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It’s always nice when science reinforces the things I’ve been saying for years. It happens so often these days I’ve pretty much stopped reporting it. Yet I recently came across this New York Times article that’s quite wonderful. It’s got me written all over it. Continue reading Women Get BORED With Their Monogamous Men – Even More Scientific Proof
Female Kurdish fighters ignite fear into Islamic State militants, who believe that they’ll go straight to hell if they are killed by a woman. RT travelled to Iraqi-Syrian border to meet the YPG, the female battalion fighting IS.
The border area between Iraq and Syria is currently controlled by Kurdish volunteers after both Iraqi and Syrian military forces abandoned the border crossings. The women fighters occupy the lookout post on the border, which allows them to monitor all IS activities in Iraq and Syria.
Read more » http://rt.com/news/193972-kurdish-women-fighters-isis/
Maria Toor becomes first female Nash Cup champion
Pakistan’s squash player Maria Toorpakai Wazir put her name in the history books by winning the first ever women’s event in the Nash Cup in Canada by beating Milou van der Heijden of the Netherlands 13-11, 11-3, 11-9.
The victory gave Maria, who hails from South Waziristan, the third title of her WSA career after she won the Southwest Squash Open and the Liberty Bell Open last year in the US and was another milestone in her journey of immense courage and perseverance.
Read more » DAWN
http://dawn.com/news/1044455/maria-toor-becomes-first-female-nash-cup-champion
Egypt has issued an arrest warrant on Sunday against the Salafi preacher, who recently said it was “halal” (permissible) to rape female protestors, charging him with the defamation of religion, an Al Arabiya correspondent reported. …..
Read more » Al Arabiya
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/17/266857.html
ISLAMABAD (The Global Edition) – Khalida Akhtar, a 20-year-old Taliban suicide bomber, decided at the last minute not to blow herself up at the main train station in the capitol of Pakistan because she remembered that she would have to deal with a bunch of virgin guys in heaven, local authorities say.
Ms. Akhtar, who was dressed in a head-to-toe burqa and strapped with explosives, was seen just hours ago running and screaming through the Islamabad Railway Station before she was apprehended by local law enforcement.
“The young woman realized that she would have 72 virgins on her hands if she sacrificed her earthly life, and apparently the thought made her so sick to her stomach that she decided on the spot to pull the plug on the whole operation and give herself up to the authorities,” police officer Malik Rashid told reporters.
In a statement recorded by arresting officers, Ms. Akhtar explained her decision. “I’d actually never stopped before to think about the reward I would receive for my sacrifice,” Ms. Khalida said. “Unlike my brother and his friends, I’m actually not a fan of virgins. To be fair, I don’t think any woman in the world is. I’m supposed to give my life for a bunch of guys that don’t know anything about the female body or how to please a woman? I don’t think so!” Khalida added.
Continue reading Female Taliban Suicide Bomber Hates The Idea Of Virgins In Heaven
By Mariam Goraya
As if sexist men weren’t enough to judge us, at least I need a break from supposedly ‘pakeeza kahawateens’ to stop passing remarks at my back for something as personal as my dress
Forget male misogynists; let us first talk about female misogynists. Alice Albinia in her book ‘Empires of the Indus’ rightly points out, that most ardent upholders of traditional faith in Pakistan are the housewives.
No wonder that the first person to teach you (rather enforce upon you) how to compromise, when to keep your mouth shut and wait for your turn before putting food in your plate is indeed your own mother. The first one to proclaim you a slut for wearing jeans in college is your female class fellow and last but not the least; first one to judge you or reject you as potential Baho Rani on the basis of your character is a Rishta Aunty as uncles only come along to tell how tasty samosas were.
Pakistani consular official recalled over sex assault allegation
TORONTO – An official with the Consulate General of Pakistan in Toronto has been recalled following an inquiry into a sexual assault allegation.
The married father of two allegedly assaulted a female passport applicant inside the North York consulate in February.
Toronto Police were not called to investigate the matter. Consular officials conducted their own investigation which wrapped up late last month.
After collecting statements from both sides, the investigative committee declared the man was “totally unfit” for government service.
The committee “held the accused guilty of trying to use his position to coax the victim into a locked room with malicious intentions of molesting/physically assaulting her,” said a consular report obtained by the Toronto Sun.
