Category Archives: Belgium

Protest against Burqa in Belgium

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From Vlaams Belang

Klik hier voor de foto in originele afmetingen.

(25.05.2010) In 2003, Vlaams Belang was the first party to introduce a law proposition regarding the ban on the burqa and other face covering garments. In April of this year, the ban was finally voted in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives.

Last Saturday, the Muslim organization “Muslim Rise” would have normally held a demonstration in Brussels against the burqa ban. However, they did not get the authorization for their protest march and instead organized a press conference in the presence of Anjem Choudary, the leader of ‘Islam4UK’, a fundamentalist group that is banned in the United Kingdom. “The burqa ban will lead to violence”, Choudary said, adding that “the flag of Islam has to fly everywhere in Europe”.

Vlaams Belang reacted to this provocation by holding a symbolic protest. About fifty female militants of our party protested against the Islamic oppression of women. Several women wore a burqa, which they symbolically threw in the garbage bin. The message is clear: Islam can damage your freedom.

Protest for Islamic face covering disguises

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Here is a video of more grateful Islamic immigrants to Europe showing their eagerness and appreciation for all the good things they received at the expense of European nations, and how they hope to integrate and contribute. H/T Baron Bodissey

Was that the Al Queda Jihad flag watermark in the above video? Or are they just full of hate to see us, in our own countries.

Oh look! Talking bags! If only the unknown comic had thought of this:

Of policy, trends and freedom of speech, and all which rely upon it.

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Here are some examples which are, to the best of my knowledge, in order of oldest to newest and show a policy being enforced, or one formed from a trend, or perhaps more insidiously, from some kind of manual.

First, the Israeli ambassador to the US was shouted down, and his speech ended before it began at California Irvine.

Then, former Belgian leftist, who had seen the effects of Islam on all the things he actually cared about, changes his mind and was about to speak at a Norwegian university on Islam and the following happened, where the disrupters credited the students at Irvine of showing them the way:

Lastly, we have todays winner. In a highly calculated ploy to destroy anyone who would oppose Islamic primacy in Europe, Lars Vilks is shouted down and attacked at a university in Sweden. Lots of  information here on Vlad if you want to scroll down a bit. I just felt that this is becoming sufficiently a calculated spreading pattern that it needs to be demonstrated as such, and as such, a counter strategy had better be deployed soon, if we wish to preserve any semblance of the things that gave humanity pretty much everything we have gained since the darkest most brutal and crushingly unfair points of our history.

France to jail, fine burqa enforcers

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From The Ottawa Citizen

France plans to jail burka-enforcers

Agence France-PresseApril 30, 2010
French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the burka is not welcome in France.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the burka is not welcome in France.

Photograph by: Shamil Zhumatov, Reuters files

Benno Barnard, shouted down at Antwerp U, speaks about his new politics

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Ripped wholesale from the Gates of Vienna, this is an important post. A Belgium leftist who openly called Philip Dewinter a racist for years, sings in a different key and a different mode now.

First, the video of his lecture:

Now, the post from Gates of Vienna:

by Baron Bodissey

“I have called Filip Dewinter a fascist for twenty years. I was wrong. The fascists are with the Muslims. Dewinter thus had always been right. And this is from an old leftist boy such as myself.”

— Benno Barnard


Benno BarnardOur Flemish correspondent VH reported on Thursday about the silencing of Benno Barnard at the University of Antwerp. Dr. Barnard was about to give a lecture on the differences between Islam and Christianity, but loud shouting and threats from a crowd of young Muslims forced the cancellation of his talk.

VH has compiled a follow-up report about the incident from miscellaneous Dutch-language sources. First, a translated interview with Benno Barnard from De Standaard.

“This was the best lecture I ever could have given”

by Nikolas Vanhecke

Q: The title of the lecture that you intended to give in the University of Antwerp reads “Long live God, down with Allah.” The lecture is primarily about the Judeo-Christian tradition. Why did you choose that title?
A: Obviously, in the title I make use of the rhetorical technique of the provocation. A characteristic of the Judeo-Christian tradition is debate. This interaction goes back to the Old Testament and led to the Enlightenment, humanism and democracy. Provocation is the clearest form of disagreement. Our entire culture exists because of that.

