Category Archives: Women’s rights

Muslim Brotherhood: Convention to Protect Women is Anti-Islamic

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Women wearing sharia-proscribed clothing.

Women wearing sharia-proscribed clothing.

By Ryan Mauro:

The Muslim Brotherhood’s official website in Arabic has published an article highlighting the comments of a senior Egyptian Islamist scholar criticizing the United Nations Violence Against Women Convention for violating Islam and promoting Westernization.

Dr. Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Al-Mahdi, a member of Al-Azhar University’s Council of Senior Scholars and head of the Sharia Association, was reacting to the endorsement of the U.N. convention by Dr. Mervat Al-Talawi, the leader of Egypt’s National Council for Women.

Dr. Al-Mahdi said that the U.N. convention is part of a war on Islam and that women are treated better under Sharia than Western law. He claimed “that Islam has given women a place of honor, and has allowed them to take part in the country’s awakening, while in the West, the women have to search for employment and rely only on themselves. Islam, on the other hand, has given women partners or husbands to take care of them.”

In other words, women in the West are oppressed because they are allowed to work and to be self-sufficient. He also said that their roles as mothers, wives and daughters are protected under Sharia.

Al-Mahdi’s description of a woman’s place under Sharia Law is a good example of how Islamists present the issue of women’s rights. In their view, Sharia Law brings true freedom, justice and equality to women. When they use those comforting terms, they are actually talking about Sharia-based governance.

Read more at The Clarion Project

 

Britain’s Sharia Courts: “You Cannot Go Against What Islam Says”

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muslim-arbitration-tribunalby Soeren Kern:

“There are some who are putting women at risk. And doing so for ridiculous reasons, namely that they are somehow responsible for the abuse they are suffering.” — Nazir Afzal, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, northwest England.

A new documentary secretly filmed inside several of the 85 Islamic Sharia Law courts operating in Britain has exposed the systematic discrimination that many women are suffering at the hands of Muslim jurists.

The documentary, Secrets of Britain’s Sharia Courts, was filmed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was first aired on BBC Panorama, a long-running current affairs program, on April 8.

The undercover investigation proves what has long been suspected: namely, that Sharia courts, which operate in mosques and houses across Britain, routinely issue rulings on domestic and marital issues according to Islamic Sharia law that are at odds with British law. Although Sharia rulings are not legally binding, those subject to the rulings often feel obliged to obey them as a matter of religious belief, or because of pressure from family and community members to do so.

The documentary contends that the Sharia courts, run by Muslim judges known as qadi, are putting women at risk of violence from abusive husbands by pressuring them to stay in abusive marriages.

Read more at Gatestone Institute

 

See also: 

Rape and the Islamic Doctrine That Allows It

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Egyptian woman

Historically and juridically, Islam sanctions FGM for Muslim females and rape and sexual slavery of non-Muslim females. Westerners determinedly avoid the topic altogether.

By Clare Lopez:

The first time that many Americans and others in the West became aware of the extent of the mistreatment of  women in Muslim-majority countries was on February 11, 2011, the night that Hosni Mubarak’s government fell in Cairo and CBS News correspondent, Lara Logan, was brutally sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square.

Yet, those already familiar with the Egyptian street know that the brazen sexual harassment of women has been a feature of public life there for a long time. After all, this is an overwhelmingly Muslim country where statistics show more than 90 per cent of women undergo genital mutilation (Female Genital Mutilation-FGM), whose fundamental purpose is to destroy female sexuality—not only so that men may more easily control their own women but in an attempt to remove ostensible “provocation” from men who are raised from infancy in an environment of permissiveness to believe they are superior to women.

And while Western feminist groups determinedly avoid the topic altogether, international organizations charged with studying the treatment of women around the world typically take pains to avoid any insinuation that either FGM or rape of women and girls has anything to do with Islam. Unfortunately, both do. Doctrinally, historically and juridically, Islam sanctions FGM for Muslim females and the rape and sexual slavery of non-Muslim females.

Read more at The Clarion Project

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Violence Against Women in Islam: Report by the Dutch Party for Freedom

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Ghazala Khan

Ghazala Khan

G-Khan-murder

By Andrew Bostom:

Images above,  and the following text, via Pamela Geller, summarizing open sources: “The killing of Ghazala Khan in Denmark by her brother may be the only instance where an “honor” killing has been photographed while being perpetrated. This  picture was captured on cell phone camera and shows the woman’s brother aiming the gun at his sister, lying on the ground. Her fiancee, also seen, was wounded, but survived. The killing was planned by her entire family, and Pakistani taxi drivers were used as spies to spot her and alert her family.”

