GOOD NEWS! Karzai bans full face coverings (burqas and niqabs) for women in Afghanistan

OH WAIT, NOT SO GOOD: Burqas and niqabs are only banned in public on Mondays.

ALL VOICES (H/T Lauga G)  In a sudden and shocking move, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai has authorized a ban on wearing full veils in public places on Mondays. This revolutionary action makes Afghanistan the first Islamic country to impose restrictions on a form of attire that many Muslims consider a religious obligation.

President Hamid Karzai has been widely criticized for doing little to protect women’s rights in the country and end traditional practices like giving away daughters to settle family scores, forced and under-age marriages, requirement for husband’s permission to work, and violent abuse by husbands and close relatives, including denial of food and sustenance if wives refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands.

The criticism has recently intensified when the Human Rights Watch released a report, which revealed that nearly half of all women in Afghan prisons are being held for “moral crimes” such as running away from home or adultery and that Afghanistan is “the only country in the world that interprets sharia law to prohibit women from running away from their home without permission.”

This extensive worldwide outburst of criticism forced President Karzai to exploit more radical options to improve his poor record on women’s rights. Beginning April 1, 2012, women won’t be allowed to wear niqabs and burkas, cloths fully covering the face and body, respectively, on Mondays, liable to a 20-year imprisonment or stoning.

The new law, that follows France’s ban on wearing full veils in public places in 2011, is an experimental effort and, according to Karzai, “It was more reasonable and feasible to limit it to just one day a week.” The President expects vicious and violent opposition to his new decree and will extend the full veils ban gradually to more days a week only when able to manage anticipated brutal resistance to the new law.

Human Rights Watch was fast to respond to Karzai’s highly unexpected decree and, while they’re “simply in awe of the President Karzai’s extremely bald move”, they expressed concern about the very likely possibility that women will be persecuted even more with the implementation of this new law.

“I’m deeply worried that, on one hand, women will be jailed and prosecuted by wearing burkas on Mondays and, on the other hand, brutally beaten by their husbands when trying to obey the new law and discard their traditional clothing on this one day,” said Rights Watch’s executive director, Kenneth Roth.

Roth is also extremely troubled by the severity of punishment for women not obeying the new law. “We’ve been committed to fighting against stoning and saving its victims, and we can’t support this form of punishment as it’s the violation of human rights. We’d like to encourage President Karzai to modify the new decree and employ less severe penalties like a small fine, for example.”

Time will show whether Karzai’s bald and rather revolutionary move is the right approach to fight separatist tendencies among Muslims and improve women’s social rights in Afghanistan. It may not change anything and simply force women to stay at home on Mondays enjoying the long weekend every week – if there’s such a thing as “enjoying the weekend” for Afghan women.

“ALLAH CREATED WOMEN NAKED”

PARIS: FEMEN Activists stripped off their tops in the Paris Square in protest against the burqa and in defense of Muslim women’s rights.

FREE THOUGHT The protest was organized by Iranian human rights activist Mariam Namazi, a popular Lebanese actress Darina Al Jondy, well-known French feminist of Arabian origin Safia Lebdi. On the bodies of activists and posters were written slogans against Islamic sharia barbarism against girls and women in the Middle East.

FEMEN urged the Muslim world to stage a topless protest in support of their disenfranchised sisters, wrapped up in full veils, burnt with acid, beaten with whips, and honor killed by Muslim men on a regular basis. FEMEN demands world leaders protect the fundamental rights of women in the Middle East and South Asia  as they protect themselves from terrorist threats.

 

EGYPT: Muslim Father tries to drown daughter because she divorced her abusive husband

An Egyptian man and other members of his family tied his daughter up and dumped her in the Nile after she was divorced from her elderly husband.

EMIRATES  The girl had first refused to marry that man but then yielded to family pressure and wedded him, newspapers said in a report from Cairo. A few months later, her life turned into a hell because of persistent disputes and maltreatment by her aging husband, they said.