The June 23 report shows that the allegation was reported on Feb. 12 by a “respected community member.” The consular official allegedly took the victim “into an isolated locked room.”
The victim is identified as a Pakistani-Canadian woman from Thorncliffe. The report states that the employee was in charge of MRP (machine-readable passport) processing.
The only people aware of the allegation were the accused, the victim, and committee members.
“Inquiry officers were told to type notes themselves to keep the inquiry confined within the four walls of the office,” reads the report, signed by acting consul general Imran Ali.
The document also states that the woman “did not go to Toronto law enforcement authorities on our assurances that we would hold an impartial inquiry and the culprit would be brought to justice.”
Sources confirmed no attempt was made to stop the woman from going to Toronto Police when the allegation first came to light.
The report also states that the RCMP was informed about the inquiry “to pre-empt embarrassment” if the victim later contacted the authorities. It later acknowledged the possible “negative consequences” if the victim contacted Canadian law enforcement or media.
By: Omar Ali
Musharraf Farooqi has a great article up at Lapham’s quarterly about Jinns and their various proclivities. A must read.
“ ….Encounters between the parties were not uncommon. One trait commonly ascribed to jinn is the desire to copulate with humans. Male jinn liked it so much that sometimes they would try and surreptitiously join in during sex between human men and women. One man witnessed his wife’s vagina emitting flames from a jinn making congress with her while she slept. And such interspecies unions bore fruit. When a child was born from a coupling between humans and jinn, it was termed khunnas. One born from a union between humans and demons was called amluq. Humans were less likely to pursue jinn, however, particularly females, as they were reputed to have violent tempers. One man who had married a jinn female received a good thrashing with a camel bone at her hands before she left him…”
Musharraf Ali Farooqi has also translated Dastan Amir Hamza into English (its a very good translation, btw, I have it and its tremendous fun to read in the toilet). He has also started on Tilsim e Hoshruba. (he also wrote a novel recently that I have not yet read).
Aamer Ahmed Khan (who replaced Mohammed Hanif as head of BBC Urdu) tried to start a series of Tilsim E Hoshruba comics in Lahore, but these ideas seem to whither and die in Pakistan. After the “Islamic welfare state” deal is finally done with, maybe some remaining people will rediscover the real treasures of medieval Islamicate culture (Jinns, Arabian Nights, Tilsim e Hoshruba) and make comics and video games and movies out of them in the land of the Indus man (for now, it seems they do it best once they get out); all sorts of creative possibilities exist…
My theory is that all these creative possibilities tend to get overwhelmed in Pakistan (the actual Pakistan, not the imaginary one..hint hint, wink wink) because we need Jinns to produce literal rather than metaphorical electricity.
Continue reading Everything you always wanted to know about Jinns..
By Mohammad Hamid, KUNDUZ, Afghanistan
(Reuters) – About 150 Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday after drinking contaminated water at a high school in the country’s north, officials said, blaming it on conservative radicals opposed to female education.
Since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban, which banned education for women and girls, females have returned to schools, especially in Kabul.
But periodic attacks still occur against girls, teachers and their school buildings, usually in the more conservative south and east of the country, from where the Taliban insurgency draws most support.
“We are 100 percent sure that the water they drunk inside their classes was poisoned. This is either the work of those who are against girls’ education or irresponsible armed individuals,” said Jan Mohammad Nabizada, a spokesman for education department in northern Takhar province.
Some of the 150 girls, who suffered from headaches and vomiting, were in critical condition, while others were able to go home after treatment in hospital, the officials said.
They said they knew the water had been poisoned because a larger tank used to fill the affected water jugs was not contaminated.
“This is not a natural illness. It’s an intentional act to poison schoolgirls,” said Haffizullah Safi, head of Takhar’s public health department. ….
Read more » Reuters
via – Twitter
Turkish security forces have killed 15 female rebel Kurds in the southeast of the country on Saturday, AFP cites the country’s interior ministry as saying. One member of a local group fighting alongside Turkish security forces was killed in the clashes, while three more were wounded. The female rebels belonged to a women-only unit of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The operation follows a large-scale offensive against PKK militants near the Iraqi border that left seven police officers and six rebels dead.