****

 

Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) has just released a compendious, seminal report on the doctrinal rationale for Islamic misogyny, and its violent consequences for Muslim women in The Netherlands. The report can be downloaded in pdf format, here.

The report argues that,

… in Islam women are victims of various crimes, such as child marriages, forced marriages, confinement, honor-related crimes including murders, forced sex, genital mutilations. The PVV report, which the party has presented to the Dutch authorities, concludes that Islam is the cause of the anti-female violence.

Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV, concludes:

Islam legitimizes violence against women, and even orders it. That is the core of the problem… If we want to root out this misery in the Netherlands, then female Muslims will have to liberate themselves from the prison of Islamic violence and [to] choose freedom.

I have reproduced the full text of the report, below.

***

 “Why do the human rights activists ignore their suffering as though they do not even exist? Why isn’t the cry of these millions of women heard, and why isn’t it answered by anyone, anywhere? Why? Why? Why?” [1]

Wajeha al-Huwaider

 

[1] Wilders, G. (2012) Marked For Death. Islam’s War Against the West and Me. Washington: Regnery Publishing

Introduction

With the mass immigration of recent decades, Islam has made its appearance in our society. And that has meant the arrival of an ideology which is alien to us. Western values such as individual liberty, freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and equality between men and women are achievements that do not exist in Islam. The growing influence of Islam in our society puts those freedoms under pressure. We witness increasing violence against homosexuals, censorship, Islamic anti-Semitism, serious threats against politicians, and even the assassination of a critic of Islam.

But it is not only the non-Muslim world that is faced with the excessive violence and the urge of Islam to curtail freedoms. Within Islam, violence and submission are the rule. The main victims are women. The Dutch government, instead of focusing on countering the Islamization process, combating this violence, and urging women to renounce Islam, gives in and facilitates absurd projects such as separate integration, separate swimming lessons and even separate theater performances. Giving in, looking away or leaving these women to their fate — as the politically correct Netherlands does — is not a solution.

In Islam, women are inferior beings who are subordinated to men in various ways. “Child marriages,” forced marriages, anti-female violence, confinement and shielding women from the outside world, honor-related violence, forced sex and genital mutilation are some of the forms of violence that large groups of Muslim women have to deal with. Within Islam, violence against women is not only legitimized, it is even mandatory.

The lack of attention given to the deplorable situation of women within this ideology and the still dominant, politically correct attitude among politicians and civil servants — which disconnects Islam from the violence against women within Islam — prompted the PVV group in the Dutch House of Representatives to write this report.

This publication presents the position of women in Islam in relation to violence. By letting the Islamic sources speak for themselves, we observe that the endlessly repeated assertion that the above-mentioned abuses have no connection with Islam is not based on facts. Islam legitimizes violence against women, and even orders it. That is the core of the problem. Various studies show that this violence (including forced isolation, honor-related violence and female genital mutilation) is widespread, in the Netherlands as elsewhere.

If we want to root out this misery in the Netherlands, then female Muslims will have to liberate themselves from the prison of Islamic violence and to choose freedom.

G. Wilders (Chairman of the Party for Freedom)

J.J. van Klaveren (MP, Party for Freedom)

The Hague, April 2013

Read more

BBC Documentary: Sharia Courts Putting Women at Risk

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Pro-jihad demonstration in the UK. (Photo: © Reuters)

Pro-jihad demonstration in the UK. (Photo: © Reuters)

A BBC documentary with undercover footage inside Britain’s Islamic courts reveals the shocking discrimination some women are suffering. Sharia courts are putting women at risk of violence from abusive husbands, the Crown Prosecution Service has warned.

Secret filming that was done in some of the 85 councils operating in mosques and houses across the country has revealed that the courts, which are run by Sharia councils, rule in favor of men by giving them access to children even though they have been found to be abusive.

Sharia law has no formal place in any of Britain’s legal systems. However, the investigation found that courts in London were making rulings on domestic and marital issues according to Sharia law which appeared at odds with English family law. Although they are not legally binding, those who were subject to the rulings felt they had to follow them as a matter of religious belief, or because they felt under pressure from family and community to do so.