As a result, the woman was divorced and she returned to her family, who decided to pressure her again to return to her husband. When she refused, they tied her up and dumped her in the Nile. But she was rescued in the last moment by fishermen who happened to be in the area.

AFGHANISTAN: Running away from an abusive husband can get you 10 years in jail

And Barack Hussein Obama’s friends in the Taliban haven’t even officially taken over yet.

What’s next? Olympic Beach Burqa Volleyball?

The Olympics bows down to Islam, throwing out the bikini requirement for women beach volleyball players.

HUFFPO  Under new rules adopted by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), players are free to wear shorts and sleeved tops. The governing body said the move was made out of respect for the cultural beliefs (aka Muslim rules) of some of the dozens of countries still in contention to qualify for the games.

“Many of these countries have religious and cultural requirements, so the uniform needed to be more flexible,” FIVB spokesman Richard Baker told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The rule, which will apply to the Olympics, has already been in effect at five Continental Cup qualifying competitions involving 142 nations.

The FIVB has not specified which countries lobbied to be allowed to cover up in London. (You can be sure they all belonged to the OIC – Organization of Islamic Cretins)

Thousands of Muslim women/girls are victims of ‘honor’ violence. In Britain.

In Muslim* communities, where forced marriage, often to underage girls, is the norm, controlling women’s behavior is seen as key to the honor of the family. Having a boyfriend, wearing make-up or Western clothes, refusing to marry someone chosen by your family or leaving an abusive husband – these can all be seen as dishonorable acts.

[*Note: In this documentary, the PC-obsessed Brits refer to Muslims as 'Asians'  so as to make you think they are not talking about Muslims]

BBC Panorama  Most of these victims seem to come from Pakistan as young brides, had their passports taken away and were often locked up, not even allowed to learn English. They suffered in silence, cut off from the outside world. They were treated as virtual slaves, doing all the housework, and none of them understood what they had done to deserve such treatment. They had some semblance of freedom in Pakistan but that all changes when they come to England and are beaten not only by her husband but by the in-laws as well.

The suicide rate amongst Muslim women in Britain is three times the national average, as women who see no other way out of an abusive marriage take what they see as the only way out and kill themselves. And there are between 10 and 12 cases of “honour” killing a year, all of them characterised by extreme violence. Often several relatives are involved and the murder is sanctioned by the wider family.

No one really knows how many “honour” crimes there are in this country. The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), has recently carried out a survey of police forces statistics, which found there are 2,823 “honour” crimes a year. That’s nearly eight a day. But a quarter of forces did not respond and many crimes go unreported, so the figure is far higher.

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Awwww, Canadian Muslims pretend to be shocked that a Muslim book on ‘How to Beat Your Wife’ is a bestseller in Canada

A local bookstore has “sold out” of a controversial marriage guide that advises Muslim men on how to beat their wives. The book called ‘A Gift for Muslim Couple’ which was being sold at Islamic Books and Souvenirs on Gerrard St. instructs men about how to punish women and the way to discipline them – with restraints, scoldings, and beatings.

TORONTO SUN  The 160-page book, published by Idara Impex in New Delhi, India, is written by Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, who’s described in the book’s foreword as a “prolific writer on almost every topic of Islamic learning.”

The store’s manager, who didn’t give his name, said the book had been sold out for some time, and the store’s owner, whom the manager identified as Shamim Ahmad, refused to comment for the story.

It wasn’t clear whether the shop has ordered more copies of the book, but it’s available at online Islamic bookstores and even through eBay.

In the book’s opening pages, it is written that “it might be necessary to restrain her with strength or even to threaten her.”

Later, its author advises that “the husband should treat the wife with kindness and love, even if she tends to be stupid and slow sometimes.”

