Syrian Women Upset With Rise Of Islamists In Opposition

It's the women of the Arab Spring- that turned into a civil war in Syria- that I most feel sorry for. At least those that truly did or do yearn for freedom. They were (and continue to be in Syria) instrumental in helping to oust the various dictators they believed held their freedom in shackles, only to discover that their battle for equality will continue under the Islamists that now lead their countries.

They're still struggling in Syria, and some women over there are running scared now that they see hardline Islamists in the opposition movement are gaining strength, which inevitably means they will have gained nothing when the battle against Bashar al-Assad's regime is finally won.

These men, they say, are extremists who are expanding control, waving the black flag of Jihad and excluding women in a way that mirrors the male domination of the autocratic regime that is still clinging to power.

"All opposing Syrian factions insist on marginalizing women," said Maya al-Rahbi, a human rights activist, "which means that these factions are not a true representation of the Syrian people. Half of the population is left out."

Rahbi, director of a Damascus-based women's research center, said "this indicates how patriarchal these groups are and how unbelieving they are in democracy, which can never be achieved without giving women their rights."

Another woman, Majida, is an anti-government activist who does not want to use her real name to protect her safety. She told Women's eNews in an email interview that only three of the 60 leading members of the new Syria National Coalition, which was established in November in Qatar, are women. That ratio overlooks the female momentum behind the opposition fighters and blatantly ignores their active participation in the Syrian conflict for the past 21 months.

Women's rank in the opposition, in fact, mirrors that of the Syrian establishment, where the few female ministers in the government are channeled into "female" ministries such as Social Affairs and Labor.
"We, women, have been fooled," Majida said. "How can such a weak representation be accepted? Do three women reflect the role of the female population in Syria? Did they forget what women died during the revolution by organizing protests themselves? How thousands of us were arrested and tortured just like men? It is men who chose the armed conflict, limiting the physical role of women to some extent. But our suffering was greater than theirs, because murder, rape and torture always affect women and children more than men in armed conflicts."

Rahbi echoed that outrage. "Where are all the mottos we've been hearing since the beginning revolution? Where did the calls for 'freedom, dignity and justice for all citizens' go?" she said.

She added that, "This reminds us of the same oppressive regimes and of their same policies against women. Why then did women take part in the revolution from the very beginning? Why did they sacrifice and lose their loved ones? Why were they killed, arrested, exiled and stranded? Why the revolution in the first place?!"

Indeed they've been fooled. In essence what they have done is unwittingly help their men folk pave the way for the re-emergence of Islamists which were outlawed in those countries. They realize they will have fewer freedoms under the Islamists than they had under their dictators, but it's too late now.

Iranian Woman Beats Up Cleric Who Told Her To Cover Up

Never underestimate a pissed off woman, especially living under an oppressive regime and one who must deal with religious chauvinists on a daily basis.

Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti claims he was beaten up by a woman after he told her to cover up. Twice. After the first warning she responded, "you, cover your eyes." When he insisted, along with a few choice words she pushed him.

“I fell on my back on the floor,” Beheshti said in the report. “I don’t know what happened after that, all I could feel was the kicks of this woman who was insulting me and attacking me.”

Who knows what she was wearing to warrant the warning, perhaps her scarf was showing too much hair, or her coat was too tight or colorful or too short, but she decked him so hard he says he wound up in the hospital for three days. Ha. Serves him right.

The Iranian cleric said it was his religious duty to apply the principle of “commanding right and forbidding wrong,” and that he would continue to do so even after living through what he called “the worst day of my life.”

It isn’t the first time that clerics in Iran have been beaten up after delivering warnings, Mehr said.

And who can forget this priceless video of a woman fighting back a 'black ninja".

Source: Bloomberg

To Beat and Kill Women Is Part Of Palestinian Identity - Says Israeli/Arab Lecturer

Israeli/Arab lecturer Yusuf Jabareen admits in a discussion on PA (Fatah) TV what most of us Westerners already know: Arab Muslim men have major anger management issues.