By Saad Hafiz
Excerpt;
….. Pakistan is being left behind as more developing countries make an effort to capitalize on the full human potential of their female population to drive economic development and social transformation. Muslim countries such as Bangladesh and Malaysia have made significant progress in implementing gender equality in five critical areas: economic participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment, and health and well-being. If Pakistan is to make economic and social progress in the near future it needs to educate its women from primary to the highest levels, open up economic opportunities to women, introduce social infrastructure and services to unburden women of the domestic and child care burdens and enforce laws to protect women’s rights. Hopefully, the education and empowerment of women in Pakistan will also result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful society.
To read complete article » PaK Tea House
Today a news article in Dawn revealed the shocking case of female students and staff members forced to offer sexual favours in return for grades and demands of their immediate superiors.
I do not believe that this news is “shocking” because such cases are a rarity. In fact I believe that such cases probably proliferate throughout educational institutions, or indeed in any institution where men are in a position to extract sexual favours. This case is shocking because of the International Islamic University Islamabad’s indifference to these cases and its efforts to cover it up. Further, they have tried to justify their actions by claiming that they hushed up these allegations to protect the parents of female students and the reputation of the institution.
So what exactly has happened?
Continue reading PAKISTAN – The Islamic university where girls were raped
Comment by Omar Ali
The writer is a former Secretary of the Indian intelligence agency RAW (an agency no more capable than other arms of the Indian government, but thought in Pakistan to possess superhuman powers and very beautiful female agents who trap Pakistani patriots, or so we hope). His views on things to come..
To read the article » In unstable fields by Vikram Sood » CLICK HERE
Via » Brown Pundits
By Marvi Sirmed
Atiqa Odho needs to change her name. Not only her name but also the prefix if she wants to avoid further humiliation that she possibly could not and would not want, just because she is a woman and does not bear the right prefix before her name. Brigadier Zafar Iqbal had both — the right name and the right prefix.
The good brigadier embarked on a PIA flight from Karachi to Lahore on Saturday night, intoxicated with the ‘sherbet’. The captain of the plane handed him over to the Airport Security Force (ASF) after the brigadier publicly harassed one of the female crew members. The ASF, obviously, could not hold him for more than a few minutes when they discovered the full name of the detainee. No wonder the news item merited just a few lines in Sunday newspapers. I am still waiting for the ‘suo motu’ and media-panic that we saw in Atiqa Odho’s case. Pertinent to remind here, Ms Odho was neither drunk nor did she harass anyone on the flight.
This points to two serious maladies of this society: one, a strong gender bias that women of this country have to endure everywhere, including the courts; and two, unjust and unfair partiality that society confers on the military. It is not only about an overly powerful military but also about an extremely weak civil society. It would be naïve to believe that civil society in Pakistan is powerful enough to foil any attempt to usurp power from the civilian entities. This is mainly because the military here never departed from power. Irrespective of who occupied the buildings of the Prime Minister Secretariat and the Presidency, the military always ruled in the country through its incontrovertible influence over political decision-making and social phenomena.
The way things happen in the court, and outside of it, memo scandal is a case in point. In the memo scandal, Husain Haqqani was treated as an accused by the media and society at large because the military thought so. Everything else had to be in sync with what the military wanted or at least, was perceived to be wanting. The same ‘evidence’ (the BBM conversations claimed by Mansoor Ijaz that took place between him and Husain Haqqani) implicated the head of the ISI who was accused in the same BBM conversations to have spoken to the leaders of some Arab states and gotten their consent to sack the present government. But no one from the media, politicians (even the ones who portray themselves as most committed to civilian supremacy) and the judiciary could ever point a finger towards General Pasha, the accused. Husain Haqqani was an easy target because he was not a general. Or even a brigadier.
Later, the chief of army staff and the head of ISI submitted their affidavits in clear departure of the government’s point of view — the same government that both of them are accountable to. The prime minister was openly criticised by everyone for calling this action of the two generals as unconstitutional. So much so that the media wing of the Pakistan Army, the ISPR, attacked the prime minister — their boss — by issuing a strongly worded statement warning the government of grave consequences and serious ramifications. So there were two statements, one by the chief executive of a country castigating his subordinate generals for unconstitutional actions, and the other from the subordinate generals threatening their boss with grave consequences. Guess who had to retract the statement? You got it right, it was the boss. The Islamic Republic is unique in its construction.