Page 45 contains the rights of the husband, which include his wife’s inability to leave “his house without his permission,” and that his wife must “fulfil his desires” and “not allow herself to be untidy … but should beautify herself for him … ”

In terms of physical punishment, the book advises that a husband may scold her, “beat by hand or stick,” withhold money from her or “pull (her) by the ears,” but should “refrain from beating her excessively.”

Moderate Muslim voice Tarek Fatah says the shopkeeper should be charged for selling such a book. “I wouldn’t say it’s hate, but it is inciting men to hit women,” said Fatah, who identified the book’s author as a prominent Islamic scholar. “This is new to you, but the Muslim community knows that this is widespread, that a woman can be beaten. Muslim leaders will deny this. ”

Male dominance over women has been making headlines for some time, with the recent lengthy trial and conviction of the Shafia family.

Mohammad Shafia, 59, his second wife, Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son, Hamed, 21, were each convicted in January on four counts of first-degree murder in what was characterized as an honour killing of four female family members as punishment for disobedience. They were handed life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Shafia’s three daughters and his first wife were found drowned in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ont., in June 2009.

Eric Brazau says he was flipping through the marriage guide while in the bookstore around a month ago. Brazau bought it out of curiosity but was taken aback when he found dozens of chapters and passages giving Muslim husbands advice on controlling, restraining, scolding and beating their wives.

“At first, I thought that it is incredible that this kind of thing can be found in Canada,” said Brazau. “And then I thought, radical Islam is not coming to Canada, it is already here.”

TORONTO SUN - Farzana Baig says she is angry a book has surfaced in Toronto that instructs Muslim men how to make their wives submissive through violence. “It is not like that in our community. This is upsetting. A wrong thing against our community. My husband doesn’t beat me. I haven’t heard of this. If it happens it is rare,” Baig said.

Her husband said,  ”This isn’t proper reading and it shouldn’t be out there. It makes the whole community look wrong,” he said. The book is an insult to the Muslim community said Mohammed with the Muslim Welfare Centre, who asked his last name not be used.

“I have never heard of something like this. I’m surprised it was published and I am angry to be portrayed in this light,” he said.

Shake your big Saudi booty, earn a few bucks

But don’t dare drive a car because that would be immoral. Repealing a ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia would result in ‘no more virgins’, the country’s religious council has warned.

UK DAILY MAIL A ‘scientific’ report claims relaxing the ban would also see more Saudis – both men and women – turn to homosexuality and pornography.

The startling conclusions were drawn by Muslim scholars. Their report assessed the possible impact of repealing the ban in Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world where women are not allowed behind the wheel.

The report warns that allowing women to drive would ‘provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce’. Within ten years of the ban being lifted, the report’s authors claim, there would be ‘no more virgins’ in the Islamic kingdom.

And it pointed out ‘moral decline’ could already be seen in other Muslim countries where women are allowed to drive. In the report Professor Subhi described sitting in a coffee shop in an unnamed Arab state. ‘All the women were looking at me,’ he wrote. ‘One made a gesture that made it clear she was available… this is what happens when women are allowed to drive.’

H/T HalalPorkShop

UK Muslims outraged when judge kicks baghead off jury for refusing to show her face.

In an extraordinary (why is this extraordinary?) ruling, a judge said she could not sit on an attempted murder trial because her full face covering, known as the niqab, concealed her expressions.

UK DAILY MAIL  (H/T Susan K) The woman was about to take the oath in the case at Blackfriars Crown Court in London when the judge interrupted to ask if she was prepared to remove the garment which covered her whole face, apart from a narrow slit through which her eyes could be seen.

Judge Aidan Marron QC, said it was ‘desirable’ that her face was ‘exposed’ during the trial and asked her to remove the veil. When she refused she was told to stand down and a white male member of the jury pool was sworn in in her place.

In 2007, the Judicial Studies Board’s equal treatment advisory committee said Muslim women should be permitted to wear the garment as long as it did not interfere with the administration of justice. The guidelines said: ‘Each situation should be considered individually in order to find the best solution in each case.’ 

