Comment guérir le "cancer" des crimes d'honneur

Quand la nouvelle s’est répandue que le meurtre de trois adolescentes canadiennes d’origine afghane et de la première femme de leur père à Kingston en Ontario pourrait être un «crime d’honneur», certains membres de la communauté musulmane ont réagi presque immédiatement de la façon la plus prévisible qui soit : par une attitude défensive et de déni.

Au lieu d'exprimer leur indignation face à ces meurtres, deux musulmans qui ont appelé à mon émission de radio CFRB à Toronto m’ont fustigé pour avoir soulevé le sujet et ont suggéré que j’avais un agenda caché. «Cela n'a rien à voir avec l'islam», a dit un interlocuteur, bien que jusque-là, personne n’avait même prononcé le mot «islam» à l’émission, et encore moins accusé cette religion d’autoriser les crimes d’honneur.

Ces interlocuteurs ne sont pas les seuls. Le directeur de la succursale canadienne de la Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) a dit à la CBC plus ou moins la même chose – que cette histoire n’avait rien à voir avec l'islam, qui apparemment ne permet pas les crimes d'honneur.

Ils sont à la fois raison et tort. Il est vrai que le livre saint de l'islam, le coran, n’autorise pas les crimes d'honneur. Mais c’est faire preuve de malhonnêteté intellectuelle que de nier le fait que de nombreux crimes d'honneur sont perpétrés par des pères, des fils et des frères musulmans, et que de nombreuses victimes sont des musulmanes. Au pire, c'est une tentative d’empêcher tout débat. Lire la suite...

Source: National Post (Traduction française par Poste de veille)

Women and children bear scars of most acid attacks

In this picture taken on Friday, Bably Akter
hugs her mother at her home in Dhaka

At first glance, Bably Akter looks like any other nine-year-old Bangladeshi girl, dressed in a brightly coloured pink and turquoise skirt and top trimmed with silver sequins.

A matching headband conceals her left ear, badly deformed and the only obvious sign she is the victim of an acid attack, a practice rampant in the impoverished country, used mainly in domestic disputes and against women and children.

As her mother, Parul, recounts the story of how Bably’s father put drops of acid on different parts of her body for five days when she was a baby, the little girl lifts her skirt to reveal a large scar on her legs and feet.

“Her father wanted a son. He’d been violent towards me before Bably was born but it was not until day five, when he actually fed her acid I realised something was seriously wrong,” Parul, 26, said.

She complained to the police but charges were never laid.

“We ran away and spent two years at the Acid Survivors’ Foundation (ASF) hospital where Bably had a lot of plastic surgery on her mouth. She still needs more operations.” Read more ...

Source: Gulf TimesBably Akter's Father
Latest recipient of The Face of Evil Award

Dangerous liaisons: Is there really any place for polygamy in English law, as a leading Muslim figure recently argued?

By Rosa Freedman

The bodies of the Knights Templar were surely spinning under their effigies last night, as someone they would have regarded as an infidel delivered a lecture within the walls of Temple Church entitled "Family Law, Minorities and legal Pluralism: Should English Law give more Recognition to Islamic Law?".

The lecture focused on Islamic marriages and divorces in this country, with Sheikh Faiz ul-Aqtab Siddiqi (of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal) speaking candidly on many areas. One such topic was that of polygamy, and the refusal of English law to recognise such relationships. Siddiqi boldly stated:

In a jurisdiction where rights are afforded to a mistress, or many mistresses, and where there are same-sex marriages … polygamous marriages should not be such an alien concept.

Siddiqi is a practising barrister, and has been involved with the process of reforming English law to accommodate Muslim cultural practices, especially within the area of family law. As a religious leader, he is at the conservative end of the spectrum. However, he is a well-respected member of a number of unifying Muslim organisations and is at the forefront of attempts to find common ground between sharia law and English law. Read more ...

Source: The GuardianFaiz ul-Aqtab Siddiqi
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Feminist Makes Excuses for Misogyny

One of the most bizarre manifestations of leftist cognitive dissonance occurs when hardcore feminists like Naomi Wolf abandon all their principles and twist themselves into philosophical knots, in order to make excuses for one of the most misogynistic belief systems on Earth: Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality.

Ideological battles are often waged with women’s bodies as their emblems, and Western Islamophobia is no exception. When France banned headscarves in schools, it used the hijab as a proxy for Western values in general, including the appropriate status of women. When Americans were being prepared for the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban were demonised for denying cosmetics and hair colour to women; when the Taliban were overthrown, Western writers often noted that women had taken off their scarves.

But are we in the West radically misinterpreting Muslim sexual mores, particularly the meaning to many Muslim women of being veiled or wearing the chador? And are we blind to our own markers of the oppression and control of women?

The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I travelled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women’s appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one’s husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling - toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home. Read more ...

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
H/T: LGFNaomi Wolf
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award

The good Saudi woman and the car

By Jaheerah Bint Abdullah Al-Masaad

A young Saudi girl drove her brother’s car and was caught in the act. Notice, I have not made any reference to a “crime.” Necessary action was taken against her. What was the necessary action in this case? This involved interrogating the “wrongdoer.”

Notice again I have not made any reference to a “criminal.” Her guardian was summoned and was made to pledge that she would not repeat this “act.” She was set free and went home.

This news item, which was recently published in some newspapers, was not the first of its kind. Similar news items have been published, indicating there is an increase in the number of cases of women driving cars. So this story will not be the last. Read more ...

Source: Al-Watan
H/T: Arab News