What can be more worrying for a people whose representative is humiliated by an agency that should be subordinate to the people. The agency, it is more perturbing, does so with popular consent. The absence of popular outrage amounts to consent if one could decrypt public reactions. We can go on endlessly criticising hungry-for-power generals, selfish politicians, corporate media and an ambitious judiciary, but what remains a fact is Pakistani society’s utter failure — rather refusal — to grow from a Praetorian state to even a half decent egalitarian democracy.
Visualizing Violence Against Indian Women
(Via SepiaMutiny Newsfeed): A Malayali civil engineer and former software developer, Shemeer Padinzjharedil, came to a conclusion that many BPs have already done through deduction: India is likely a dangerous place for women relative to the Western world. Inspired to debunk the results of a Thompson-Reuters poll of gender ‘experts’ perception of danger to women, where three of the five worst offenders were south asian countries, Shemeer thought the reported statistics would paint a different picture. Given the survey combined questions about statistics with reporting bias problems (sexual assault, trafficking, non-sexual assault) and factors (cultural and religious) for which one could combine statistics about which I would be more comfortable citing (maternal mortality, female literacy and other health stats), he faced a difficult task. Given that the solid numbers are unambiguous, Shemeer decided against deconstructing this picture and sought, instead, to flesh it out with self-reporting by building a site where anyone can report violence: www.maps4aid.com The site is in it’s infancy but you can already see some trends: centers of population and urbanized areas report the most violence regardless of the category. A second site, blogs4aid, has handy bar graph breaking it out by state. For 2010 you may find a few surprises:
Read more » Brown Pundits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0QvR1eP2yg&ob=av3e
Pakistan scandal’s latest twist: naked wrestling
By CHRIS BRUMMITT
The Associated Press – ISLAMABAD : A scandal over a secret memo to Washington that could bring down the Pakistani president took a strange turn Wednesday when a music video surfaced featuring the chief accuser acting as a commentator for a naked female wrestling bout.
Opponents of Mansoor Ijaz, an American of Pakistani origin, said the clip damaged his credibility ahead of his scheduled appearance at a Supreme Court commission in this conservative Muslim country. The Florida-born businessman has pledged to provide damning evidence that the Pakistani government sent the note seeking U.S. help preventing a military coup in the aftermath of the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011.
Others were simply amused at the latest twist in an affair that has transfixed the media and raised tensions between the government and the powerful military to dangerous levels. Dubbed “memogate” in the Pakistani media, one Twitter user suggested it should now be renamed “booty-gate.”
Ijaz, who boasts of close friendships with the U.S. security establishment and past back-channel diplomatic roles in Sudan and Kashmir, claims the unsigned memo was authored by the then-Pakistan envoy to Washington, Husain Haqqani.
Ijaz says that at Haqqani’s request, he delivered the memo to Adm. Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer at the time. Mullen’s spokesman confirmed that his boss did receive the memo from Ijaz but that he did not find it credible and ignored it.
Haqqani denied any role in the memo but resigned last year amid pressure from the outraged military. Ijaz has said that he gave computer records implicating Haqqani to Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, who he says flew to London to meet with him in October. Pasha has told the court that he found the evidence credible.
The country’s top court is now probing the affair, which some believe could result in treason charges against Haqqani. President Asif Ali Zardari could also be vulnerable if — as Ijaz’s lawyer claims — it can be proven he also knew about the note. The investigation comes as Pakistani-U.S. relations are at an all-time low.
It was unclear why the wrestling video, which was made in 2004 and has been viewed for years on the Internet, came to light only now. Ijaz’s role was apparently spotted by a blogger late Tuesday and spread quickly through social media.
Ijaz told The Associated Press he thought the video’s emergence was part of an effort by Haqqani to discredit him ahead of his testimony but conceded he had no evidence of this. He confirmed that the video was not a hoax. ….
