Category Archives: War on basic human values

Bulletin of the Oppression of Women, August 12, 2009

Posted on by

Bulletin of the Oppression of Women, August 12, 2009

Facts without comments – we collect the dots, you connect them
Please distribute this bulletin and send us events that you find.

Mideast
July 26, 2009
Gaza Strip
A Gaza judge tells female lawyers to wear Muslim headscarves when they appear in court.

July 29, 2009
Israel
A father bludgeons his daughter with an iron chain because she owned a cell phone. The victim was a divorced mother of two.

July 30, 2009
Egypt
Egyptian Muslims abduct two Christian girls for conversion.

July 31, 2009
Gaza Strip
Hamas organizes a mass wedding for 450 couples. Please note the ages of the “brides”; all of them shown in the video are young children.

Europe
July 29, 2009
Spain
A Moroccan attempts an Honor Killing by stabbing his daughter 20 times.

July 31, 2009
UK
A girl, 15, is forced to marry illegal immigrant who then raped her and sexually assaulted her little sister.

August 5, 2009
Denmark
Honor is used to silence sexually abused Muslim girls. (translated from Danish) (Original article in Danish)

Asia
July 27, 2009
Pakistan
WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO of an interview with a Pakistani woman who was blinded and hideously disfigured by having hydrochloric acid thrown in her face for refusing to marry her deceased husband’s brother.

July 29, 2009
Bangladesh
A newly married Hindu woman is raped and killed by Muslim thugs. (WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTO)

July 29, 2009
Pakistan
A Pakistani man rapes, then inserts acid in the genitals of his victim.

July 29, 2009
India
A 17-year-old girl was chained by her stepfather to a TV stand for more than a week as her mother was fighting sickness.

August 1, 2009
Pakistan
A man gunned down his sister and her two daughters for one of them traveling with someone not a member of their family.

North America
July 31, 2009
U.S.
An Ohio 16 year old convert to Christianity is still missing after two weeks.

August 1, 2009
Canada
Update on the Honor killings by an Afghani immigrant family.

August 7, 2009
U.S.
A Long Island, NY man shoots his wife, daughter and mother-in-law in suspected Honor killing.

Africa
July 8, 2009
Mali
Women demand a law against female genital mutiliation.

August 3, 2009
Sudan
In a continuing story, police arrested Hussein, a female Sudanese journalist and 12 other women wearing trousers at a Khartoum restaurant on July 3. Two days later 10 of the women accepted a punishment of 10 lashes, but Hussein appealed in a bid to eliminate such rough justice. Women protested against the delaying of Hussein’s trial, and, then when the trial was reconvened, Sudanese police fired tear gas and beat women protesting outside the courtroom.

Sectarian violence hits Pakistani town

Posted on by

More on last weeks slaughter of Christians by Pakistani Muslims.

Of course it is bad that Christians died,” he added. “But they provoked the Muslims here. I don’t understand why everyone is on their side.”

On a street in the small Punjabi town of Gojra, house after house stands gutted and looted.

Hameed family. Father, son and relative.

Hameed family. Father, son and relative.

BBC NEWS…One home in particular is the focus of attention. The windows and doors are gone, what is left of the furniture lies gnarled inside, and some of the ceilings have collapsed. People are peering into a small bedroom at the back of the building.

It is from here that the charred bodies of six members of the Hameed family, from Pakistan’s minority Christian community, were recovered. The youngest of the dead was four-year-old Mousa.

We found his father, Almass Hameed, 49, in a crowded hospital ward nearby.

‘Shocked and crying’

“He was such a bright boy. His teachers complained that he was cheeky at times, but nobody could doubt how clever he was. But now he’s gone,” Mr Hameed said, breaking down.

He described how an angry Muslim mob came through the area, known here as the Christian Colony.

“I think there were thousands,” he said. “My elderly father went out to see what was happening and they shot and killed him. We were all shocked and crying. Before we knew it, they were breaking into the house.”

Mr Hameed explained how he and nine other members of the family hid in the bedroom as the house was over-run.

“We could hear them smashing everything and dividing our belongings amongst themselves,” he said. “Then they started beating on the door saying they would teach us a lesson and burn us alive.”

Soon after, a fire was raging through his house.

“We just couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I grabbed my eldest son and managed to get out of the room through the flames, my brother came out with one of my daughters, but the rest were stuck and we had no way of rescuing them.”

As well as his father and Mousa, Mr Hameed lost his 11 year-old daughter, his wife, a brother, a sister-in-law and her mother.

“It was like the most horrific movie. They destroyed our lives.”

‘Fired shots’

Tensions had risen after allegations that Christians in the nearby village of Korrian had torn up and burnt pages of the Koran at a wedding a few days earlier.

They started it,” 19-year-old Omar Ali Raza said in Gojra’s marketplace.

“We Muslims are the victims. We gathered to protest about what they did to the Koran in Korrian and just wanted to walk through their area, but they threw stones at us and fired shots.”

“Of course it is bad that Christians died,” he added. “But they provoked the Muslims here. I don’t understand why everyone is on their side.”

