Jordan: Pregnant Woman Had Throat and Stomach Slit

By on May 8, 2013

Pregnant womanIn just the latest in a string of horrific “honor” killings – crimes of violence carried out against Muslim for real and imagined trespasses against her family, a pregnant woman in Jordan had both her throat and stomach slit open. Authorities suspect the woman may have been slain as her child was conceived outside of marriage.

Even more horrific, the woman’s body was then dumped in a garbage container and set ablaze. Her four-month-old fetus was clearly visible to those who discovered her.

Police discovered her charred remains at dawn in Ruseifa, east of Amman over the past weekend.

“We believe it was an honor crime,” a police spokesman said.

“The belly of the woman, in her twenties, was cut open and we could see her four-month-old unborn child, who was dead too. Investigations are still under way,” he added.

The Jordan Times reported that “the fact [...] her stomach was cut open is a strong indication that she was killed for reasons related to family honor.”

Witnesses said they saw two men, driving a truck, pull up to the dumpster before throwing in the body and setting it on fire with a flammable liquid.

Read the rest: Pregnant Muslim Slit Open in Honor Killing.  Read more here.

 

 

This entry is filed under Honor Killing, Jordan.

The Atlantic Monthly Gives a Disgusting Spin on the Pew Survey about Muslim Women

By on May 8, 2013

Atlantic Cover : Girls RuleWe often talk about “the Islamic world,” or the “Muslim community,” but sometimes it takes being smacked with an enormous, amazing data dump to remind us that Muslims are actually an incredibly diverse group — if you can call them a group — who adhere to views that are informed by their cultural and political context as much as their religion.

For their mammoth new study about the world’s Muslims, the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life interviewed more than 38,000 Muslims in 39 countries on topics ranging from morality, to politics and justice, and the relationships between the sexes.

There’s a lot to parse here, but one of the most interesting sections is on views about women, given the recent controversy over sexual abuse in India, the flare-up over the “topless jihad,” and the potential resurgence of Sharia law in Syria and other unstable areas.

One big takeaway is this: The way Muslims see the role of women is highly dependent on where they live.

Read the rest: Muslims and women’s rights.

So what we’re supposed to remember is not that Islam oppresses women or that the writer will give us reasons why but that the percentages of those wanting to oppress them vary from country to country.  This is the big takeaway?  Muslims are an incredibly diverse group?  Yes, Islam is just one big tent. Why the percentage of Muslims who think wives must always obey their husbands is only 34% in Kosovo compared to 96% in Malaysia.  See the diversity.  How disgusting.

The Atlantic Monthly, once a primo intellectual stimulant, has disgraced itself with this spin article.

This entry is filed under Women's Rights and Gender Apartheid.

Majorities in Iraq and Afghanistan Agree Women Should Be Killed for Adultery

By on May 7, 2013

muslim woman being stonedAs the U.S. military winds down more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, there are growing concerns about what will happen to the fragile progress of women’s rights in those countries. 

Those fears are underscored by the findings of a new Pew Survey of the social and political attitudes of Muslims worldwide. According to the report, of the 23 countries surveyed, Iraq and Afghanistan are the only two countries where majorities of Muslims surveyed said that honor killings of women are justified as punishment for alleged pre- or extra-marital sex. 

Interestingly, Pew also found that, across the countries surveyed, attitudes toward honor killings were not consistently linked to religious observance; Muslims who pray several times a day are just as likely to oppose honor killings as those who do not. 

Together, those findings indicate a pervasive disregard for women’s rights in both countries — one that is only likely to get worse as the U.S. troop presence and related human rights work diminishes. 

The report also found that, as in many of the countries surveyed, support for making Islamic sharia the official “law of the land” is overwhelming among Muslims in Afghanistan (99 percent) and Iraq (91 percent).

Read more here.

This entry is filed under Afghanistan, Honor Killing, Iraq.

Afghan Schoolgirls Poisoned by Taliban

By on May 7, 2013

Afghani girl reading in school

The girls became ill after smelling gas at their school, Bibi Maryam, in Takhar province’s capital, Taluqan. Many of the children remained in a critical condition in hospital last night.

