Category Archives: War on modernity

Iran: tanned women against the ‘spirit of Islam’

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From The Telegraph U.K.

Suntanned women to be arrested under Islamic dress code

Iran has warned suntanned women and girls who looked like “walking mannequins” will be arrested as part of a new drive to enforce the Islamic dress code.

by Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat
Published: 11:09PM BST 27 Apr 2010

Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran’s police chief, said a national crackdown on opposition sympathisers would be extended to women who have been deemed to be violating the spirit of Islamic laws. He said: “The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins.

“We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them.”

Iran’s Islamic leadership has in recent weeks launched a scaremongering campaign to persuade the population that vice is sweeping the streets of the capital. National law stipulates that women wear headscarves and shape shrouding cloaks but many women, particularly in the capital, spend heavily on fashions that barely adhere to the regulations.

The announcement came shortly after Ayatollah Kazim Sadighi, a leading cleric, warned that women who dressed immodestly disturbed young men and the consequent agitation caused earthquakes.

Another preacher warned Tehran’s citizens to flee before the inevitable punishment for flagrant behaviour was visited on the city.

“Go on the streets and repent for your sins,” Ayatollah Aziz Khoshvaqt, one of the country’s highest clerics, told worshippers during a recent sermon in northern Tehran. “A holy torment is upon us. Leave town.”

Bart Simpson stands by Southpark

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From The Telegraph U.K.

Creators of US cartoon The Simpsons have given a nod of support to rivals at South Park whose recent episode depicting the prophet Mohammed was censored.

Bart Simpson shows support for South Park

The Simpsons support South Park writers in Mohammed censorship row

Creators of US cartoon The Simpsons have given a nod of support to rivals at South Park whose recent episode depicting the prophet Mohammed was censored.

By Alastair Jamieson
Published: 10:21AM BST 28 Apr 2010

The opening titles of The Simpsons were altered to acknowledge the controversial decision by channel Comedy Central to change the 201st episode of South Park after the previous edition depicted the prophet disguised in a bear costume.

South Park’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were sent a warning by a New York-based radical Islamic website for the 200th episode. The programme also lampooned Jesus and Buddhism.

“South Park – we’d stand beside you if we weren’t so scared,” Bart Simpson wrote on the blackboard in the opening sequences.

The Mohammed character was introduced as part of a joke about censorship based on the 2006 death threats made against Danish cartoonists by Islamist extremists, who see any depiction of Muhammad as a gross insult to their religion. Continue Reading →

Canada: Muslim woman fears acid attack reprisal

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From The Toronto Sun

Muslim woman fears reprisal

Claims death threats for working in men’s hair salon

By TOM GODFREY, Toronto Sun

Last Updated: April 22, 2010 5:21pm

A Muslim woman fighting to stay in Canada fears being disfigured with acid for allegedly “bringing shame” to her ex-husband’s family in Pakistan by leaving him and travelling here to work in a hair salon frequented by men.

Roohi Tabassum, 45, of Brampton, said corrosive acid is thrown in the faces of women in Pakistan and other Islamic countries to disfigure them because they have allegedly “shamed” their families.

Tabassum said there have been two incidents the past month in Pakistan where women’s faces were burned with acid by assailants who fled.

“I don’t leave the house or go anywhere because I am scared,” she said. “Sometimes the women are also disabled, burned or tortured.”

Tabassum claims family members in Pakistan are still receiving threats from ex-husband, Faisal Javed, who has threatened to kill her.

“He (ex-husband) is determined to have me killed or crippled,” she said. “I am very concerned for myself.”

Tabassum entered Canada from the U.S. in 2001 and filed a failed refugee claim. She faces deportation to the U.S., and then to Pakistan, which is under appeal before an Immigration and Refugee Board.

She claimed Javed is angered because she works in a salon that styles men’s hair and suspects she has a boyfriend, which she denies.

Her lawyer Max Berger said 1,200 to 1,500 women were killed in 2007 from honour killings in Pakistan, according to U.S. Department of State statistics.

“This is a very legitimate concern that she has,” Berger said. “These type of honour killings or attacks are not uncommon in Pakistan.”

He successfully obtained refugee status for a Pakistani woman 10 years ago who had “half her face burned in an acid attack” due from bringing shame to a family.

Tarek Fatah, of the Muslim Canadian Congress, said acid attacks against women do occur and can be for a disgracing a family.