But an elderly Muslim man passing by interrupts. “The responsibility is with the one who actually burns the Koran, not all Christians,” he said. “Here, we live together, and there were no problems before this.”

As it happens, a local police chief, Ahmed Javaid, said he believed that the claim that Christians desecrated the Koran was not true in the first place. Continue Reading →

If You Convert You Die

Posted on by

By: Nonie Darwish
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, August 03, 2009 (H/T Alex)

Very few people in the West know what is going on inside the Muslim world and what it portends for them. The fact is that through the dominant media, such as CNN, Americans are subjected to much of the same misinformation with regard to Islam that I grew up with inside the Muslim world. The result is that Americans are in the dark attempting to formulate their strategy of how to defend themselves against the threat of terror, domestic jihad and Sharia. While Americans get ridiculed for being “Islamophobes,” the Muslim world itself is undergoing a huge and painful awakening.

For instance, a prominent Egyptian lawyer and women’s rights activist, Nagla Al Imam, recently announced her conversion to Christianity in Cairo, Egypt. The announcement brought shock waves in and beyond Egypt. This is perhaps the first case ever of its kind, where a Muslim woman, who is also a Sharia expert, has openly challenged Islamic apostasy laws from within the Muslim world.

Ms. Al Imam’s incredible courage was on display in an internet chat room, where she announced that she is not afraid, will stand up for the human rights of apostates and refuses to leave her homeland, Egypt. This was immediately followed by attacks and calls (‘fatwas’) for death of the 36 year-old graduate of Al Azhar Islamic University.

Egyptian media not only reported the threat but also participated in the attacks. Ms. Al Imam was literally entrapped by a TV station ‘Al Mihwar’ with the pretext of inviting her for an interview. Upon arrival to the TV studio she was told the show she was to appear on was cancelled. She was then taken forcibly to a room where she was held against her will for hours inside the studio. She was assaulted, threatened and insulted by several people. She was able to escape, and went to her internet chat room telling the world what happened and said she will demand protection from the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Continue Reading →

Muslim pours acid in baby’s ears rectum and mouth because she is female.

Posted on by

From the Daily Star by way of TROP

Gone insane for a son

Daughter survived father’s acid assault to tell world of a sick paternal craving

Eight-year-old Babli now goes to school. Her father poured acid into her mouth, ears and her feet for being a girl when she was only seven months old. The photo was taken at Acid Survivors’ Foundation in Banani. Photo: STARAlpha Arzu
Babli’s father wanted to be the “proud parent” of a son, and when a son was not born to him but a daughter, he chose to be a villain.

Bakhtiar Rana, a carpenter by profession in Betagi Thana in Rangunia, Chittagong, took an instant dislike to the fact that his wife “had given him a burden instead of an heir” and made his feelings clear.

The resentment over being stuck with a burden — as a girl child is still labelled in society — grew in such proportions in him that things took a turn for the worst when Babli was just seven months old in July 2000.

On the fateful day, Babli’s father chose to forget that he was a human being. He took his child in his arms and used a medicine dropper to force acid into her mouth, into her ears and on her feet. He also did not spare her anal passage. Continue Reading →

Iraqi women’s wrestling team irks clerics–tribesman calls for their slaughter

Posted on by

Some young women in Iraq are wrestling– with each other–in the gym. Clad in Nike and Adidas they put the learned moves into practice and defy the rigid theological pressure by clerics who demand their subservience. Despite a call for their slaughter, these Iraqis are willing to move beyond the threats and embrace greater democracy and equality.

From The New York Times.

Diwaniya Journal

Female Iraqis Take on Tradition in Wrestling Ring

Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times

Samah Hamid, 24, right, squared off against her 22-year-old sister Masar during wrestling practice at the sports club in Diwaniya.

By SAM DAGHER
Published: August 4, 2009

DIWANIYA, Iraq — It doesn’t happen much in the Arab world, but a coach here decided in January to start an all-female wrestling team, the first ever in Iraq. The wrestlers love it and already dream of competing in the Olympics.

Skip to next paragraph

Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times

After a practice last month, Farah Shakir, 17, put on a traditional abaya over her wrestling clothes.

But there are many in this town south of Baghdad, which like much of Iraq is religious, conservative and governed largely by tribal tradition, who want the dozen girls and young women on the team to stop wrestling immediately. One tribesman has said they should be “slaughtered” if they continue. A Shiite cleric says the team should be banned because wrestling can lead to promiscuity and “transgressions” against Islam.

As a result of the pressure, four wrestlers have quit. But the rest, for the moment empowered by the post-invasion promise of greater democracy and equality, are defying the threats.

“They think we are loose girls just because we play sports,” said Ikram Hamid, 25, one team member.

Farah Shakir, 17, said, “It really is something different for Iraq, but I love the challenge.”

In fairness, it is not just female wrestling that troubles the traditionalists.

“I have information that male wrestling is problematic, too, because of all the friction that goes on,” said Sheik Hussein al-Khalidi, a turbaned cleric who sits on the provincial council.

But it is the women who have touched a nerve, perhaps partly because of their ambitions. Three other teams were set up in Iraq after Diwaniya’s was formed with the backing of Iraq’s wrestling federation. In June, all the teams took part in a championship, which the Diwaniya team won, qualifying for an Asian tournament in September in freestyle wrestling.

