Muslim Women Shockingly Not Grateful for Topless European Ladies Trying To 'Save' Them

[himher 634]

It's an idiotic view to have. Sorry but it is.

There are ups and downs everywhere. But a society that treats adults like children just because they happen to have been born without a ####### is not better off than we are.

Rapes per capita (100k) in the US are 28.9

Rapes per capita (100k) in Saudi are 3.3

But women in a society that protects them are not better off?

Your words: It's an idiotic view to have. Sorry but it is.

Edited April 14, 2013 by himher

[himher 634]

I think the harsh implantation of Sharia law is more about keeping the King in power than it is about Islam.

Yes the King is very popular because of his deferral to the non-royal religious leadership. Because it is what the people there want.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Since women get lashed for getting raped in Saudi Arabia perhaps it's conceivable rape reporting is going to be suppressed? I know I would be reluctant to report a rape there.

[himher 634]

Since women get lashed for getting raped in Saudi Arabia perhaps it's conceivable rape reporting is going to be suppressed? I know I would be reluctant to report a rape there.

Where did a woman get lashed for being raped?

Lashes are given for being alone with someone you are unrelated to. Which reduces the potential for being raped. Which is the point of the law. To protect women.

Absent this the penalty for rapists is getting their head lopped off. Which, I personally believe is appropriate and in addition would probably satisfy even the most hardline feminists.

A cool story about demise of a couple of dirtbag rapists:

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2011/10/saudi-arabia-beheads-two-for-rape.html

Edited April 14, 2013 by himher

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I have observed is that aggressive males are most aggressive towards other males and substantially less so towards women.

I have seen the opposite. Bullies generally bully those weaker than them. The weaker you appear, the more likely you are to encounter bullies. Now if that mousy little girl knows how to defend herself, or at least has a nasty bark, that macho overbearing male might be in for a painful surprise.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Rapes per capita (100k) in the US are 28.9

Rapes per capita (100k) in Saudi are 3.3

But women in a society that protects them are not better off?

Your words: It's an idiotic view to have. Sorry but it is.

That's because a woman would be isane to report a rape in Saudi because as often as not she is prosecuted.

Saudi Arabia: Islamic cleric rapes, tortures, kills daughter, pays fine

http://www.examiner....ghter-pays-fine

• In Saudi Arabia an Islamic cleric who admits to raping, torturing and killing his daughter received a fine but no jail time for his heinous crime. Saudi media reports that the father paid 200,000 riyals ($50,000 US) in "blood money" for his crime, but will not be required to serve any time in prison.

In response to the heinous crime, and lack of justice for five-year old victim Lama al-Ghamdi, the women's rights activist Manal al-Sharif and others issued a press release on Feb 2, and launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtags #AnaLama (Arabic for "I am Lama") and #IamLama, demanding legislation criminalizing violence against women and children.

Fayhan al-Ghamdi, the victims father and a popular Islamic preacher who has made numerous television appearances promoting Islam, confessed to the heinous crime. Ghamdi told Saudi officials he used cables and a cane on his five-year-old daughter, leaving her with multiple injuries, including a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm, extensive bruising and burns. In addition, one of Lama's fingernails had been torn off. Hospital staff reports the child's rectum had been torn open and the abuser had attempted to burn it closed.

Reports indicate the father had doubted his five-year old daughter's virginity.

Lama al-Ghamdi died last October. The amount her father was fined for the brutal rape, torture and murder, would have been doubled if Lama had been male. In Saudi Arabia, Islamic law is interpreted to be that a father cannot be executed for murdering his children, nor can husbands be executed for murdering their wives.

Human rights activists point out that judicial leniency towards male abusers and murderers reflects the highly problematic nature of the male guardianship system in Saudi Arabia. Currently all women in Saudi Arabia are considered minors, and all are automatically assigned to the care and judgment of their most immediate male relative. This system of male guardianship gives the male relatives the power to sell girls legally into child marriages and to ban adult women from work, travel and obtaining medical operations.