Islam does not know that debate. To clarify the difference, I switch on the metaphor of Allah.
Q: In other words, the Islam is an undemocratic religion.
A: The real Islam does not know the possibility of democratization. There are democratically sound Muslims, but they do not stick to the strict rules of Islam. Sharia is described in the Quran, and it is those laws the real Islam preaches.

There is a quote from Kemal Ataturk: “Islam, that absurd theology of an immoral Bedouin, is a rotting corpse which poisons our lives.” And I can give you still more such as this from unexpected sources who criticize Islam. Secularization is in violation of Islam, as it emerged from Mecca and Medina.

And all that nonsense about the real Islam, you can study at the University of Antwerp in the context of active pluralism. Some of the members of Sharia4Belgium are studying at the UA. That way they also found out about the lecture. Or did you think it is followed outside the university?
Q: Would you have preferred to have given your reading or do you find the incident stronger than your lecture?
A: That was the best lecture I could give. I speak two sentences and get no further because they start roaring ‘Allahu akhbar’. Welcome to the future! By their action they have formulated a part of my thesis.
Q: In 2004, along with other writers, you called on people not to vote for the (then) Vlaams Blok. Last year you agreed with Filip Dewinter in his criticism of Islam. What has changed you?
A: “I have studied Islam thoroughly, by reading the Koran but also by reading other books. Nowadays I think Filip Dewinter is a prophet. I always called him a racist, but had blinders on then. He understood very early what the true nature of Sharia is. As a Belgicist, though, I am not a lover of Vlaams Belang [VB strives for an independent Flanders—translator].”
Q: What are you then?
A: I have often called myself a left-wing conservative. I advocate a leftist emancipation. Many leftist people are actually right-wing without knowing it. From a misunderstanding of social reality they support Muslims. Then at a certain point you get feminists who defend the burka. Education has been ruined by a mistaken equal opportunities policy of the Social Democrats. I am the opposite of a racist.

This whole story is in theory the most harmful of all for moderate Muslims. One of the police officers yesterday [Wednesday March 31] was a Muslim, and he was abused as a traitor.
Q: Were you actually warned beforehand that protection would be needed?
A: The police had contacted the university. Their safety unit had noticed messages on the website Sharia4Belgium and also knew that the group “Youth for Islam” was calling via SMS for the boycott.
Q: Were you still shocked by the incident?
A: What do you think? At that moment it seems so unrealistic that it is exactly as if you are watching yourself on television. In retrospect it only begins to dawn. Luckily I had bodyguards, otherwise I would not be able to speak to anyone today.
Next, an article from Nieuwsblad:

Silenced in Antwerp

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by Baron Bodissey

From Gates of Vienna:

Our Flemish correspondent VH has compiled a report on the latest scandal in Antwerp: Benno Barnard was prevented by Muslims from giving a lecture.

Sharia4Belgium flag
The image above is a detail from a picture on the sharia4belgium website, and shows the jihad flag of the caliphate (with the shahada) flying over the Royal Palace in Brussels.

Here is VH’s translation from De Morgen, interspersed with other material and videos:

Muslims disrupt lecture Benno Barnard at the University of Antwerp

A lecture by the Flemish/Dutch writer Benno Barnard [poet, essayist, playwright, and translator; born in Amsterdam, moved to Flanders in 1976] for the vrijzinnige dienst [liberal service] of the Antwerp University, was disrupted Wednesday night [March 31] by Muslims.

“I was supposed to give a lecture for about fifty students. The lecture on political Islam had the ironic title ‘Long live God, away with Allah,’ and that was for some extremist Muslims enough to disturb it even before I had spoken three sentences,” the writer says. “To my great surprise, at the start of the lecture a lot of Muslims were in the audience. It soon turned out they had not just come down to the auditorium to listen. Via SMS and the website sharia4belgium [a recently-founded franchise of Islam4UK (video), the organization founded by Anjem Choudary (Pat Condell video)] the call went out to disturb the lecture.”