Some local people have become captivated by the female wrestlers and feel they are a fitting challenge to Iraq’s entrenched tribal and religious establishment, whose hold on society and people’s lives paradoxically became much tighter after the 2003 invasion. One supporter, Haidar Walid, 20, called the team a “sign of evolution and freedom.”

The controversy in Diwaniya underscores a fundamental struggle under way in Iraqi society as a whole. The grip of Sunni and Shiite armed groups that had compelled Iraqis to abide by what they considered moral behavior has loosened, and many people now feel free to express themselves in various ways. This was reflected during provincial elections in January, in which secular and relatively liberal parties did well.

On a recent scorching hot morning, the wrestlers, some veiled and others not, and dressed in shorts and soccer jerseys, filed into the wrestling gym at the Diwaniya sports club. They are allowed to use it only when male wrestlers have no practice.

A battered and dusty wrestling mat filled most of the room. The walls were adorned with framed photographs of male wrestlers, colorful posters of Shiite saints and the portrait of a local hero, Abbas Fadhel Jouda, an Iraqi wrestling champion killed two years ago by militiamen in Diwaniya because he was a police officer.

After a warm-up, Ms. Shakir and her teammates paired off and started practicing grapples and takedowns under the instruction of their coach and team founder, Hamid al-Hamdani, and his two assistants, all professional wrestlers.

Unlike Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling allows holds below the waist and legs to be used for a takedown. It is an internationally recognized sport, but women’s wrestling made its Olympic debut only five years ago at the Athens Games. Two other Arab countries, Egypt and Morocco, have female wrestling teams.

But Diwaniya’s team may face more than the usual obstacles on the road to gold. Iraq’s wrestling federation endorsed the team, but an official from that body refused to come to Diwaniya for the competition in June, fearing he would be killed, according to Mr. Hamdani.

In May angry tribal leaders petitioned the provincial council to ban the team after a television station showed one of the wrestlers practicing with her coach.

Since then the team has kept a low profile, abiding by local customs. During practice the girls are chaperoned by Ms. Shakir’s mother, Nawal Kadhim, and when they leave the club they are covered in head-to-toe black veils.

Still, many are taunted and cursed whenever they venture to the market. They are ostracized at school and constantly hectored by their teachers.

Mrs. Kadhim, who has five daughters on the team, was recently advised by relatives to leave Diwaniya and received threatening messages on her cellphone.

“Women will lose their femininity,” said a resident, Faris Abbas, 42, who like most opposes the female team.

A tribal leader, Gaith al-Kassir, 53, says the sport is against Islam and tribal traditions. “Women can do sports at home,” he said.

As with many other issues, Shiite religious leaders are divided on female wrestling. Some say there is no harm as long as the women are properly covered, while others say it is “absolutely forbidden,” according to one of the team’s coaches, who consulted the religious authorities in the city of Najaf.

Sheik Khalidi says he will continue to rally public opinion until the wrestling club is closed down. He is a member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is a religious party close to Iran and ruled the province until January’s elections, when it lost to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s party throughout the south. Although Mr. Maliki is an Islamist, his party has favored persuasion over coercion when it comes to shaping society’s values.

Despite the setback at the polls, Sheik Khalidi said his party was still convinced that Iraqis were becoming more conservative and attached to Islamic rituals and values.

Batoul al-Attiyah, a local physician, said she disagreed with Sheik Khalidi’s assessment of where Iraq was heading, even if she opposed female wrestling.

“Religion has become more about appearances than substance,” she said.

More on the mass wedding in Gaza. Something is rotten in the state of Gazania

Posted on by

Please see the post over at Tundra Tabloids. He has written up the issue rather well. Also the comments are interesting. Watch the video very closely and see what context the young girls appear in.

Short video on use of kidnapped children as soldiers and terrorists

Posted on by

From Global, and The National Post:

Short piece on use of kidnapped children as suicide bombers and soldiers for Islamic terror. Really, what is it going to take before moronic western people begin to understand that Islam is not some weird form of Christianity. Islam is a psychotically violent,  mysoginistic, hateful ideology which intends, and actually may, take over the world.

Expansion of Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia Approved, Outraging Opponents

Posted on by

I don’t think I will make many friends when I say, “It is official, Yanks are wanks”. Are you all so willing to sell out your futures for fear of offending the most offencive? The very type of Islamic teaching that puts all Americans at risk is welcomed in Fairfax? This should be making any American with a right mind break out in Tourettes.

Dhimmi USA FOX NEWS.. A controversial Saudi-funded academy that teaches strict adherence to traditional Islamic law has been given the green light to expand its Virginia campus — a decision by local officials that infuriates opponents who say the school’s teachings are anti-American.The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 6-4 Monday to grant a zoning exemption to the Islamic Saudi Academy. The officials said the outcome was based strictly on zoning issues, not on what goes on in the school’s classrooms.

That left some in the community outraged.

“How could they … say they are such fine students? They are fine students but they are learning the wrong thing,” academy critic Ruth Mizell said after the vote, according to MyFOXDC.com.

