The tyranny of the mahram, or "male guardian" turns women into perpetual minors at any age. To artificially limit the rights of adult women in this way is to render them second-class citizens, in keeping with Muhammad's declaration that women are "deficient in religion and intellect" (Sahih Bukhari 1.6.301).
Stories like this are the consequences of such provisions in Sharia, as the inherent injustice and absurdity of such rules set the stage for further abuses. "Saudi woman jailed for disobeying father freed," from Middle East Online, October 26 (thanks to Twostellas):
JEDDAH - A Saudi woman jailed for disobeying her father has been freed after more than six months in prison, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
Samar Badawi, who was thrown in prison without formal charge or trial by a Jeddah judge, was released on Monday after a 12-day concerted media and internet campaign on her behalf by human rights activists inside and outside Saudi Arabia, said lawyer Waleed Abu Alkhair.
The activists had petitioned for King Abdullah to intervene in the case, which they said was an example of the abuses of the country's rigid guardian system for women.
Repeating from the introductory comments above: "The inherent injustice and absurdity of such rules set the stage for further abuses."
"The release came after judges saw the 12-day campaign, which made a lot of people pay attention to the case," Alkhair said.
Badawi was released into the guardianship of her uncle but was seeking hospital treatment for an unidentified ailment, the Jeddah-based lawyer added.
"She told me, 'if you didn't write about me in the newspapers and internet, I would still be in jail,'" he said.
Under the guardian system, a Saudi woman must have the permission of her official "mahram" or male guardian -- her father, husband, son, or another male relative -- for matters such as travel, work and marriage.
It is enforced by the kingdom's uniformly male judges, clerics who enforce the kingdom's strict version of Islamic sharia law with broad powers to set charges and punishments.
Badawi, a 32-year-old divorced mother, had filed her own case asking the court to remove her father as her guardian, saying he had mistreated her since childhood and had denied her permission to remarry.
Badawi had fled her father and lived in a shelter for women.
The judge instead accused her of being disobedient to her father and sent her to prison on April 4.
She remained in jail despite the governor of the Mecca region Prince Khaled al-Faisal having written to the courts three months ago asking for Badawi's release and recommending her uncle become her guardian, Alkhair said.
While Badawi's own case is finished, Alkhair said the activists have petitioned the court for an investigation into the judges who summarily threw her into jail.
No doubt, the courageous women at NOW would characterize this a matter of "cultural identity" and leave it at that.
Folks, send the above article to female friends and family as a reminder of the precious freedoms and equality that they now live under.
No doubt all eyes will go moist and the Royals effusively praised for their incomparable mercy and compassion, following the Prophet's example in all things.
Slightly OT: Arab News has an interesting little thing on harassment of women in Egypt.
The comments are simply beautiful.
I wonder if she was 'abused' while in prison?
A 32-year-old woman needs a guardian? What a sicko religion.
http://arabnews.com/lifestyle/sidelights/article169982.ece
The comments are highly educational, indeed. Particularly the absence of a sense of male responsibility for self-control. It's all about the women "observing hijab."
I'll be posting more at length on this later today -- thanks, Steffen!
you're welcome -
The Arab News article has been moved to http://arabnews.com/lifestyle/offbeat/article169982.ece
The comments in the Arab news article are about what I expected to read - it's the womens fault !
Before the taquiyya crew rushes in with the usual excuses and evasions - Basically, every woman in Saudi Arabia is a potential political prisoner.
Crickets chirp as we wait for a comment from First Lady Michelle Obama.......
Well one thing's for sure: CNN, the Bill Gates Network MSNBC and FoxNews will surely be abuzz tonight with outraged feminists denouncing this news.
*** 1964 ***
Just like always.
A planned website, Harrasmap, will allow women to quickly report instances of harassment via text message or Twitter, to be loaded onto a digital map of Cairo to show hotspots and areas that might be dangerous for women to walk alone.
-- from the article behind Steffen's link
This must be the Islamic Science that was praised by Prez Obama Hussein right there in Cairo, by coincidence. It also must be the Islamic Entrepreneurship that he hopes to fund with venture capital in the form of taxpayer money.
*** 1964 ***
Moslimas mapping Masculine Moslem Men. Gawd.
"Badawi, a 32-year-old divorced mother, had filed her own case asking the court to remove her father as her guardian, saying he had mistreated her since childhood and had denied her permission to remarry."
Her father probably wanted to keep her all to himself.
Not 'guardian': owner. Slave-master. In Islam, the women are objects, property, toys: slaves, and less than slaves, non-persons, livestock, dirt for sexual ploughing, who may be used and abused as the master/ owner pleases.
Winston Churchill saw that clearly, in 1899.
"The fact that in Mohammedan law [i.e. sharia]
"every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine,
"must delay the final extinction of slavery
"until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."
"The River War"): first edition, Vol. II, from pages 248-50.
Another case from Saudi Arabia, that appeared here not so long ago:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/british-girl-kidnapped-by-saudi-father-i-told-the-police-he-was-keeping-me-there-against-my-will-and.html
"When I turned 11 I was made to start wearing a head scarf and couldn't leave the house without my father's permission. I had no friends and wasn't allowed to play outside.
"Dad was very controlling and verbally abusive and expected me to do all the housekeeping. He wouldn't even have mum's name mentioned. He kept telling me she didn't love me."...
"By 2002 when Hana was 14 she was so desperate she went to the Saudi police for help...but was sent back to her father.
She says: "I told them he was keeping me there against my will and all they said was, 'He's your father, if he wants he can kill you'.
"When I got home dad locked me in my bedroom, pinned me to the floor and cut off my hair and then set fire to it.
"He left me practically bald.
"He took me out of school and I felt even more cut off. He had a terrible temper and I was very frightened of him. He would beat me if I didn't do what he said."
There it is in a nutshell, the Muslim attitude, in the words of the Saudi Muslim 'police' to the daughter of a Saudi Muslim man:
"He's your father, if he wants he can kill you".
Frankly, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if Samar's father - and Hana's father, too - had in fact been **raping** their daughters.
That's what happened to 'Hannah Shah', author of the book 'The Imam's Daughter', in the UK.
When she was six, she defied her imam father by trying to protect her mother from a beating. He promptly 'punished' his daughter for her insubordination: not only by regular beatings, but by *raping her regularly* - rapes that continued until, as a teenager, she managed to escape the family home/ prison. One must assume the rapes were anal, for the event that precipitated her final break for freedom was the news of an impending forced marriage (which would not be likely, had her hymen been destroyed by vaginal rape).
You'll find a review of Hannah's book, with extended accounts of the content, here:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/20277
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Hannah Shah, The Imam’s Daughter
Furthermore: I cannot give a link at the moment, but a poster at jihadwatch some time ago, a Canadian, mentioned a case of a Pakistani Muslim father in Canada who had punished his deemed-insubordinate teenage daughter by locking her in the garage **and repeatedly sodomising her**.
Islam is full of examples of Mo's receiving BS "revelations" to justify BS legistation, all of it used in turn to justify social, moral, and political inequity in the name of the original BS "revelation" and enslavement to the monstrous demon known as "Allah."
Muslims are at least A consistent bunch:
Tabari IX:113 "Allah permits you to shut them in separate rooms and to beat them, but not severely. If they abstain, they have the right to food and clothing. Treat women well for they are like domestic animals and they possess nothing themselves. Allah has made the enjoyment of their bodies lawful in his Qur'an."
So much for loving your wife as your own flesh and all that.
Yeah ... islam ..... 'it's a MAN thing'.
Fun Fact: the koran makes a great door jam