Swedish Mosques Tell Women "Don't Report Abusive Husbands"

According to a Sveriges Television (SVT) undercover investigative report on Swedish mosques, six out of ten told women to shut up about domestic abuse and said polygamy was acceptable. SVT sent off two women (along with hidden video cameras) to pose as abused wives for the programme "Uppdrag granskning". They were tasked with finding out the mosques' position on domestic abuse, marital rape and polygamy, posing as women with those various problems. Those six mosques told both of the women to not report the abuse to police and that they should have sex with their men regardless of whether they wanted to or not. Only two mosques advised the women to report the abuse, and only one mosque said that polygamy was not allowed, given Swedish laws against multiple marriages.
Of course, Hanne Josefsson (the host of the television programme), got very different responses from two of the mosques.

The chair of the Islamic Association in Uppsala claimed in the story that people should follow Swedish law.

When confronted by what the imam at the Uppsala mosque told the women, the Islamic leader explained that the imam had expressed his personal opinion in urging the women to forgive their abusive husbands rather than report them to police.

The imam with whom the woman met at the mosque in Stockholm defended polygamy and also advised against filing a police report about husbands who beat them.

He suggested instead that the women try to show their husbands more love.

"Don't refuse to give him love, because then he might change," said the imam.

Upon seeing the SVT report, however, the board of the Islamic Association in Stockholm (Islamiska förbundet Stockholm) decided to suspend the imam immediately and launch an internal investigation.

"This is a clear breach of Swedish law and they commit professional misconduct in their capacities as imams and associations," Mohammad Fazlhashemi, a professor and author of books on Muslim intellectual history, told the TT news agency.

Fazlhashemi, who also appears in the SVT report, has reviewed a written transcript of the advice given to the women.

"What these men are saying to the woman violates their human rights. The men demean and insult the women when they say 'you need to tolerate that these men hit you'," said Fazlhashemi.

He is highly critical of the imams featured in the SVT report for not following Swedish law.

"Considering the fact that the mosques have received state funding, they have also committed to following Swedish law and the basic principles of democracy," he said.

Fazlhashemi describes the Muslim leaders featured in the piece as "conservative, letter of the law traditionalists".

"Now it's time for some housecleaning. They need to weed out the bad seeds," he said.

Fazlhashemi, who is also a Muslim, expressed concerns that such outdated mosque representatives benefit Muslim-haters and the far-right Sweden Democrats.

"They confirm the negative picture of Muslims. It's a real shame that they confirm the prejudices that Islamophobes have," he said.

We wouldn't have those prejudices, if this kind of  behaviour didn't exist. This is probably going on behind mosque walls all over the West, and more than likely in England, where Sharia law is allowed.

Here's a more detailed account of the programme "Uppdrag granskning" (Assignment Investigate).

Sudanese Teen To Be Stoned To Death For Adultery

Intisfar Sharif Abdalla is only a teen, somewhere between 15 and 17, and a mother of a newborn baby. But unlike the slew of young unwed mothers in this country who usually have a support system and family to help raise those children, Intisfar will be stoned to death in Sudan.

On May 13 (without legal counsel) Intisfar was sentenced to death, and she has her brother to blame for that. Apparently, he beat and tortured her into confessing to adultery, and was the one to bring the situation to the court's attention. Both Intisfar and the man who is accused of fathering her child denied being involved, but that's easy to refute when there's a child as proof.

Not surprisingly, while Intisfar sits in jail with her baby waiting to be pummeled to death by stones, the man has not been charged and walks free.

The travesty is that Judge Sami Ibrahim Shabo sentenced her with no representation, and only after one hearing, in spite of the fact the confession was coerced through torture. She eventually was able to speak to her lawyer, but only after the sentencing.

A women's organization Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) is pressing for an investigation, and hopefully an overturning of the death sentence.  Many believe the fact that the man is not being punished, is an indication of how unfairly women are treated in that country. And what about the brother's brutal beating of his sister?  I suppose he figured the court system would save him from having to honor kill Intisfar himself, but his torture also goes unpunished.
According to The Observer:

Sharif is understood to be deeply traumatized and is without access to any suitable psychosocial support. Her newly born child is also with her in prison. Ultimately, some observers believe the judgment demonstrates the scale of discrimination against women and girls in Sudan and the biased judgments made against them for acts which involves two sexes – a man and woman. It is incredulous that the man with whom she has been accused is able to walk free showing explicitly the strong anti-women sentiment and harsh management of family disputes that exist within both the Sudanese judicial system and society.