Jim Lafferty, another opponent, vowed political retaliation against the supervisors who supported the expansion.

“We need to resist these people, make it clear they may have bought six votes in there but they are not buying my vote,” said Lafferty, according to MyFOXDC. “We will support — even if it’s Pee-Wee Herman — we will support whoever is running against them.”

 The academy was founded in 1984 and has some 1,000 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. It is the only Saudi-funded school in the United States.

About 80 percent of its students are U.S. citizens from the area’s Muslim communities. Most students attend classes at a second campus in the Alexandria section of Fairfax.

The plans granted approval on Monday permit construction of a building that would eventually accommodate 500 students.

“The community will get an awful lot of development,” said supervisor Penelope A. Gross. “I think (it) will improve the community.”

The school has undergone a series of high-profile examinations of its religious curriculum, which has been revised repeatedly to remove passages that extolled militant jihad and martyrdom. In 2007, at least one textbook still said that the killing of adulterers and apostates was “justified.”

But students, parents and teachers say the school does not teach intolerance.

“Throughout my whole time in ISA, I’ve never been taught to hate anyone,” said Heba Rashed, 16, a junior at the school.

The school’s curriculum was revised at the start of the 2008-09 school year after the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom condemned its textbooks.

Critics of the academy say most of the offensive material has been taken out. But they say the textbooks clearly remain guided by Wahhabism, the fundamentalist school of Sunni Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia.

“The stuff about killing, it’s not there anymore,” said Ali Al-Ahmed, the head of the Institute for Gulf Affairs and a critic of the Saudi government, who got copies of the latest textbooks.

Al-Ahmed said references to jihad had been removed from the curriculum. He found that strange, because the idea — which in the Koran is described as “striving in the path of God,” and is not necessarily violent — was essential to Islam.

In the past, textbooks referred to the militant form of jihad. Al-Ahmed said he would have felt better if moderate references to jihad had been kept.

Attorney Lynne Strobel, who represented the academy, said she was pleased with the vote and said the school has undertaken efforts to reduce some of the potential traffic.

Blasphemy laws, a pretext to attack Pakistan’s religious minorities

Posted on by

by Fareed Khan-AsiaNews.it
PAKISTAN_(F)_0702_-_Muslims_attacked_100_Christian_homes_after_alleged_blasphemy_(350_x_294)The official death toll in the Gojra massacre now stands at eight. A 35-year-old man succumbs last night to injuries he sustained during the attack by Muslim fundamentalists. Rights activists and minority leaders believe the government condones such attacks by tolerating laws that punish offences against Islam. The Catholic Church of India and Geneva-based World Council of Churches express their solidarity with fellow Christians in Pakistan.

Lahore (AsiaNews) – Pakistan’s parliament has unanimously condemned the attacks against Christians as an inquiry gets underway to quickly find the culprits. Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari announces a compensation package for victims’ families. In spite of all of this Pakistani Christians continue to endure violence and discrimination as the death toll in Gojra rose to eight. For human rights activists and minority leaders blasphemy laws are the cause of the problem.Last night a private TV station announced that a 35-year-old Christian man succumbed in Gojra hospital to the injuries he sustained last Saturday, when a Muslim mob went out of control and attacked the local Christian community.
Federal Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer handed a preliminary report to President Asif Ali Zardari on the recent riots in Gojra where a semblance of calm is in place following the massive deployment of security forces.

 

For his part President Zardari announced that families that lost a member would get 500,000 rupees (US$ 6,000) as compensation, whilst families that lost their homes, torched by Muslims extremists using a special fuel, would get 300,000 rupees (US$ 3,600). Continue Reading →

Vicious honour crime in London: Muslim man victim of attempted honour killing

Posted on by

A Muslim man of Danish citizenship, lies in a British hospital clinging to life after being savagely attacked in London by seven men. He was stabbed, his body doused in sulphuric acid, was forced to swallow the substance and was severely beaten with bricks. The unidentified man’s injuries are so massive that he is expected to die.

He was the victim of an honour crime for having a friendship with a married Muslim woman. One of two men charged in the attempted murder is the woman’s sixteen year old brother.

While most of us understand that the majority of the victims of these barbaric attacks and murders are women, honour killings against men are increasing. If they continue to rise to the same level as those perpetrated against women, perhaps we will see for the first time the only true example of Muslim equality.

————-

(thank you to the religion of peace)

A Horrific “Honor” Attack By: Stephen Brown
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, July 28, 2009

It was as cold-blooded and vicious an honor crime as any the West has seen, but with one difference. This time, the victim was male.

A 24-year-old Asian man is clinging to life in a British hospital after seven men attacked him last week in London for having a friendship with a married Muslim woman.

The unidentified man, who is Muslim himself and has Danish citizenship, was stabbed twice in the back and beaten so severely with bricks that authorities report he is now blind in one eye and will probably lose sight in the other. Acid was also poured down the victim’s throat, damaging his tongue and throat so severely he will probably never speak again.

“The poor man got up and ran straight into a tree, then staggered back to his house, tugging at his burning clothes and banging on doors, shouting for water,” said one woman who witnessed the attack.