Where did a woman get lashed for being raped?

Lashes are given for being alone with someone you are unrelated to. Which reduces the potential for being raped. Which is the point of the law. To protect women.

Absent this the penalty for rapists is getting their head lopped off. Which, I personally believe is appropriate and in addition would probably satisfy even the most hardline feminists.

A cool story about demise of a couple of dirtbag rapists:

http://deathpenaltyn...o-for-rape.html

http://womanstats.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/the-high-rape-scale-in-saudi-arabia/

The High Rape-Scale in Saudi Arabia

January 16, 2013 § 2 Comments

Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most conservative countries in the world, especially in regard to the status of women. Saudi Arabia is an extreme Islamic country where its legal code is based on Shari’a Law. They therefore believe that there is no separation between church and state and the state’s laws are heavily based on Islamic teachings. Because of this strict Islamic culture, women in Saudi Arabia are treated and acknowledged very differently than the women who live in the west. For example, in Saudi Arabia, there are laws that require women to wear a hijab, a head scarf, as well as dress in loose, long garments that do not show the shape of the woman’s body. To do so would be shameful and secular. There are other laws such as this one that are meant to protect the virtue of women in Saudi Arabia.

Knowing this about Saudi Arabia, I had assumed that women there would be relatively safe since there are such strict laws regarding the protection of a woman’s virtue. I assumed incorrectly when I was studying a WomanStats map that displayed the rape scale of each country in the world. On a scale from one to five, Saudi Arabia had a ranking of a four. I was confused by this since, as briefly described above, Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most conservative countries in the world where women are highly secluded. I would have thought these practices and laws would have decreased the rape rate substantially.

The question I pose then is this, why does Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative countries in the world have one of the highest rape scales in the world?

While there are many interconnecting reasons why rape occurs so often in Saudi Arabia, I have chosen four possible causes to narrow down the research for this project. The four causes I have chosen are one, a secular society, two, insufficient laws, three, taboos against reporting rape and four, an ineffective judicial system.

Secular Society

The first cause, a secular society, was quickly dismissed because as was mentioned in the introduction, Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most conservative countries in the world. The society of Saudi Arabia is especially conservative when it comes to women. For example, it is illegal for women to drive or intermingle in public with males that are not related to them. It is also illegal for a woman to go out in public without a male-escort who is related to her as well as go out in public without wearing her hijab (WomanStats). Violence or legal prosecution usually ensues if any of these are broken. To further illustrate this point, the following maps show how strict Saudi Arabia is in regard to dress code and intermingling in public laws compared to the rest of the Middle East, a very conservative region itself.

It is clear from these maps that Saudi Arabia has one of the strictest dress codes and intermingling laws in the Middle East which is the most conservative region in the world. Based on these findings, one would sense that these women are highly secluded from society and thereby would be more protected from instances of rape and other forms of violence. On the other hand, one may argue that because women are treated so differently, they could be seen as inferior and thus suffer more abuse because of the lack of secularism.

Insufficient Laws Against Rape

The next probable cause studied was the possibility of insufficient laws against rape in Saudi Arabia. Since there were reported convictions of rapists, it can be assumed that there are laws against rape. Also, Saudi Arabia’s legal code is based on the Shari’a law, which criminalizes rape as punishable by death. However, spousal rape is not included in this criminalization according to Shari’a law. Although these laws exist against rapists, the actual conviction process is complicated and nearly impossible. In order for a perpetrator to be convicted he or she must confess or there must be four witnesses of the act (FreedomHouse). Usually in these certain circumstances, there are only two witnesses present, the perpetrator and the victim. Since it would be hard for a victim to find four witnesses, it is very unlikely that a perpetrator would admit to such a heinous act that he or she could very well get away with. Another example of the insufficient laws against rape is that foreign female domestic workers, which consists of 1.5 million of foreign nationals, receive no protection from the labor laws and are more prone to be victims of abuse. Based on this research, it can be concluded that while there are laws against rape, the actual conviction of rapists is very rare. This could be a plausible cause of the high rape scale since the punishment of such an act hardly occurs.

