Archive for the ‘Sharia’ Category

The Misogyny Of Islam – Tracking Your Female Chattel Using an Electronic Leash

Posted: December 7, 2012 in Islamic Imperialism, Islamic Misogyny, Islamic Oppression, Islamic Theocracy, Misogyny, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Autocracy, Sharia, Womens Rights
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On The Misogyny Of Islam – Tracking Your Female Chattel

islamicsexistIt seems that these days, all one has to do is turn around, to find some disgusting fact about this alleged ‘religion of peace’. In this case, it’s Muslim equivalent of Wild Kingdom. Only in this case, we’re not talking about wild animals, but people

Saudi Arabia implements electronic tracking system to monitor women’s movements

In a country where women are denied the right to vote, are not allowed to drive, and are basically treated like children, Saudi Arabia has taken its next giant leap backwards by rolling out an SMS electronic tracking system that alerts male “guardians” by text message whenever women under their protection leave the country. The development has been met with outrage by reformers, who have turned to Twitter to voice their concern.

Saudi Arabia is a complete mess as far as women’s rights is concerned. It ranks 130th out of 134 countries for gender equality — a nation where only 16.5% of women make up the workforce. As devout followers of Sharia Law, all women, regardless of age, require a male guardian and cannot leave the country without written consent.

And now, judging by a flurry of incoming accounts, it’s clear that the country has covertly implemented a new system that will further serve to strengthen its control over women.

It all started last week when a Saudi man travelling with his wife began to get text messages on his phone from the immigration authorities alerting him to the fact that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh (she was listed as a dependent on his national identity card). Concerned, he contacted Manal al-Sherif, a women’s rights campaigner in Saudi Arabia, who then broadcast the news over Twitter.

For insanity and double-standards, all you need to do is look at religion. Especially Islam, where women are considered little more than chattel – because of course, no one would ever consider doing this sort of thing to a man.

And of course, the rationalizations come pouring in:

And as it turned out, the text messages weren’t an isolated case. Similar accounts started to pour in, strongly suggesting that a new system had been rolled-out without so much as a peep from the Saudi authorities. It now appears that every guardian whose dependent has a passport is receiving a text after cross border crossings.

In response, the Ministry of the Interior has denied the allegations, saying it’s not intended to connect women with their guardians. And according to the Riyadh Bureau, the system has been in place since 2010, but now the service works without having to register with the ministry. It claims that the system is part of a larger e-Government plan to use technology in order to facilitate access to its services — such as electronic travel permits (thus replacing the need for “yellow slips”).

Pathetic. Women being treated as second-class citizens in any 21st century nation is an outrage, and should be criticized and denounced regardless of culture or heritage. Gender rights are one of those bridges we need to build, even at the cost of destroying anachronistic traditions.

Whenever any ideology proposes that some people should be discriminated against simply because they were born differently, that ideology needs to go. And if necessary, the hard way.

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Like The American Religious Reich | Religious right in Egypt hoping for Islamic law

Posted: April 12, 2012 in Islamic Fascism, Islamic Power, Islamic Theocracy, Religious Reich, Religious Right, Sharia
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Religious right in Egypt hoping for Islamic law

Hazem Salah abu Ismail’s blend of populism and ultraconservative Salafi Islamhas turned him into a leading presidential candidate.

By Jeffrey Fleishman

CAIRO — The men gathering outside the yellow mosque agreed: Adulterers should be stoned to death, the hands of thieves cut off.

“But not now,” said Kareem Atta, waiting in a cool breeze for the sheik’s car to roll up next to the Quran sellers. “Shariah law must be gradually put into place so it doesn’t shock the system. You can’t cut people’s hands off if you first don’t give them financial justice.”

The young students, engineers and laborers are followers of Hazem Salah abu Ismail, a lawyer and holy man whose poetic blend of populism and ultraconservative Salafi Islam has turned him into a leading presidential candidate. Posters with Ismail’s gray beard and boyish face seem to hang on every street and alley across this ancient city.

Ismail is at once provocative and soothing, in a breath switching from genial to fiery. He has suggested revoking Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel and holds up Iran as an exemplar of defiance against the U.S. His hard-line rhetoric has nudged American officials closer to the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood, a sign of Washington’s scrambling to keep pace with the tremors of the “Arab Spring.”

“I will never become a puppet for the U.S. or Israel or any Western power,” Ismail said in a recent speech. He added that the U.S. was funneling money to certain Egyptian candidates to “suit their interests,” and he urged young Muslims to “spoil such a plot.”

Ismail’s candidacy, however, may be in jeopardy over an embarrassing link to America. His mother, Nawal Abdel Aziz Nour, who lived with his sister in the Los Angeles area, became a U.S. citizen before she died, according to California public records. That would make him ineligible to run. Ismail claims his mother held only a green card, not a U.S. passport. The election commission, which confirmed that Ismail’s mother held an American passport, is expected to decide on whether to disqualify him in coming days.