It also says forcing a woman to choose between participating in a court case and removing the veil could have a ‘significant impact on that woman’s sense of dignity’, and could serve to ‘exclude and marginalise’ her. (Oh, please, and being forced to dress in a black garbage bag doesn’t marginalize her? Typical Muslim & Left wing garbage)

The rules say a judge may wish to consider excusing jurors in niqabs if a challenge is made by one of the parties, provided there is a genuine basis for the objection. 

The ruling, which is thought to be one of the first of its kind in Britain, has sparked outrage. Yesterday Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: ‘This is totally unacceptable. I really can’t understand why facial expressions could have any impact on the judge, the judgment or anyone else in a trial. It has no relevance.

‘I’m speechless that you can exclude someone on the basis of the way that they dress. ‘It’s very worrying that a judge is being prejudiced against women wearing a veil.’ (They should be banned from every non-muslim country, not just the court)

FRENCH referee refused to officiate at a women’s soccer match because of Muslim players wearing headbags

A referee on Sunday refused to officiate a French women’s soccer match, when players for one of the teams took the pitch wearing Muslim headbags.

TRIBUNE  The official sent a report to the Languedoc-Roussillon league in the south of the country about the incident involving players from Petit-Bard Montpellier, who had been due to play Narbonne in the regional promotion tie.

The league must now decide whether to order the match to be replayed or to award a win to Narbonne. Football’s world governing body FIFA banned players from wearing the headbag in 2007, claiming it is unsafe.

But football federations and even the United Nations have urged FIFA to lift the ban, maintaining that concerns about safety are baseless and that it discriminates against Muslim players, particularly when no such restrictions apply in other sports.

Iran’s women’s team last year forfeited a 2012 Olympic qualifier because players wouldn’t play without wearing hijabs (headbags).

BLAME ISLAM! “I would rather drink rat poison than stay married to my rapist”

Moroccan teenager, Amina Filali, 16, took rat poison last week in order to kill herself because she had been made to marry the man who raped her when she was 15 years old.

In Morocco this is punishable by five to ten years in prison, but the sentence rises to between ten and twenty years if the victim is a minor.

Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code, which purports to defend family values, states that if a rapist marries his victim he is then exonerated of his crime. Ms Assouli attacked the article, saying it “does not uphold the rights of women.”

Morocco's Democratic League for Women's Rights and 300 protesters holding photos of Amina Filali stage a sit-in outside the local court in Larache that had approved the marriage.

In many societies, including within the Middle East, a woman losing her virginity before marriage is considered a dishonour to her family. For this reason, families will often make arrangements for rape victims to marry their rapists, so as to restore their lost honour. 

“Amina, 16, was triply violated, by her rapist, by tradition and by Article 475 of the Moroccan law,” activist Abadila Maaelaynine wrote on Twitter. Although the rapist had initially rejected the proposal to marry Miss Filali, he agreed once threatened with prosecution.

Parents of Amina Filali at her gravesite

Mr Nouaydi said that although it isn’t a common occurrence, the victim’s family will sometimes assent to the marriage due to worries she will be unable to find a husband if her rape becomes common knowledge. Ms Assouli said that the victim is then forced to marry in order to avoid scandal for her family.

Mr Filali said his daughter had complained to her mother that her husband beat her repeatedly throughout the five months they were married. Her mother advised her to be patient.

According to a government study conducted last year, almost one quarter of Moroccan women have been sexually assaulted at least once in their lives.

“My mother wants me dead” because I refused to marry my first cousin

Sabatina James, a Palistani women’s rights campaigner has revealed how she fears for her life after her strict Muslim parents threatened to kill her when she dared to refuse an arranged marriage.

UK DAILY MAIL  Sabatina James said the threat made her flee the family home at 18, change her name, convert to Catholicism and move abroad to set up a foundation for women in similar danger.

Her parents took her to court after she wrote a book about her experiences, in which she claimed to have been beaten as her teenager for kissing a boy and wearing clothes they thought were too revealing. They sued her for defamation – and lost. 