From the website of Sharia4Belgium:

The Islam debate of Benno Barnard

Assalam alaykoem wa rahmatoelah wa barakatoehoe, Dear Muslim brother / sister

The enemy of our religion again has gone a step closer towards their overt insult to Islam and its followers. On Wednesday, March 31, 2010 the vrijzinnige dienst of the University of Antwerp, is organizing a lecture with as title: “The Islam debate: long live God, away with Allah!”

The guest speaker is the Dutch poet Benno Barnard, who is also known as one of the most radical Islam-bashers in the Low Countries, or to say it using their beautiful words: one of the leading Islam critics!

Central to the lecture is “political” Islam, which according to him is the cause of the standoff with Western ideologies, headed by humanism (or vrijzinnigheid [liberalism]) The title however, betrays his intentions, and is yet another slap in the face of the Muslim community!

And this way it is announced on the website Liberales [liberal think tank with close contacts within the University of Antwerp] — translator]:

Benno Barnard on “The Islam debate. Long live God, away with Allah!”

“Of course every Muslim, like any other human being, is a barrel full of influences, of which the Belgians are not the least important. But that same barrel can be filled with explosives through the funnel of tradition… Our confrontation must concern an ideology! Namely that of political Islam, which unfortunately is so difficult to separate from Islam at all.” This is the sixth lecture in the series “Our Values. What future for humanism?” Location: City campus of the University of Antwerp, Rodestraat 14, admission is free.

Do we as Muslims just let this happen or do we answer this pure provocation with a sharp tongue…?

Here is a preview of how our Muslim brothers in the United States deal with such “guests” [on the website they have the video shown below of the attempted speech of Michael B. Oren, Israeli ambassador to the United States, which was made impossible by Muslims at University of California Irvine on February 8, 2010 — translator]:

Don’t forget that this dien is an amaanah, which Allah ta3ala has placed on our neck! Anyone who reads this call and throws in the towel will be questioned on Yaum Al Qiyaama. “What did YOU do in the defense of your faith?!?”

Sharia4Belgium Group

Returning to De Morgen:

The Rector of the UA Alain Verschoren, emphasizes that the University of Antwerp values active pluralism highly and wants to provide space for all opinions to enter into a dialogue with each other. “I regret that there was no opportunity for dialogue, because the lecture was already disturbed after a only few minutes.”

From the Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest] website:

When Barnard took the floor, there was hell to pay. Someone shouted, “You must not make jokes about Islam.” Then a group of about eighty foreigners started chanting “Allahu Akhbar”. The youngsters stormed the stage and the debate was canceled, ended before it even began. Those worried about the rise of Islamic headscarves should definitely look at the video (see below) of the action. After the headscarves, now also men in long robes with long beards and turbans are on the rise. And all this under the banner of “religious freedom”, “multicultural enrichment” and “tolerance,” “peaceful” Islam.

This is a video of what happened at the University of Antwerp:

Returning to De Morgen:

Police spokesman Fons Bastiaenssens confirms that a little after eight in the evening they received a message about the disruption at the university. Upon arrival, the police escorted some twenty Muslims out of the building. In the end the incident included some shouting, but there was no violence. There were no arrests.

Antwerp Mayor Patrick Janssens [SP.a., Flemish Socialist Party] is outraged. At the local TV channel (ATV), he compared the incident to “a meeting of OPEC that ended in a quarrel”.

Continued from the Vlaams Belang website:

Benno Barnard responded in shock: “Without the police and my own bodyguards I would have been in the hospital now. Free speech is stifled by terror. This is not the future, but the present in our cities…” After our distinct campaign with the Islam-green poster anyone who would still ask, “Why Flemish Interest?” thus gets the reply: Because of this!

Returning to De Morgen:

Benno Barnard himself is considering filing a complaint against unknown people for threats and intimidation. The University of Antwerp is considering filing a complaint because the right to free speech was violated.

Sharia4belgium also has a Youtube channel.