Palestinian Authority TV interview with Yusuf Jabareen, Israeli Arab lecturer at the Technion:Jabareen: "Part of our identity is to kill women, for example, to kill women, to beat women..."Host: "You generalize."Jabareen: "No. I don't generalize."Host: "Not everyone is the same."Jabareen: "Part of our identity is to attack women - we must acknowledge it. Every society has its defects and its charms. Palestinian identity has its charms, but there are things we have adopted from Arab culture for centuries that harm the individual and the woman. For example, in recent months, look how many women were killed in Lod, in Ramle, and in Acre, and so on. That's part of our identity."

He's absolutely right. The fact is, violence against women is a huge problem in Palestine. At least he has the guts to admit it, though the other man's denial is typical.

Shariah Tourism In Egypt!

Cairo-based travel agency Shouq Travel, is making travel in Egypt shariah compliant.  Yes, bring your kids, and drag along the wife all decked out in her niqab for a jaunt on a jet ski. Maybe you'll get lucky enough to have her hijab get sucked into the propeller and she'll drown.  At least they let them drive.
Or if the ocean isn't your thing, and you like sand flying into your nostrils (though a burqa might be a good thing in that case), how about some fun on an ATV in the Sinai?  Maybe wife's hijab will get stuck in the wheels and she'll make an exit like Isadora Duncan.



Shouq will also arrange all the hotels for you, separate swimming pools (why not just leave the wife at home), halal food and all:

Family Tourism

It is known also with Halal Tourism, we organize family trips that agrees with our traditions , our Egyptian culture and our El-Sharia teachings. We are dealing with a large number of hotels that provides Halal Meat (Animal slaughtered according to our Islamic teaches), and doesn’t present alcoholic beverages on board, or pork. We also provide other alternatives for women like covered swimming pools or other places reserved only for women. And since Egypt has a lot of touristic sites we in Shouq Travel are so keen to organize trips that cover different sites of Egypt. We also present through our trips entertaining activities for children and cultural and religious seminars for adults.

The women get to sweat under their swathes of black cloth, no less- while the males get to dress comfortably-note the bare arms. What's wrong with a burqini?

And that black blob on the back of the jet ski?  Oh yes, it's the wife.

Thanks to those Muslim Brotherhood types who are now the leaders of Egypt, there will probably be a proliferation of travel agencies popping up to cater to the Shariah lovers around the world who want to travel to the land of the Pyramids.

According to Al Arabiya Muslim travel is a booming business:

From halal spas to prayer rooms at airport terminals, the global tourism industry is gearing up for a projected boom in Muslim travel over the next decade, experts say.

Spending by Muslim tourists is growing faster than the global rate and is forecast to reach $192 billion a year by 2020, up from $126 billion in 2011, according to a study conducted in 47 countries by Singapore-based halal travel specialist Crescentrating, along with DinarStandard, a U.S.-based firm that tracks the Muslim lifestyle market.

Everyone deserves to travel, but why does religion have to factor into it?!  Halal spas?  And special Muslim prayer rooms?  What's wrong with a non-denominational chapel? 

Wow.  Just, wow! 

Photo of the day- Afghanistan Burqa-Clad Women In Trunk Of Car

Exactly how women are viewed (or not viewed) in Afghanistan. Sad. Probably wives number 2 and 3. Number 1 is inside the car with the brood of kids and the goats.

Swedish Mosques Tell Women "Don't Report Abusive Husbands"

According to a Sveriges Television (SVT) undercover investigative report on Swedish mosques, six out of ten told women to shut up about domestic abuse and said polygamy was acceptable. SVT sent off two women (along with hidden video cameras) to pose as abused wives for the programme "Uppdrag granskning". They were tasked with finding out the mosques' position on domestic abuse, marital rape and polygamy, posing as women with those various problems. Those six mosques told both of the women to not report the abuse to police and that they should have sex with their men regardless of whether they wanted to or not. Only two mosques advised the women to report the abuse, and only one mosque said that polygamy was not allowed, given Swedish laws against multiple marriages.
Of course, Hanne Josefsson (the host of the television programme), got very different responses from two of the mosques.

The chair of the Islamic Association in Uppsala claimed in the story that people should follow Swedish law.

When confronted by what the imam at the Uppsala mosque told the women, the Islamic leader explained that the imam had expressed his personal opinion in urging the women to forgive their abusive husbands rather than report them to police.