Read more » AJC.COM
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/pakistan-scandals-latest-twist-1306699.html
The blog-o-sphere is boiling at the cruel beating of a female protester by Egyptian military police, who continued battling protesters in Tahrir Square on Sunday. The clashes, into their third day now, have left 10 people dead and hundreds injured. The video uploaded on YouTube Sunday reveals the extreme cruelty of the country’s law enforcers during the crackdown. The army soldiers in full riot gear have been savagely beating a seemingly unconscious female protester with big sticks, kicking her and stomping on her chest. Security forces lashed out ruthlessly on armless civilians and burned down tents that had been put up by activists outside the parliament building to camp in protest against the military rule. The internet community therefore questions the methods of the military regime who took over power after the ousting of the ex-President Hosni Mubarak in February.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P5IiKfU0n44
» YouTube
Islamic cleric bans women from touching bananas, cucumbers for sexual resemblance
CAIRO: An Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”
The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve.
He said that these fruits and vegetables “resemble the male penis” and hence could arouse women or “make them think of sex.”
He also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.
The sheikh was asked how to “control” women when they are out shopping for groceries and if holding these items at the market would be bad for them. The cleric answered saying this matter is between them and God.
Answering another question about what to do if women in the family like these foods, the sheikh advised the interviewer to take the food and cut it for them in a hidden place so they cannot see it.
The opinion has stirred a storm of irony and denouncement among Muslims online, with hundreds of comments mocking the cleric. ….
Read more » Bikyamasr.cm
By Ruth Marcus
Women are forced to board public buses from the back and stay there. Billboards with images of women are defaced. Public streets are cordoned off during religious holidays so that women cannot enter.
A viral video of Ameer Jamat-e-Islami (JI) Munawwar Hassan defending the silence over the rape of women and condoning imprisonment of female rape victims if they fail to produce four male witnesses in accordance with the Hudood Ordinance, has deeply outraged many sane people in Pakistan.
According to Hassan, if a woman cannot produce four male witnesses present at the time of her rape, she be imprisoned based on Hudood Ordinance and Shariah Law. This, he claims is in the best interest of women who are raped so if she fails to produce the witnesses she ought to refrain from filing an FIR altogether.
According to Hassan, somehow, it is in the best interest of the society for a woman to stay silent after being raped, while the perpetrator roams free. ….
Read more » The Express Tribune Blogs
By Shamsul Islam
FAISALABAD: At least 10 students, including seven girls, and a female teacher were expelled from Chenab Public School and Muslim Public School, Dharanwali area of Hafizabad, for being Ahmadis.
“It is extremely unfortunate that my daughters are being deprived of the most basic and fundamental human right such as education … all because of religious intolerance,” Khalil Ahmad, whose three daughters were expelled, told The Express Tribune. “I have no alternative to ensure that their education continues,” he added.
What about the constitutional provisions which ensure equal rights for all? What about the rule of law that says no discrimination can be made on the basis of faith, race, cast and creed, he questions. …
Read more » The Express Tribune
– Dress modestly: Masked men enter girls’ school, thrash students
By Azam Khan
RAWALPINDI: In a first for the garrison city, sixty masked men carrying iron rods barged into a girls’ school in Rawalpindi and thrashed students and female teachers on Friday.
The gang of miscreants also warned the inmates at the MC Model Girls High School in Satellite Town to “dress modestly and wear hijabs” or face the music, eyewitnesses said.
Fear gripped the area following the attack and only 25 of the 400 students studying in the college were present on Saturday. The school employs 30 female teachers.
Attendance in other educational institutions also remained low. After hearing about the attack, all schools in the city shut down, an official of the Rawalpindi District Administration (RDA) told The Express Tribune.
A student of the girls’ school managed to inform the administration of the nearby boys’ high school of the attack. “[However,] the armed gang was so powerful that we could not rescue our teachers and colleagues over there,” Noail Javed, a grade 10 student, said.
In-charge of MC High Schools in Rawalpindi issued a notification to the heads of all girls’ schools to take pre-emptive measures to avoid such incidents in future. According to the notification, a gang comprising 60 to 70 miscreants entered into the school from a gate that was “strangely open”.
All the MC school heads were assigned the responsibility of protecting the students by the notification. A school headmistress wishing not to be named said, “How is it possible for us to protect the students from such elements. The city administration should review its security plan.”
