Liberal Canadian Muslims Protest Against Islamism

Canadian/Pakistani Tarek Fatah, a liberal Muslim, uploaded the following video where he leads a small group of fellow liberal and secular Muslims in a protest in front of the Metro Conventionn Centre in Toronto against Islamism, Islamist apologists, Sharia law and burqas.

They were protesting:

20,000 + Muslim youth were being [being] brainwashed by the 'Who is who' of the World Islamist Movement.

Sad thing is how few people were there. At least they're trying.

Women Need To Cover Up To Prevent Rape, Claims Toronto Muslim Preacher

Like England, Canada has its fair share of radical Muslims, including 33-year-old street preacher Al-Haashim Kamena Atangana, a convert from Christianity who blames women who get raped on the way they dress. There have been a rash of sexual assaults against women at Toronto's York University, and his solution: make 'em dress like Muslimahs. The dolt told the Toronto Sun:

"the reason ... these sex attacks are continuously happening is because (of) Canadian laws, which give too much freedom to women" when it comes to how they dress. You should take your example from the way Muslim women dress. Why does (sic) Muslim women who wear long dress and covers her head aren't targeted for sex attacks?"
[snip]

"the reason ... a woman gets raped is because of the way she (dresses)"

He wants the city of Toronto to set a precedent by becoming:

"..the first city in North America to introduce laws that would make it illegal for women to dress provocatively. If (women) want to prevent being sexually assaulted, they should cover themselves."

Though he knows women in the West won't adopt Muslim dress, he says there should definitely be a "dress code".

Blaming sexual harassment and assault on a provocatively dressed woman is a fallacy, since fully veiled women are subjected to rape and sexual assault all the time in Muslim countries. In fact, this UK cleric claims there is no rape within marriage- in other words, it's okay to rape your wife. And sexual harassment in Egypt is commonplace, something Egyptian women have to deal with on a daily basis.

But few in the Muslim world will admit to the fact that there is as much, if not more, sexual violence in their world as there is in Western societies. And in Muslim majority countries, women who are raped are jailed, killed, or forced to marry their rapists.

Antagana has a website- Muslimsupport.net - that advises men and women how to dress:

"Men must cover their body from the navel to the knees. But when praying he must also cover his shoulder."

"Women must cover their whole body except the face, hands and feet while inside. But they are also required to cover their whole body including a part of the face while going out, according to the majority of the Madhabs (school of thought)."

In response to Antagana's quest to cover up Toronto women, Dr. Farzana Hassan, former president of the Canadian Muslim Council, wrote this opinion piece in the Toronto Sun.

Women are "raw meat" waiting to be devoured by men because of their dress, declared an Australian imam in 2006.

Six years later, and in our own backyard, a young convert to Islam, Al-Haashim Kamena Atangana is proposing new laws in Canada that would require women to cover up "like Muslim women," concealing all but their eyes and hands. He contends that the high incidence of rape in North America is because of how women dress in Western countries. The new laws would make it "illegal for women to dress provocatively in the streets," and would thereby take away the freedoms Western women enjoy.

Canadian women would have to be covered up in burkas, abayas and hijabs. They would presumably also be segregated, and their male relatives would monitor and control their behaviour. So what is it about Islamist men and their preoccupation with sex that awakens such paranoia about women's garb?

First, many Islamist men do not understand the imperative of consent in a sexual relationship. They believe rape is a normal rather than a criminal reaction to female physiology, and assume that this would be every man's response to a glimpse of some skin.

Read the rest of her commentary here.

Muslim men need to start taking responsibility for their own lack of self control.  It shouldn't be so hard for those who claim to be so religious and pious. Just don't look!

Muslim Cabbies Refuse Passengers With Dogs- In Canada and U.S.

Looks like Canada is having Muslim cabbie troubles now. Back in 2007, Minneapolis-St Paul Airport had a major problem with Somali (mostly) Muslim cab drivers refusing service to passengers with alcohol or dogs.  Even someone with a seeing-eye dog could be stranded for a long period of time. That's because of the 900 or so licensed cabbies at the airport, a good three-quarters of them are Muslim. And Muslims don't like dogs. They're haram (forbidden) per Islam, because their saliva is considered unclean. And transporting alcohol is a major sin, forget about actually imbibing.

