We keep hearing from Islamic spokesmen in the West how this practice has nothing to do with Islam -- and yet Yemen now votes down attempts to outlaw it. Jordan did the same thing a few years ago on another practice that is supposed to be solely cultural: the Parliament voted down attempts to stiffen penalties for it, on Islamic grounds. And here a Yemeni pol explains that since religious authorities haven't forbidden genital mutilation, they can't very well outlaw it.
"Yemen’s MPs debate female circumcision, pre-marriage tests," from the Yemen Times (thanks to Gateway Pundit):
SANA’A, April-13 — Preventing female circumcision and pre-marriage medical tests evoked turmoil and disagreement among Parliament members (MPs) in last week’s session.The session ended with a unanimous agreement to cancel the term 3, which would prevent female circumcision, and delay the discussion of pre-marriage tests.
The two terms were part of a draft written by the Safe Motherhood Law Project, and introduced by the heath committee inside Parliament.
Najeb Ghanem, the Chairman of the Health Committee in Parliament, expressed his sorrow over the way Parliament discussed the two issues.
“These two topics are very important for guaranteeing women’s rights in Yemen,” he commented in a phone call to the Yemen Times after the session.
According to Ghanem, who belongs to the Islah party, most of the MPs who disagreed with the terms represent the conservative attitudes of most Yemeni citizens. “The committee is aware of the Yemeni conservative community’s positions on these issues. So we [the committee] suggested applying the law of emphasizing pre-marriage medical tests after ten years… that is after we carry out extensive awareness campaign to educate people about the importance of such tests.”
Zid Al-Shami, an MP who suggested delaying the approval of the two terms, confirmed that such topics are “sensitive and need more awareness.”
“I suggested canceling term number three, about preventing female circumcision, for many reasons. First, the term, which was written in the draft, included inappropriate and shameful sentences. Second, female circumcision exists in few regions in Yemen, like in Hodeidah and Hadramout, so it not common practice. And finally, there is still religious debate regarding the issue, so as we have no directives by the heads of religion to forbid female circumcision, we do not have the right to ban it,” Al-Shami explained....
Yup. It's a cultural thing.
... in a culture guided and dominated by mohammedan law and mohammedan preachers.
Some culture!
But look on the bright side. At least an 8 year old girl can sue for divorce if her husband beats her too much.
JoeBlough: Did you know there was a comic book in the 60's called the Justice League of America where there was a character named Joe Blough who in reality was Batman's foe, The Joker? As far as the girl in Yemen, can't we thank the Internet for publicizing her plight which undoubtedly put pressure on the judge whether he'd admit it or not?
So for those who complain posting on this and related websites is doing 'nothing'..you are so wrong.
While we continue to peddle the nonsense that Democracy will be a tonic for the Islamic world, the Muslims continue to use democracy as a vehicle to impliment and enhance Islam whenever and wherever they can.
Democracy + Islam = More Islam.
We must come up with a different modality to counter the poisonousness of Islam.
"The session ended with a unanimous agreement to cancel the term 3, which would prevent female circumcision, and delay the discussion of pre-marriage tests."
.delay the discussions of pre-marriage tests..would that be the STD tests? or DNA tests to determine if your husband to be was actually your brother?..I could see where they would want to hide this information.
I do not think the tests are educational ones, a girl at 9 to 12 years old in Muslim lands may only have had a limited strickly guarded education with great effort being made to filter out the real history of the world..
you see, a womans health and her education mean little to Muslim Men..
Like I always say: Give them Democracy and they will always vote for more islam.
Democracy + Islam = More Islam.
[...]
Posted by: jsla
ROFLMAO
Listen, you Islamophobes...
islam EMPOWERS womens! I miss you Naseem...
Where's that cloaked fem from the Louisiana university when you need her to explain things?!?
Plus, when directly asked (in the Hadiths by a woman who performed this sick psycho-sexiual mutilation) Mohammad, the pedophile "prophet" of Islam, approved of this barbaric and sadistic practice.
What a paragon of virtue.
Americantothecore:
I was a BatMan fan as a kid, so I find your revelation somewhat distressing. (And believe me that was a looooooong time ago.)
I'll be looking into it, though I doubt there is much data on the net on that subject.
If true, it will require something of a psychological adjustment on my part if I am to keep the pseudonym.
I always thought of it as Mr. Nobody.
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Kilroy was here.
Best
- Joe
Hell.
JW's html filter killed my character formatting.
test:
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Kilroy was here
One could think it was a farce that in the year 2008 people serious discuss the issue if to mutilation woman on the grounds of what is said in hearsay stories from 850 AD to 1000 AD. As there had been no important knowledge added in the meantime that has to be regarded.
Joeblough:
But look on the bright side. At least an 8 year old girl can sue for divorce if her husband beats her too much.
No she was too young to sue. “According to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute, as she is underage.”. But old enough to sign marriage contract.
And according to the lawyer it seems to have been sheer luck that the judge annulled the marriage contract. "We are grateful to the judge, Had it been someone with strong traditional views, Nojoud could have been sent back home."
Probably the big international islamophobe attention from human rights interests have come into play, one more victory for the Islamophobes.
a little about Yemen?
