Political Mavens » SCREAM, MUSLIM WOMEN!

Here we go again. The justly dreaded Saudi “morality” police, enthusiastically supported by the country’s interior minister, recently acquitted by the courts for causing the death of “four youths in a car accident after chasing them on suspicion of being with unrelated women.” For in Saudi Arabia, to be accused of being in the company of unrelated men, amounts to a death sentence:

Saudi Arabia’s religious police are being blamed for the death of two sisters who were murdered in what is known as an ‘honor killing’ by their brother after the sisters were arrested for allegedly mixing with unrelated men.The Society for Defending Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia said the religious police arrested the two sisters, aged 19 and 21, thus putting their lives in danger.

Their brother shot them to death in front of their father when they left a women’s shelter in Riyadh on July 5, according to Saudi news reports.

The practice known as honor killing is a daily occurrence in Saudi Arabia. The incidents are staged to look like a suicide or an accident, Wajeha Huweidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist told The Media Line. . . .

“I think the religious police had a big role in this crime and many other crimes,” said Huweidar. “When a woman gets arrested for mingling with a non-male relative, that means her life is ended. She gets to go to a prison or to a women’s shelter and her family will not come to pick her up. The Saudi male guardianship system doesn’t allow women to be released without the presence of their male guardian.”

Violence against Muslim women continues a pace as the list of crimes collected by in the recent bulletin of the oppression of women makes clear. And it merely covers the last, unexceptional, few weeks. And just so that you, as I was first tempted to be, are not encourage by the very existence of an outspoken Saudi activist like Wajeha Huweidar note that she has been prevented from leaving the country because she did not have permission from her guardian.

Yes, women need such permission even to have elective surgery. HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson asserts that it is time to get real:

The Saudi government is saying one thing to the Human Rights Council in Geneva but doing another thing inside the kingdom.It needs to stop requiring adult women to seek permission from men, not just pretend to stop it.

This is the brutal reality behind the American and French presidents argument over Muslim female headgear, as absurd as it may seem. Non Muslims groups, such as Hassidic Jews and Amish Christians, may have dress codes but those abandoning them are not risking violent retribution. In other words, when Barack Obama chooses to be silent on dishonor murder and vocal on the Burka, he takes the side of the oppressors and there is no use pretending otherwise.

Moreover, his pretense has consequences. It is a small wonder that the Afghani president dared world opinion by signing a bill which Legalizes Rape and Starvation of Women:

This week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed legislation which among other things, allows Afghan men to starve their wives if they refuse to have sex with them. The measure was an amendment to a law which have husbands the right to force themselves on their wives, if they did not consent.Some NATO countries (not the U.S.!)have threatened to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan as a result of the measure. . .

The new law has touched-off riots in the streets of Kabul, as hundreds of women protested the law which would be unthinkable in a civilized society. However, groups of men from Kabul’s largest Shia madrassa also took to the streets and attacked the women. The event has been completely ignored by the American press.

Well, the American press is too busy following in Obama’s footsteps to disrespect anything any Muslim leader or cleric says or does. In other words, Muslim women, like the Iranian people, are on their own even when it comes to moral support. And, just so that we make no mistake, Muslim women are in danger in the West too as demonstrated by dishonor murders in such places as Texas, New York or Malmo, Sweden.

Oh, yes, there are “good news” from Saudi Arabia. Hence, only 3 eyewitness are needed for a rape conviction instead of four! That should make conviction easier, don’t you think?!