Miss James said she believed she would probably be dead now, if her parents had their way. She told the Daily Beast: ’I rarely go out alone. ’I often wonder if someone is lurking around the corner. ’I have always loved my freedom – but I have paid a high price.’

Miss James claimed that, after she refused to marry the man her parents had chosen, her father told her: ’The honour of this family is more important than my life or your life.’

But she added that her mother was even stricter, beating her and watching her every move to the point where she had ‘no anchor’. Miss James, who grew up in a rural village near the Kashmir mountains, said her problems began when she was 15 and the family lived in the Austrian city of Linz.

While she enjoyed the freedoms of Western culture, such as wearing lipstick and eyeliner, her conservative parents, who were brought together in an arranged marriage, disapproved.

 Her father even thought acting classes were for prostitutes, she said, while her mother believed using tampons would ‘ruin’ her virginity. It made her parents more determined to marry her off to preserve the family’s ‘honour’, she added.

Miss James said her mother once hit her across the cheek, kicked her legs and called her a whore after reading in her diary that she had kissed a boy.

So began three years of violence between them, Miss James claimed, based on her refusal to be in a forced marriage and the embarrassment it caused the family’s Pakistani peers in Austria. Miss James said her mother smacked her in the face with a shoe, splitting her lip, for having a t-shirt that was deemed to be too skimpy.

More trouble flared during a family to visit to Pakistan when she was 16.  After she attracted catcalls from a group of men while wearing an outfit she thought was ‘perfectly modest’, her mother was so ashamed that she beat herself in the chest with a metal rod – a sight that shocked Miss James, even though she was aware there were Pakistanis who flagellated themselves.

Miss James’s parents sent her to an Islamic school, or madrassa, in Lahore, Pakistan, where she shared a room with about 30 other girls. The girls spent all day studying the Koran, praying and listening to lectures about the prophet Muhammad, Miss James said. Any girl who spoke out of turn would be publicly caned in a courtyard, she added. Miss James was expelled after three months.

She ran away from home after her parents learned of her intention to break off the engagement and threatened her. Miss James said their harassment caused her to lose her job, forcing her to run away again, this time to the Austrian capital Vienna with the help of friends. There she began a new life, changing her name and converting to Catholicism.

Palestinian women aren’t the only Muslim lard asses in the region

BNI has shown that Palestinian women have the third highest obesity rate in the world. Apparently, 11 out of 13 of the countries with the highest female obesity rates are also Muslim countries, but at least they aren’t begging the world for food as the Palestinians are.

Obesity kills an average 20,000 people every year in Saudi Arabia, where nearly 70 per cent of the population are suffering from overweight, a Saudi medical expert has said.

EMIRATES  Women in Gulf oil producers are suffering from obesity but they conceal their fat bodies under their traditional flowing black abayas and burqas, medical experts have said.

A surge in the rate of obesity in the Gulf, which has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, has given rise to a black market for slimming medicines, some of which are only exploiting people, they said.

Speaking at a medical conference in the western Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah on Tuesday, they also dismissed what they dubbed as “myths” that water and rice could cause fatness and that tight belt could cause slimness.

“The Gulf society is suffering from a rise in obesity, particularly in women, a problem that is partly disguised by the traditional black female over-garment worn in the Gulf….the abaya serves to hide the extent of obesity in Gulf women. In the same way, the male dishdasha (garment) also hides men’s bellies,” said Dr. Abdul Rahman Musaiqir, head of the Arab Center for Nutrition at Bahrain University.

In a paper presented at the two-day conference on nutrition in the Gulf, he warned against what he described as erroneous information in the media.”

“All these have led people to try out incorrect methods to lose weight, and among the most popular myths in Gulf society are that eating rice and drinking water with meals increase belly size, grapefruit helps reduce fat, strapping up your belly reduces fat, sweating reduces fat, skipping breakfast helps weight loss, and that saunas help burn fat,” he said.