The notification also suggested that the heads should not inform the students about the situation, so that they are not alarmed into skipping school. ….
Read more » The Express Tribune
by Amir Qureshi
It was only a matter of time anyway. A few days ago, a police officer along with his squad burst into the Nairang Art Gallery and beat up the female curator for wearing a sleeveless dress and interacting with men. The police officer, a SHO, was perturbed by the ‘fahash’ ambience of the place.
After being assaulted the woman and her colleagues who came to her rescue were taken to the police station and booked under an obsolete ordinance.
Nairang Art Gallery is a work of devotion to art, literature, music and design by the iconic architect Nayyer Ali Dada. Some say it’s the modern day’s equivalent of the Pak Tea House – where left-leaning intellectuals come to spend their time. They have a small cafeteria which pays for part of the operating expenses of the art gallery; the rest of the funds are put up by Nayyer Ali Dada. ….
Read more →THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE BLOG
– The Jamat-e-Islami, and rape
by Usmann Rana
A viral video of Ameer Jamat-e-Islami (JI) Munawwar Hassan defending the silence over the rape of women and condoning imprisonment of female rape victims if they fail to produce four male witnesses in accordance with the Hudood Ordinance, has deeply outraged many sane people in Pakistan.
According to Hassan, if a woman cannot produce four male witnesses present at the time of her rape, she be imprisoned based on Hudood Ordinance and Shariah Law. This, he claims is in the best interest of women who are raped so if she fails to produce the witnesses she ought to refrain from filing an FIR altogether.
According to Hassan, somehow, it is in the best interest of the society for a woman to stay silent after being raped, while the perpetrator roams free.
I can’t help wonder if the leader would preach silence if a member of his family was attacked.
In the video, the Ameer inexplicably labels the Women’s Protection Bill as an effort to spread “vulgarity, nudity and shamelessness” in Pakistan, while demanding the seemingly intimidated anchor quote verses from the Holy Quran, who eventually has to descend into a monologue to prove his own Islamic credentials before being able to propose an argument to defend raped women. Interestingly, the Ameer himself fails to present any Quranic verse or Hadith to back his views.
The repugnant manner in which the host of the talk show is dismissed, and labeled an infidel for challenging the Holy Quran and Hadith, is a classic example of moral policing by self righteous Muslims in the country, who are masters at evading rationality.
I sincerely hope these morally, self righteous people read Maheen Usmani’s piece titled ‘Why the deafening silence after rape’ which cites horrific facts about rape in Pakistan including “Situation of Violence against Women in Pakistan 2010” by Aurat Foundation, according to which a total of 4,069 cases occurred in Pakistan last year.
Every two hours, a woman is raped in Pakistan and every eight hours, gang raped. And after all this, we are confronted with the reality that in this land, where the taste of justice for many is nothing but bland and vapid, 70 per cent of the crimes against women go unreported.
But how silly of those supporting the Women’s Protection Bill to seek greater freedom and protection of women in a society suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder regarding female sexuality, and the shame/honour dichotomy. The last thing then this country needs is rights for some 51 per cent of population. …
Read more → The Express Tribune
by Waseem Altaf
An educated, healthy and mature lady is required to have a mehram even if he is frail, uneducated, maybe mentally retarded as there should be somebody to guard her as she is highly susceptible to molestation. And if not, she also has the potential to seduce other males, especially during Hajj. Even if she is 80 years of age, she is highly vulnerable to molestation and seduction. So every woman who exits her house should have a male accompanying her …
Read more: ViewPoint
Are all ‘houris’ female? – By Nilofar Ahmed
IT has traditionally been believed that good men who go to paradise will be rewarded with the beautiful women of paradise known as houris. Women throughout the centuries never thought of asking, ‘what about us?’ But in this century of women, this question keeps coming up, even in the most conservative of circles. …
Read more: DAWN.COM
– By Daily Mail Reporter
A Kuwaiti woman who once ran for parliament has called for sex slavery to be legalised – and suggested that non-Muslim prisoners from war-torn countries would make suitable concubines.
Salwa al Mutairi argued buying a sex-slave would protect decent, devout and ‘virile’ Kuwaiti men from adultery because buying an imported sex partner would be tantamount to marriage.