The victim’s body was also doused with acid, burning more than 50 per cent and leaving him in critical condition. News reports state he is not expected to survive. His assailants, police say, were all wearing gloves and masks for protection against the sulphuric acid, which was 92 per cent strength.

Police have charged two men in the attempted murder, one of whom is the woman’s 16-year-old brother. Underage male family members are often selected by their families to carry out honor killings in Western countries, since they receive lighter sentences. Some of these teen killers serve as little as three years in jail before being released.

The motive for the attack, British newspapers report, is that the woman’s family, which is from Pakistan, considered the man’s friendship with her “insulting” to the family’s honor. The woman has denied that the friendship was sexual.

The attack occurred almost at the same time police in Canada arrested three members of an Afghan family for the horrific honor killing of three daughters and the father’s first wife. But while the brutal reality of honor murders perpetrated against women, mainly from Muslim countries and India, is now largely recognized in the West, it is less well known that men are also victims. The reason for this probably lies in the fact that the number of females killed for reasons of “honor” is much higher than that for males.

Figures released at the Karachi Press Club in Pakistan earlier this month bear this out. Pakistan, which has the dubious distinction of being a world leader in this barbaric custom, had 79 female honor killings in one province alone between April and June this year, while 38 men were also slain.

A report published by the Pakistani Senate in 2004 stated more than 4,000 people died as a result of honor crimes in the previous six years, of whom about 2,700 were women and 1,300 were men.
And the situation does not appear to be getting better. It was reported last February that a young Pakistani couple, who married against family wishes, have taken up residence in a police station for fear of being killed if they venture outside.

The mainstream media’s liberal outlook constitutes another reason for the lack of attention regarding male honor killings. Some of the victims are murdered because of their caste, race or religion. In the liberal media’s eyes, only white, western cultures can be racist or intolerant and never those of visible minorities. Such an admission would damage the multicultural utopia they have long been advocating.

But what most victims of male honor crimes in the West, which include white males, have in common is that they were involved in a relationship, often secret or outright forbidden, with a Muslim woman. But while women are the ones usually attacked for their involvement in such liaisons, the list of men is growing longer.

Last year, a German teenager was murdered by two Muslim men armed with baseball bats for having had a relationship with a Muslim girl. In Munich, a Turkish father tried to kill both his daughter and her German boyfriend on a busy, downtown street because of their relationship.

Other prominent honor crimes against males reported in Europe in recent years include an Iranian man murdered in southern Sweden in revenge for his relationship with a daughter of an Afghan family. Six members of a Pakistani family in Denmark were also convicted for the shooting death of their daughter, who had married an Afghan man against her father’s wishes. The husband was severely wounded in the incident. A German also died in an “honor” attack from 40 stab wounds, inflicted by a Turkish man angered by the German’s relationship with his divorced sister.

The reason for such murderous rage is that some male Muslims regard female relatives as their property and themselves as the guardians of their “purity”, upon which the family honor depends. If caught associating with a man, such women would be considered “dirtied” and the family dishonoured. Thereafter, only the spilling of the offender’s blood is deemed acceptable for cleansing and restoring of that honor.

“The Islamic ‘law of revenge’ knows as atonement only pain or death in order to wash away the foulness,” said Necla Kelek, a Turkish-German feminist.

Incredibly, London police now expect the Pakistani family to attempt to further wash away more of that “foulness.” The woman, police fear, may be killed next and are trying to figure out how to protect her. But as the evil of honor killings becomes more endemic in the West, security officials will probably conclude the only sure protection for endangered men and women, like in Pakistan, is protective custody.

Stephen Brown is a contributing editor at Frontpagemag.com. He has a graduate degree in Russian and Eastern European history. Email him at al*****@*****il.com.

Iran’s show trial and Iranian police tear gas, arrest Neda mourners

Posted on by

More on Iran from the National Post.

Khatami denounces ‘show trial’ of Iran protesters

Parisa Hafezi, Reuters Published: Sunday, August 02, 2009

Iranian cleric Mohammad Ali Abtahi (C), a member of the Assembly of Combatant Clerics, gives testimony at a revolutionary court in Tehran on Aug. 1, 2009 during the first hearing in the trial of 100 people accused of rioting. FARS NEWS/STR/AFP/Getty Images Iranian cleric Mohammad Ali Abtahi (C), a member of the Assembly of Combatant Clerics, gives testimony at a revolutionary court in Tehran on Aug. 1, 2009 during the first hearing in the trial of 100 …

TEHRAN – Iranian authorities have tightened pressure on their opponents by staging what former president Mohammad Khatami condemned on Sunday as a “show trial” of 100 reformists accused of trying to instigate a “velvet revolution”. Continue Reading →

Dishonourable Muslim Mass Murder in Canada; Phyllis Chesler on Kingston murders

Posted on by

“Mainstream media should be linking Islamic, terrorist jihad and the subordination of women far more closely; the behaviour of some Muslim immigrants in the West may often conform more closely to the culture in which they were raised than to the Western culture in which they now live- especially where women are concerned”.  From the Chesler Chronicles.

Pajamas Media.