Read more at The Clarion Project

The 1996 Arbitration Act in the UK has led to the increasing legitimacy of Sharia courts. Over time, as rulings of these courts conflict with British law, attempts have been made to amend the Act to protect women’s rights. The most recent attempt is the Equality Bill proposed by Baroness Caroline Cox on n June 7, 2011: Mind the Gap: The Equality Bill and Sharia Arbitration in the United Kingdom (http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu)

We must learn from what is happening in Europe due to Islamization. Familiarize yourself with the American Laws for American Courts legislation making it’s way through the states. Let your representatives know you support it.

Also see:

Manal al-Sharif: The Woman Who Dared to Drive

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OB-WU669_winter_DV_20130322183751By SOHRAB AHMARI:

‘You know when you have a bird, and it’s been in a cage all its life? When you open the cage door, it doesn’t want to leave. It was that moment.”

This is how Manal al-Sharif felt the first time she sat behind the wheel of a car in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom’s taboo against women driving is only rarely broken. To hear her recount the experience is as thrilling as it must have been to sit in the passenger seat beside her. Well, almost.

Ms. Sharif says her moment of hesitation didn’t last long. She pressed the gas pedal and in an instant her Cadillac SUV rolled forward. She spent the next hour circling the streets of Khobar, in the kingdom’s eastern province, while a friend used an iPhone camera to record the journey.

It was May 2011, when much of the Middle East was convulsed with popular uprisings. Saudi women’s-rights activists were stirring, too. They wondered if the Arab Spring would mark the end of the kingdom’s ban on women driving. “Everyone around me was complaining about the ban but no one was doing anything,” Ms. Sharif says. “The Arab Spring was happening all around us, so that inspired me to say, ‘Let’s call for an action instead of complaining.’ “

The campaign started with a Facebook FB +0.29% page urging Saudi women to drive on a designated day, June 17, 2011. At first the page created great enthusiasm among activists. But then critics began injecting fear on and off the page. “The opponents were saying that ‘there are wolves in the street, and they will rape you if you drive,’ ” Ms. Sharif recalls. “There needed to be one person who could break that wall, to make the others understand that ‘it’s OK, you can drive in the street. No one will rape you.’ “Ms. Sharif resolved to be that person, and the video she posted of herself driving around Khobar on May 17 became an instant YouTube hit. The news spread across Saudi media, too, and not all of the reactions were positive. Ms. Sharif received threatening phone calls and emails. “You have just opened the gates of hell on yourself,” said an Islamist cleric. “Your grave is waiting,” read one email.

Read more at WSJ

H/T Citizen Warrior

 

Muslim Brotherhood: UN Document on Violence Against Women ‘Un-Islamic”

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Egyptian women protest in Tahrir Square (Photo: Reuters)

Egyptian women protest in Tahrir Square (Photo: Reuters)

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood sharply criticized a draft United Nations document concerning the combating of violence against women saying that it was “deceitful,” clashed with Islamic principles and undermined family values.

The statement continued by saying that the document would “destroy Islamic ethics and seek to demolish the institution of the family,” and described it as tantamount to an “intellectual and cultural invasion.”

Among the points the Brotherhood said that it opposed in the document were resolutions to ensure a woman’s right to lodge complaints of marital rape, promote equal inheritance rights and equal rights between men and women within the family and allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslims. It also took issue with the recommendation to abolish the need for a woman to obtain male permission for travel, work or use contraception. The Brotherhood greatly criticized the UN recommendation to give a woman the right to choose the gender of her partner, raise the age of marriage and legalize abortion.

The Brotherhood, with whom Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi is affiliated, called on other Muslim nations, women’s groups and Islamic organizations to reject the document. The Brotherhood said that the document propagates sexual freedoms, advocates the use of abortion and equates sexual assault by a stranger with assault by a spouse. The group also called the document an infringement on the thought, culture and uniqueness of Islamic societies and called on women’s groups not to be “lured by phony calls for civilized behavior.”

A study conducted in 2008 by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights concludedthat 62 percent of Egyptian men acknowledged sexually harassing women, and 53 percent said women who are harassed “bring it on to themselves.”