But it's not just Sudan, it's Islam (in general) which discriminates against women, particularly in countries that follow Shariah Law.

Afghan Women Sold Like Cattle

It's obvious that women are considered second class citizens in many Muslim-majority countries, where they have fewer rights and freedoms than males. But in God-forsaken Afghanistan they are looked upon as commodities to be traded or sold like animals to the highest bidder. And it's not cheap to buy a wife/slave/maid, the women often fetch a good price, at least by Afghan standards. And although illegal to buy and sell women, it still happens all the time.

Hajji Rais Khan, a white bearded resident of Nangarhar’s Dur Baba district, needed only to remove his false teeth and hand over 3,000 dollars to conclude the swift purchase of a young woman for his bride.

Two other local families had quarrelled over the terms of an already implemented swap of daughters for brides. One of the fathers then learned that instead of the girls being returned home by mutual arrangement, his counterpart had simply sold on his 20-year-old daughter to an old man for 4,000 dollars. He vowed in retaliation to sell the girl in his care to “a man with no teeth”.


“I went there and removed my plastic teeth and told the man that my wife passed away two months ago and that this girl was my destiny,” said Khan. “He gave her to me for 150,000 afghanis (3,000 dollars).”

A disturbing aberration perhaps, were it not for numerous and corroborated accounts of such sales of women like livestock. These are distinct from the entrenched Afghan custom of arranged marriages for fixed dowries, and often result in the victim being sold into a life of drudgery or passed on to further buyers.


A widespread practice in bygone times, the purchase and sale of women is today not uncommon in six of Nangarhar's districts inhabited by members of the large Shinwari tribe, say officials and rights advocates.

“Women are sold in different districts of Shinwari (areas) of Nangarhar and we have taken up cases on various occasions,” said Sabrina Hamidi, the director of the women’s rights advocacy department at the Independent Human Rights Commission in the eastern region.

“I removed my plastic teeth and told the man that my wife passed away two months ago and this girl was my destiny. He gave her to me for 150,000 afghanis."

The practice continued as a result of “illiteracy, poverty and abhorrent traditions,” said Hamidi.

And after women are sold, contact is usually severed with their own family, often for the rest of their lives, which makes the women extremely vulnerable . Once sold, the woman effectively belongs to her buyer, his to work, abuse or resell as he sees fit.

Read the rest here.

I don't see any hope for women in Afghanistan, especially once NATO pulls out.

Unveiled Women In Yemen Being Attacked

According to Bikyamasr.com (which isn't always a trustworthy source of information), unveiled women are being attacked in Yemen, although this isn't at all surprising, if true.

SANA’A: Local residents in Aden told Bikyamasr.com that al-Qaeda militants in the region were now targeting unveiled women: harassing them, and at least one instance, physically abusing them as they are trying to enforce the full face veil.

Although the Qur’an only specifies that a woman should cover her hair, neck and ears, Ansar al-Sharia chose to understand this somewhat differently, arguing that since the wives of the prophet were covered, so should all Muslim women.

What the militants don’t mention, or don’t know, is that as with everything in Islam it is very much up to the individual to choose their path – as religion cannot be imposed by force.

Although Yemenis are considered traditional when it comes to Islam, and fiercely defensive of their faith and practice, the vast majority of southerners have said to be outraged by the recent spate of harassment.

“How can they dare attacks girls and women who do not wear the veil? It is a personal choice, which should not be imposed on anyone,” said Anessa Abdelaalem a school teacher in Aden.

According to reports from the local authorities several girls were sprayed with acid on their face by Ansar al-Sharia, for they refused to bow to their demands.

If only a few months ago, Yemenis did not feel threatened by al-Qaeda, assuming that the armed forces would end up crushing their advances, an insidious fear is slowly chocking Yemen as the dark cloud of extremism is gaining against the light.

Rumor has it there have been acid attacks, as well. However, according to one source, those attacks are merely rumors. Perhaps to intimidate women into conforming, or staying at home, which is what they seem to think women do best.

Who knew there were unveiled women in Yemen?

