Loony Tune Muslimas Saying Stupid things

A female Kuwaiti politician called for the legalization of the sex slavery, saying it would protect "decent, devout and virile Kuwaiti men" from adultery. It would keep them from the temptation of being seduced by another woman's beauty. 

http://bit.ly/iP00m5

KUALA LUMPUR: A wife must obey and serve her husband like "a first-class prostitute" to keep him from straying and to prevent greater social ills, according to the Obedient Wives' Club.

The Malaysian branch of the club, launched here yesterday, was formed as an answer to social problems such as infidelity, prostitution, domestic violence and abandoned babies, which its members believed stemmed from a lack of belief in God and the failure of women to keep their husbands content.

Read more: 'Serve husbands like first-class prostitutes' http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/14prosi/Article/#ixzz1OeuZPJD9

Gee, That's Awfully Kind of You

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani will not be stoned to death - for the time being | World news | The Guardian

Actually it is just plain awful.

Main Article:

Iran's judiciary has said that the stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery will not be carried out – for now. But the fate of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, which has generated huge international concern, remains uncertain.

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the senior judicial official in East Azerbaijan province, where the mother-of-two was convicted, told the Irna state news agency yesterday the sentence "will not be implemented for the time being."Ajdar Sharifi added that the sentence would still be carried out if the judiciary wanted, despite protests from the west. Mohammadi Ashtiani's crimes were "various and very serious" and not limited to adultery, he insisted.
"Although the verdict is definitive and applicable, it has been halted due to humanitarian reservations and upon the order of the honourable judiciary chief."

Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, was found guilty of having an "illicit relationship" with two men in 2006 but her lawyer and family denounced the trial as a sham.
"Whenever the judiciary chief [Sadeq Larijani] deems it expedient, the verdict will be carried out regardless of western media propaganda," the official said.

Snip

Oh. by all means, don't let "Western" notions of restraint, or mercy, or forgiveness interfere with your troglodyte notions of Islamic justice. By all means, continue the mad rush back to the time of al-Jahiliyah. Forget everything that the Last Prophet Of God taught you. Continue to dishonor the faith of one billion people by your petty, vindictive, and misogynist ways. Cause all people who love justice and mercy to turn their faces from Islam in bitterness and despair. Keep doing the work not of Allah but of his greatest opponent , Shaitan.

Campaign for Iranian woman facing death by stoning

http://goo.gl/iltt

A 43-year-old Iranian woman is facing death by stoning unless an international campaign launched by her children forces the authorities to quash what her lawyer calls a bogus conviction.

In a case that highlights the growing use of the death penalty in a country that has already executed more than 100 people this year, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted in May 2006 of conducting an "illicit relationship outside marriage."

Sakineh already endured a sentence of 99 lashes, but her case was re-opened when a court in Tabriz suspected her of murdering her husband. She was acquitted, but the adultery charge was reviewed and a death penalty handed down on the basis of "judge's knowledge" – a loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where no conclusive evidence is present.

Speaking to the Guardian, her son Sajad, 22, and daughter Farideh, 17, say their mother has been unjustly accused and already punished for something she did not do.

"She's innocent, she's been there for five years for doing nothing", Sajad said. He described the imminent execution as barbaric. "Imagining her, bound inside a deep hole in the ground, stoned to death, has been a nightmare for me and my sister for all these years."

Under Iranian sharia law, the sentenced individual is buried up to the neck (or to the waist in the case of men), and those attending the public execution are called upon to throw stones. If the convicted person manages to free themselves from the hole, the death sentence is commuted.

The niqab, or how Europe lost its mind over a small piece of cloth.

The nation of Belgium, after a short delay, passed a law banning the wearing of the Muslim face veil or the burqa in this tiny European state. Thus did a small section of the Ummah become one of the few things the constantly squabbling Belgians come to agreement. The Flemish and Walloons may not have much love for one another but they do join together in their greater antipathy for the Muslim minority.

Crashing into the party is Italy which just nailed a Muslim Lass five hundred euro for her lack of fashion sense. That is a little more than six hundred forty U.S. dollars for walking while Islamic. To add insult to injury her husband will now shutter her indoors lest she be seen by other men.

