A small step toward anti-dhimmitude. By Kirsten Grieshaber for Associated Press (thanks to LGF):
Chancellor Angela Merkel has joined a growing movement to criminalize forced marriages in Germany, which is growing less tolerant of practices among Muslim immigrants that clash with the nation's liberal social values.Forced marriages are generally imposed by young women's families to keep them from dating. Prosecution is rare and must take place under assault laws that also outlaw threats and coercion.
Women's' groups have been increasingly pushing for forced marriages to be specifically criminalized, to ease prosecution and to send a strong signal that the practice violates German laws and traditions.
"I completely agree that forced marriages should be punishable as a criminal act," Merkel said in a speech at a women's conference held by her conservative Christian Democrats over the weekend, surprising and pleasing activists.
"We are thrilled that the chancellor has made such a clear statement," said Sibylle Schreiber, a spokeswoman for the women's rights group Terre des Femmes. "Finally she's given a signal to the people that forcing your daughter into marriage is a crime."
Approximately 3.3 million Muslims live in Germany, 70 percent of them of Turkish origin. Many lead secular lifestyles but some make strong, even extreme, efforts to preserve conservative values.
In recent years, several courts have upheld state-level bans on headscarves for Muslim women teaching in public schools. Immigration laws now require that foreign spouses be at least 18 years old and already have a basic knowledge of the German language.
Bravo, Germany!
I dunno. Maybe we should import this practice into the U.S. Divorce lawyers are always looking for more work.
"I completely agree that forced marriages should be punishable as a criminal act," Merkel said in a speech at a women's conference held by her conservative Christian Democrats over the weekend, surprising and pleasing activists.
Silly chancellor-doesn't she know there is no compulsion in Islamania? It's true-the Islamaniacs always say so and they never tell a lie!
If we are going to retain good relations with Saudi Arabia, it makes sense for the First Lady to follow Saudi custom while in that country. This does not imply agreement with other aspects of Saudi treatment of women.
Also, my understanding is that there are no particular restrictions against Jews visiting Saudi Arabia these days, subject to no more than the same restrictions which would obtain against any other non-Muslim. At least I've seen a story or two by Jews who have in fact visited Saudi Arabia recently, and have been treated courteously and indeed hospitably. Not that this means that the Koranic verses against Jews have been erased, e.g. that forbidding friendship with Christians or Jews (5:51).
"If we are going to retain good relations with Saudi Arabia, it makes sense for the First Lady to follow Saudi custom while in that country."
-- from a posting above
We don't have "good relations" with Saudi Arabia. What we have is a myth, created by ARAMCO propaganda in the 1940s, according to which Saudi Arabia was, and is, a "staunch ally" of the United States. It never was, is not now, and never can be, given the immutable texts, tenets, attitudes of Islam, and the particular ferocity and fanaticism of the Islam practiced (and preached) in Saudi Arabia.
The ARAMCO propaganda -- see J. B. Kelly's "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies" -- was reinforced by the belief of the Dulles boys, John Foster and Allen, that Islam was a "bulwark against Communism" (that was all they knew, or cared to find out, about Islam), and that therefore Saudi Arabia could be counted on to be "on our side." It was as silly a view, contributing to a disastrous policy of appeasement, and then, after 1973, of even greater appeasement in the form of a refusal to put taxes on gasoline and oil in order to diminish, through the recapture of oligopolistic rents, some of what Saudi Arabia made, quite undeservedly, on the sale of oil.
Saudi Arabia does not offer "friendship" to the United States. How could it? It sells oil. Our relation to Saudi Arabia is that of customer to gas station: Fill 'er up. And here's the payment, the market price. That's it. I'm not cleaning the gas station toilets. I'm not sweeping out the place. I'm not babysitting the attendant's children nor giving him a little something extra for the pleasure of buying gasoline from him. End of story.
On the other hand, it is the Saudis who should be made to feel what in fact is the truth: that unless they stop financing mosques and madrasas and anti-Infidel propaganda everywhere, and armies of Western hirelings, many of them quite prominent figures, to protect or burnish or repair their image, and to make sure that nothing is done, no moves taken, no threats made, to read Saudi Arabia the riot act (a riot act which should include the threat to seize Saudi assets, some of them disguised as U.A.E. assets, or assets of Infidel front men and corporations, in the United States and elsewhere in the West, just the way the property of German nationals was seized during World War II). There's a way to get Saudi cooperation on all kinds of things; what is lacking is the will.
And that lack of will, that triumph of the lack of will, can only be rectified if the full menace and malevolence of Saudi Arabia, a long-term enemy of the West far more dangerous than Iran, a threat that disappears once that nuclear project is taken care of, is understood.
If we are going to retain good relations with Saudi Arabia, it makes sense for the First Lady to follow Saudi custom while in that country. This does not imply agreement with other aspects of Saudi treatment of women.
Also, my understanding is that there are no particular restrictions against Jews visiting Saudi Arabia these days, subject to no more than the same restrictions which would obtain against any other non-Muslim. At least I've seen a story or two by Jews who have in fact visited Saudi Arabia recently, and have been treated courteously and indeed hospitably.
Why should Laura Bush follow Saudi customs; the Saudis don't follow our customs when they come to America.
And why in the name of God would any sane Jew want to go to Saudi Arabia?! We can keep trying to " kill them with kindness" but it ain't gonna work. As evidenced everywhere muslims have imposed themselves and their vulgar religion and culture, they have an entitlement mentality; they EXPECT preferential treatment, for which they have absolutely no gratitude. The islamic supremacy complex is inculcated in these morons from the day they are born. These tribal savages truly believe they are the creme de la creme of humanity, allah's ultimate master race, the embodiment of piety and virtue, and the most highly evolved people on earth. What a joke!! Appeasement of these retrograde primitives is pure insanity! I have yet to find one redeeming aspect of their pernicious religion and culture; they are revulsive.
It would suit me just fine if we severed relations with Saudi Arabia tomorrow and started drilling our own oil. We shouldn't have to educate their "super youth" in our infidel universities; allow them to build mosques and charitable institutions to collect money for jihad; spread their filthy Wahabbism in America; or allow them to finance terrorism throughout the world, plus pay them in cash for their oil. That's too high a price for something we can get somewhere else.
""I completely agree that forced marriages should be punishable as a criminal act," Merkel said "
...Muslim Immigration should be punishable as a criminal act.....