July 27th, 2009 8:36 am

Dishonorable Muslim Mass Murder in Canada

An Ongoing Cultural Autopsy

The information is so overwhelming and so awful that even the mainstream media has increasingly been forced to describe the plight of women in Muslim lands. Over the weekend, Nicholas D. Kristof (who has always been good on this) tells the story of a new Pakistani hero: Sixteen-year-old, Assiya Rafiq, who was kidnapped, sold, beaten and raped for a solid year—and then raped again when she went to the police to press charges. She, her supportive parents and siblings now live in hiding as she prepares to prosecute both the gang-members and the police.

Today, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both have articles about the return of the Taliban to the Swat Valley in Pakistan and about what that means: The increased kidnapping and indoctrination of children into becoming jihadic warriors and the parallel brutalization of women, infidels, and civilians through beheadings, acid attacks, forced, harsh veiling, and bans on women shopping.

Islam Watch has just reported an increase in the caning of women in Bangladesh (a dangerous and crippling punishment). The same article also discusses the typical nightmare of one battered Afghan wife whose husband and in-laws kept trying to kill her—and whose own brothers are now trying to kill her because she dared flee and divorce the human monster. This one particular woman has lost custody of her nine children and lives in hiding with the help of an American charitable NGO. This is a picture of Afghanistan today.

——–

Which brings me to the Afghan-Canadian family which has just been charged with the mass murder of four of its female members. We in the West had better start factoring in the international and cultural realities that govern the histories and psychologies of immigrants from Muslim countries.

When a story is breaking and I’m on deadline, I try to do the best I can—but sometimes, I get important details, as well as minor details, wrong. And, I do not always draw certain conclusions right away.

For example, the Canadian Kingston police did not describe the cold-blooded murder of three innocent Afghan-Muslim girls (Zainab, Sahar, and Geeti Safi) and one innocent Afghan-Muslim woman (Rona Amir Mohammed) as a “Muslim honor killing.” The Canadian radio announcer did so as did other journalists. The police were very careful, and rightly so, to refrain from explicitly saying this.

National Post photoNational Post photo

However, according to all accounts, the police are on record as saying that they have evidence that the submerged car, in which all four victims were found drowned, had been driven or tampered with by the three Safi family members now under arrest; and that a female relative of Rona’s who lives in France told the media and the police about credible “death threats” that were leveled against Rona, who was Mohammed Safi’s first wife, (a fact that Mohammed did not disclose to the police or to his neighbors). Implied, but not yet clear, were possible death threats against Zainab Safi, the oldest of the three murdered daughters, who was becoming too “western.”

It is my guess that Rona supported the girls in their desire to become “Canadians” and that no love was lost between her and Mohammed’s second wife, Tooba Mohammed Yahya, also charged with her murder. Please understand: This is a wild, intuitive guess on my part, subject to change.

Westerners—perhaps it is only me—often have a problem with the Muslim names. No, it is not because I am a “racist Islamophobe” but rather because everyone seems to be named Mohammed or Mumammed; it becomes quite confusing. In this one case, we have Mohammed Safi, Rona Amir Mohammed, Tooba Mohammed Yahya. Also, the spelling of names (shades of Ellis Island and all our ancestors!) is also subject to change. Thus, this Mohammed’s last name is spelled Safia, or Safii or Safi.

Another mea culpa. Safi and his second wife have seven children altogether. Three are now in state care and one, Hamid Mohammed, (another Mohammed!) is now in police custody.

Here’s a small but important detail that I did not develop. Initially, the family members put on quite a performance. Mohammed Shafi, his second wife, Tooba Mohammed Yahya, and the biological mother of the three murdered girls, went to the police to report that their family members and second car were missing. They wept, appeared distraught, seemed in shock, carried on like mourners. But it all may have been an act.

Now, where else have we seen such behavior? Ah yes: The iconic Mohammed al-Dura’s father was also distraught about his son’s death—presumably at Israeli hands. That death turns out to have been staged by Palestinians. The world was sold a bill of Pallywood goods. Read Philippe Karsenty, Richard Landes, Nidra Poller, and Pierre Rehov on the al-Dura case and on other instances in which Palestinian Muslim propagandists and terrorists have tricked the world media into believing that Israel was the “Nazi” aggressor—all the while diverting attention from Palestinian crimes against their own people, as well as from their considerable aggression towards Israelis, Jews, and Christians.

The entire world also believed that the Israelis committed a “massacre,” a “genocide” in Jenin—when the truth was quite the opposite; to avoid world condemnation, Israel chose to send soldiers in on foot, (24 angels died), to heavily booby-trapped streets and to buildings which hid expert Palestinian snipers dressed as civilians who, in turn, held real Palestinian civilians hostage. Palestinians subsequently spoke to the media on camera weeping about the “genocide,” claiming false injuries at Israeli hands, alleging that Israeli hospitals would not treat them. I wrote about this in my book The New Anti-Semitism. The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It.

My points: Mainstream media should be linking Islamic, terrorist jihad and the subordination of women far more closely; the behavior of some Muslim immigrants in the West may often conform more closely to the culture in which they were raised than to the western culture in which they now live—especially where women are concerned.