When democracy and dictatorship look alike
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By: Dr. Abdullah Al-faqih
Almost every Yemeni politician talks about Yemen as if it was the paradise of democracy in the world. The Yemeni leadership sometimes appears to be seriously considering exporting democracy along with oil to brotherly and friendly countries worldwide. The only obstacle to such a move, as it seems, is the fear that the world will misunderstand Yemen.
There is a precedent to international society’s failure to understand Yemen. It occurred in August 1990 in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. During the crisis, Yemen refused to condemn the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and either voted against or abstained from voting on some key United Nations Security Council resolutions. At that time, and in that particular crisis, the Yemeni officials claim that Yemen acted the way it did because it wanted to serve as a mediator and a peacemaker. Yemen even came up with a peace initiative which conditioned Saddam’s withdrawal from Kuwait with Israel’s withdrawal from Palestine. But the country was deeply misunderstood by international community. It was alleged then that Yemen was supporting Iraq, an accusation that is, according to officials, totally unfounded.
When the impoverished, the unemployed, and the starved Yemenis complain of corruption, misery, lack of justice, and poor social services, they are more often told to thank the leader for giving them democracy. Although people sometimes need food more than democracy, they are made to believe that democracy is what matters most.
To prove to Yemenis that Yemen is a democracy, state media is usually opened to Yemenis to thank the leader for his achievements. They are even told what to say exactly in his praise. If they fail to utter words of admiration, their voices would be replaced with skillful announcers.
State media in Yemen is very considerate. The Yemeni satellite TV channel sometimes allocates two hours and more for the evening prime time news just to praise the miracles of the leader who had just completed 29 years of reign. Although the Yemeni president ostensibly got into office through elections, he nevertheless still celebrates the first time he ascended to office in north Yemen on July 17, 1978. And because Yemen is immensely democratic, the president usually orders state institutions to celebrate the occasion on behalf of the people.
Yemen indeed is such a strange democracy. Only in Yemen you can have more voters than the people of voting age. Only in Yemen you can win before counting the ballots. Only in Yemen you can win 110% of the actual registered voters, and only in Yemen the dead can still enjoy their right to vote. Only in Yemen you can simultaneously have a democracy and keep the same president. Only in Yemen the same speaker of parliament. Only in Yemen the same vice president, and even the same press secretary.
Yemen’s problem is not with the lack of democracy as enemies of the nation and the leader may suggest. It is rather with the failure of others to read Yemen’s democracy. It is also with traitors such as independent journalists who dare to express their opinions or cover state secrets such as the recent war in Saddah. Yemen’s problem is not illiteracy, which is a blessing but with literacy, which entices people to own newspapers and to start questioning.
Yemen does not allow its citizens, political parties, and various groups to establish independent and private TV and radio stations. It even sent some plain clothed security officers several weeks ago to repress and disperse a three-month long peaceful protest, organized by journalists and civil society activists, calling for liberation of the media. It also puts journalists in jails and accuses them of terror.
This is not because Yemen suffers from a democratic shortage or an autocratic surplus but because Yemen does not want to become like Iraq. The Yemeni leaders think, and they are the only leaders in the world to think this way, that the American invasion of Iraq came as a result of Iraqis having private TV stations after the invasion. They also think that the Lebanese had a civil war between 1975 and 1990 just because they now have private and partisan TV stations.
Even though genius Yemeni politicians seem to believe that free mass media is one of the causes of violent conflicts within societies, they miserably fail to explain why the Yemeni society is still having frequent violent conflicts even in the absence of free media.
Understandably, Yemen’s democracy does not look like other democracies. To some people, it may even look more like a dictatorship. That is not because Yemen is not a democratic country. The reason is deeper than that, which cannot be understood by either journalists or foreigners. According to the mentality of the state officials, the Yemeni society has its own special characteristics that make Yemen’s democracy look like dictatorship.
Yemen’s friends should know, however, that Yemen’s democracy is like wine in some countries, which is only sold to foreigners. As to citizens who dare to test it, they can do that only at their own risk.
Poverty and suffering in this world have everything to do with a lack of freedom and the absence of protection for individual rights -- and little to do with anything else.
Democracy by itself does not inevitably lead to economic well being or even civil harmony.
Unfortunately for all of us, vast regions of the world are under the sway of philosophies that do not recognize or uphold the value of the individual or the rights of the individual. And the governments of those regions follow accordingly with all manner of oppressions -- always explained in terms of their local philosophical irrationalities.
Mohammedanism is a powerful retrograde force in this matter.
It is very striking that while most of the world seems to want both the wealth and the relative domestic comfort and quiet of the US, it never seems to occur to them to question how we have achieved it -- nor, shockingly, that our behavior and results might stem from our ideas!
The denizens of NY and NJ may curse at each other on the highway, but they are far too busy acquiring the comforts of life for themselves and their families to invade each others states, or even organize a hostile political movement.
Ask your average New Yorker for help to bomb Newark's town hall and the most you can expect is that he'll call the FBI, if he bothers to respond at all.
Hmmmm... how do they manage that? Could it have something to do with the way they think?
Rights, reason and freedom.
Rights, reason and freedom.
Rights, reason and freedom.
When will they ever learn?