"Don't 'play' with Islamic law, Iranian women told," from Reuters:
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Activists should not try to change Islamic laws relating to women's rights, Iran's supreme leader said on Wednesday, two days after one campaigner was reportedly sentenced to 34 months in jail and ten lashes.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also lambasted the West for using women as a tool to advertise products, make money and to satisfy "disorderly and unlawful sexual needs," state television said.
Palmolive's Madge the Manicurist, Polident's Martha Raye, and Betty Crocker: They were all after your soul.
He was addressing a group of women, most dressed conservatively in head-to-toe black chadors, in Tehran ahead of Thursday's anniversary of the birth of Prophet Mohammad's daughter, Fatima, when Iran honors mothers and women.
Campaigners say Iranian women face difficulties in getting a divorce and criticize inheritance laws they say are unjust and the fact their court testimony is worth half that of a man's.
The Islamic Republic rejects allegations it is discriminating against women, saying it follows sharia law.
"We are witnessing in our country that some women activists and some men are trying to play with Islamic laws ... in order to harmonize them with international conventions related to women," Khamenei said. "This is wrong."
"They shouldn't see the solution in changing Islamic jurisprudence laws," Khamenei, Iran's highest authority, was quoted as saying.
But he indicated some Islamic rules regarding women could change if jurisprudence research led to a new understanding, state television said.
Although women are legally entitled to hold most jobs in Iran, it remains a male-dominated society. They cannot run for president or become judges but in recent years they have started to work in police and fire departments.
On Monday, an Iranian court sentenced a women's rights activist to almost three years in jail and 10 lashes for attending a banned rally, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh said Delaram Ali, 24, was her fourth client to be convicted over last year's protest in favor of female rights. She said the sentence would be appealed and that Ali was free on bail.
Rights activists and Western diplomats say Iran is taking a tougher line against dissent in general, possibly in response to increased international pressure over its disputed nuclear activities. Pro-reform students, intellectuals and labor movement figures are also among those targeted, they say.
Iran rejects accusations over its human rights record, saying the West should focus on its own rights problems instead.
Yes yes yes, he complains about Westerners "disorderly and unlawful sexual needs". Shiite religious leaders allow for temporary marriage ie prostitution. They arrange these marriages and get paid (a token of gratitude) and therefore are pimps. This is what their brand of Islam calls justice for women. Then there is all the beating of women for dressing Western and knowing what happened to a Canadian journalist who was beaten and raped to death, it is easy to guess that many of the young Iranian women who go to police stations are raped. Do they say anything? No, they would not have enough honour to get married if they were lucky and perhaps their family might even murder them to protect their honour.
Then there is the widespread practice of child marriages to pedophiles. Nice culture ... blah . The West is far far above the Islamic world, however GW Bush sure has soiled the Wests reputation with his "the ends justifies the means" attitude. That needs to change ... we need to fight, but take the high road with human rights. In the long term this will serve us best.
The key here is the term "unlawful." Things that Westerners find repugnant -- sexual molestation of children, exchange of cash in return for sex, beating of wives and children, rape (of infidel females and insufficiently deferential muslimahs), multiple "marriage" (I hesitate to call the cash-for-exclusive-vaginal-access contract of nikah "marriage"), female genital mutilation, and the like -- are "lawful" under Islam, as so are not disorderly.
These practices are literally built into Islam as sacred, approved by Allah and most of them practiced enthusiastically by Mohammed himself.
We call these practices crimes. Muslims call them worship.
I reject allegations that I sleep too much, saying I only do it for 14 hours a day.
(I'd mention the "disorderly and unlawful sexual needs" thing, but James Martel already covered it)
Muslim men in their own egotistical way demonstrate a deep fear of women....perhaps, sometime long ago in Muslim history....women had the interesting habit of stabbing Muslim men in their sleep or poisoning their drinks...Iran is witnessing an eroding society, students are becoming militant, women are becoming militant, the workers of the country are becoming militant, and the Islamic ruling elite is getting paranoid as they realize they rule only because of their militancy and iron fisted archaic self imposed rules...They realized there is a movement in Iran to change those rules and to change the leaders....Islam is crumbling ever so slowly...Big changes are coming to the Islamic world and the evil clerics struggling to prevent them...Islam may move out from its 7th century mindset...it is happening now and the clerics hate it...
Women must obey! OK?
Try and change that and you express a feeling of Islamaphobia! OK?
If you don't accept Islamic homophobia, misogyny and intolerance then you are an Islamaphobic racist who hangs around "hate sites" promoting hate! OK?
NO!! It's not "OK"
None of it is "OK" - and some of us are sick of the seething and whining and the claiming of "victimhood status" when the real victims are the 50% or women who are gender-profiled and discriminated against on a daily basis.
What was that figure now? 1.2? 1.4? 1.6? billion Moslems?
Half of them are women.
Who are really supressing the rights of all Moslems??
When the male Moslems are busy supressing thr rights of 50% of their population - who is supressing who?
Moslem males suppress more Moslems than anyone in "the West"
He was addressing a group of women, most dressed conservatively in head-to-toe black chadors, in Tehran ahead of Thursday's anniversary of the birth of Prophet Mohammad's daughter, Fatima, when Iran honors mothers and women.
Honors ? What a joke.
I wonder how old little Fatima was before the pervert pedophile started diddling his own daughter ?
muslim men, are womenophobes. They have a MAJOR inferiority complex as they could'nt find something past cactus to wipe their behinds. Heaven forbid, if the muslim woman should be educated and have basic rights, it would blow them (muslim men) into the desert dust.
Down with Aunt Jemima!
"He was addressing a group of women, most dressed conservatively in head-to-toe black chadors,"
I wonder how many of these were actually men dressed as women.
Yes, let's not play with the sacred laws that came from Mo's twisted mind. It would be better to get rid of such insanity altogether by stringing up Khamenei and the rest of his government of dirty old demented perverts. Maybe then these people will have some real rights and Iran can join the 21st century.
Robert points out:
"Palmolive's Madge the Manicurist, Polident's Martha Raye, and Betty Crocker: They were all after your soul."
Well, I guess I have to admit it, Robert. You have discovered my secret. I started watching Betty Crocker on television, then seeking her out in the stores, and before I could even catch myself I was hooked on Devil's Food Chocolate Cake. I even "rolled my own" making it myself late at night. My life has never been the same. Woe, woe, is me!! Is there any hope?
ImNoDhimmi-
Islam "honors" its women, as in the "honor killing" kind of "honors".
Muslim gals should start changing their first names to Loreena.
And let the men worry that their women might, one sharp night, Bobbitt.
The passivity of Mohammedan ladies is pathological.