Also of interest: A number of Canadian newspapers from Vancouver and Montreal to Toronto have cited my study on honor killings which appeared in the spring issue of Middle East Quarterly. To a lesser extent than usual, the media also found people who said that this may not be an honor killing (I agree, the case has not yet been proven in a court of law); that dishonorable honor killings are rare and certainly not as epidemic as western-style domestic violence (not true—not all domestic violence ends in femicide); that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam (alright, but if so, why are so many—mainly–Muslims murdering their daughters, sisters, and wives?)

A final point: My piece about the Kingston mass murders/dishonorable killings has drawn yet another Islamist to my site. For those who are interested, take a look. One fellow (maybe it’s a woman, who can tell?) first tried to convert the other commentators to Islam; then dismissed any and all criticism of Islam/Islamism by “unbelievers”; and finally ended by cursing the non-believing Kufar infidels.

Who could make this up?

Who wears the pants in Sudan? Muhammed, of course.

Posted on by

This coming Tuesday, Sudanese born Lubna Hussein, a former journalist, could receive forty lashes if found guilty of breaching Article 152 of  Sudanese criminal law. The Article prohibits dressing indecently in public. Ms. Hussein and thirteen other women, one as young as fourteen, were all charged under the law for wearing--trousers. Most of the accused pleaded guilty and paid a fine to avoid the brutal punishment, but Hussein standing alone and resolved, has chosen to challenge those willing to impart the radical sharia law that has been imposed upon her. Journalist James Copnall covers Lubna Hussein’s story in The Guardian/Observer, U.K.

” I’m not afraid of being flogged. It doesn’t hurt. But it is insulting” Hussein defiantly states.

She goes on to say, ” Islam does not say whether a woman can wear trousers or not. The clothing I was wearing when the police caught me- I pray in them. I pray to my God in them. And neither does Islam flog women because of what they wear. If any Muslim in the world says Islamic law or sharia law flogs women for their clothes, then let them show me what the Qur’an or Prophet Muhammed said on that issue. There is nothing. It is not about religion. It is about men treating women badly”.

Predictably, the Sudanese embassy in London has tried to avert media and international attention away from Ms. Hussein’s very public case focusing on a landmark ruling involving the Sudanese region of Abyei. Rather unsuccessful in this attempt, and desperate to shift media focus, they have resorted to the predictable accusation of Islamophobia and racism, issued here in an official statement. It reads:

“The floodgates of expert and non-expert comments on Sudan opened suddenly on 29 July in the wake of an indecency and antisocial behaviour case in Khartoum involving journalist Lubna A Hussein,” the statement read. “The case is still ongoing and it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on it. The real question, which is relevant to the deep-rooted Islamophobic and anti-Arab prejudice, is th selective spotlight on Ms Lubna Ahmed Hussein and determined neglect of Abyei dispute’s result for eight long days.”

With all due respect to Ms. Hussein, I do not agree with her stance that this indecency/antisocial behaviour law has nothing to do with religion. Of course it does, at least by way of those who on insist that sharia has legal legitimacy through divine authority. I do agree with her though, that at this basis, it is a conduit for absolute misogyny and gender apartheid. One thing we must all agree upon is that her sheer defiance in the face of such brutality is a sign of a deep respect for herself, of her bravery and her willingness to help bring human dignity to all Muslim women.

———————————-

Lubna Hussein: ‘I’m not afraid of being flogged. It doesn’t hurt. But it is insulting’

Lubna Hussein could receive 40 lashes if found guilty on Tuesday of being indecently dressed – by wearing trousers. In her first major interview, she tells James Copnall in Khartoum why she is determined to fight on, whatever danger she faces.

Lubna HusseinLubna Hussein pictured in the Khartoum cafe where she was arrested. Photograph: Observer

Sitting in the restaurant where her ordeal began, Lubna Hussein looks at the offending item of clothing that caused all the trouble and laughs softly. “In Sudan, women who wear trousers must be flogged!” she says, her eyes widening at the thought. The former journalist faces up to 40 lashes and an unlimited fine if she is convicted of breaching Article 152 of Sudanese criminal law, which prohibits dressing indecently in public.

What exactly constitutes “indecent” is not clear. Last month Lubna was among a crowd listening to an Egyptian singer in a restaurant in a swish area of Khartoum when policemen surged in. They ordered Lubna and other women to stand up to check what they were wearing, and arrested all those who had trousers on. Lubna, who was wearing loose green slacks and a floral headscarf, was taken to the police station.

“There were 13 of us, and the only thing we had in common was that we were wearing trousers,” Lubna says. “Ten of the 13 women said they were guilty, and they got 10 lashes and a fine of 250 Sudanese pounds (about £65). One girl was only 13 or 14. She was so scared she urinated on herself.”

Lubna asked for a lawyer, so her case was delayed. Despite the risks, she is determined that her trial should go ahead. Before her initial hearing last Wednesday, she had 500 invitation cards printed, and sent out emails with the subject line: “Sudanese journalist Lubna invites you again to her flogging tomorrow.”

