"Women Are Un-Islamic" Claims Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology?

Legitimate mainstream news websites, bloggers and readers often mistake articles posted by fake/satire sites like The Onion and The Daily Currant as truth. I know I've almost been suckered into believing some.  But if it's a little too outrageous, I google. Of course, there are plenty of legitimately outrageous stories from the Middle East and environs that, as unbelievable as they are, turn out to be legit, so one never knows.

So, when I saw someone on Facebook post a link to an article on Pakistan Today titled "Council of Islamic Ideology declares women’s existence anti-Islamic" I checked it out and, yes, Pakistan has its very own satire news site. Who would have thought.

Islamabad - Sharia Correspondent: The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) concluded their 192nd meeting on Thursday with the ruling that women are un-Islamic and that their mere existence contradicted Sharia and the will of Allah. As the meeting concluded CII Chairman Maulana Muhammad Khan Shirani noted that women by existing defied the laws of nature, and to protect Islam and the Sharia women should be forced to stop existing as soon as possible. The announcement comes a couple of days after CII’s 191st meeting where they dubbed laws related to minimum marriage age to be un-Islamic.

After declaring women to be un-Islamic, Shirani explained that there were actually two kinds of women – haraam and makrooh. “We can divide all women in the world into two distinct categories: those who are haraam and those who are makrooh. Now the difference between haraam and makrooh is that the former is categorically forbidden while the latter is really really disliked,” Shirani said.

The rest here.  It's pretty darn funny.

N Korea's Kim Jong Un "Sexiest Man Alive"- China Daily Falls For The Onion Spoof

North Korea's Pillsbury Doughboy-faced Kim Jong Un the sexiest man alive? I think not. But that's what was posted on The Onion, and laughably picked up by China's People's Daily Online, where it published a 55 page (no less) slide show of the hunky Jong Un, and quoted The Onion:

"With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true. Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile," it said.

"He has that rare ability to somehow be completely adorable and completely macho at the same time," said Marissa Blake-Zweiber, editor of The Onion Style and Entertainment.

So English isn't their first language, and it's a foreign news outlet, and it's not the first foreign news media to be gullible enough to fall for  an Onion piece. Iran was duped twice- that we know of- buying into Facebook being a CIA front, and actually plagiarizing The Onion's piece on rural whites preferring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Barack Obama. Okay, so I had a friend who actually fell for the latter, as well, although he claims he knew it was a joke. But these stories are ludicrous at best.  Anyone with any sense would wonder about the legitimacy of such a ridiculous story and poke around the web or the website itself.  That's the first thing I do when I find something questionably stupid or unbelievable- like Kim Jong Un, of all people, being voted the sexiest man alive.

I'm not sure how long People's Daily will keep it up when they find out they were fooled, big time, but you can see a screen capture of the headline on HuffpoUK.

As a side note, I picked my favorite photo of the lot.  The one with a smiling Jong Un and a family of mostly scared looking, unhappy people.

And the original Onion piece with an update:

UPDATE: For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc. Exemplary reportage, comrades.

Iran's Fars News Plagiarizes An Onion Report Claiming Whites Prefer Mahmoud To Barack

Iranian media keeps using The Onion as a source of news information with no clue that it's simply satire.

Tehran-based 24 hour English Language PressTV used an Onion video claiming that Facebook is a CIA front, and that Mark Zuckerberg is a CIA operative, as a source for their own report. The latest bit of stupidity has the state run Fars News Agency plagiarizing, no less, an Onion piece that said rural white Americans prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama. It was edited (they left out the bit about Mahmoud being a holocaust denier who executes political prisoners), but the bulk of the original Onion piece was published  without giving credit to the source. They even used the same headline  "Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama" which they posted along with a link to their version of the article on their Twitter account.

The N.Y. Times 'The Lede' said:

Although the dateline for the news brief says that the reporting was done in Tehran by Fars, the first sentence is identical to the earlier Onion parody:

“According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than U.S. president Barack Obama.”

The second sentence of the Fars report, however, changed “have a beer with Ahmadinejad,” to “have a drink with Ahmadinejad,”[snip]

The final two sentences of the original Onion report, quoting a fictional voter in West Virginia who prefers Iran’s president, were published unchanged by Fars:

“He takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.” According to the same Gallup poll, 60 percent of rural whites said they at least respected that Ahmadinejad doesn’t try to hide the fact that he’s Muslim.

The only other difference between the two versions of the fake report is that The Onion used a more flattering photograph of Mr. Ahmadinejad, showing him with a broad smile.

It was the third most "important" story on the homepage until Fars finally removed it  after the NY Times contacted the Iranian Mission to the  UN.

It was also published on Hayat and Mehr news site. So now the Iranian people think the vast majority of whites would prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama. You have to love the narcissism and ego of some of our world leaders, including Obama. But no, Mahmoud, we don't prefer you to Obama.

Facebook is a CIA front! Iran's PressTV Buys Into The Onion's Story

Facebook is a CIA front, Mark Zuckerberg is a CIA agent, and he just received a prestigious award from the spy agency for his work with Facebook. That's what the satire website The Onion would have you believe. Sadly, there are many clueless people who don't realize that anything posted on The Onion is for entertainment purposes only, including the Iranian state-owned PressTV. The 24 hour English language news network, based in Tehran, glommed onto that bit of false information and actually referenced it as fact. Ha.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if conspiracy-theorists out there actually believe there is truth in the story, in spite of the source.

It's pretty darn funny, though.



Here's the original The Onion video.
Here's the original PressTV video.