Read more at RadicalIslam.org

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John Kerry Should Ask President Morsi About Genital Mutilation

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images (6)By David P. Goldman:

If the State Department wants to advance the rights of Egyptian women, why not ask President Mohammed Morsi to support a ban on female genital mutilation, a horrific form of violence perpetrated on more than 90% of Egyptian women, according to the World Health Organization? The point of the mutilation is to destroy a woman’s capacity for sexual pleasure the better to ensure her marital fidelity. Deposed President Mubarak and his wife campaigned against it: not so President Morsi. As the blog “An Arab Citizen” reported last year:

Speaking now on Egypt’s CBC Channel in a “meet your presidential candidate” type of event, the FJP/MB’s Mohammed Morsy was asked by a female doctor and panelist what he thought about recent calls to apparently “revise” the law banning FGM/Female Circumcision in Egypt. The candidate embarked on a long and vague answer which left a few, including the doctor herself, uncertain to a considerable extent as to his concise statement of position. But most of the people I have spoken to agree that the candidate seems to be suggesting that it should be the prerogative of the family to decide if they want their daughter to undergo it or not. When pressed further, he said it was not the role of the president to be involved in such details.

The Mubarak government banned the practice in June 2007, to little effect. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi refused to support the ban. The most prominent Muslim Brotherhood cleric, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, defended a surreal “moderate” position of removing part but not all of the clitoris in a fatwa published on the website Islam Online:

The most moderate opinion and the most likely one to be correct is in favor of practicing circumcision in the moderate Islamic way indicated in some of the Prophet’s hadiths—even though such hadiths are not confirmed to be authentic. It is reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to a midwife: “Reduce the size of the clitoris but do not exceed the limit, for that is better for her health and is preferred by husbands.” The hadith indicates that circumcision is better for a woman’s health and it enhances her conjugal relation with her husband. It’s noteworthy that the Prophet’s saying “do not exceed the limit” means do not totally remove the clitoris.

There is no greater right than the right not to be killed or mutilated, as 90% of Egyptian women have been. Is there a more heinous or systematic violation of human rights anywhere in the world than the genital mutilation of tens of millions of women? And is there a more revolting example of human rights violation in the name of religion than the declaration of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading authority, Sheikh Qaradawi? Why doesn’t Secretary Kerry say something about this? And why don’t American feminists demand that he raise the issue? Does cultural sensitivity trump the most fundamental right of women?

Read more at PJ Media

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam

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Ayaan Hirsi AliMichael Coren interviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Responds to Questions at Ohio University:

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken defender of women’s rights in Islamic societies, was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. She escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992 and served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006. In parliament, she worked on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society and defending the rights of women in Dutch Muslim society. In 2004, together with director Theo van Gogh, she made Submission, a film about the oppression of women in conservative Islamic cultures. The airing of the film on Dutch television resulted in the assassination of Mr. van Gogh by an Islamic extremist. At AEI, Ms. Hirsi Ali researches the relationship between the West and Islam, women’s rights in Islam, violence against women propagated by religious and cultural arguments, and Islam in Europe.

See also:

The Counter Jihad Report’s Youtube playlist for Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Bulletin of the Oppression of Women October 15 – November 19, 2012

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October 15, 2012 Mali   A teenaged girl received 60 lashes in Timbuktu after Islamist extremists convicted   her of speaking to men on the street.

October 16, 2012 UK   (h/t to thereligionofpeace)   A British Muslim, who married his second wife in a secret sharia ceremony, has   been sentenced to life in jail for stabbing her to death in a ‘merciless’ attack.   Siraj Arif, 31, knifed Saiba Khatoon – who was 19-weeks pregnant – with such   ferocity that two of the three kitchen knives he used snapped under the force   of the blows in the row over their unborn baby.

October 17, 2012   Egypt   A teacher in southern Egypt punished two 12-year-old schoolgirls for not wearing   the Muslim headscarf by cutting their hair, the father of one girl said Wednesday,   in an incident that stokes concerns over personal rights following the rise   of Islamist political movements.   Afghanistan   Afghan police have arrested four people who allegedly tried to force a woman   into prostitution and beheaded her when she refused.

Britain   An FGM study from the British International Journal of Obstetrics and gynecology   journal BJOG reports that women who were forced to undergo genital cutting as   young girls have a poorer sex life years later.

October 20, 2012 Malaysia      Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek agreed today with a Wanita MCA leader’s view that   PAS condones the raping of non-Muslim women, pointing out that the party’s spiritual   leader Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat had made the opinion clear in a speech four years   ago. Nik Aziz had said that women who do not “tutup aurat” (protect   their modesty) “deserved to be raped”.