The imam with whom the woman met at the mosque in Stockholm defended polygamy and also advised against filing a police report about husbands who beat them.

He suggested instead that the women try to show their husbands more love.

"Don't refuse to give him love, because then he might change," said the imam.

Upon seeing the SVT report, however, the board of the Islamic Association in Stockholm (Islamiska förbundet Stockholm) decided to suspend the imam immediately and launch an internal investigation.

"This is a clear breach of Swedish law and they commit professional misconduct in their capacities as imams and associations," Mohammad Fazlhashemi, a professor and author of books on Muslim intellectual history, told the TT news agency.

Fazlhashemi, who also appears in the SVT report, has reviewed a written transcript of the advice given to the women.

"What these men are saying to the woman violates their human rights. The men demean and insult the women when they say 'you need to tolerate that these men hit you'," said Fazlhashemi.

He is highly critical of the imams featured in the SVT report for not following Swedish law.

"Considering the fact that the mosques have received state funding, they have also committed to following Swedish law and the basic principles of democracy," he said.

Fazlhashemi describes the Muslim leaders featured in the piece as "conservative, letter of the law traditionalists".

"Now it's time for some housecleaning. They need to weed out the bad seeds," he said.

Fazlhashemi, who is also a Muslim, expressed concerns that such outdated mosque representatives benefit Muslim-haters and the far-right Sweden Democrats.

"They confirm the negative picture of Muslims. It's a real shame that they confirm the prejudices that Islamophobes have," he said.

We wouldn't have those prejudices, if this kind of  behaviour didn't exist. This is probably going on behind mosque walls all over the West, and more than likely in England, where Sharia law is allowed.

Here's a more detailed account of the programme "Uppdrag granskning" (Assignment Investigate).

Egypt's New Political Parties Refuse To Protect Women's Rights

The Egyptians (mostly youth) who fought long and hard to oust dictator Hosni Mubarak after decades of totalitarian rule only garnered a small percentage of votes in the latest democratic elections. A whopping majority of the parliamentary seats went to Islamists: 47 percent to the so-called 'moderate' Muslim Brotherhood, and 25 percent to the ultra-conservative Salafis. With the final tally in, it seems that the Egyptians squandered away the tremendous gains they made with Mubarak's ouster. Not that it was terribly surprising to me when the Islamists effectively 'bought' the Egyptian people's vote.

Although the Islamists have been trying to assuage the fears of the West and secular Egyptians with promises of 'moderation', they're proving it's nothing but lip service, at least when it comes to their female population.  The Salafis are already trying to force their conservative will on the people, though the women are fighting back. But according to Amnesty International,

“Most of the biggest Egyptian political parties have committed to delivering ambitious human rights reform in the country’s transition, but have either given mixed signals or flatly refused to sign up to ending discrimination, protecting women’s rights and to abolishing the death penalty,” Amnesty said.

The London-based rights watchdog had contacted 54 parties running in Egypt’s first post-revolution parliamentary elections to sign a “human rights manifesto” containing 10 key pledges.

“It is disturbing that a number of parties refused to commit to equal rights for women,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s interim director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“With a handful of women taking up seats in the new parliament, there remain huge obstacles to women playing a full role in Egyptian political life,” said Luther.

Apparently, the Muslim Brotherhood did not respond to Amnesty, and the Salafi Al-Nour party

“agreed orally to all pledges with the exception of the abolition of the death penalty and protection of women’s rights.”

Equally troubling is the fact that it wasn't just the Islamists who either didn't respond or refused to commit to women's rights.  The Free Egyptians party didn't respond either, and ten other parties also refused to commit to women's rights and discrimination.  Out of all the many parties that make up the new Egyptian government, only the Popular Socialist Alliance Party and the Egyptian Social Democratic Part agreed to all ten pledges,

 which also include ending the state of emergency, combating torture, ensuring fair trials and upholding freedom of association and expression.

Of course, pledging and actually acting upon those pledges are two separate things. It's easy to say one thing and do another. Only time will tell if they actually do implement change, but the fact that the majority (including non-Islamists) refuse to view women as equals does not bode well.