Taboos Against Reporting Rape

The third possible cause of a high rape scale in Saudi Arabia is the taboos against reporting rape. There are many social stigmas that scare women away from reporting a rape to the police. One social stigma is that in many instances, the law enforcer will accuse the woman of having illicit sex instead of accusing the man of the crime (FreedomHouse). As a consequence of this accusation, societal reprisals take place such as a woman being seen as unfit for marriage or even violently punished for bringing shame to the family. In some extreme cases, honor killings have been committed against women who have been raped (Zoepf). One may wonder why these crimes take place if the laws in Saudi Arabia are supposedly meant to protect women. There is another cultural stigma that plays a role here. In Islamic society, a family’s honor, particularly the male family member’s honor is based on the purity and virtue of the women in their family. If a woman in the family becomes “violated” either by choice or by force, the family’s honor is seemingly stripped from them. It is not so much about the concern over the woman but over the honor of the men. Because of this engrained belief, already victimized women are sometimes further victimized by their own family members. This causes great fear among the women in these types of societies and if one is raped, it is very unlikely that she will report it based on the potential ensuing consequences.

Ineffective Judicial System

The last possible cause studied was an ineffective judicial system. As was mentioned before, Saudi Arabia’s legal code is based on the Shari’s law, an extreme version of the Islamic code. Because of this, women are not given the same rights as men, especially when it comes to the courts. For example, in most cases, women are unable to speak for themselves in court. They must be represented by a male-relative or lawyer. It is considered shameful for a woman to speak to the sheik or judge and is only sometime allowed to do so if her face is covered (WomanStats). Because of this, if a woman is raped, and a man’s honor is based on her virtue, what male relative would want to shed further light on the subject by representing her? Also a man’s testimony is worth two women’s testimonies. So if a woman had four witnesses to testify against the perpetrator, if some of them were women, the number of females would have to be doubled for the accusation to be considered.

Another clause of the judicial system is that most clerics were taught in Wahhabi schools where extreme Islam is taught extensively. Because of this, most clerics demand the seclusion of women and often hold an unforgiving attitude toward accusations of violence against men (WomanStats). A Saudi Arabian attorney even said, “Unfortunately, judges consider women to be lacking in reason and faith, so generally do not agree with her arguments” (HumanRights).

The following stories illustrate the point explained above. The first is about a young girl who was being molested by her father. She went to the courts to file a complaint. The law enforcers did not believe her and told her, her father needed to come in to file the complaint (Economist). The obvious ignorance need not be explained in this situation. The next story tells of a nineteen year-old woman who met a man not related to her in a car. They were both kidnapped by a gang and she was then gang-raped fourteen times. Seven men of the gang were convicted and were sentenced to prison ranging from one to five years. This was a light conviction given they could have received the death penalty according to the law. The woman was also convicted to six months of prison as well as ninety lashes for being associating with a male who was not related to her in public (Harrison). The woman was later pardoned by the King of Saudi Arabia, not because he disagreed with the punishment but because he was being merciful and thought it was best for the whole of the country, not to mention international relations with countries that were in an absolute uproar over the ordeal (Zoepf).

Based on my research I propose that the main perpetrator of the high rape-scale in Saudi Arabia is the lack of conviction of rapists due to the taboos against reporting rape and the ineffective judicial system. If perpetrators are not being punished then there is little incentive to not rape woman if that is the desire. To illustrate how low the conviction rate actually is, in 2002, there were 59 reported rapes out of a population of 26,534,504 (WomanStats) The perpetrators are getting away with a heinous crime and the Saudi Arabian government must pass more effective legislation that enables law enforcers to convict those criminals. The social stigmas will be very difficult to overcome regarding seeing a woman unfit for marriage or taking away the family’s honor because of being raped. However, if women continue to speak up about the issues they face, solutions will come, just as they have in other parts of the world. Also international pressure must always be present to give those women courage to stand up.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[Karee 4,190]

I was just driving home from Target sitting at a light. One of those big 4 wheel drive pickups pulled up next to me. I looked over (and up, the thing was jacked up kinda high). I expected some redneck with a cowboy hat. It was some lady driving it with the full Muslim headgear and all. I kinda laughed and thought about this thread. Sorry to go OT.