Ismail’s is a robust voice in the fractious political Islam that is spreading across an Egypt freed from three decades of Hosni Mubarak‘s secular rule. The movement’s passions and designs on power are shaking leftists and non-Muslims, but also altering the dynamics for Islamists and challenging the dominance of the Brotherhood.

That was evident when the Brotherhood, which controls parliament and had promised not to put forward a presidential candidate, broke its pledge and nominated Khairat el-Shater, a multimillionaire and longtime political prisoner who instantly became a front-runner. El-Shater represents the middle ground for Islamists, book-ended by Ismail’s sharper conservatism and the liberal Islam of Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former Brotherhood member.

Ismail and his competitors embody a new Egypt searching for a religiously resonant yet pragmatic brand of politics that can fix the nation’s deep economic and social problems. Similar scenarios are enveloping rising Islamists in Tunisia, Libya and Yemen and will certainly be a factor in Syria if President Bashar Assad falls.

The son of a late prominent religious scholar, Ismail represented Egyptians, including his opponent el-Shater, in civil-rights cases against the Mubarak government. He embraced last year’s revolution before many other Islamists and has been a forceful critic of the ruling military council.

He’s a favorite on talk shows and Internet videos, a charismatic speaker who can charm a university crowd as easily as he can raise cheers from millworkers in the provinces. He skims the edge of fundamentalism — he once suggested that he and Osama bin Laden shared the same ends, if not the means, to create an Islamic state — but connects with Egyptians’ everyday worries.

“We live in dignity,” is his slogan, which highlighted his recent call for Egyptians to each donate 72 pounds ($12) so the country could free itself of American influence by rejecting $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid.

Such prescriptions may not be widely popular in a country where more than 40 percent of the population is poor, but they encapsulate Egyptians’ rising sense of pride. They also show a defiance toward the West that Ismail believes should encompass everyone from politicians to militants. He has said of bin Laden: May God “be pleased with him and be merciful on him. I hope that God will accept him among believers, martyrs and righteous.”

Ismail believes women should be veiled and segregated from men in the workplace. Egypt’s lone female presidential candidate, Bothaina Kamel, recently referred to him as a “phenomenon similar to a sci-fi movie.” But she added she would support Ismail ahead of secular presidential front-runner Amr Moussa, whom many regard as a throwback to the old regime.

Ismail’s recurring message of the power of Islam to transform society was evident outside the Assad bin Forat mosque in Cairo, where he has preached for years. It is his wellspring and sanctuary and, now, an unofficial campaign office of pious men rushing with posters, T-shirts and signature sheets.

“I’m doing this for the sake of God so that we can have Shariah law in Egypt,” said Yasser Adel, a campaign volunteer. “We need someone with clean hands who knows his religion well and is not corrupt. We should gradually have an Islamic state like in Saudi Arabia, but this must come with respect for all minorities.”

Such sentiment alarms women, liberals and non-Muslims anxious over Islamists’ control of the legislature and a panel drafting a new constitution. But devotion guides many Egyptians who for years steeled themselves with religion against the state’s injustices.

The young at the mosque were excited, even surprised, that they could gather without fear of arrest. Theirs was a focused energy not only on their candidate but also the prospect of what his election could mean to an Arab world in disarray.

“Egypt is the heart of the Islamic world, and if Egypt rises religiously, the whole Muslim world will rise,” said Ahmed Fathy, dressed in a pinstriped suit and holding the hand of his daughter. “Shariah means an end to poverty and the corruption that have left this country struggling.”

As he spoke, trucks and minivans bearing Ismail’s image were loaded with placards and campaign literature and driven off into the night.

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Free Speech Crushed by Islamic Power

Posted: April 11, 2012 in Freedom of Speech, Islamic Fascism, Islamic Fundamentalism, Jihad, Sharia
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Religion and freedom of speech are poles apart. In Egypt, a 17 year has been sentenced to three years in prison for a Facebook post that made fun of Muhammad.

An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced a 17-year-old Christian boy to three years in jail for publishing cartoons on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohammad, actions that sparked sectarian violence.

Gamal Abdou Massoud was also accused of distributing some of his cartoons to his school friends in a village in the southern city of Assiut, home to a large Christian population and the hometown of the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda.

“Assiut child’s court ordered the jailing of Gamal Abdou Massoud … for three years after he insulted Islam and published and distributed pictures that insulted Islam and its Prophet,” the court said in a statement seen by Reuters.

The cartoons, published by Massoud in December, prompted some Muslims to attack Christians. Several Christian houses were burned and several Christians were injured in the violence.

Fanatics that burn down houses and enact violence against humans who dare to insult religion, are the ones the government should be putting behind bars!

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2012/04/04/egypt-jails-christian-student-to-three-years-in-jail-for-insulting-islam/

 

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