Belgium set to ban burqa.

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From The Telegraph U.K.

Belgium could be first country to ban the burka

Belgium is on course to become the first European country to ban the burka after a parliamentary committee backed proposals to make it illegal on the grounds of national security and women’s rights.

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Published: 5:21PM BST 31 Mar 2010

Belgium could be first country to ban the burka

Muslims who ignore the ban could face fines of £22 and a jail sentence of up to seven days unless they have written police permission to wear the garments Photo: REUTERS

The unanimous decision by senior home affairs legislators, with the support of Belgium’s main political parties, has paved the way for a full Belgian parliament vote on a ban to be held in three weeks.

The proposed legislation would ban any clothing or veils that do not allow the wearer to be properly identified, including the full-face niqab and burka that is worn by a small minority of Muslim women.

Those Muslims who ignore the ban could face fines of £22 and a jail sentence of up to seven days unless they have written police permission to wear the garments.

Denis Ducarme, a Belgian MP for the liberal Reformist Movement party that drafted the ban, predicted that legislation would receive full parliamentary backing on April 22.

“This is a very strong signal being sent to Islamists,” he said. “I am proud that Belgium would be the first country in Europe which dares to legislate on this sensitive matter.”

Daniel Bacquelaine, MR’s leader, said the proposed legislation would liberate Muslim women.

“Even if it’s on a voluntary basis, the burka is contrary to the dignity of women. It’s a walking prison,” he said. “We have to free women of this burden.”

But the Belgian ban is likely to face opposition and judicial challenges following Monday’s ruling by the French Council of State that a full burka ban in France was “unconstitutional”.

Fouad Lahssaini, a Green MP, warned that Belgian legislation was “judicially unsafe” because Belgium’s own Council of State, which acts as a supreme court, had not given its opinion on a ban.

“Speed is sometimes necessary in a democracy, but precipitous haste is the megaphone of populism,” he said.

Isabelle Praile, the vice president of the Muslim Executive of Belgium, warned that the ban would damage civil liberties.

“Today it’s the full-face veil, tomorrow the veil, the day after it will be Sikh turbans and then perhaps it will be mini skirts,” she said.

The ban will be imposed on all streets, parks, sports grounds or buildings “meant for public use or to provide services”, with exceptions allowed for religious festivities if municipal authorities decide to grant them.

The ban comes amid controversy over the wearing of Muslim religious symbols in public places and as a high-profile trial of nine alleged al-Queda terrorists takes place in Brussels.

Belgium has been alarmed by the case of Malika El Aroud, a veiled Islamist radical and Belgian national, charged with leading the recruitment of young Brussels Muslims for suicide bombing missions. She was required to remove her burka in court when her trial opened earlier this month.

National debate has also raged over a protracted legal battle by Muslim mathematics teacher who demanded the right to wear a veil while teaching in her classroom.

She has been given until the middle of next week to return, unveiled, to her Charleroi school or to lose her job.

Woman with Iquan told “Take it Off or Leave” in Belgian parliament

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From Gates of Vienna:

Saturday, February 13, 2010

“Take it Off or Leave”

by Baron Bodissey

Our Flemish correspondent VH has done a little background research on an incident that occurred in the Flemish parliament on Wednesday. Through his efforts we learn that the “woman with a headscarf” in the public gallery — who was supposedly made a victim by the Islamophobia of Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter — is not what she seems.

Ms. Fatima Zibouh is not an innocent Muslima who just happened to be in the public gallery when she was picked on by Filip Dewinter. Her associations and connections, as demonstrated in the material below, lead not just to the extreme Left in Wallonia, but all the way back to radical Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.

VH begins with a translation of this news account from Het Laatste Nieuws (and related linked articles) and a video of the triggering event. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for his prompt subtitling:

Headscarf incident in Flemish parliament: “take it off or leave”

In the Flemish parliament on Wednesday February 10, Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter lashed out about a woman with a headscarf in the public gallery of the parliament, who was in the audience for the plenary session. Dewinter demanded that the woman take off her headscarf out of respect for the parliament or leave the public gallery.