And she even had an idea of where to ‘purchase’ these sex-salves – browsing through female prisoners of war in other countries.
The political activist and TV host even suggested that it would be a better life for women in warring countries as the might die of starvation.
Mutairi claimed: ‘There was no shame in it and it is not haram’ (forbidden) under Islamic Sharia law.’
She gave the example of Haroun al-Rashid, an 8th century Muslim leader who ruled over an area covered by modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria and was rumoured to have 2,000 concubines.
Mutairi recommended that offices could be opened to run the sex trade in the same way that recruitment agencies provide housemaids.
She suggested shopping for prisoners of war so as to protect Kuwaiti men from being tempted to commit adultery or being seduced by other women’s beauty.
‘For example, in the Chechnyan war, surely there are female Russian captives,’ she said.
‘So go and buy those and sell them here in Kuwait. Better than to have our men engage in forbidden sexual relations.’
Her unbelievable argument for her plan was that ‘captives’ might ‘just die of hunger over there’.
She insisted, ‘I don’t see any problem in this, no problem at all’.
In an attempt to consider the woman’s feelings in the arrangement, Mutari conceded that the enslaved women, however, should be at least 15.
Mutairi said free women must be married with a contract but with concubines ‘the man just buys her and that’s it. That’s enough to serve as marriage.’
Her remarks, made in a video posted on YouTube last month and carried by newspapers in the Gulf states in recent days, have sparked outrage in cyber-space from fellow Kuwaitis and others in the wider region.
‘Wonder how Salwa al Mutairi would’ve felt if during the occupation (of Kuwait) by Iraqi forces, she was sold as ‘war booty’ as she advocates for Chechen women,’ tweeted Mona Eltahawy.
Another tweeter, Shireen Qudosi, told Mutairi ‘you’re a disgrace to women everywhere’.
For Muna Khan, an editor at the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television station, the ‘icing on the cake’ of Mutairi’s ‘preposterous views’ was her assertion that her suggestions do not conflict with the tenets of Islam.
Mutairi said that during a recent visit to Mecca, she asked Saudi muftis – Muslim religious scholars – what the Islamic ruling was on owning sex slaves. They are said to have told her that it is not haram.
The ruling was confirmed by ‘specialized people of the faith’ in Kuwait, she claimed.
‘They said, that’s right, the only solution for a decent man who has the means, who is overpowered by desire and who does not want to commit fornication, is to acquire jawari.’ Jawari is the plural of the Arabic term jariya, meaning ‘concubine’ or ‘sex slave’.
One Saudi mufti supposedly told Mutairi: ‘The context must be that of a Muslim nation conquering a non-Muslim nation, so these jawari have to be prisoners of war.’
Concubines, she argued, would suit Muslim men who fear being ‘seduced or tempted into immoral behaviour by the beauty of their female servants’.
By: Syed Jafar Askari
KARACHI – The Sindh Education Department has decided that summer vacations will be observed in two months from July to August instead of June to July.
It is also decided that the female students will be awarded scholarships to enhance literacy rate among women segment of the society. These decisions were taken in a meeting of Steering Committee of Sindh Education Department, held on Saturday. Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazhar ul Haq presided over the meeting ….
Read more : The Nation
Love in the Time of 1971: The Furore over Meherjaan
The film Meherjaan, which was released in Dhaka in January 2011, was quickly pulled out of theatres after it created a furore among audiences. The hostile responses to the film from across generations highlight the discomfort about the portrayal of a raped woman, and its depiction of female and multiple sexualities during the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971. The furore also underscores the nationalist repoliticisation of the younger generation in Bangladesh and its support for the ongoing war crimes tribunal of the 1971 war.
To read full article : http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/15845.pdf
Municipal officers differ on why a ban is desirable
LAHORE: Town municipal officers (TMOs) across Lahore continue to grapple with the idea of banning women as vendors in Sunday Bazaars as was announced by Ahad Cheema, the DCO, two weeks ago.
The actual implementation of the order, for which Cheema had not given a reason for, still seems distant. In the Sunday Bazaars set up at Ravi Town and Iqbal Town, among others, female vendors were seen selling as usual without any opposition by the local market committee representatives. ….
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