Edited April 14, 2013 by Karee

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Sorry I know that was a bit much. As you know I am usually brief

[Darnell 8,478]

who are we to say they are oppressed? I know a lot of women that are saudi....the husband is allowed to look like he is boss out side the home but you have no idea how much he is NOT the boss in the home

I think the Femen campaign was misguided - but many things they do are either misguided or has results no one ever planned for.

I think the concept to 'raise awareness' is grand. I also think 'this' particular campaign was totally misguided. The protester in Tunisia? She was some affiliate member of FEMEN, but for a 19 year old to do this? I dunno, she should have taken some other path, locally.

All n all, it was fun watching the boobies, but I truly think this particular FEMEN campaign was misguided, and the results were NOT what they had planned.

I agree with what you've written here in this post (no, not flaming you or anyone else).

Whew !

[himher 634]

That's because a woman would be isane to report a rape in Saudi because as often as not she is prosecuted.

Saudi Arabia: Islamic cleric rapes, tortures, kills daughter, pays fine

http://www.examiner....ghter-pays-fine

• In Saudi Arabia an Islamic cleric who admits to raping, torturing and killing his daughter received a fine but no jail time for his heinous crime. Saudi media reports that the father paid 200,000 riyals ($50,000 US) in "blood money" for his crime, but will not be required to serve any time in prison.

In response to the heinous crime, and lack of justice for five-year old victim Lama al-Ghamdi, the women's rights activist Manal al-Sharif and others issued a press release on Feb 2, and launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtags #AnaLama (Arabic for "I am Lama") and #IamLama, demanding legislation criminalizing violence against women and children.

Fayhan al-Ghamdi, the victims father and a popular Islamic preacher who has made numerous television appearances promoting Islam, confessed to the heinous crime. Ghamdi told Saudi officials he used cables and a cane on his five-year-old daughter, leaving her with multiple injuries, including a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm, extensive bruising and burns. In addition, one of Lama's fingernails had been torn off. Hospital staff reports the child's rectum had been torn open and the abuser had attempted to burn it closed.

Reports indicate the father had doubted his five-year old daughter's virginity.

Lama al-Ghamdi died last October. The amount her father was fined for the brutal rape, torture and murder, would have been doubled if Lama had been male. In Saudi Arabia, Islamic law is interpreted to be that a father cannot be executed for murdering his children, nor can husbands be executed for murdering their wives.

Human rights activists point out that judicial leniency towards male abusers and murderers reflects the highly problematic nature of the male guardianship system in Saudi Arabia. Currently all women in Saudi Arabia are considered minors, and all are automatically assigned to the care and judgment of their most immediate male relative. This system of male guardianship gives the male relatives the power to sell girls legally into child marriages and to ban adult women from work, travel and obtaining medical operations.

http://womanstats.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/the-high-rape-scale-in-saudi-arabia/

The High Rape-Scale in Saudi Arabia

January 16, 2013 § 2 Comments

Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most conservative countries in the world, especially in regard to the status of women. Saudi Arabia is an extreme Islamic country where its legal code is based on Shari’a Law. They therefore believe that there is no separation between church and state and the state’s laws are heavily based on Islamic teachings. Because of this strict Islamic culture, women in Saudi Arabia are treated and acknowledged very differently than the women who live in the west. For example, in Saudi Arabia, there are laws that require women to wear a hijab, a head scarf, as well as dress in loose, long garments that do not show the shape of the woman’s body. To do so would be shameful and secular. There are other laws such as this one that are meant to protect the virtue of women in Saudi Arabia.

