Brave Woman Opposes Sharia Police

Lubna al-Hussein is determined to fight for her rights in Sudan:


Woman tried for wearing pants faces fine, not flogging

(CNN) -- A woman put on trial for wearing clothing deemed indecent by Sudanese authorities was fined Monday, but will not get the 40 lashes she could potentially have faced, her lawyer said.

Lubna al-Hussein, who is fighting to have the conservative Muslim country's decency law declared unconstitutional, will go to jail rather than pay the fine, her lawyer Nabil Adib told CNN.

Al-Hussein, who was arrested in July for wearing pants deemed too tight and a blouse considered too sheer, will appeal to the constitutional court, Adib said by phone from Khartoum.

She pleaded not guilty, but was not allowed to call defense witnesses or present a defense case, he added.

She was sentenced to pay 500 Sudanese pounds ($209) or face a month in prison, starting immediately, the lawyer said.

She refuses to allow anyone to pay the fine for her, Adib said.

Al-Hussein, a journalist who worked in the media department of the United Nations mission in Sudan, resigned from her U.N. position in order to waive her immunity as an international worker and face trial.

[...]

The human rights organization Amnesty International had called earlier for the charges to be dropped.

"The manner in which this law has been used against women is unacceptable, and the penalty called for by the law -- up to 40 lashes -- abhorrent," Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of Amnesty International's Africa program, said in a statement.

Al-Hussein was arrested along with 18 other women on July 3 at a Khartoum restaurant when police burst in and checked women for their clothing.

"I don't think she was targeted specifically," Adib said. "They attack public and private parties and groups. They are called 'morality police' and she was just a victim of a round-up." [...]

See the video that goes with the article. The outfit she was wearing looks to be similar, if not the same, as the one seen in this photo. Some of the women who were arrested with her WERE flogged. Barbaric.

No wonder Lubna al-Hussein wants to challenge it. She wants a public trial, and she wants the world to see it. The Sudanese authorities tried to give her an easy out, to avoid publicity, but she wants her day in court or the charges dropped. Good for her.


Also See:

Today's "Modern" Muslim fashions
     

Of Mice and (Muslim Clerical) Men: Kill Micky

Sharia Law says: Micky Mouse must die?

Any religion can be taken to absurdity, but Islam seems to have more than it's fair share of absurd clerics.

Islamic scholar: Mickey Mouse must die

On Aug 27 Sheikh Muhammad Al-Munajid told viewers of a religious affairs programme that mice were agents of Satan and that Sharia law called for the extermination of all mice: from the common house mouse (Mus musculus) to cartoon mouse (Mickey Mouse).

A former diplomat attached to the Islamic Affairs Department at the Saudi embassy Washington, al-Munajid appears regularly on Saudi television to discuss religious and ethical topics.

On Aug 10 he denounced the Beijing Olympics as the “bikini Olympics,” saying the immodest dress of women athletes was “satanic” and earlier issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against women’s participation in the Olympics as the games were also “satanic”. [...]

To be fair, I have heard of extremist Christians also complaining of "satanic" Disney cartoon characters. But they don't issue fatwas, and they are a small minority and nobody takes them very seriously. I wish I could say the same about some of these Islamic clerics. Many have "issues" about fun.

[...] According to a translation of the broadcast prepared by the Middle East Media Research Institute, al-Munajid was asked to state the Islamic legal teaching on mice. He responded that mice were called “little corrupters” in Sharia and it was permissible to kill them at all times.

“The mouse is one of Satan's soldiers and is steered by him,” he explained, adding that should a mouse come in contact with food, the food must be disposed of as the mouse is an impure creature.

“According to Islamic law, the mouse is a repulsive, corrupting creature,” al-Munajid said, adding that he was concerned that popular culture had given mice an undeserved positive image.

“How do you think children view mice today – after Tom and Jerry?” he asked.

“Even creatures that are repulsive by nature, by logic, and according to Islamic law have become wonderful and are loved by children. Even mice. Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases.”

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for killing vermin. I live on a farm, and I kill vermin. One doesn't have to be Muslim or even religious to understand that vermin carry diseases and need kill'n. It's just that in a modern, enlightened culture, people generally understand that one can make distinctions between disease carrying vermin, domestic pets, laboratory animals, and cartoon characters. Mice can be each of these, yet each is distinctly different, and not hard to understand. But if you are slavishly devoted to rigidly interpreting a book according to 7th century standards, in a completely literal and narrow context, you are going to cause a lot of problems in the 21st century. Like having to kill everyone and everything that disagrees with your interpretation of your 7th century religion.

