Our moral superiors are very concerned about the right of Muslim women in Western countries to cover their heads. Barack Obama has affirmed this: “Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That’s why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it.” — Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009
But what about the right of women and girls not to wear the hijab or any other head covering, and to go out with faces unveiled? Who is speaking up for the rights of Aqsa Parvez, whose Muslim father choked her to death with her hijab after she refused to wear it; and of Amina Muse Ali, a Christian woman in Somalia whom Muslims murdered because she wasn’t wearing a hijab; and of the 40 women who were murdered in Iraq in 2007 for not wearing the hijab; and of Alya Al-Safar, whose Muslim cousin threatened to kill her and harm her family because she stopped wearing the hijab in Britain; and of Amira Osman Hamid, who faces whipping in Sudan for refusing to wear the hijab; and of the Egyptian girl, also named Amira, who committed suicide after being brutalized for her family for refusing to wear the hijab; and of the Muslim and non-Muslim teachers at the Islamic College of South Australia who were told that they had to wear the hijab or be fired; and of the women in Chechnya whom police shot with paintballs because they weren’t wearing hijab; and of the women also in Chechnya who were threatened by men with automatic rifles for not wearing hijab; and of the elementary school teachers in Tunisia who were threatened with death for not wearing hijab; and of the Syrian schoolgirls who were forbidden to go to school unless they wore hijab; and of the women in Gaza whom Hamas has forced to wear hijab; and of the women in Iran who protested against the regime by daring to take off their legally-required hijab; and of the women in London whom Muslim thugs threatened to murder if they didn’t wear hijab; and of the anonymous young Muslim woman who doffed her hijab outside her home and started living a double life in fear of her parents, and all the other women and girls who have been killed or threatened, or who live in fear for daring not to wear the hijab.
When will anyone stand in solidarity with them? Women who don’t wear hijab in Muslim countries are far more likely to be victims of violence than hijabis in the West. Who speaks for them?
“ISIS stones five women to death for not wearing the veil, says Mamouzini,” by Abdelhak Mamoun, Iraqi News, August 18, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
(IraqiNews.com) Dohuk – Media official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Mosul Saeed Mamouzini revealed on Tuesday, that ISIS has stoned five women to death in Mosul.
Mamouzini said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “ISIS elements stoned five women to death in Ghazlani camp in Mosul.”
Mamouzini added that “This came under the pretext of not wearing the veil and refusing to comply with the orders of the organization.”
Champ says
Know islam = Know IS
No islam = No IS
islam & company are replete with misogyny & murder …
And muhammad (perdition be upon him) hated and abused women, as well.
Joseph says
Champ,
Know Islam = Know IS
No Islam = No IS
now that is a t-shirt print if I ever saw one.
Champ says
You’re right it is, Joseph!
Joseph says
Champ, I thought you made that up, I did not know it was an actual shirt print. I was not trying to poke you or anything so please don’t take my post wrong. Just like the last time you came up with that great saying to put on a picket sign I thought you also pulled this one out of your grey matter. This just shows you how much I get around.
Anyhoo, it still is a great T-shirt print and please remember, my post was not a poke at you.
Hope all is well with you & yours, little Gwyn. especially.
M S case says
And the west just ignores what is happening
mortimer says
What? The failure to veil is PUNISHED? I’m shocked! We are told constantly by Muslim women that the veil is ‘a choice’. What choice?
The progress of veiling is this: 1) it’s ‘a choice’ 2) it’s ‘a custom’ 3) it’s recommended 4) it’s the rule 5) it’s punishable if you don’t wear it.
Why start this sequence? The time to stop veiling is before 1). Veiling demeans women’s equality and cannot be accepted. Period.
Angemon says
It’s as much of a choice as getting stoned to death (and not in a Cheech and Chong fashion) – it’s the choice between abiding by the rules or facing the consequences.
gravenimage says
Here’s another indication of such “choice”, from a pious Imam, Mohammad Al-Jibaly. He said, “A girl should start hijab from the age of seven. By the age of ten, it becomes an obligation on us to force her to wear Hijab, and if she doesn’t wear Hijab, we hit her”.
Karen says
This is why I’ve found all the stories about the ‘Covered Girl’ days in U.S. high schools so disturbing; they are billed by clueless faculty as events to ‘educate’ about the hijab, and the rights of Muslim women/girls to wear it (as if they were not already perfectly free to do so in this free country). All the while seeking support and solidarity of minor, non-Muslim girls who don’t know what the hijab really is in most other parts of the world. Dreadful, Dreaded Sharia.
gravenimage says
Yes.
Dave J says
This demonstrates that the Islamic mentality is straight from the stone age – wear your shaming coverup or we’ll kill you. Yet somehow Western feminists seem to overlook or even accept this war on women.
I guess they’re too busy with equal pay and LGBT rights to notice.
