Westerners cannot continue to allow Iran or any other Muslim countries to use hijab for oppression

A writer named Ben Cohen makes a case regarding the wrongness of Iran's forcing women to wear hijabs, although he unfortunately also puts in some very questionable claims along the way. The topic stems from the latest protests in Iran, following the murder of a woman who wasn't wearing a hijab:

The immediate trigger for these latest demonstrations was the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22. Amini was arrested in Tehran by the regime's so-called "Morality Police" – uniformed thugs whose job would correctly be understood as engaging in sexual harassment in a western context – for the crime of wearing her hijab, or headscarf, improperly.

Since the major wave of anti-regime protests in 2009, many Iranian women have consciously pushed the envelope on the Islamic Republic's austere, misogynistic dress code, adjusting their hijabs to show strands of hair or applying light makeup to their faces. Since Amini allegedly did something along these lines with her head covering, she was savagely beaten while in police custody, losing consciousness and dying of her injuries on Sept. 16, having spent three days in a coma.

The regime's official explanation is that Amini – by all accounts, a healthy young woman with no pre-existing respiratory or cardiac conditions – died of a heart attack after "suddenly" developing a problem. Few people are buying that, of course, least of all Amini's family. In a heartbreaking interview with the BBC's Persian language service, Amini's grieving father, Amjad, accused the regime of "telling lies," adding, "No matter how much I begged, they wouldn't let me see my daughter."

When Amjad Amini was finally allowed to see Mahsa's lifeless body, it had been covered entirely from neck to toe, although he noticed the bruising on her feet. "I have no idea what they did to her," he wept, with the unique agony of a bereaved parent.

Obviously, the poor woman's murder was concealed as much as possible by the vile mutawas. And then, we get to the part about what's wrong with how the west approaches all this:

So far, hundreds of protestors have been wounded and several killed during the demonstrations that erupted in the wake of Amini's death, but as in the past, the regime's methodical violence against its own citizens hasn't yet quelled their spirit. While the regime's President Ebrahim Raisi – known as the "Butcher of Tehran" for his service to the regime's terrifying post-revolutionary "Death Committees" – was attending the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, during which time he denied the Holocaust in an interview with "60 Minutes" and petulantly canceled an interview with CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour because of her refusal to wear a headscarf, back home protestors were chanting "Death to Raisi" and wishing the same fate on other regime figureheads, such as Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the ailing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his potential successor.

The willingness of the Iranian people to confront the regime has been on display time and again during the last 13 years. Sadly, Western publics, who should really be inspired by such scenes, have tended to look the other way, while our governments have been dutiful about expressing verbal solidarity without doing anything meaningful to help dislodge the ruling mullahs.

There are many reasons for this. On the Left, there is a strong sense of colonial guilt, emanating from the 1953 CIA-backed coup against the nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, that leaves Western liberals nervous about criticizing domestic repression, even when the victim is a young woman. On both Left and Right, in recent years there has been a greater acceptance of cultural relativism, with both "woke" and conservative rationalizations readily available, alongside a broader disillusionment with the idea that liberal democracy should be a universal system.

Oh yes, it's offensive when allegedly good people do nothing, which enables bad things to happen. But now, here's that part where he undermines his arguments more, when he says:

The hijab, in particular, has proved perplexing. In America and Europe, where Muslim communities often face racism and discrimination, the hijab has virtually become a civil rights symbol, because many Muslim women freely and proudly wear one despite countless cases of physical assaults upon those who do. But in the hands of the Iranian regime, the hijab is a symbol of repression, something imposed on all women regardless of whether they are Muslims or whether they come from the Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish, Baha'i or other religious minorities.

I'm afraid this dampens the impact of the op-ed. It obscures how there's women in the west who've experienced violence by Muslims, supposedly for not wearing hijabs, though even if they did, it's a forgone conclusion they'd still face horrific assaults. And to act as though it's perfectly normal for a woman to wear a head covering like that, which obscures much of her identity, is offensive. This is exactly why I cannot accept the Christian concept of a Catholic nun wearing a wimple outfit: it denies her an identity, and makes her out to be a sexual being in every way that has to suppress her God-given physique. I also cannot accept the Haredi/ultra-Orthodox way of dress, as that too is more or less the same problem.

This also ignores that even in the west, there's Muslim families who force their daughters to wear such a reprehensible outfit, and Muslim women who've paid a price for not wearing it. Not to mention that, in countries like Saudi Arabia, there have been terrible incidents where Muslim women were raped and the victims punished, while their rapists got off with nary a slap on the wrist. That Cohen would obscure such issues does a terrible disfavor to women everywhere. And for that, seriously, I think he owes an apology for acting as though nothing's wrong with dressing in such a way, religiously or otherwise, or pretending that in the west, this isn't an issue.