The truth can always hold up to scrutiny. The Islamic world could benefit greatly by scrutinizing many of their long-held beliefs. In this regard, I think there are some reasons to be hopeful. The 21st century beckons us all. I think we can all get there in one piece, and live in peace, if we don't become unduly overly-concerned with things like rodents in all their many manifestations. Or women in sports. Or short pants on soccer players.

As for this particular cleric, I have to agree with George Handlery at the Brussels Journal:

Duly Noted: Mickey Mouse Must Die

[...] There must be a shortage of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Animists and Buddhists to kill. When will the Religion of Peace go after Donald D.?

Indeed.



Here is a video of the cleric who feels threatened by Micky Mouse:

Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid: Mickey Mouse Must Die!




Related Links:

Is Islam compatible with a free society?

Hamas Micky Mouse becomes Martyr on TV
(apparently mice are good when they die for Jihad)

Omar Sharif and other Arabs in a changing world

     

Iran: No neckties, no Barbies, no fun

The above comic is about the Saudi Religious Police, but it seems Iran also has a serious "Barbie" problem. Here's a few articles that came out earlier this year, about the "No Fun" Fashion Police in Iran. It's interesting what the Iranian government chooses to see as serious problems:

Iran's new enemy: Imported ties

Iran's war on neckties: The importation of ties, which "contradict the nature of Iranian culture," must come to an end, a senior Iranian customs official said Thursday.

"We must adopt serious actions in order to put an end to the importation of ties," Iranian Customs Deputy Director Asgar Hamidi was quoted as saying by Iranian news agency Fars. "We must change import laws to that end."

In addition to his customs duties, Hamidi also heads the Iranian program for the "development of culture, modesty, and headdress."

The custom of wearing neckties developed in Iran during the Shah's regime. However, in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution, ties were banned by authorities because they were perceived as a sign of westernization. Since then, senior Iranian officials and government ministry employees have shunned ties.

Notably, volunteers for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard walk the streets with scissors in order to cut ties should they encounter them.

'Modesty patrols' doubled
Meanwhile, Iranian police said this week that it will be doubling "modesty patrols" on the country's streets. The patrols are undertaken by special vehicles carrying women wearing black veils and a police officer who reprimand Iranians caught violating modesty regulations. [...]

It goes on about the war to fight western fashions, which Iranians are increasingly exposed to through the internet and satellite TV. Some "problem". Only if you're a control freak.

And of course, the next article follows logically from the first:

Iran launches war on 'Barbie doll invasion'

Iran's toy market is being inundated by models of Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and the young must be protected from their harmful cultural effects, the prosecutor general was quoted as saying on Sunday.

"Promoting figures like Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and the uncontrolled import of CDs of video games and films should alarm all the country's officials," Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi was quoted as saying by the student ISNA news agency.

"We need to find substitutes to ward off this onslaught, which aims at children and young people whose personality is in the process of being formed," he added.

Dori Najafabadi's comments came in a letter to an Iranian vice president, urging measures to protect "Islamic culture and revolutionary values".

While officials regularly lambast Western culture for polluting the minds of the public, Western toys have become a regular and popular feature on the shelves of toy shops in Iran in recent years. [...]

Read more about this "serious" problem, and the proposed solution.

I think the real problem in Iran is letting a government with this mindset have nuclear weapons. If they freak out over neckties and Barbie dolls, and even publicly bludgeon women and also men who make fashion statements, what are they likely to do with a nuclear bomb?

Most of the Iranian people are quite normal I'm sure, but their current control freak government is far from sane. If a real election ever happened in Iran, they would be thrown out. Which is why they don't allow real elections to happen.


Related Links:

Slaves to Fashion or Fascism?

Is it time for regime change in Iran yet?

Women's rights in Iran; the right to be a penguin

Iranian Fashion Police Publicly Bludgeon Women
     

Is Europe poised to follow Britain's example by legalizing Sharia Law?

Fjordman at the Brussels Journal sees exactly that:

Europe’s Decline – Hurrah! We Capitulate!

This story is extremely serious. The European Union is now about to do what senior officials have already agreed upon years ago in meetings with Muslim nations, as documented by Bat Ye'or in her book about Eurabia: To officially recognize sharia law in European countries: [...]

The writing has been on the wall for some time. Europe's socialist elites and Islamic Sharia Law enforcers both have one thing in common; they have no use or respect for the freedoms and rights of the individual. Thus, they also loath American freedom and power, and want to see it diminished by any means possible.


The Pope just completed a vist to France, Tiberge reports:

France’s Decline – How Christian/Muslim Was/Is France?