The Ministry of Public Health is investigating and samples of the victims’ blood have been sent for testing.

Sulaiman Moradi, Takhar governor’s spokesman, said the attack was to try to prevent girls from going to school. He said ‘enemies of the government and the country’ were to blame for the mass illness.

There have been numerous substantiated cases of mass poisonings of schoolgirls in Afghanistan by ultra-conservatives who oppose giving women access to education.

The girls in Takhar, about 155 miles north of Kabul, were taken to a provincial hospital.

Most were released after being treated but Dr Jamil Frotan, head of the hospital, said several victims remained in a critical condition yesterday.

Read the rest: Afghan Girls Poisoned by Taliban.

RAWA  is an Afghan women’s group fighting for rights and freedom that we women in the west take for granted.  For awhile, the plight of these women was the cause d’jour of the rad feminist groups but many opted out when the western nations went to war in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.

It is sad but true, Afghan women will never stand a chance of gaining any basic human rights until the jackboot of Islam is taken off their necks.

This entry is filed under Afghanistan, Education. | 1 Comment

Tunisian Islamists Attack Females at Dance Performance

By on May 5, 2013

Tunesian-Pot-DanceHardline Islamists threw stones and bottles at young women in a student hostel in Tunis to stop them staging a performance of dance and music, witnesses said on Thursday, in another blow to secular freedoms in the country that spawned the Arab Spring.

Since secular dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fell two years ago in the first of multiple revolts across the Arab world, moderate Islamists have won election and radical Muslims have targeted symbols of a hitherto mainly secular society.

Female university students housed at the Bardo district hostel in the capital were just starting a weekly show of dance and music on Wednesday evening when dozens of hardline Salafists broke into the premises after scaling its walls, witnesses said.

“They smashed windows on our building and threw stones and bottles at the students, stopping the performance,” said Rim Nsairi, one of the students, who are aged 19 to 24.

The disturbance lasted almost an hour before the assailants fled. There were no serious injuries and no arrests.

Read the rest: Tunisian Muslims Riot to Stop Dancing .

This “disturbance” was due to the actual practice of Islam by the Salafis, based on this doctrine from Mohammed and his god Allah:

“They ask you (O Muhammad) about the spoils of war. Say: ‘The spoils are for Allah and the Messenger.’ So fear Allah and adjust all matters of difference among you…” [al-Anfaal 8:1]. But using music is the opposite of this idea of taqwa and  it would distract them from remembering their Lord. Thirdly, using music is one of the customs of the kuffaar, and it is not permitted to imitate them, especially with regard to something that Allah has forbidden to us in general, such as music. (al-Saheehah, 1/145)

A majority of scholars say Islam permits dancing under certain conditions: no alcohol, no gender mixing, no effeminate moves, and without excess. Women can dance together in private but they cannot publicly perform. Others say that dancing is haram or not permitted because Mohammed didn’t dance.

This entry is filed under Tunisia.

Muslim Rapist Appeal of “Cultural Differences” Rejected

By on May 5, 2013

Cover of Al-Qaida Insight MagazineAn Afghan man who fled from the Taliban to begin a new life in Australia will spend the next 14 years behind bars after a judge rejected his claim that cultural differences had led to him raping a woman.

Esmatullah Sharifi, 30, was told by Judge Mark Dean in Melbourne that his background as a traumatised Muslim refugee was no excuse for the rape of a drunken and vulnerable teenager.

The judge noted that a psychologist had told the Victoria County Court in Melbourne that Sharifi, who arrived in Australia in 2001, had an ‘unclear concept of what constitutes consent in sexual relationships’.

Rejecting that argument, the judge said Sharifi’s background and flight from the Taliban was not an excuse for violence, telling the Afghan: ‘You well knew the victim was not consenting to the act of sexual penetration you performed.’

It was not the first time that Sharifi had appeared in court on a rape charge – in 2009 he was jailed for a minimum of seven years for the abduction and sexual assault of a woman on Christmas Eve, 2008 – five days after he had raped the teenager.

Read the rest: Afghan rapist appeal of cultural differences rejected.

How many times does this have to happen before Kafir girls and women understand that they are “fair game” for rape in those places that have not submitted to Islam called Dar al Harb, the “house” or territory of war?