Chechnya's Kadyrov Condones 'Honor Killings'

The one thing that can be said for communist rule under the Soviets was the fact that they managed to maintain control over the Islamist elements in their midst. No forced veils for women, no gender separation, women had equal rights. Yes, there were other major issues regarding lack of freedom (including religious), but that lack was not imposed by religion.  But as is happening in Africa and the Middle East, the rise of hardline Islam in Muslim-majority countries that used to be secular, like Chechnya (when it was part of the former Soviet Union),  is becoming problematic.

In fact, over the past five years, things have gotten dire for women in Chechnya under the leadership of President Ramzan Kadyrov, whose Mufti, former pro-separatist father, Akhmad Kadyrov, was president for a year until he was blown up in 2004. Women are being forced to wear the hijab (veil), there is government support for polygamy, alcohol is banned and now the Chechen government has formally condoned 'honor killings' against women. In fact they are advocating it. Women are turning up dead all over Chechnya, and Kadyrov's response: they had "loose morals" and so they deserved to die. That's because Kadyrov believes women should remain barefoot and pregnant (a typical fundamentalist Muslim belief) since women are the property of their husbands.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) Kadyrov has been quoted as saying:

I have the right to criticize my wife. She doesn’t [have the right to criticize me]. With us [in Chechen society], a wife is a housewife. A woman should know her place. A woman should give her love to us [men]… She would be [man’s] property. And the man is the owner. Here, if a woman does not behave properly, her husband, father, and brother are responsible. According to our tradition, if a woman fools around, her family members kill her… That’s how it happens, a brother kills his sister or a husband kills his wife… As a president, I cannot allow for them to kill. So, let women not wear shorts…

Here in Chechnya if a woman is running around, if a man is running around with her, then the both of them are killed. According to the information available, there was a woman who was “working” with the killed [women] – she wanted to take them away from the [Chechen] Republic, [she] was in the process of obtaining travel passports for them in order to sell them to brothels [abroad]. It’s being said that the women’s relatives [found out and] killed them… I’m simply talking about [our] customs. Ask anyone, even the youngest boy, “What are you gonna do if your sister starts running around?” Anyone will tell you, “I’ll kill her!”

He has also been quoted as saying he wants to make Chechnya “more Islamic than the Islamists.”

Even though Kadyrov is credited with bringing some stability to Chechnya, and was actually nominated by Vladimir Putin for president, he obviously has no respect for Russian law.

Some observers say Mr. Kadyrov’s attempt to impose Islamic law violates the Russian Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women and a separation of church and state.

“We are a traditional, conservative society, but the government has gone overboard,” said Lipkhan Bazaeva, head of the Women's Dignity Center, a nongovernmental organization promoting women’s rights in Grozny. “They are declaring unacceptable limits on women — as an individual, she has no rights even if her husband beats her, despite Russian laws.”

And the human rights violations that are rampant in Chechnya will remain so, since most activists are too afraid to do anything about it after Natasha Estemirova was murdered.

“You hear about these cases almost every day,” said a local human rights defender, who asked that her name not be used out of fear for her safety. “It is hard for me to investigate this topic, yet I worked on it with [human rights activist] Natasha [Estemirova] for a while. But, I can’t anymore. I am too scared now. I’ve almost given up, really.”

Estemirova, who angered Chechen authorities with reports of torture, abductions and extrajudicial killings, was found in the woods in 2009 in the neighboring region of Ingushetia with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Her killer or killers have not been found.

But it hasn't stopped the young ones from flouting the strict rules.

Milana, a ninth-grader in Grozny, wears thick eyeliner, dons tight miniskirts, smokes cigarettes and dates boys: all things a proper Muslim girl is forbidden to do in Chechnya.

She said she has heard it from her father countless times: A Chechen girl who loses her virginity before marriage is a prostitute, and Allah will punish her.

“If only my parents knew some of the things I did,” she said with a giggle. “My parents are too strict with me, but it is like that here.”

Analysts say dating can be an escape for teenagers such as Milana who often live double lives.

“It is a great temptation to break from tradition when they are away from their family, said Ms. Bazaeva. “They have a good time, but it is not without consequences, not in Chechnya.”

Some kids marry early to get around the strict rules, like 20-year-old Abu-Khadzh Idrisov who got married at age 14 so he could have sex. Divorced a year later, he remarried at 18 to a girl he kidnapped- a common tradition in Pakistan.

He spotted his future wife at a park in Grozny and, with the help of his friends, kidnapped her.