“Women are at the bottom of the rung of the ladder in this culture,” Fatah said. “We just cannot dismiss her claim outright.”

Police and immigration officials are not aware of an acid attack against a woman in Canada.

Related: Girls poisoned at Afghan school.

Protesters denounce bill-94 in Montreal

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From CTV News Montreal

Protesters denounce Bill 94

A niqab-wearing woman holds a placard at a demonstration against Bill 94 on Saturday, April 17, 2010.

A niqab-wearing woman holds a placard at a demonstration against Bill 94 on Saturday, April 17, 2010.

Updated: Sat Apr. 17 2010 6:16:25 PM

ctvmontreal.ca

About 100 demonstrators gathered in front of Montreal city hall Saturday afternoon to express their anger over the Bill 94, legislation tabled by the Charest government that seeks to ban the niqab and the burqa.

If passed, Bill 94 would force anyone providing or receiving government services to do so with an uncovered face.

The bill was proposed last month in the midst of a renewed debate over reasonable accommodation, sparked when a Muslim woman was expelled from a French course for refusing to remove her religious face covering.

Afifa Suleman, an 11-year-old girl wearing a niqab at Saturday’s protest, said she plans to ask her parents to move back to Pakistan if the bill passes.

“Where they have respect for religion, for women and their modesty, that’s where I’d go,” she said.

Christina Dudander, a non-Muslim woman who attended the protest, said the government’s proposed legislation is excessive — given that just a few dozen women in Quebec wear the niqab or burqa.

“It’s really a very small issue, it does not involve a very big problem at all. Why do they pick on women who can’t defend themselves?” she asked.

The protest was organized by Meena Samreen, a Montrealer who spent five years living in Pakistan.

Samreen believes the biggest problem in the west is a lack of understanding when it comes to Islam.

“Go to a mosque, go and sit down and listen to a sermon. It’s not what people think. It’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said.

Samreen also said Bill 94 is hypocritical.

“We send our troops to protect those women, to open educational institutes for them, and here we’re stopping women from going into educational institutes because they choose to cover their faces,” she said.

But others, like Anabelle Gendron, are uncomfortable with face coverings in public settings.

“They should take their religion and do it at home, but in school I don’t really think it’s appropriate,” said Gendron.

“Stop violating Islamic sharia in the name of rights and freedoms!”

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From The Ottawa Citizen

Yemen. Women protest ban on child marriages

Canwest News ServiceMarch 22, 2010 4:10 AM

Thousands of women demonstrated outside parliament Sunday to oppose legislation banning the marriage of girls under 17. The protesters held up banners proclaiming “don’t ban what Allah made permissible,” or “stop violating Islamic sharia law in the name of rights and freedoms.” Proposed amendments to the civil status law stalled in parliament last August after severe opposition to a government proposal that would ban girls under 17 and males under 18 from marrying. Child marriages are common, especially in rural areas, where girls as young as eight have been married off.

Suitcase murder: Omar Hussain charged in honour killing of Banaz Mahmod

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From The Telegraph U.K

Man charged over body found in suitcase

Omar Hussain has been charged with murder after the decomposed body of Banaz Mahmod was found in a suitcase.

Published: 8:00AM GMT 20 Mar 2010

The body of Miss Mahmod, 20, was found in Handsworth, Birmingham three months after she disappeared from her family home in Mitcham, south London in January 2006.

Hussain, 30, of Smethwick, Birmingham, will appear at Greenwich Magistrates’ Court on Friday charged with her murder.

He is also charged with the attempted kidnap of Rahmat Suleimani, Miss Mahmod’s boyfriend, and with attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Miss Mahmod began a relationship with Mr Suleimani after leaving an unhappy arranged marriage.

Her father, Mahmod Mahmod, uncle Ari Mahmod and a third man, Mohamad Hama, were jailed for life in 2007 for the so-called ”honour” killing.

Mr Suleimani was deemed unsuitable because he did not come from the small group of villages in Iraqi Kurdistan from which the Mahmods originated.

Muslims sponsor child brides, Canadian officials claim ‘little they can do’

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From The Toronto Sun

Immigration: ‘Child bride’ loophole can’t be closed

By TOM GODFREY, QMI Agency

Last Updated: March 11, 2010 4:49pm

Federal immigration officials say there’s little they can do to stop “child brides” from being sponsored into Canada by much older husbands who wed them in arranged marriages abroad.Top immigration officials in Canada and Pakistan say all they can do is reject the sponsorships of husbands trying to bring their child-brides to Canada. The men have to reapply when the bride turns 16.