He added that other beliefs persist, such as that walking does not help reduce fat levels and that if excessive weight is hereditary nothing can be done about it.

Another specialist said the rise in obesity rates in the Gulf had created a “black market” for medicines and that trade was flourishing in herbs of unknown origin that “exploit people of limited medical knowledge.”

“A lot of people have started turning to alternative medicine and holistic medicine,” said Dr. Abdullah Al-Baddah from the Saudi National Center for Alternative Medicine.

“There are also other alternative complementary forms of medical treatment currently used to tackle obesity such as acupuncture, hypnotism, medicinal herbs and energy treatment, and we should make people aware of which practices are beneficial and which are not.”

In its report about the conference on Wednesday, the Saudi Okaz newspaper cited data by the World Health Organization showing Saudi Arabia has one of the largest rates of obesity at around 35.6 per cent, the third behind the tiny Pacific Island nations of Nauru at 78.5 per cent and Tonga at 56 per cent.

“Obesity is associated with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, gallbladder diseases and certain types of cancer,” the paper said, quoting Dr. Raja’a Al-Raddadi, a community medicine consultant and head of the research and studies department at the Jeddah Health Directorate.

Al-Raddadi said the prevalence of obesity in the Kingdom increased from 22.1 per cent in the early 1990s to 35.6 per cent in 2005. “The growing epidemic of obesity can be explained by the rapid changes in dietary patterns and physical inactivity especially among women and girls.”(And some young boys) Traditional diets rich in grains, fiber, fruits and vegetables have been replaced with meals high in fats, sugar and sodium, she said.

“Saudis, especially females, also spend more time watching television and less time on physical activities. Reversing these trends requires drastic changes in individual behavior and the elimination of societal barriers to healthy lifestyle choices through some preventive health programs,” she added.

LINGERIE Revolution in Saudi Arabia

For the first time in the Saudi Kingdom, only women sales help will be allowed to work in lingerie stores. Up until now, only men could sell underwear to female customers, which makes no sense whatsoever, especially under sharia law, where women are not even allowed to speak to men who are not in their family.

SKNVibes  From now on, only female staff will be able to sell women’s lingerie in Saudi Arabia, ending decades of awkwardness in the ultra-conservative Muslim Kingdom where women are expected to don black cloaks at all times out of the home.

“I and many other women like me were always embarrassed to walk into lingerie shots because men were selling the goods,” said Saudi shopper Samar Mohammed. She said that in the past she often bought the wrong underwear ”because I was sensitive about explaining what I wanted to a man.”

A royal decree issued by King Abdullah in June last year over the objections of top clerics gave lingerie shop owners six months to get rid of their male employees and staff their stores with women only. The ban on male staff is to be extended to cosmetics shops from July.

“All preparations are under way to fully implement this decision,” he said, adding that more than 7,300 retail outlets would be affected by the ban on male staff, creating job opportunities for more than 40,000 Saudi women.

The labour ministry’s original proposal to allow women to work in lingerie sparked a storm of protest from the kingdom’s top clerics three years ago. They issued a fatwa, or religious decree, barring women from any such work. Women, who for years had complained about being forced to buy their underwear from men, hit back with a campaign on Facebook called “Enough Embarrassment.”

Another Saudi activist, Reem Asaad, who launched a campaign to boycott lingerie shops that employ male sales staff, said her efforts were aimed at “sending a message to decision-makers.” 

Saudi men worshipping at the display window of a women's lingerie shop

The strict segregation of the sexes outside the home that is enforced in Saudi Arabia by the kingdom’s powerful religious police means that women are effectively barred from many jobs. The conservative clergy remain deeply opposed to their working in lingerie stores too. Top cleric Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh warned shop owners that employing women was a “crime and prohibited by Islamic Sharia law.”

He said that allowing women to work as sales assistants was “shameful” and would result in “major problems” as eventually they would inevitably interact with male strangers.