Knowing this about Saudi Arabia, I had assumed that women there would be relatively safe since there are such strict laws regarding the protection of a woman’s virtue. I assumed incorrectly when I was studying a WomanStats map that displayed the rape scale of each country in the world. On a scale from one to five, Saudi Arabia had a ranking of a four. I was confused by this since, as briefly described above, Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most conservative countries in the world where women are highly secluded. I would have thought these practices and laws would have decreased the rape rate substantially.

The question I pose then is this, why does Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative countries in the world have one of the highest rape scales in the world?

While there are many interconnecting reasons why rape occurs so often in Saudi Arabia, I have chosen four possible causes to narrow down the research for this project. The four causes I have chosen are one, a secular society, two, insufficient laws, three, taboos against reporting rape and four, an ineffective judicial system.

Secular Society

The first cause, a secular society, was quickly dismissed because as was mentioned in the introduction, Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most conservative countries in the world. The society of Saudi Arabia is especially conservative when it comes to women. For example, it is illegal for women to drive or intermingle in public with males that are not related to them. It is also illegal for a woman to go out in public without a male-escort who is related to her as well as go out in public without wearing her hijab (WomanStats). Violence or legal prosecution usually ensues if any of these are broken. To further illustrate this point, the following maps show how strict Saudi Arabia is in regard to dress code and intermingling in public laws compared to the rest of the Middle East, a very conservative region itself.

It is clear from these maps that Saudi Arabia has one of the strictest dress codes and intermingling laws in the Middle East which is the most conservative region in the world. Based on these findings, one would sense that these women are highly secluded from society and thereby would be more protected from instances of rape and other forms of violence. On the other hand, one may argue that because women are treated so differently, they could be seen as inferior and thus suffer more abuse because of the lack of secularism.

Insufficient Laws Against Rape

The next probable cause studied was the possibility of insufficient laws against rape in Saudi Arabia. Since there were reported convictions of rapists, it can be assumed that there are laws against rape. Also, Saudi Arabia’s legal code is based on the Shari’a law, which criminalizes rape as punishable by death. However, spousal rape is not included in this criminalization according to Shari’a law. Although these laws exist against rapists, the actual conviction process is complicated and nearly impossible. In order for a perpetrator to be convicted he or she must confess or there must be four witnesses of the act (FreedomHouse). Usually in these certain circumstances, there are only two witnesses present, the perpetrator and the victim. Since it would be hard for a victim to find four witnesses, it is very unlikely that a perpetrator would admit to such a heinous act that he or she could very well get away with. Another example of the insufficient laws against rape is that foreign female domestic workers, which consists of 1.5 million of foreign nationals, receive no protection from the labor laws and are more prone to be victims of abuse. Based on this research, it can be concluded that while there are laws against rape, the actual conviction of rapists is very rare. This could be a plausible cause of the high rape scale since the punishment of such an act hardly occurs.

Taboos Against Reporting Rape

The third possible cause of a high rape scale in Saudi Arabia is the taboos against reporting rape. There are many social stigmas that scare women away from reporting a rape to the police. One social stigma is that in many instances, the law enforcer will accuse the woman of having illicit sex instead of accusing the man of the crime (FreedomHouse). As a consequence of this accusation, societal reprisals take place such as a woman being seen as unfit for marriage or even violently punished for bringing shame to the family. In some extreme cases, honor killings have been committed against women who have been raped (Zoepf). One may wonder why these crimes take place if the laws in Saudi Arabia are supposedly meant to protect women. There is another cultural stigma that plays a role here. In Islamic society, a family’s honor, particularly the male family member’s honor is based on the purity and virtue of the women in their family. If a woman in the family becomes “violated” either by choice or by force, the family’s honor is seemingly stripped from them. It is not so much about the concern over the woman but over the honor of the men. Because of this engrained belief, already victimized women are sometimes further victimized by their own family members. This causes great fear among the women in these types of societies and if one is raped, it is very unlikely that she will report it based on the potential ensuing consequences.