The cultural differences are in the doctrine of Islam, its gender apartheid and specific instructions on rape as a tactic of jihad.

This entry is filed under Afghanistan, Australia, Rape and Abuse.

Sexually Abused Muslim Fights to Cover Her Face in Court

By on April 22, 2013

niqab-courtA Toronto woman is fighting for her right to wear a niqab – a veil worn by some Muslim women that covers the entire face except for the eyes – while she testifies in a sex abuse case.

The woman, known only as N.S., says the alleged sexual abuse occurred 15 years ago by family members including her uncle and another male relative.  Defence lawyers had argued that without seeing her face, they were not prepared to concede she was the victim.
The defence also argued that her demeanor could be “inhibited” by the veil, but the Crown said that’s an assumption.

Read the rest here.

This entry is filed under Burka/Hijab/Veil, Canada.

Bangladesh Islamists Want Women At Home

By on April 22, 2013

bangladesh-sceneProtests and clashes in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country have diminished in recent weeks but with about 100 dead and thousands injured, tensions remain high. A series of “shutdowns” have been enforced by political groups, more are threatened and many fear violence will flare again.
[ . . . ]
The most recent development is the emergence of a radical conservative Muslim party, Hefazat-e-Islam, as the standard bearer of the religious right. Earlier this month, at a huge rally in Dhaka attended by more than 100,000 according to police, the party issued 13 demands. They included the introduction of measures to stop “alien culture” making inroads in Bangladesh, the reinstatement of the line “absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah” in the nation’s constitution, which is largely secular, and a ban on new statues in public places.

But it was Hefazat-e-Islam’s demand that men and women do not mix in public – seen by many as a bid to stop women working outside the home – that most worried Akhter, one of tens of millions of female labourers in Bangladesh’s booming garment industry.
“If we are not allowed to work, how will we survive?” asked Akhter, who supports her elderly parents on her monthly wage of 6,500 takas (£55). “Many of our coworkers were abandoned by their husbands. Some families only have daughters, whose parents are old. What will a single mother do? We will not have any means for a living.”

Read more here.

Nonnie Darwish who is a Muslim apostate says in an interview,“Islam gives no way out of the prison for women. For example, a woman can be beaten by her husband, she has no right for divorce, her testimony in court is half the value of the man, her inheritance is half what her brother gets, she cannot leave the house officially without her husband’s permission, she cannot do anything without her husband’s permission – she cannot leave the country.”

This entry is filed under Bangladesh, Women's Rights and Gender Apartheid.

Muslims Segregate Females at UK University

By on April 22, 2013

leicesterA university is probing claims that some of its Muslim students are enforcing segregation between men and women, it emerged today.

Leicester University spoke of its concerns over photos showing hand-written signs requesting that male and female students sit in separate areas at a public talk by the university’s Islamic Society.

The meeting – which discussed God’s existence – was addressed by Islamic speaker Hamza Tzortzis, who speaks at various campuses and was involved in controversy at another university last month.

[ . . . ]

Leicester University officials told the Daily Telegraph that they would investigate the signs in the photos and ensure that nobody will be forced to sit apart in the future – unless it is their preference.

A spokesman for Mr Tzortzis’s group said genders were sometimes informally segregated at events.

Read the rest here.

This entry is filed under United Kingdom, Women's Rights and Gender Apartheid.

Art and Islam Cannot Co-exist. Ask Artist Sooraya Graham

By on April 14, 2013

Sooraya-Graham-PhotoSooraya’s photographic work is exquisite.  The choice of subject is pitched perfectly.  And the color is muted as the lives of those who never experience the world in all its wondrous displays.  The composition is too cluttered by the lampshade in the background.  The muslimina is the focal point of the story and she should be clear.

I would love to see the photograph up close.  I think it is an artistic achievement, somewhat flawed but still highly effective.  Sooraya is a talented woman.  We must see more from her. 
Her story is here: University Muslim Woman Persecuted for her Art

It is a shame that Art and Islam cannot co-exist.  (h/t Jihad Watch)

This entry is filed under Arts, Canada.

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