Sharia comes to Gaza. “Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan denied the incident took place but said Gaza residents ‘must preserve our customs and Islamic traditions.'” Of course. Just think how exciting it will be when they start doing this on the French Riviera.
“Hamas tries to detain woman walking with man,” by Diaa Hadid for AP, July 8 (thanks to Sr. Soph):
JERUSALEM (AP) “” An attempt by Hamas police to detain a young woman walking with a man along the Gaza beach has raised alarms that the Islamic militant group is seeking to match its political control of the coastal territory with a strict enforcement of Islamic law.
The incident was the first time Hamas has openly tried to punish a woman for behaving in a way it views as un-Islamic since seizing power two years ago. But it follows months of quiet pressure on Gaza’s overwhelmingly conservative 1.4 million residents to abide by its strict religious mores.
Note to AP: “Conservatives” don’t generally arrest and beat men for walking with women to whom they are not married.
Hamas officials in Gaza have publicly urged shopkeepers to take down foreign advertisements showing the shape of women’s bodies and to stash away lingerie often displayed in windows. Officials search electronic shops to check if they are selling pornography on tiny flash drives.
“There’s an open, public program to preserve public morals in Gaza,” said local rights activist Isam Younis. “In reality that means trying to restrict freedoms.”…
Freelance journalist Asma al-Ghoul says a group of Hamas police sent a clear message that certain behavior would not be tolerated when she went to the beach one evening in late June.
Al-Ghoul, 26, said she was spending time with a group of friends “” two women and three men “” on the northern Gaza shore….
Read the whole story at the AP link above. It’s…shocking!
However, al-Ghoul said her male friends were subsequently beaten by Hamas police, detained for several hours and asked to sign statements saying they would not “violate public moral standards again,” she said….
Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan denied the incident took place but said Gaza residents “must preserve our customs and Islamic traditions.”
Beating innocent people apparently does not, in Shahwan’s view, violate those customs and Islamic traditions.