Ineffective Judicial System

The last possible cause studied was an ineffective judicial system. As was mentioned before, Saudi Arabia’s legal code is based on the Shari’s law, an extreme version of the Islamic code. Because of this, women are not given the same rights as men, especially when it comes to the courts. For example, in most cases, women are unable to speak for themselves in court. They must be represented by a male-relative or lawyer. It is considered shameful for a woman to speak to the sheik or judge and is only sometime allowed to do so if her face is covered (WomanStats). Because of this, if a woman is raped, and a man’s honor is based on her virtue, what male relative would want to shed further light on the subject by representing her? Also a man’s testimony is worth two women’s testimonies. So if a woman had four witnesses to testify against the perpetrator, if some of them were women, the number of females would have to be doubled for the accusation to be considered.

Another clause of the judicial system is that most clerics were taught in Wahhabi schools where extreme Islam is taught extensively. Because of this, most clerics demand the seclusion of women and often hold an unforgiving attitude toward accusations of violence against men (WomanStats). A Saudi Arabian attorney even said, “Unfortunately, judges consider women to be lacking in reason and faith, so generally do not agree with her arguments” (HumanRights).

The following stories illustrate the point explained above. The first is about a young girl who was being molested by her father. She went to the courts to file a complaint. The law enforcers did not believe her and told her, her father needed to come in to file the complaint (Economist). The obvious ignorance need not be explained in this situation. The next story tells of a nineteen year-old woman who met a man not related to her in a car. They were both kidnapped by a gang and she was then gang-raped fourteen times. Seven men of the gang were convicted and were sentenced to prison ranging from one to five years. This was a light conviction given they could have received the death penalty according to the law. The woman was also convicted to six months of prison as well as ninety lashes for being associating with a male who was not related to her in public (Harrison). The woman was later pardoned by the King of Saudi Arabia, not because he disagreed with the punishment but because he was being merciful and thought it was best for the whole of the country, not to mention international relations with countries that were in an absolute uproar over the ordeal (Zoepf).

Based on my research I propose that the main perpetrator of the high rape-scale in Saudi Arabia is the lack of conviction of rapists due to the taboos against reporting rape and the ineffective judicial system. If perpetrators are not being punished then there is little incentive to not rape woman if that is the desire. To illustrate how low the conviction rate actually is, in 2002, there were 59 reported rapes out of a population of 26,534,504 (WomanStats) The perpetrators are getting away with a heinous crime and the Saudi Arabian government must pass more effective legislation that enables law enforcers to convict those criminals. The social stigmas will be very difficult to overcome regarding seeing a woman unfit for marriage or taking away the family’s honor because of being raped. However, if women continue to speak up about the issues they face, solutions will come, just as they have in other parts of the world. Also international pressure must always be present to give those women courage to stand up.

I will give a brief answer to a solid wall of text. There are cases in Saudi where some get around the laws and there are cases in Saudi where the law is applied with dispatch. The penalty for rape is death. A cleric got away with this horrible crime of child abuse and yet in a kingdom where you say women have no voice the women are pissed and publicly showing it.

My observations from Saudi are of a general nature and I would no more apply this case to all Saudis or all Imams in Saudi than I would apply alter boy diddling and cover up of said diddling to all of the catholic church or all of christianity. There were Saudi women working around us, Saudi doctors, Saudi nurses, Saudi IT ladies (one of them is the woman driver who got arrested / freed in Dhahran for boldly driving around town in a convertable of all things) so this prohibition from working I did not see. I saw the opposite.

Saudi universities are filled with women and there are huge woman-only universities not built by the King or Princes but by one of the Princesses and the guys I worked with were getting their daughters enrolled with the same cheer that I, at the time, was working on getting mine enrolled up at Texas Tech. This prohibition on education I did not see. I saw the opposite and knew the parents (fathers LOL) who were making sure they were getting their girls educated.