The marriages are permitted under Sharia Law.

Muslim men, who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents, return to their homeland to wed a “child bride” in an arranged marriage in which a dowry is given to the girl’s parents.

Officials said some of the brides can be 14 years old or younger and many are forced to marry. The practice occurs in a host of countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Lebanon.

In classified documents, Canadian visa officer Steve Bulmer said he refused to allow one Pakistani man to sponsor his 15-year-old bride in August 2009.

“I can find no section (of law) that states the marriage is ‘invalid’ or ‘void,'” Bulmer wrote in e-mails obtained by lawyer Richard Kurland under Access of Information. “I am afraid the age does not invalidate the marriage even if it is illegal to marry.”

Abdul Hameed, of the Canadian embassy in Islamabad, said child marriages are not valid in Canada.

“A child marriage is punishable but it does not render the marriage invalid,” Hameed said. “We are refusing such application on grounds the marriage will not be valid as per Canadian laws.” William Hawke, of immigration’s Permanent Resident Unit, said the young brides won’t be allowed in Canada.

“Sponsorship applications submitted for a spouse under 16 will be refused,” Hawke said. “Once an underage spouse turns 16 they are a member of the family class” and can be sponsored.

He said the application is rejected if a spouse turns 16 during processing. Kurland said there’s little that can be done to stop Canadians from marrying child brides.

“A 15-year-old bride doesn’t void a marriage,” Kurland said on Thursday.

“The application is turned down and the person can reapply when his bride turns 16.”

He said the practice has been going on for years and “is a concrete loophole that can’t be fixed.”

Immigration officials quoting an Afghanistan Law of Marriages said in some countries it is “customary for young females to wed men considerably older, especially if the man is in a position of financial or social power.”

According to the law, it is not uncommon for marriages between first cousins or extended family members.

UK Muslim Leader’s Death Threat Calls Over Dress

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From The Express, by Ted Jeory

A SECULAR Muslim woman councillor has been forced to dress more conservatively after receiving death threats and sexually harassing phone calls from members of her own community.

Shiria Khatun, 38, has called in the police over the sinister calls in which threats were made not only against her, but also her four young children.

Story Image

In one they warned they would dig up parents’ graves and bury her there instead.

The Labour councillor in the controversial borough of Tower Hamlets—named in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last week as a centre of Islamic fundamentalism—is considered one of the area’s most progressive politicians.

She was elected in 2006, worked for Ken Livingstone as a transport adviser at London’s City Hall and frequently campaigns for more Muslim women to enter politics.

However, over the past year she has been the victim of a “sick” harassment campaign.

She has been bombarded with anonymous calls and even followed home. Continue Reading →

“Give me segregation, or give them death!”

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More primitivism from the tablecloth brigade in Saudi. I swear that somewhere in Italy there is a restaurant that has the worlds highest linen bills.

From Real Courage.org

Reuters reports: “Whoever mixes the sexes should be killed: Sheikh Barrack

Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak calls for death for those "mixing" sexes (Photo: Reuters)Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak calls for death for those “mixing” sexes (Photo: Reuters)


Saudi cleric backs gender segregation with fatwa

A prominent Saudi cleric has issued an edict calling for opponents of the kingdom’s strict segregation of men and women to be put to death if they refuse to abandon their ideas.

Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak said in a fatwa the mixing of genders at the workplace or in education “as advocated by modernisers” is prohibited because it allows “sight of what is forbidden, and forbidden talk between men and women.”

” Whoever allows this mixing … allows forbidden things, and whoever allows them is an infidel and this means defection from Islam … Either he retracts or he must be killed … because he disavows and does not observe the Shariah “

“All of this leads to whatever ensues,” he said in the text of the fatwa published on his website (albarrak.islamlight.net).

“Whoever allows this mixing … allows forbidden things, and whoever allows them is an infidel and this means defection from Islam … Either he retracts or he must be killed … because he disavows and does not observe the Shariah,” Barrak said.

“Anyone who accepts that his daughter, sister or wife works with men or attend mixed-gender schooling cares little about his honor and this is a type of pimping,” Barrak said.