An Easier way to Rape Women
I read this story over a week ago about the Saudi Religious Police demanding that the authorities of Medina, one of Islam's holiest cities, build separate sidewalks for women. I didn't bother blogging about it because it was just another instance of Islamic misogyny and it didn't have the same impact as when the same Religious Police beat back those poor schoolgirls into a burning school in Mecca, because they were not wearing headscarves and abayas in March 11, 2002. 15 girls died and 50 were injured as a result of this barbaric, primitive, and savage devotion to a fake religion.
Here's the sidewalk story:
RIA Novosti,
31 Aug 2007,
Saudi Arabian religious police call for sex-segregated sidewalksThe country's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), tasked with enforcing Sharia law, believes men and women should not be allowed to mix on the streets of the Islam's second holiest place, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried.
The clerical police, or Mutaween, are authorized to arrest unrelated men and women caught socializing, anyone suspected of being homosexual or a prostitute, and to enforce Islamic dress codes.
The Mutaween enforce Islamic female dress codes, ordering women to wear headscarves and abayas, long black dresses covering the whole body except for face, hands and feet. Women are not allowed to leave their houses without their husbands or immediate male relatives.
Saudi women are also not allowed to ride a bicycle or drive a car, because if the vehicle breaks down, a woman might have to talk to an unknown male.
But then I realized the real purpose for the sex-segregated sidewalks: to make it easier for Muslim men to rape women. In order for a Muslim woman to even report a rape, she has to have 4 male witnesses (other than those who actually raped her) or 8 female witnesses. If she reports an unsubstantiated rape, she will find herself charged with having unlawful sex. If males can be kept off the female-only sidewalk, there will be fewer male witnesses to a rape, making it easier to get away with the act.
Mehnaz Sahibzada [Geocities],
The Politics of Rape in Pakistan: Victim or Criminal?Fifteen-year-old Jehan Mina became pregnant after being raped by her uncle and cousin. Her family filed a complaint of rape but since there were no witnesses, the alleged rapists were acquitted. Yet her pregnancy was proof that "zina" [extra-marital sexual intercourse] had taken place and she was sentenced to 100 lashes in public. The punishment was later converted to 3 years imprisonment and 10 lashes.
Devilishly clever these Muslim swine.
Related:
Guardian Unlimited,
13 Aug 2007,
'Vice' squad losing its gripIt was business as usual for Saudi Arabia's religious police one night in June this year when a dozen of them stormed into the house of 28-year-old hotel security guard Salman al-Huraisi, arrested 10 members of his family, and ransacked his property in search of banned alcohol.
...
But the mutawa'in went too far after detaining al-Huraisi, beating him so severely that he died in custody. Outrage has been expressed across the kingdom, with calls for justice bursting forth even from the heavily-restrained Saudi press. "Five years ago, we could have never done this" says one editor at the Saudi-owned daily Arab News. "The change is drastic."
Equally dramatic is the launching of three separate lawsuits against the committee - an unprecedented call to accountability for their heavy-handed behaviour. The public outcry has also forced the government to launch an investigation into the committee's behaviour - a striking illustration that the Wahhabi clergy may be slowly losing their stranglehold over the Saudi polity.
At Al Iman School in Queens, robes are required and cosmetics, jewelry and flirting are forbidden.
So how will these girls fit in American Society when they graduate? Obviously, they won't; we'll just have more bitter, maladjusted, young people with an attitude against our culture. Why do people come to America if our institutions and way of life are completely inimical to theirs?