If we accept the principle that it is for Muslim women themselves, and not the state authorities, to decide whether or not they cover their heads, then we cannot fail to be moved by the protests in Iran – and particularly the spectacle of women of all ages tearing off their hijabs and waving them defiantly at armed security forces.

The US government has expressed its support for the protests, although President Joe Biden's address to the UN General Assembly was disappointingly thin on Iran, saluting the "brave women" who had taken to the streets, but saying no more. Last Thursday, the US announced sanctions on the Morality Police, citing the killing of Amini, as well as sanctions targeting specific officials who "oversee organizations that routinely employ violence to suppress peaceful protesters and members of Iranian civil society, political dissidents, women's rights activists, and members of the Iranian Baha'i community," according to a Treasury Department statement.

Well, what can one expect from such a leftist-influenced "administration"? Biden's already proven useless when he and his "administration" allowed the Taliban to overtake Afghanistan again, in the most catastrophic ways possible. And the UN's no improvement. But if Cohen really wants to prove he's a realist, then he won't obscure how even in the west, hijabs can be a very bad influence along with Islamofascism itself, and again, he should apologize for acting as though Muslims in the west can't possibly be sexist/racist/antisemitic themselves, and also for obscuring the danger of jihadism in the west to boot. All that does is water down the seriousness of the issue, and then, we get nowhere as a result.

Jewish woman saved from Muslim village under PLO control

The IDF rescued a Jewish woman - one of many who made the mistake of marrying Muslims - from an Arab village under PLO control:

A Jewish woman who was rescued Tuesday morning from an Arab village arrived safe and well at a safe apartment belonging to the Lehava organization.

The woman arrived with her children from an Arab village near Shechem (Nablus).

"This is a woman who we have been in contact with for a long time," Lehava chair Bentzi Gopstein told Israel National News - Arutz Sheva. "The family turned to the army and said that now is the time when they can get her out. It was a very complex evacuation by the army."

Most of the details cannot yet be shared, but the woman has been trapped in a village under the Palestinian Authority's control, without the ability to leave. After she turned to Lehava and begged for help, Lehava directed her to request help from the IDF."

"The woman was crying for help," Gopstein added. "This was a complex and complicated evacuation, because her family did not want her to leave. The Palestinian father is now fighting for his child."

The woman and her children are now safe in one of Lehava's safe homes, and Gopstein, who at the time of the evacuation was vacationing with his family in northern Israel, has left his vacation in order to meet the woman who was rescued and see to her welfare.

See, this is one of the worst things about how the Labor party handed over control of these areas to the PLO nearly 3 decades back - because it enabled Jewish women stupid enough to marry Muslims without asking them to convert to Judaism to become trapped in terrible places. Even now, it's very difficult to get these women out of the horrific situations they're in.

Saudi Arabia Fueling Religious Persecution And Extremism

If yesterday we were speaking about Saudi private donors being one of the main sources of Islamic terrorism, today we know more about textbooks inciting hate against non-believers produced by Saudis and exported throughout the world.

America's top financial counter-terrorism official, Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey, believes there's a strong link between education and support for terror. As he wrote in the Washington Post last June, to end support for such terror, among other steps,

"we must focus on educational reform in key locations to ensure that intolerance has no place in curricula and textbooks. . . . [U]nless the next generation of children is taught to reject violent extremism, we will forever be faced with the challenge of disrupting the next group of terrorist facilitators and supporters."

Saudi Arabia is one such "key location." The kingdom is not just any country with problematic textbooks. As the controlling authority of the two holiest shrines of Islam, Saudi Arabia is able to disseminate its religious materials among the millions of Muslims making the hajj to Mecca each year. Such teachings can, in this context, make a great impression.

In addition, Saudi textbooks are also posted on the Saudi Education Ministry's website and are shipped and distributed free by a vast Sunni infrastructure established with Saudi oil wealth to many Muslim schools, mosques and libraries throughout the world. In his book The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright asserts that while Saudis constitute only 1 percent of the world's Muslims, they pay "90 per cent of the expenses of the entire faith, overriding other traditions of Islam." Others estimate that, on an annual basis, Saudi Arabia spends three times as much in exporting its Wahhabi ideology as did the Soviets in propagating Communism during the height of the Cold War. From the Netherlands and Bosnia, to Algeria and Tunisia, to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to Somalia and Nigeria, nationals of these countries have reported that over the past twenty to thirty years local Islamic traditions are being transformed and radicalized under intensifying Saudi influence. The late President of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid wrote that Wahhabism was making inroads even in his famously tolerant nation of Indonesia.

To understand why Jim Woolsey and other terrorism experts call Wahhabism as it spreads through the Islamic diaspora "kindling for Usama Bin Laden's match," it is important to know the content of Saudi textbooks. They teach, along with many other noxious lessons, that Jews and Christians are "enemies," and they dogmatically instruct that that it is permissible, even obligatory, to kill various groups of "unbelievers" -- apostates (which includes Muslim moderates who reject Saudi Wahhabi doctrine), polytheists (which can include Shias and Sufis, as well as Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists.), Jews, and adulterers. The texts also teach that the "punishment for homosexuality is death" and discusses that this can be done by immolation by fire, stoning or throwing the accused from a high place.

Four years ago, the Saudis gave a solemn and specific promise to the United States. Its terms were described in a letter from the U.S. assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs to Sen. Jon Kyl, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security: "In July of 2006, the Saudi Government confirmed to us its policy to undertake a program of textbook reform to eliminate all passages that disparage or promote hatred toward any religion or religious groups." Furthermore, the State Department letter reported that this pledge would be fulfilled "in time for the start of the 2008 school year."

Saudi Arabia has failed to keep its promise to the United States. One Wikileak cable from the US embassy reports that Saudi education reform seems "glacial." In its newly released 2010 annual report on religious freedom, the State Department itself asserted, albeit with diplomatic understatement, with respect to Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks: "Despite government revisions to elementary and secondary education textbooks, they retained language intolerant of other religious traditions, especially Jewish, Christian, and Shi'a beliefs, including commands to hate infidels and kill apostates."

via Saudi Arabia Fueling Religious Persecution And Extremism.

Cross-posted from T&P.

Posts for Oct 28th: Omar Khadr, French riots, Geert Wilder's trial, Challenge Radio, Separation of religion and state,

T&P posts for today:

1. On GITMO detainee Omar Kadhr. Psychiatrics have claimed that his time at GITMO has radicalised him, but in 2002, three months after he was arrested, he said that he was happy he had killed a US medic with a grenade. His family has had throughout the years a very close relationship with Al-Qaeda leaders, including Bin Laden, whom he men while in Afghanistan/Pakistan with his father.
2. French author Guy de Milliére on recent French riots: "the situation has worsened (since 2005). Approximately 700 “no-go zones” pepper France: enclaves ruled by gangs, drug traffickers and imams. Firefighters and doctors venture into these places rarely and only with extreme caution, when they have no other choice. Graffiti on the walls read: “French out!” or “jihad.”"
3. Opinion: Geert Wilders' trial has backfired in any way possible: "The politically charged trial took another twist last week when one of Mr. Wilders‘ expert witnesses, the Arabist Hans Jansen, wrote on his website that a member of the judiciary had tried to influence him. He said that at a dinner party before he was supposed to testify, one of the appeals judges whose decision compelled the prosecutors to press charges tried to “convince me of the correctness of the decision to take Wilders to court.”
4. Project: Challenge Radio. A project from the author of 1386AD. As I said in T&P, this is not my endorsement, but just give some publicity to an interesting Conservative project to build a radio talk show, with an special focus on Islamic supremacism's problems in Europe.
5. "Islam not invasive" motto: "Separation of religion and state is not an option for Muslims because it requires us to abandon Allah's decree for that of a man". A very interesting article from Islamic website Islaam.
6. Hirsi Ali: "Islam is more than a religion".
7. Pakistan: Suicide bombings are ticket to heaven, Taliban school teaches. “I was told that if I disclose my relations with them, they will behead my family and me,” 16-year-old Salaam said.
8. Iran: imprisoned Human Rights Lawyer on hunger strike, another journalist imprisoned. Jailed Iranian human rights attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh defended dissidents, minorities and women who've run afoul of Iran's legal system. She is in hunger strike since Sept 17th, but his family has not been able to see her since, says her husband. On the other hand, a tribunal has condemned Jila BaniYaghoub to one year prison term and 30 years ban from journalism. She is also a prominent Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist, who signed the One Million Signature Petition against discriminatory laws for women. Her husband is currently serving a 5-year-prison term in Evin prison.
   
9. Iranian Mullahcracy to protect women's freedom? Iran, where a woman convicted of adultery has been sentenced to death by stoning, is likely to become a member of the board of the new UN agency to promote equality for women, prompting outrage from the US and human rights groups.

Iran: Multiple Reports of Secret Group Executions in Vakilabad Prison

Iran’s Judiciary should immediately institute a moratorium on all executions at Vakilabad Prison in Mashad and provide a transparent response to allegations of excessive numbers of executions at the facility, said the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran today.
The Campaign continues to receive credible reports from former Vakilabad prisoners about repeated, unannounced group executions of inmates. Reliable sources indicate that numerous executions have taken place inside Vakilabad over the last year and more than 600 inmates remain on death row.
Authorities reportedly executed ten inmates in Vakilabad as recently as Tuesday, 12 October. The numbers of executions publicly announced by the authorities are considerably lower than the actual numbers. Amnesty International reports that at least 388 executions took place in Iran in 2009.
“These reports of Mashad executions indicate that Iran is executing even more people–dramatically more– than now estimated,” said Aaron Rhodes, a spokesperson for the Campaign.
“Especially given the Iranian government’s lack of transparency concerning executions, the Judiciary needs to provide a full account of what is happening inside Vakilabad’s death row,” he added.

Source.
Nonetheless, despite this or other facts coming from Iran lately, like chopping robbers' hands, arresting or expelling journalists who don't agree with their sick theology, jailing filmmakers, bloggers and Human Rights activists and sentencing Muslims who convert to other religion to death, they are going to sponsor a conference about "Human Rights in the US". Certainly, they are not the more appropriate people to speak about any other country's record of Human Rights. Anyway, would they dare to speak about Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Sudan's Human Rights? I guess not.
The reason is clear: condemning US, whatever the reasons, while Iranian record of Human Rights' abuses increases each day.
Cross-posted from T&P.

Somalia: Schoolboy speaks about how Al-Shabab "cross amputated" him

More barbarity from Somalia: Somali schoolboy tells of how Islamists cut off his leg and hand:

“He has learned to button his shirt using only his left hand, to roll his sleeve with his teeth, to balance on his right foot in the shower. He cannot forgive, though he is desperate to forget. But at night his dreams betray him. 

This is how it happened, Abdulle told the Guardian. He was a prisoner in an insurgents’ house in Mogadishu, lying on his side, one hand chained to his ankles. He was 17, with fluff on his cheeks and unspeakable fear in his heart. Three other young men were with him – Jalylani, Ali, Abduqadir.

A guard, from the Islamist group al-Shabaab, which is trying to overthrow the Somali government, gripped his shoulder. ‘Ismael Khalif Abdulle, come with me.’

A convoy of rebel battlewagons cleared the way through the battered streets. Reaching Masalah, an old military barracks, he saw his mother through the car window and shouted to her. The guard slapped his face. ‘Today is not the day to call your mother,’ he said.

Ordered to witness the punishment of the “spies and bandits” or face lashes themselves, the entire neighbourhood had assembled. Also watching were some of the Shabaab’s top leaders – Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the Somali-Swede Fuad Shangole, and Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, the American who recruits and finances foreign fighters.

In the middle of the stony parade ground were about 20 militiamen in green fatigues. Their faces were masked. They were wearing surgical gloves. On the ground was a single plastic mattress.

Abdulle says he was made to lie down. His left hand was tied to his right ankle with a thick rope, leaving the other limbs free for what was to come. Rubber surgical tubing bit into his right biceps – a tourniquet. One rebel grabbed his hand, another his forearm. They pulled in opposite directions as a piece of plastic was laid over his wrist.

“Please make it quick,” he pleaded.

A heavily built man drew a large wooden-handled knife normally used to slaughter camels. The knife descended.

Though their horror was far from over, Abdulle and the three other young men “cross amputated” – a process of cutting off a hand and foot from opposite sides of the body – by the Shabaab on 26 June 2009, eventually escaped from their Islamist captors, and managed to cross to the government-controlled side of the city. Abdulle recently managed to flee Somalia, and reach a safehouse in Nairobi, Kenya, where he gave this interview.

His story offers a rare insight into how the Shabaab is using its extreme interpretation of Islam to establish order through fear – and to find recruits.

Abdulle was born in 1992, a year after the last effective government fell, and warlords took over the country. As far as it is possible to have a normal upbringing amid the anarchy, he did. Once Shabaab forces took full control of the Bakara market area where he lived, in early 2009, security immediately improved – but at a huge cost to personal and social freedoms.

Photo: Ismael Khalif Abdulle who was cross amputated by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab. Photograph Sven Torfinn for the Guardian.

Cross-posted from T&P.

Delara Darabi Has Been Executed

This Iranian site is reporting that 20-year-old Iranian artist Delara Darabi, sentenced to death when she was 17, was hanged in the prison yard in Rasht, Iran, early this morning. The execution came 11 days after an Iranian court had officially postponed it for two months.

It appears the lying scum used the false stay of execution to distract human rights organizations such as www.stopchildexecutions.com which were trying to save Darabi's life, and to avoid international and internal protests.