La Belle France is next up in line for a little Burqa bashing. How simple clothing could cause such a furor is an odd thing. It has become a penultimate symbol, a Rorschach test revealing much larger obsessions, and assumptions not only in Europe but in the "Enlightened West."

The logic, such as it is, for the niqab is rather straight forward for the followers of the Last Prophet of God; it is to reflect a pious desire for female modesty. It is, as far as can be understood by someone with little grounding in the faith of Islam, piety and a wee bit more. Female modesty in Islam does require the wearing of the hijab. The niqab is supposed to be voluntary.

Muslim female dress is a matter of covering up the naughty bits. These naughty bits, called the Awrah or Aurat cover a substantial amount of epidermis in Muslimahs. In point of fact any hint of skin or female protuberances is frowned upon. Interpretation varies from area to area but the ideal seems to be a form not much different than a self-propelled sack of potatoes. Adding a further crimp to the proceeding is that this form is supposed to be escorted at all times by a male family member. It is argued, by the Koran, that this is necessary lest the men folk blow a gasket from all the lustful thoughts that may accrue if these instructions are not carried to the letter. Somehow the women folk have a higher tolerance of awrah exposure than the males since the acceptable male exposure covers (or should we say uncovers) many more square centimeters of surface area than the female. As religious theorems go, it makes about as much sense as the Orthodox Christian notion of the Trinity. If you want hard and fast logic, study Boolean algebra, not religion.

All these notions are a matter of faith. They are a part of a divinely reviled way of life. This is the path to salvation as written by God (or more properly Allah) and passed down to the final prophet without error. The notions of female modesty are as much part of the warp and woof of Islam as the Mass is a part of the warp and woof of Roman Catholicism.

It is with the Catholic Mass that we can, if inexpertly, try to understand Muslim notions of piety. If hijab is analogous to the weekly mass in the Catholic faith, then the niqab might be understood as the daily mass some Roman Catholics attend. The link is that both are observances that are not required, but are encouraged in the pious. Just as pious Catholics demonstrate their faith by attending daily mass, pious Muslimahs demonstrate their faith by the wearing of the niqab. From a civil liberties perspective the banning of the niqab makes about as much sense as forcing hamburgers on devout Catholics during the Lenten season.

This obsession about the niqab makes even less sense when one considers the small number of females actually dashing about in them. France claims that perhaps a whopping one thousand women are so attired in the entire nation. In a population that is over sixty-five million, one thousand of that number is a micro-percentage, not even a rounding error to be totally honest. Exactly how is this miniscule cohort such a threat to the domestic tranquility of La Belle France that a law must be passed?

The counter argument is that numbers are immaterial; these women are being oppressed by their religion. Never mind some of the actual women in question fiercely reject such notions. Never mind their claim that their dress is an expression of their desire to be closer to Allah, an expression of their desire for a purer, more chaste life; they are obviously brain-washed stooges of a patriarchal religion who have been forced into this by retrograde clerics. Heads I win; tails you lose.

Lost in all this hyperventilation is the idea of freedom of conscience. If a Muslimah truly wants to wear this garb due an honest desire toward piety; the government should get out of her grill. But if this costume is being forced on her by another person; whether they are father, brother, uncle, mother, sister, Imam or husband, that is also out of bounds. Simple rule: your freedom to swing your fists ends at my nose. A woman bundled up in a burka is not prima facia evidence of oppression, nor is it evidence of sanctity. The only thing that is certain is that it is evidence of a rather uncomfortable woman out in public on a hot summer's day.

All of this seems to be a fine distraction from the serious business at hand. Unexamined is exactly why so many of the Islamic faithful remain unassimilated into the French nation. Nobody really wants to deal with nasty fact that the suburbs are chock-a-block full of disposed Maghreb migrants and other people from the former Colonial Empire who have become part of a permanent underclass. There is more than enough oppression by the state, and by some of the individuals residing there, to warrant concern and action by the appropriate authorities. The crass realities on the ground make a mockery of French notions of egalite. After all if things were so hunky dory for the residents of the immigrant suburbs, they would not be rioting and setting fire to them, would they?