October 22, 2012 Afghanistan   (h/t to JihadWatch)   A man in a western Afghan city has confessed to stabbing his wife to death to   prevent her from taking a job outside the home.

Sudan (h/t   to JihadWatch)   The head of Sudan’s main clerical authority, the Religious Scholars Committee   (RSC), has publicly advocated girl child marriage, drawing the ire of women   activists rights who called for an immediate ban against the practice.

October 23, 2012 Afghanistan   (h/t to thereligionofpeace)   A second teenage girl has been threatened with assassination in Pakistan following   the Taliban’s failed attempt to murder Malala Yousafzai, an outspoken critic   of Islamic extremism, earlier this month.

October 24, 2012 Britain   (h/t to thereligionofpeace)   9 men have been charged in Manchester for sexual abuse of an underage girl.   This case is different from the one early this year which dealt with child trafficking.

Afghanistan   Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on Wednesday said   that it recorded 550 cases of violence against women in the last month, including   beating, forced marriages, murder and rape, showing a remarkable increase from   previous months.

November 1, 2012 Kashmir   A mother and father killed their 15-year-old daughter by dousing her with acid   after seeing her talking to a young man, police said Thursday.

November 3, 2012 Muslim   World   Nonie Darwish explains the role of the woman in the Islamic ideology and the   laws that control her.

Pakistan   (h/t to thereligionofpeace)   The Pakistani Taliban’s battle to stop girls and women from getting an education   includes acid thrown in their faces to scar them for life and deter others from   following in their footsteps. They have distributed threatening pamphlets around   the city warning local girls against going to school. “We will never allow   the girls of this area to go and get a Western education,” said Qari Muhavia,   the local Pakistani Taliban leader, when contacted by CNN by telephone.

November 4, 2012 Singapore   The city’s Muslim marriage courses are under fire for teaching that male students   are to beat wives who refuse to submit to sex, while female students are taught   that if they refuse sex with their husbands angels of Allah would curse them.

November 5, 2012 Jordan   Three brothers reportedly murdered their married sister to cleanse their family’s   honor. She was stabbed 17 times.

Yemen   (h/t to thereligionofpeace)   A 10-year old Yemeni child claims her family forced her to marry a 30-year old   man when she was nine. She escaped from her home with the help of an aunt and   went to the courthouse where she waited for the judge to come out and told him   her story. He sympathised with her case and issued a divorce judgment.

November 6, 2012 India   Mumbai’s historic Haji Ali mausoleum inner tomb is banned to women.

November 7, 2012 USA   An Iraqi mother was sentenced to two years’ probation after she was accused   of beating her teenage daughter and burning her on her face and chest with a   hot spoon because the girl refused to go along with an arranged marriage and   was spotted talking a male student at her high school.

November 8, 2012 Saudi   Arabia (h/t to thereligionofpeace)     There have been 5,622 marriages where the bride is under the age of 14 in Saudi   Arabia, said Ali Abdul Rahman Al Roumi, a social services academic at Imam Mohammad   Bin Saud Islamic University, adding that specifying a legal age would not solve   the problem, and may lead to “even bigger problems”.

November 11, 2012 Saudi   Arabia (h/t JihadWatch)   An prominent Saudi religious scholar tortured his five year old daughter to   death with whips and electrical shocks.

November 13, 2012 USA   Iraqi man pleaded not guilty to the honor killing of his wife, Shaima Alawadi.

November 15, 2012 Pakistan   A man and his brother were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly setting the former’s   wife and three daughters on fire.

November 16, 2012 Iran   (h/t to thereligionofpeace)   Lawmakers consider legislation that may drastically alter an adult woman’s ability   to obtain a passport and travel outside the country.

November 17, 2012 Indonesia   A Western woman gives her eye-witness account of over 200 young girls having   their genitals cut so they “can control their sexual urges.”

November 19, 2012 Dubai   (h/t to thereligionofpeace)   Three rapists who demanded money from their Vietnamese victim, are sentenced   to three years in jail.
Gates   of Vienna has an informative short video explaining why honor killings   are Islamic doctrine. Please take a few minutes and educate yourself on this   travesty of gender rights.

Produced by Politicalislam.com   Publisher: Bill Warner; Editor: Asma Marwan

For more information and articles, go to Bulletin of the Oppression of Women