This article was written at the beginning of 2007, and for the five years prior to that at least 5,400 travelers were refused service for either having a pet or guide dog, or were carrying alcohol. So airport commissioners were contemplating punishing those cab drivers who discriminate against people for those reasons. They, of course, claimed that they were the ones being discriminated against.

"It is against our faith and the airport is discriminating against Muslim drivers," says a cab driver who would only give his first name, Hashim.

According to Patrick Hogan of the Metropolitan Airports Commission:

"There are times where cab after cab will refuse service, and passengers can be waiting for 20 minutes. We've had complaints of people being asked if they had any alcoholic beverages in their luggage. We were seeing an average of 77 refusals a month," he says, "Now we're seeing between 8 and 20."

That's because, thanks to 9/11, we can't travel with anything larger than 2 or 3 ounces on board anymore.

Licensed cab drivers aren't supposed to discriminate, unless they feel threatened in some way, and surprisingly the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) agreed :

"This is a public access issue," says Chuck Samuelson, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, "Bottom line is we are a secular society, and that's the way it is."

After the commission refused attempts at compromise, CAIR finally stepped in and resolved the issue.

After CAIR-MN facilitated dialogue between the two groups and cleared the misunderstanding, the Muslim taxi drivers offered free rides to attendees of the American Council of the Blind Convention in downtown Minneapolis. Abdinoor Ahmed Dolal, owner of Twin Cities Airport Taxi, said “Islam forbids us to turn away a blind passenger, whether they have a guide dog or not. Their rights come first.”

Apparently, dogs aren't such a major issue for Muslims after all:

An Iman from the local Az-Zahraa Islamic Centre, Javed Jaffri, researched the dog topic and served as an expert witness for a blind man refused passage by a Muslim taxi driver. Jaffri spent long hours on this, and provided an unbiased interpretation of the Koran that indicated “there is nothing saying that one must refuse service to another person because of the fear of contamination by a dog.”

He also said that “there can be exceptions to blanket refusals to deal with dogs, especially if it means helping someone in need. All that would be required in most circumstances would be for a Muslim person to wash their hands before eating if they have been in contact with a dog. That’s not a terrible task to go through,” he said.

But there are still problems in Canada, according to a post on Blazing Catfur.

Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy discusses her trouble hailing a cab at Pearson Airport because of her dachsie Kishka. At 1:30 a.m. On her third try she finally found a cabbie who would take her and Kishka home.

After posting on Facebook, she found out she wasn't alone.

What I realized is that this occurs quite often not only at the airport but in Toronto proper and is happening due to religious reasons — that is, because dogs are considered unclean in certain religions.

In fact, Gail Beck-Souter, general manager of Beck Taxi that operates about 900 cars in Toronto, confirms that if certain Muslims take a dog in their vehicle, they are required to go home and shower afterwards (before they pray).

It would seem that the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) which licenses limos that pick up at Pearson airport and the companies that operate out of the airport have bent over backwards to accommodate the religious demands of their drivers — who clearly have strength in numbers.

McIntosh Limousine manager Anne Ruddy claimed the driver who turned me down, a gentleman from India, did so because he “doesn’t have to” take dogs.

But the driver would have to take Kishka if he was a service dog — that’s the “law,” she said.

She denied Muslim drivers in their fleet would ever turn down dogs for religious reasons contending it has more to do with “them being scared” of dogs.

Asked how she felt about a woman being denied a ride at 1:30 a.m., Ruddy said she “hates the idea” but they have to “abide by the GTAA rules” — they “don’t have a choice.”

I had to laugh when I read the description of their drivers on the McIntosh website, most particularly this gem: “Our drivers have taken sensitivity training...”

Guess that sensitivity training didn’t include the part about not leaving a woman stranded at 1:30 a.m.

Read her whole ordeal here. 

Someone needs to start educating these people that if it's just the saliva they're worried about, carry a nice big bottle of Purell, and keep it in the car. Ironically, they are probably handling things that are far dirtier and unclean than a dog's saliva, which is pretty filthy.