Instead of going to the core of the issue, Europeans of all political persuasions would rather go off on tangents. One side gets all frothy over the sight of Muslimahs doing the burka bop; whilst the other gets all moonbatty over half-baked notions of inclusion. Neither party seems to have the remotest desire to think critically. One party seems to want to return to a France that existed sometime before Algeria became Independent. The other party seems blissfully ignorant of the fact that a small cohort of the Islamic faithful truly are misogynistic, misanthropic, antediluvian troglodytes who want to reverse the results of the battle of Pointers (or as they prefer ma'arakat Balâṭ ash-Shuhadâ.)
Multiculturalism was just another way the elites could let the issue of assimilation fester. It had the double barrel advantage of allowing both avoidance of the issue, and making its practitioners feel so righteous about their negligence. Of course it all blew up when a miniscule minority of the Ummah went totally insane over some silly Danish cartoons. When harmless cartoons are the cause of attempted ax murders, it is proof positive that something is rotten in Denmark.

What is particularly distressing is how the results of these anti- niqab and anti-burka laws end up furthering the very misogyny that they a supposed to be opposing. There is a sneaking feeling that in many cases this is a lot less about women's rights and more about immigrant bashing and Islamophobia. The Muslimah that got fined in Italy just happened to reside in an area where the anti-immigrant Italian Political Party the Northern League has its base. One wonders if these three nations of Belgium, Italy, and France would be so concerned for woman's rights if these followers of Islam were from good Nordic stock; instead of more swarthy Tunisians, Algerians, Turks, etc. The cloying, rotting smell of bigotry wafts from these policy proposals. Why is the main objection about women's attire? I see no movement, like Peter the Great did in Russia, to enforce a clean shaven appearance among the male citizens of these three nations. There is not even a beard tax under discussion.

From a civil libertarian view point these burkah bans do not pass the smell test. Not only do they stink of racial and religious bigotry they also have the heavy stench of misogyny. Not that the opponents of these laws are covering themselves in glory; the muddle-headed multiculturalism is less of a principled stand and more of an unprincipled nihilism. Every culture, every nation has core values. One of the greatest of these the West gave to the world was secularism. Tightly wound in this notion is the idea of the individual, and the rights of that unique person. Too many died in securing these rights for them to be tossed into the rubbish bin by indolent posers mau-mauing some wooly-minded notion of Political Correctness. Cultural and moral relativism are the Devil's road to ruination; they are a unilateral disarmament towards evil.

It would be best if France and other European countries stop obsessing over trivia like the Islamic dress code and deal with actual problem of immigrant assimilation. It would be handy if they came to an honest consensus about what citizenships really means. It would be beneficial if they abandoned the toxic notion of multiculturalism and the cultural relativism that supports it. It is past time they rediscover the classical Liberal notions of human freedom that emerged from the age of reason.

There is no shame in truly defending the right of every human to achieve self-actualization. The shame comes from hypocritical posturing about "women's rights" when actually one is actually going after those same women because they are such a powerless and easy target. The shame is using these women as pawns to push a larger political agenda; whether it is an agenda of the left or right.

Musings On the "Graveyard Of Empires"

The more one looks at Afghanistan the more the jarring similarities with our effort in South-East Asia occur. Case in point: the farcical election result just voided out in our client state.

Granted Karzai is not yet as hopeless as the Thieu-Ky government that ran the operatically corrupt South Vietnamese government in the last days of that nations existence. But Karzai is starting to look a lot like Ngô Đình Diệm without Madam Nhu. Karzai is so incompetent he can't even properly steal an election.

Granted his opponent had his own special problems starting with his unimaginative parents. One wonders if the twice named Abdulla has the chops to run the epic mess that is Afghanistan.

One wonders if Obama is on a fool’s mission. The Bush Administrations neglect of Afghanistan to pursue its Neoconservative dreams in Iraq may have left the U.S. in a no-win position. It may be too late for any kind of successful operation in Afghanistan.

Our failure in South-East Asia began with a very sensible middle-road approach to the conflict, choosing neither to fully escalate nor get out of Vietnam. Johnson especially died the death of a thousand cuts because he could never decide to fish or cut bait. LBJ proved that the only thing one finds in the middle of the road is squished armadillos.