Linde Barrera says
To Dave J- Funny that you mention western feminists. Just this evening I sent an email to the National Organization of Women (NOW) who are located right here in NYC. I asked them if they would speak up in opposition to FGM in conjunction with the UN or some other human rights organization. I also explained what this procedure does to a young girl, and also mentioned that most Islamic countries (who receive billions in US aid) sanction FGM. I will advise JW if I get a response.
ich says
awesome Linde !!
abad says
Yeah no, the real reason some western feminists are so gung-ho about covering up is that think it will prevent men from looking at them.
And you know these type of feminists: they find it offensive if a man does glance at them. He doesn’t even need to catcall nor look at the woman’s “assets” if you know what I mean.
Cecilia Ellis says
“Women who don’t wear hijab in Muslim countries are far more likely to be victims of violence than hijabis in the West.”
Regrettably, the above statement is correct. As an example and further to the cited reports, Saudi Arabia ensures compliance of its citizens through the constant vigilance of the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Mutaween) – the religious police. Invested in the purity of its women, at all cost, events occur that evince their priority is the Islamic dress code. For example, in March 2002, a fire broke out at an all-girls’ school in Mecca. Rushing to escape the flames, the girls fled the building, not stopping to don head scarves or abayas. They were forced back into the burning building by the Mutaween and the doors were locked for one reason: The Mutaween feared sexual enticement by the girls’ physical contact with civil defense forces. As such, fifteen girls died and more than fifty were injured. [1] In another incident, a Saudi female student died when male paramedics were prohibited from administering life-saving assistance because of concerns about the student being uncovered. [2]
While ISIS brutally administers swift justice to those judged non-compliant with restrictive dress codes, they are not alone. In a report issued by the U. S. Department of State in November 2001, the Taliban were cited as severely punishing “even the accidental showing of the feet or ankles” by on-the-spot beatings. [3] Boko Haram also enforces strict rules on women’s attire, flogging them for failure to wear the hijab. [4][5] These terrorists groups merely enforce the Islamic praxis of women’s subjugation at every level of their existence.
Should Muslim families leave their Muslim-majority homelands, there is little cause to believe that females will leave behind their “prisons of cloth,” for as President Obama stated in his 2009 speech in Cairo, “It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism.” [6] While some people eagerly embrace their new freedoms, what goes on behind closed doors may well translate to “some people enjoy less freedoms than others” . . . if they are women.
Nevertheless, there is no significant effort by Western countries or national organizations to confront the atrocities committed against women by men inspired to demonstrate their religious zeal. Rather, these victims end up as nameless footnotes, if mentioned at all, in a U. N. Council on Human Rights report issued months later. That there is no apparent international outrage indicates that rhetoric is shallow. Even now, we do not know the names of those five who were stoned to death. Sadly, they already have become nameless footnotes in an ever-increasing roster of ISIS human rights violations.
—–
[1] https://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/mutawsc.htm
[2] http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/02/06/Death-of-Saudi-female-student-raises-uproar.html
[3] http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/6185.htm
[4] http://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/jtr/article/view/828/707
[5] http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/main-square/73866-boko-haram-flogs-women-not-wearing-hijab-allah-help-naijas-women.html
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Karen says
“We cannot disguise hostility toward any religion behind the pretense of liberalism”. What a great quote. Mr O would “impede” many Christian denominations from following their faith (eg forcing health care coverage for abortions, etc.) He has shown himself to be quite hostile to the free practice of certain religions, in the name of liberalism.
Cecilia Ellis says
Karen wrote: “He has shown himself to be quite hostile to the free practice of certain religions, in the name of liberalism.”
Absolutely on-target with that statement, Karen!
Ed says
The regularity of these atrocities renders it not news worthy. The world looks the other way and focusses on the more pressing issue of demonising those that oppose it.
This is murder, and as 5 women were killed it makes the perpetrators twisted serial killers right up there with the likes of Bundy and Dahmer. Why won’t the world see it this way? I fail to see the difference.
Cecilia Ellis says
Gosh, Ed, there’s a lot of truth in what you wrote!
Ed says
If a serial killer claimed in court that 5 victims deserved to die because they were wearing the wrong clothes, he’d be executed or put away for life.
That’s what we have right here.
Islam creates serial killers with a sick depraved mentality.
Emjay See says
In 1952, in Cairo(Egypt) and Turkey and other Muslim states I found the head scarves were not worn. In deed the ladies in Cairo were more French in their dress than the French in Paris. YES THEY WERE DOLLY BIRDS
mach37 says
Someone please explain why pictures taken on the streets of Tehran show the majority of women NOT wearing hijabs. The streets look almost like those in Western cities. Are these women not true Muslims? Are Iranian women given special dispensation to not follow the path of Islam?
gravenimage says
The Religious Police perform periodic crackdowns, and the Basij militiamen cruise the streets looking for uncovered girls to beat or arrest. Sometimes Iranians can “get away” with more than at other times. But the specter of enforcement is always there.