The court was flooded with women’s rights activists, politicians, diplomats and journalists, as well as well-wishers. During the hearing, Lubna announced that she would resign from her job as a public information officer with the United Nations, which would have provided her with immunity, to fight the case. The judge agreed, and adjourned the trial until Tuesday.

Lubna says she has no fear of the punishment she might face. “Afraid of what? No, I am not afraid, really,” she insists. “I think that flogging does not hurt, but it is an insult. Not for me, but for women, for human beings, and also for the government of Sudan. How can you tell the world that the government flogs the people? How can you do that?”

She is determined to face prosecution in order to change the law. “It is not for me. It is my chance to defend the women of Sudan. Women are often arrested and flogged because of what they wear. This has been happening for 20 years. Afterwards some of them don’t continue at high school or university, sometimes they don’t return to their family, and sometimes if the girls have a future husband, perhaps the relationship comes to an end.”

Lubna, a widow in her 30s, says women have faced similar punishments, mainly in silence, ever since President Omar el-Bashir seized power in 1989. For much of the time since then, Sudan has been at loggerheads with the west. It provided shelter for Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, and is still on an American list of countries that sponsor terrorism, although a senior US official said recently that there was no justification for this.

But Lubna says her concerns are not political. Her frustration stems from what she believes is an erroneous interpretation of her religion.

“Islam does not say whether a woman can wear trousers or not. The clothes I was wearing when the police caught me – I pray in them. I pray to my God in them. And neither does Islam flog women because of what they wear. If any Muslim in the world says Islamic law or sharia law flogs women for their clothes, let them show me what the Qur’an or Prophet Muhammad said on that issue. There is nothing. It is not about religion, it is about men treating women badly.”

Since news of the case broke, Lubna has been celebrated in the western press. She is bemused by the thought of being seen as a heroine, and even more by the idea – suggested by some British newspapers – that she was targeted because she is a Christian. “I am a Muslim, and a good Muslim,” she says.

In response to the articles about her case, the Sudanese embassy in London pointed out there had been next to no coverage of a recent landmark arbitration ruling on the region of Abyei, which is contested by the north and the south following two decades of civil war. Despite fears that it might spark renewed conflict, both sides announced they would respect the ruling.

“The floodgates of expert and non-expert comments on Sudan opened suddenly on 29 July in the wake of an indecency and antisocial behaviour case in Khartoum involving journalist Lubna A Hussein,” the statement read. “The case is still ongoing and it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on it. The real question, which is relevant to the deep-rooted Islamophobic and anti-Arab prejudice, is th selective spotlight on Ms Lubna Ahmed Hussein and determined neglect of Abyei dispute’s result for eight long days.”

Sitting in the Khartoum restaurant as the fierce late-afternoon sun intrudes through the windows, Lubna dismisses the notion that western praise might be a drawback in a country like Sudan. “In Sudan, we like the west,” she exclaims, apparently agitated by the idea that people might not realise this. “For many Sudanese, our dream is to go to the west.” But the government doesn’t always give that impression. “The government thinks differently to the people. The government hopes to be friends with the west, but sometimes they try to look tough, that’s all.”

Nevertheless, she is worried that the foreign attention on her case could lead to further cultural misunderstandings. “The west really doesn’t understand Islam,” she says. “Because as Muslims we know that, if the police catch girls and arrest and flog them, we know this is not Islam. But when the government of Bashir does that, the west says: ‘Oh, that is Islam.’ It presents a bad face of Islam.”

Since her initial hearing, Lubna has been bombarded with messages and phone calls from all over the world. Her family has been supportive, she says, perhaps in part because they are used to it: she was first arrested 15 years ago as a campaigning university student, and has been called in by the police on many subsequent occasions, often after writing satirical articles for the newspaper her husband set up, Sahafa

But one phone call from within the country touched her most. “I talked to my colleagues in the court, the 10 who have already been flogged. At the beginning they were very sad, and one of them was in a bad psychological state. But when she saw me on TV and in the newspaper, she called me to say that this was good. In the beginning, her neighbours and her family didn’t believe she was flogged just for the clothes she was wearing. So she called me to say thank you.”

The issue is rapidly becoming politicised. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which represents the mainly non-Muslim south in a coalition government, has called for the law to be changed. Under a 2005 peace deal, sharia law is not supposed to apply to non-Muslims, and not the least controversial among Lubna’s statements is that several of the 10 women she says were flogged were non-Muslims.

But, for Lubna, the heart of the case goes beyond the north-south divide and its ramifications. She says nothing in Islam justifies flogging a woman for wearing trousers. “I am not a hero, I just don’t have a choice,” she says, fiddling with her pale gold headscarf.

When she spoke to the Observer, Lubna was wearing trousers again, this time blue jeans. Will her experience change the way she dresses? “I have trousers, I have dresses, I have traditional Sudanese clothes – I wear what I like. I won’t change.”

And what will happen if the judge decides, as is still possible, that she was indecently dressed, and sentences her to 40 lashes?

“I will take my case to the upper court, even to the constitutional court,” she insists, measuring her words. “And if they find me guilty, I am ready to receive not only 40 lashes, I am ready for 40,000 lashes. If all women must be flogged for what they wear, I am ready to be flogged 40,000 times.”

————–