“When Muslimas are in the public gallery, they must at least take off their headscarves out of respect for parliament,” Dewinter said, noting the veiled woman. “Otherwise, they should leave the gallery,” he added. The Vlaams Belang leader pointed out that regulations state that neutrality [in visible political expressions] is required in parliament. The party colleagues of Filip Dewinter applauded this.

The Chairman of Parliament, Jan Peumans (N-VA) did not follow up on Filip Dewinter’s demand. “It disturbs me not at all that this lady is in the audience with a headscarf. And moreover, you are directing your remarks at someone who is in the audience and can not defend herself. I want to make that clear,” Peumans said. The Chairman of Parliament received extended applause for his intervention.

(A full transcript of this video is at the bottom of the post.) Continue Reading →

Mayor of Anderlecht Brussels: You have to kill your family to go to prison here

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Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven (MR), mayor of Anderlecht, about the escalating violence in Brussels and the total incapacity to keep the situation under control because of the Muslim immigrants that are destroying public property everyday and recently have started to target police with AK-47’s

Thank you Patrupedbun

Brussels: Zero-tolerance against violence

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Brussels: Zero-tolerance against violence A zero-tolerance policy will be implemented in several Brussels problem neighborhoods.  Thus was decided during a meeting of the Brussels prosecutor Bruno Bulthé, the Anderlecht mayor Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven (MR) and the head of the Brussels South police department.  The Internal Affairs and Justice ministries also participated in the discussion, the Brussels public prosecution reported today. After a number of violent incidents, including several shooting incidents in which agents were targeted, and the attacks on the students of the Institut Supérieur Industriel de Bruxelles, the police and justice department decided to introduce a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in Anderlecht

Brussels: Zero-tolerance against violence

A zero-tolerance policy will be implemented in several Brussels problem neighborhoods.  Thus was decided during a meeting of the Brussels prosecutor Bruno Bulthé, the Anderlecht mayor Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven (MR) and the head of the Brussels South police department.  The Internal Affairs and Justice ministries also participated in the discussion, the Brussels public prosecution reported today.

After a number of violent incidents, including several shooting incidents in which agents were targeted, and the attacks on the students of the Institut Supérieur Industriel de Bruxelles, the police and justice department decided to introduce a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in Anderlecht.

The intention is to act hard against any form of violence, and that any crime would be dealt with.  It’s possible extra magistrates would be called in to be able to act quickly in the neighborhoods being targeted.

“So called no-go-zones are not accepted,” says prosecution spokesperson Jos Colpin. “In the neighborhoods concerned, zero tolerance will be employed, and the structures of the prosecution and the police would be adapted and where necessary reinforced.”

François Debats, director of the Institut Supérieur Industriel de Bruxelles, is satisfied with the decision.  The director moved his 1st and 2nd year students to the Koningstraat campus last week, after various students were attacked by criminal youth in the area of the Anderlecht Grondelstraat.  They were forced via verbal aggression or knife threats to hand over valuable items such as a cell-phone or mp3-player.

“The decision reassured me,” says Debats.  “Everybody clearly told me that they’re aware of the problem and I’ve also felt manifest will to deal with the issue.  I don’t blame the police of Anderlecht for anything because I know that they put in effort 100%.  Whatever new regulation will now coem, I don’t know, but I have confidence in the fiture.”

The director is considering to return to the Grondelstraat campus after the winter’s vacation.

Earlier the police unions said they were planning to strike, after a police agent was seriously injured trying to stop a getaway car following a robbery.  This is the third time police were shot at in the past few weeks.  The VSOA union wrote in a press release: street gangs who sow terror undistrubed, offernder who are immediately freed, police agents who become victims of weapon-violence.  These are the sad charachteristics of a region where gangsterism, violnce and lack of law seem to have the upper hand over public order.

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

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

Gaza is not an Islamic state.

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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

© MOHAMMED SABER

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.”

Excellent video on selective enforcement on ‘hate speech laws’

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This really is a must see video. Please spread it around