An update on this story, as the hijab saga continues. The vague stipulation that Kuwaiti women observe Sharia in parliament was only a transparent effort at managing the potential liability of uppity women legislators. "Kuwaiti MP seeks to scrap Sharia controls in election law," from Agence France-Presse, October 12:
KUWAIT CITY -- Kuwaiti female lawmaker Rula Dashti on Sunday submitted an amendment to the Gulf state electoral law that aims to scrap a requirement that women must comply with Islamic Sharia law guidelines.
The guidelines were introduced four years ago when parliament voted to grant women full political rights but added a precondition that both women voters and candidates must comply with regulations dictated by Sharia law.
The law does not explain the nature of the regulations, but last week the emirate's Fatwa Department ruled that under Islamic law, it is an obligation for Muslim women to wear the hijab head cover.
Will Obama speak out for these women's right not to wear it? If wearing the hijab is to be one's "choice," there has to be the option of not wearing it.
Although the fatwa, or religious edict, was general in nature and did not specifically refer to Kuwait's election law, it triggered conflicting reactions from Islamist and liberal lawmakers and activists.
Islamist lawmakers called on female MPs and a minister to comply with the ruling while liberal and female legislators stressed the fatwa is not binding since it did not come from the constitutional court.
"The fatwa is not binding to the Kuwaiti society. The only reference for us is the constitution," issued in 1962, she told AFP.
Dashti said that including Sharia regulations in the electoral law is a breach of the constitution.
"The regulations clearly violate articles in the constitution which call for gender equality and make no reference to Sharia regulations," she said.
Additional reporting: "Kuwaiti women MPs refuse to wear hijab in parliament," by Richard Spencer for the Telegraph, October 12:
[...] You can't force a woman going to the mall to wear a hijab and you can't force a woman going to work to wear the hijab," the MP, Rola Dashti, told The Daily Telegraph. "This is not Iran or Saudi Arabia."
The MPs' stand is part of a backlash against the fashion for stricter dress codes for women across the Arab world.
Last week, the rector of al-Azhar University in Cairo, traditionally the principal seat of Sunni Islamic learning, banned women students from wearing the face veil in women-only classes and student dormitories, and was followed by other academic institutions there. [...]
When electoral law was changed in 2005 to allow women in Kuwait to vote and stand for parliament, Islamists inserted a law-minute rider that "women as voters and MPs" would have to follow sharia. It did not specify precisely where or how.
Three Islamist MPs immediately protested when Dr Dashti and a second MP, Aseel Al-Awadhi, turned up at the Assembly without a hijab, the simple head-scarf that covers the hair and is compulsory for women in public in Saudi Arabia and Iran but optional across most Gulf nations.
One MP sought a ruling from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, whose "fatwa department" last week decreed that hijab was an obligation for Muslim women, without referring directly to the electoral law.
"Non-compliance of a female MP or a voter with the edict is a violation of the Elections Law," said another Islamist MP, Waleed Al-Tabtabaie.
As a result Dr Rashti tabled an amendment on Sunday demanding that the sharia rider be dropped.
She said Kuwait's constitution stipulated freedom of choice and equality between the sexes and did not incorporate sharia.
"There's a group of people who know they cannot Islamise the constitution so they try to Islamise every issue when it comes up," she said. "I'm going to examine anything that violates the constitution, taking it law by law."
The population at large is split on whether to support more rights for women. A private citizen has filed a private suit against Dr Dashti and Professor al-Awadhi for not wearing the hijab, which is due to be heard before the country's constitutional court later this month.
Salam,
You "don't blow on cold milk", this is a very famous Pakistani saying.
That's the problem with this type of woman empowerment...they want everything...this woman Dasti has been given a doctorate and the utmost respect to participate in Parliment...but she wants too much more.
It is hardly difficult to wear a scarf on her head to provide courtsey to her male counterparts.
The next generation maybe will not need need this...but right now ; she must be patient or resign.
With Love
Yom
Marisol, Buraq Hussein has spoken on the right of those women not to wear their head-tents. And he said "“We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism."
As for Ms Dashti's actions, aren't they blasphemous and the stuff of apostates according to sharia and Mein Qurampf? Perhaps if more and more mahoundianimas started to question why they're to be regarded as nothing more than non-penis-possessing, jihadist-breeding half-male mobile tents, one of those pillars of mahoundianism (not listed under the supposedly most important ones) could start to crumble; and, since the fact that in mahoundianism every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, any changes in that notion would be an enormous blow to mahound's sick little cult. Perhaps not as strong as the end of oil, but probably close to it.
It's obvious that a lot of mahoundianimas might end up getting murdered by those seeking to preserve mahound-worshipping as their immaculate link to the 7th Century if more women start to follow Ms Dashti's example; but since the life of any woman in mahoundianism is nothing short of a living hell, they'd probably be better off anyway fighting to change things for better for their used and abused lot than just passively allowing things to remain as they are.
Yom_al_Juma sez:
"this woman Dasti has been given a doctorate and the utmost respect to participate in Parliment."
A) This woman was not given a doctorate, she spent years going to college in America (in Texas, I believe)to earn the doctorate and through her desire to be educated, spent the time, the effort to study, and the money for the education and she succeeded....something some women in Muslim countries are not permitted to do.
B) She has not been given the utmost respect to participate in Parliament...she has been vehemently opposed by Muslim men ever since she obtained office...
Islam is not conducive to empowering women beyond much more than producing babies...
And we paid with blood and money to defend this country from Saddam???
So that they can keep their retrograde practices???
Yes and yes.
Kuwaiti women were instrumental in the resistance against Iraq. After the Iraqi Army retreated up the "highway of death", the muslimahs were told to get back into the kitchen and put on the hijab. Apparently there are some Kuwaiti women who are not willing to do so. Time for Kuwaiti women (and muslimahs everywhere) to start burning their hijabs.
Just an aside to Yommie - you do realize that the rest of the world is living in the 21st century even if you are stuck in the 7th century, don't you?
This is a perfect example of how wrong those are who feel we should write off the Islamic world in its entirety. Rula Dashti is a Muslim, and she is an opponent of Sharia, just as we are. She and those like her are our natural allies.
Furthermore, those who advocate our exploitation of sectarian and ethnic divisions in the Muslim world would be wise to include the many IDEOLOGICAL differences that also pervade the realm. There is no ethnic or sectarian difference between Rula Dashti and her opponents, but their respective visions are seemingly irreconcilable. Similarly, there are no ethnic and sectarian differences between the mullahs that run Iran and the Iranian demonstrators that are now facing the death penalty, but as we can readily attest, their differences are a matter of life and death.
"It is hardly difficult to wear a scarf on her head to provide courtsey to her male counterparts."
It is hardly difficult for her male counterparts to respect her as a fellow EQUAL human being.
Your Mad Mohammeden sexist custom doesn't deserve any courtesy.
Perhaps you should wrap yourself up like a mummy if you love it so much.
What a great woman!
"What a great woman!"
Agreed. Since Yom has chosen the route of pressuring others to comply with Sharia law, a less courageous decision than Dashti, out of respect for those who have chosen differently, Yom, he (or she), should instead consider voluntarily covering his own head, not for compliance of Sharia, but as a symbol of having cast his lot with the bullies.
In fact, her fellow parliamentarians are boorish and rude for insisting on such things.