The Pope’s visit to France is now over, but already there are some repercussions. Benedict XVI spoke at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris, delivering a discourse unanimously praised for its high intellectual level. However, Dalil Boubakeur, grand mufti of the Paris mosque, is not pleased. The reason? “The Christian roots of Europe” so often evoked by Benedict XVI. “The Muslim culture was sufficiently present in France during the Middle Ages. You cannot exclude the contribution of the Muslim civilization to French society,” Boubakeur told Le Parisien. [...]

Predictable. And so it goes.


Related Links:

Our Culture, What’s Left Of It

An interview with Theodore Dalrymple

Sharia Law now legal in Great Britain?
     

Sharia Law now legal in Great Britain?

Unbelievable. From A. Millar at the Brussels Journal:

From Magna Carta to Sharia Law – Britain’s Decline

[...] It is almost unbelievable that this should occur in a modern, democratic, Western country, and, moreover, under a government that claims to be liberal, and to care about the right of women and homosexuals among others. But, tracing the actions of the pro-Islamic Labour Party, and of modern liberalism more generally, it should have been predictable. Modern liberalism is not a force for human rights and equality (though it still uses these terms where they can be of use in breaking down British tradition); it is a selfish urge for freedom for one’s own self – others be damned. Multiculturalism frees the liberal from the demands of ‘culture.’ Mass immigration frees him from the need to know his history. Invoking the Inquisition of three hundred years ago frees him from having to confront the reality of Islamic fundamentalism. The establishment of sharia law no doubt frees him from holding any position whatsoever.

I have pointed out before, that the Labour government has colluded with extremist Muslims, even employing a Holocaust denier as an advisor on Muslim affairs. Ken Livingstone, the former Left-wing Mayor of London, has also openly embraced Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a man who believes that wives can be beaten into submission, that homosexuals should be executed, and pregnant Israeli women should be murdered. The UK’s Left-wing Respect Coalition Party asserts that opposition to radical Islam is “the new racism,” and this dangerous sentiment is now received wisdom among those closer to the center of the political spectrum. But Islam is neither a race nor ethnicity, but a religion, and one that has Asian, Black, and White followers. A 2006 UK government report entitled ‘Young Muslims and Extremism,’ notes that a significant number of White Britons were being drawn into Islamic terrorism, and we have seen a few example of White Muslim jihadis since then.

The sharia courts operating in Britain, will hear and pass legally binding judgment on cases involving divorce, financial disputes, and even domestic violence. But, it will not end there. According to the Daily Mail, sharia court officials have said, that they hope, “[…] to take over growing numbers of 'smaller' criminal cases in future,” and extremist clerics have already asserted their aims to establish sharia law for everyone in Britain.[...]

The Left has never been interested in the rights of women, gays, or other minorities. They simply foment and exploit discontent wherever they can find it, and use it as a weapon to fight the status quo. They will dump support for the rights of women and gays, the moment it becomes expedient for them to do so.

[...] Conservatives and Christians have criticized the so-called “gay lifestyle,” and liberals have always furiously denounced those conservatives and Christians for saying this. But liberals are those who have remained utterly silent when extremist Muslim clerics have called for the execution of homosexuals or the beating of women. The liberal establishment generally, and the Labour government in particular, has betrayed their professed belief in human rights and equality, and are ushering in extremism and intolerance. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) As if this isn't bad enough, there is a bill pending passage that would give religious minorities additional rights, possibly reinforcing sharia. I recommend reading the whole thing for the details.

Here is a link to a post I did a while back, about the alliance of Western Leftists with Islamic Extremists:

Socialism in Islamic hands: a tool to make the present world order unworkable

Socialism has plenty of dangers inherent to it in it's own right. But what if it were infiltrated and used by a third party, one with no interest in using Socialism as a stepping stone to Communism, but as a stepping stone to an Islamic Sharia-law state? Recent election results in European countries indicate this may be happening on a larger scale than anyone imagined, as Socialist parties there make large gains by running Muslim candidates to gain Islamic votes. [...]

Their plan seems to be working. This is not the first time this tactic has been used. The ayatollah Khomeini was swept to power in Iran on a wave of Leftist power and support. He promised to institute a secular, socialist state. Instead, he instituted a theocratic sharia law state. The Leftist leaders were killed or driven out, and their followers subjugated. There is a lesson in that for the European socialist elites, but they seem blind to it.


Related Links:

The truth about Sharia based societies

Is Islam compatible with a free society?

Islam Fails Muslims by Impeding Democracy and Economic Development

"Honor" killings of Muslim women in Europe

Do we need a "Star Wars" strategy for Islam?

Sharia Law in Minnesota?