Women’s Rights: Breaking the Islamic Glass-Ceiling, Any Moment Now!

by SHEIKYERMAMI on MARCH 10, 2012

Naomi Wolff would be delighted to get her free burqa and a good thrashing!

Saudi Arabia:

“At least 50 women” injured in protest against discrimination at university

“Dozens were said to have been injured after security forces and religious police moved in to break it up.”

“Women ‘injured’ in Saudi university protest,” from BBC News, March 8 via JW.

Iraq:

Women’s rights in Iraq: “This is not freedom, this is darkness”

Wherever Sharia experiences a resurgence, the observable effect is that tolerance decreases, and harassment increases. “Women deplore restrictions in male-dominated Iraq,” by Salam Faraj for Agence France-Presse, March 8, JW

Afghanistan’s top religious council:

Women should not mix with men in school, work, or daily life, or travel without a male relative

Pakistan:

Report: Pakistani women from religious minorities “are the victims of constant attempts at forced conversion or false charges of blasphemy”

Pakistan is a major beneficiary of U.S. aid. We have leverage that we are not using to fight for basic human rights. “Life on the margins, discrimination against Christian and Hindu women in Pakistan,” from Asia News, March 8:

Nigeria:

Boko Haram: “We are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women””

Egypt:

Islamic parties move to get rid of National Council for Women

On display here is a tactic that turns up wherever politics are at work in a society: advancing one’s agenda under labels that employ pleasant generalities that sound like good things at face value. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (what, don’t you like the will of “the people“?). The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (what, are you unpatriotic?). Stateside, that is why we have so many interest groups with names like Heartland Americans for Laurels and Hardy Handshakes (if Blazing Saddles had a “527″ organization).
It is also used in Islamic proselytizing and to advance Sharia in Islamic societies: just think of how many glittering, unquestioned generalities are propagated in the mainstream media without questioning what is meant by “human rights,” “freedom of worship” (as opposed to freedom of religion), “within the limits of the law,” and so forth. Here, Egypt’s Islamic parties want to replace the council for women with a council for “families.”
If you object to this, you hate families. You… family-phobe. “Egypt Islamists want ‘family’ not women’s council,” from Agence France-Presse, March 9:

Women’s rights, Arab spring-style

You asked for it, girls! You deserve everything that’s coming to ya:

From AFP:

A women’s conference organized by the dominant Islamist bloc in the Egyptian parliament has called for a council for families to replace the existing National Council for Women, a state-owned daily reported on Friday.
The conference, held Thursday on International Women’s Day, also condemned the 1978 U.N. convention against gender discrimination saying it was “incompatible with the values of Islamic sharia” law, the Al-Ahram newspaper reported.

Spain. Or should we call it ‘Al Andaluz’ already?

Spanish imam under investigation for calling on Muslims to “discipline” misbehaving wives

Gee. He must not get his religious guidance from the HuffPo tafsir department. “Spanish imam under investigation after calling on Muslims to ‘discipline’ misbehaving wives,” from Al Arabiya, March 6: