been built up again with corrugated iron, clay or whatever else is available.  Green Hamas flags decorate the streets of Gaza City.  “Order and authority are our most important priorities,” says Barhoom.
‘Hamastan’ – so Israeli ministers like to call the Gaza Strip since the takeover by Hamas.  A strict Islamic enclave, ruled by the religious fanatics.  The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, spoke in October of ‘the emirate of darkness’ which rules the Gaza Strip.
Gaza hasn’t become an Islamic republic.  Sharia, the Islamic law, hasn’t been introduced.  Parties with live music are allowed, so it appears in the renovated bar Orient House, on the coast.  While Hamas agents keep watch outside, hundreds of exuberant men and women clap inside deep into the night with a band playing stirring Arabic music.
Capital punishment
Women study and are often politically active.  On the other hand, drinking alcohol and homosexuality are strictly forbidden.  Since recently motorcycle riding isn’t allowed any more.  Capital punishment for drug traders has been introduced.
“The picture after two and a half years is complicated.  It’s exaggerated, not to say laughable, to compare Gaza with an Islamic emirate,” says Mkhaimer Abu Sada, profession of political sciences at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City.  This university is the more or less secular counterpart of the Islamic University and has strong support from sympathizers of Al-Fatah, Hamas’ rival.  Abu SAda is impartial and mediates between both parties.
According to Abu Sada, life for the residents of Gaza hasn’t really changed since Hamas is ruling on its own.  “It is safer on the streets, the anarchy of fighting-groups battling each other has disappeared.”  But, he says, there are incidents.  “The problem is more that there’s no opposition, that Hamas can do what it wants.”
Education, says Abu Sada, is a good example of that.  This summer girls who weren’t dressed modestly enough, in headscarf and dress, were expelled from several schools.  Hamas denied that it was responsible for this rule.
Gloves
Abu Sada: “Nobody know if that’s true, but Hamas is responsible for something else.  Recently the ministry of education has been trying to separate men and women in school.  The ministry wants that boys will only be taught by male teachers, and girls only by women.  There have also been incidents in the legal field.  Suddenly women lawyers have to wear a headscarf and gloves.  After protests by women that was quickly retracted.”
During the afternoon Cafe Mazaj (‘mood’) is full of visitors.  Mazaj, with a Western looking interior and countless flavors of coffee and tea, is popular among the rich elite of Gaza City.  The visitors are young, highly educated. Without exception the women have makeup, some don’t wear a headscarf.  The men and women sit separately.  In the women’s section there’s loud laughter.
Dancing
“There’s nothing to do in Gaza,” says Maram Abed, a 20-year old IT student from Al-Azhar University.  She often sits with her girlfriends in Mazaj, one of the few coffee-bars in Gaza.  “There are two, three places where I can go if I want to have fun.  I never go alone, and never with a boy.  Out of the question.  Alcohol, dancing or seeing a movie are also not allowed.  I would like to, but this is Gaza.”
Wala’a, her study partner, nods.  But, she says immediately, “It’s not because of Hamas.  It’s because this is a small area.”  Maram: “Everybody knows each other.  And people here have time to gossip.  You quickly cause a scandal.”
Wala’a: “Before Hamas was it wasn’t much better”.
Maram laughs.  “Why do you think people marry so young?  Then they finally have a legitimate reason to party.”
Ban on motorcycling
The ‘Turkish model’, Hamas leader Fawzy Barhoom calls the policy of his party in the Gaza Strip.  “We want to propagate Islamic values, sometimes also in daily life.  But only because this wish comes from the people themselves.  The Gaza Strip is conservative, you should know.  And the main thing is this: we are a Palestinian liberation movement.  We want to throw off us the yoke of the Israeli occupation.  We are not out to establish an Islamic republic, neither do we want to force our religion on Jews of Christians at any cost.”
The ban on motorcycling for women has, according to Barhoom, nothing to do with Islam.  “Scientific research shows that women on motorcycles cause accidents more often.  Women can drive cars.”