There is a way to "win" in Afghanistan. It is to really take the ideas of Petraeus to heart and go all in. It means a commitment of five hundred million troops for ten to twenty years to fully pacify Afghanistan. That is the Petraeus math. This is what is required to really and fully do it right. This is the real cost of Nation Building and security in Afghanistan.

We are dealing with the detritus of Bush Jr's attempt to one up his dad. We are dealing with the results of Bush Jr's go-it-alone foreign policy. The comparison to Poppy Bush's Coalition in the First Gulf War to the Son's Coalition in the Second speaks volumes about the Son's recklessness and incompetence. Poppy Bush would have easily gathered the forces required to run down Bin Laden and Mullah Omar. Poppy Bush would have probably scotched the original 9/11 plot before it occurred.

For his own reasons Obama has decided to attempt to salvage the Afghanistan situation. Maybe he really does believe that Afghanistan is still the "good war." Maybe he is pursuing more cynical Realpolitik goals. Maybe he mainly fears the Domestic political blow-back if he pulls the plug on Afghanistan.

Ever since Carter flubbed the Desert One rescue Democrats have been branded as weak on defense. Conventional wisdom has decreed that Democrats have to prove their mettle and must be properly belligerent in their foreign dealings. Hillary Clinton has definitely taken this particular idea to heart. The former first lady's reputation as a hawk may have cost her the nomination during the primaries.

Not to be too dire but we are dealing with an epically failed state that has been in a state of constant war for thirty years and counting. Mullah Omar and his grumpy cast of characters were able to seize the reigns of power because the populous of Afghanistan wanted order imposed in the worst possible way. Little did they know that they would get just that--order imposed in the worst possible way. The Taliban tried to impose a reactionary Islamic theocracy on the land. No need to delineate how badly that worked out for the people of Afghanistan.

Whatever our policy ends up being we must realize two things. One is that the Taliban and other aspects on the ground in Afghanistan are merely symptoms of a people and culture that are profoundly broken. The second thing we must realize is there are limits to what we can do to make the Afghans whole.

Bras In Somila "Deceptive" and "Unislamic"

A hardline Islamist group in Somalia has begun publicly whipping women for wearing bras that they claim violate Islam as they are 'deceptive'.

The insurgent group Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust, residents claimed yesterday.

The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra.

If they are found wearing a bra, they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said.

Al Shabaab, which seeks to impose a strict interpretation of Sharia law over all Somalia, also amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery earlier this month.

They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.

'Al Shabaab forced us to wear their type of full veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,' a resident, Halima, told Reuters, adding that her daughters had been whipped on Thursday.

'They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.'

Officials of Al Shabaab, which Washington says is Al Qaeda's proxy in the failed Horn of Africa state, declined to comment.

Snip

The question here is how much of this bit of insanity is due to Salafaist "thinking" and how much of this is cause by 25 years of Somali Chaos. More to the point exactly where is the Hadith or Koranic verse covering bras?

Still it is more than weird that ultra-reactionary theocrats have come to the same conclusion that radical feminist from the 70's did: burn them bras.

Picture equals a thousand words.

Tamara Cohen

"This is criminal justice, Yemen style. A man accused of raping and murdering an 11-year-old boy is paraded through his home town before being shot dead by an executioner. "



More at http://www.mailonsunday.ie/news/worldnews/article-1197900/Justice-Yemen-style-Paedophile-raped-boy-11-shot-head-hundreds-spectators.html

A different take on Iran

It all starts in the pages of the Guardian UK. It is a sad fact but if you want to become truly informed on foreign affairs you have to read a foreign news source. The Guardian is a great go-to source along with the BBC.

Here is the lead:

“The son of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has taken control of the militia being used to crush the protest movement, according to a senior Iranian source.

The source, a politician with strong connections to the security apparatus, said that the leading role being played by Mojtaba Khamenei had dismayed many of the country's senior clerics, conservative politicians and Revolutionary Guard generals.”

Now this is were it gets interesting. Another scribbler wrote about how the Supreme Leader in Iran the very same Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was actually acting not as a cleric but more like a Sultan. Khamenei’s rule was likened to the absolute power of a monarch. Let us investigate that idea and see where it leads us.

The Supreme Leader gets his power via the structures of the Iranian Government. Khamenei at least on the surface controls all the important levers of power and oversight. Name an organ of governance and he either helps name the individuals or has veto power over its decision.