The streets and markets and malls are full of groups of Saudi ladies with each other or with their children who if not with their husbands or family are delivered to the door by a driver who waits for them outside and when they come out he loads their stuff in the car and drives them away. This prohibition that is talked about where Saudi women are prevented from going outside to public places unaccompanied I did not see. I saw the opposite. So while I will not argue general cases I will say that the poor, whipped, abused image that the media likes to portray is, to me, as a westerner, more of a spoiled and doted on lifestyle than a poor abused lifestyle.

With the comments of a general nature said, are there the equivalent of backwards rednecks who 'chain their wives to the stove' in Saudi? There is no doubt that there are. The overall attitude of men towards their wives and daughters that I saw is much like the attitude of our Old West -in general if you mess with them you're going to pay, hands down, no doubt, and the whole dam family will get together like the Hatfields to see that you do.

These are just my comments, for what they are worth.

Islam prohibits (STRONGLY and directly prohibits) the "sale of" or "arrangement" of marriages for money. This was the practice I believe at the time of Mohammad among the pagans and it was forcefully put an end to. Anyone who does this is in contradiction to Islamic law. Just additional observation.

Edited April 15, 2013 by himher

[himher 634]

I was just driving home from Target sitting at a light. One of those big 4 wheel drive pickups pulled up next to me. I looked over (and up, the thing was jacked up kinda high). I expected some redneck with a cowboy hat. It was some lady driving it with the full Muslim headgear and all. I kinda laughed and thought about this thread. Sorry to go OT.

[Sarah Elle-Même 660]

http://www.npr.org/2013/04/05/175695515/in-somalia-mother-and-daughter-are-keeping-hope-alive

This.

This is how real women make the world a better place. Notice neither this woman nor her daughter engaged in any ethno racial mockups, nor does she go around calling anyone stupid or a slave or brainwashed when they disagreed with her.

"Because Abdi's camp took in refugees from clans that were at war with one another, Abdi kept the feuds at bay by forbidding any sort of clan allegiance.

-

"Necessity is mother of invention," Abdi says. "So when they come, we were informing them, if you use the clan division, or you say 'I am that clan,' you cannot stay here. You will be Somali. And you will see, we will welcome you." And, she says, the people she took in began to see how destructive those divisions were."

I just wanted to say thanks for sharing this, it was refreshing. I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book some time ago and it was clear to me then and now that people like her and indeed most of these FEMEN gals should not be in the business of "saving the poor muslim girls" from their own beliefs. Which is pretty much their end game. I feel the same way about global north aid organizations and missionaries when they set out to save the poor Africans from themselves.

Muslim women in Islamic societies don't need FEMEN to speak for them. They have their own voices, who believe it or not are getting louder. Nobel peace prize winner Tawakkul Karman and her organization, Women Journalists Without Chains, are another example of women who know their culture and country best and work at the grassroots level for the rights of all: "The solution to women’s issues can only be achieved in a free and democratic society in which human energy is liberated, the energy of both women and men together. Our civilization is called human civilization and is not attributed only to men or women." Tawakkul herself said this. And she's a prominent figure in Yemen's Al-Islah party (the equivalent to the Muslim Brotherhood). Feminists come in all shapes, classes, cultures and religions.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Sarah and Adnan

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Well, Amina Tyler did receive death threats and those most certainly did come from somewhere inside the circle of radical religious nuts. An Egypt FEMEN activist also received death threats, was kidnapped and subsequently sought asylum in Sweden. I think I've read that she was since expelled from her country. By the Islamic government of Egypt. That's not exactly Islamophobia. That's what's happening. See, the freedom to express themselves doesn't exist in most - if not all - of them places. Which is all I am saying.

Um... again, what ? Talking about the death threats was not the Islamophobic part. It was the Pamela Geller-style "creeping sharia" stuff.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

That's just it. In a free society like America, sometimes you approve and sometimes you don't.. It their right to protest however they want.

Another person who stubbornly insists on missing the point. No one in this entire thread has even hinted at suggesting that they "can't" protest the way they like.