“When I married her, I honestly knew only two things: her name and the school she studied at. We talked together once,” he recalled. “But we have traditions and extremely strict rules in Chechnya, and you can’t just ignore them. I carry my family’s name, and if I tarnish it, I will have problems.”

I suppose it's easy for a family belonging to a religion that encourages having lots of babies to pop off one of its own. What's the loss of one or two children when they probably have plenty more.

Source: Washington Times

Moroccan Islamist PM Snubs Visiting Female Belgium Minister

Some more Muslim male chauvinism, this time out of  Morocco. 
On a recent visit to Rabat, two Belgian ministers met with newly elected (11/11) Moroccan PM Abdelilah Benkirane. Benkirane happens to be the head of  the  Islamist 'Justice and Development Party' which swept into victory thanks to the Arab Spring. As we know, Islamists have little to no respect for women, so he made a concerted effort to snub Justice Minister Annemie Turtelboom by pretty much ignoring her throughout the whole meeting. God forbid he should have to deal with a woman. Of course he had no problems dealing with Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders, who he praised for his flawless French.

Turtelboom displayed tremendous self-control for biting her tongue and not dealing with Benkirane's incredible rudeness- apparently she did not want to cause a 'diplomatic row'. But some were outraged by the whole incident.

Moroccan-Belgian MPs say her reaction is unblievable, and that Belgium should respond.

Yamila Idrissi (sp.a) and Nadia Sminate (N-VA) say that Turtleboom should have walked out of the meeting. But Idrissi says it's not too late for a response. "Belgium shouldn't leave things like that and make a point of it," she told Het Laatste Nieuws. "This is outrageous and unacceptable."

Sminate agrees. "This is disappointing from a strong woman like Annemie Turtelboom. If this isn't worth a row, than what is? Turtleboom should have responded .. this is a bad message for Moroccan women in Belgium."

They're right, of course. She had every right to walk out, and should have. But it just shows the tremendous lack of respect that Islamists have for women, and their lack of class.

I wonder how Hillary Clinton would have handled the situation, had it been her?

H/T: IslamInEurope

Religious Talk Radio Host Tells Saudi Man To Divorce Wife and He Does- Live On Air

Chauvinism is rampant in the Muslim world, particularly in countries like Saudi Arabia where women aren't even allowed to drive. Like children and animals, women are expected to be obedient or there are consequences. Severe, at times. Women have been beaten and divorced for as little as putting cheese instead of meat into a samosa. They are even killed for 'disobedience."

And divorcing a woman is as simple as texting from a cell phone or loudspeaker at a mall. So it's not really surprising to hear that a Saudi man divorced his wife over the airwaves, after calling in to a radio talk show hosted by religious scholar, Sheikh Ghazi al-Shammari.   Apparently the man was fed up with his wife disobeying him by working and traveling alone, and this "offended his manhood."

The man phoned the program to complain to that his wife disobeyed him by travelling without his approval from the Saudi port city of Jeddah to the capital Riyadh for a business conference.

He told Shammari that before his marriage he had accepted his wife’s demands to work on condition that work would not interfere with their marital life.

Shammari advised the man to divorce his wife as a punitive measure for “committing such a mistake against her home and husband.”
The husband immediately heeded the advice and divorced her during the live program although Shammari advised him to remarry her if she repents.

Yes, it's that easy.
Shammari defended his advice telling Al Arabiya that

“The husband called me in my program this afternoon and told me that he was financially capable and did not want his wife to work and that he is having problems with her about this issue for more than 10 years and that he has been patient for long. But the issue has developed to the extent that she would travel without his approval,” Shammari said.

“He was surprised that she sent him a text message from the airport telling him that she was traveling alone... and this is why I advised him to divorce her because she was not obeying her husband, a matter that is very important in Islam.”

“I did not make a mistake with my advice to the man, because what the wife did, travelling without his consent from Jeddah to Riyadh, is a serious matter and a cause for doubt,” He said.

“Such a wife is suspicious because she insisted to travel alone to Riyadh and without ample reason,” the scholar said. I did not rush with the advice because I saw that the issue was dangerous and we should not remain silent more about it.”

The woman is obviously better off without a husband that expects blind obedience, because Islam says that's what women should do. I think the Sheikh, as much of an idiot as he is, actually did her a favor. And more than likely, she feels the same way.