The real base of Khamenei’s power though has been the ultra-hardliners. Through their control of the Republican Guard, and the security apparatus the Supreme leader has been able to concentrate political power.

It was with Ahmadinejad that Khamenei was able to seize the executive power of Iran. Ahmadinejad was the mullah’s eager helpmate and cloak of electoral respectability. The two men formed a symbiotic relationship with the President of Iran serving as a front-man and populist face while the Supreme Leader operated in the shadows.

But the mask was ripped off in the election. The Supreme Leader became a political partisan for Ahmadinejad. Why? Maybe Khamenei rigged the election to turn his Islamic Sultanate in to a true dynastic Sultanate. Maybe he wanted to hand over to the rule of Iran over to his progeny. His son may have been instrumental in rigging the vote in the first place. His son may also be in control of the bully boys of the basiji "Mojtaba is the commander of this coup d'etat. The basiji are operating on Mojtaba's orders, but his name is always hidden in all of this. The government never mentions him,"

This also may explain why huge chunks of the ruling elite are starting to break loose from the façade of government. It is not about Democracy or even reform per se. It is about saving the Islamic Republic as a republic. If Khamenei gets his way Iran becomes a dynastic dictatorship. It becomes a fun-house reflection of Syria or worse yet North Korea. An Iran with Mojtaba Khamenei at its head becomes a governing philosophy of shards and patches. It would be neither Islamic nor a republic.

The ideals of Islamic Republic may be facing an existential threat from the very man who was supposed to uphold them. Politics and History can be ironic that way. The Islamic faithful will see an eerie echo of Muawiyah I, the first of the Umayyad Caliph. Muawiyah was the first Caliph to pass the succession to his son ending the previous selection process via a council of elders. The Shia branch of Islam despises him and the Sunni branch is at best ambivalent to his rise to power. Both agree that Muawiyah was probably responsible for the assassination of the last “rightly guided” Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Thus the fight against Khamenei and son’s coup d'etat may be especially bitter. It will be fought in the halls of government and the institutions of Iran. Many power centers may contend with even the military fracturing; the Army going one way, the Republican Guard going another way and the police force and judiciary going yet another way. Already the clergy has revolted with the scholars of Qom declaring the election a fraud. Khamenei has lost support even among his ultra-conservative base. He still has the raw force of the basiji and the cloak of status quo respectability. Many in the elite are fearful of any kind of change and crave stability above all else.

One last point, this is not and never was about us. As much as the idiot Elephants would love to make this about domestic politics or speaking out for freedom, it is something completely different. It is about Iran. We are at best spectators, and silent ones at that. The fate of Iran rests with the Iranians.

Ben Sarlin and The Daily Beast Could Not Be More Wrong.

The Original article from the Beast is here: http://bit.ly/1KMRo

Let us do a little deconstruction here. The quoted source is Michael Rubin. He is identified as a Bushie and “scholar” at the AEI. That is two strikes against him from the get go. Your political antenni should be vibrating right around the range of microwave radiation (.3 to 300 Ghz or three hundred million to three hundred billion times per second.)
But it get worse gentle reader. Rubin continues with an unproven and facile notion that the mullahs went easy on the protesters because Western Media was watching. As if the Mad Mullahs of Iran ever gave a holler in Hades before what the rest of the world thought of them.
But it gets better, or should I say even more slip-shod and poorly reasoned. The big progressive gun they pull out is Spencer Ackerman. Google that guy up and you find that he once was a ink-stained wretch for the New Republic, the flagship of “respectable” NeoCons. The New Republic ran cover for the run up to the Iraq debacle by being a “liberal” and “progressive” cheerleader for the overthrow of the Baathist regime. This is the big “progressive” gun the article pulls out? You’re kidding, right?
From there the sourcing gets even more ridiculous. The International Campaign for Human Rights? It is a pressure group working against the present government of Iran. Just look at the bleeding homepage : http://www.iranhumanrights.org/ Telling us that they are concerned that Jackson’s death may eclipse their issue is like telling me water is wet. No. Freaking. Duh.
I have no idea who Benjamin Sarlin is before this article came out but if this is an example of his work it is no wonder why Talking Points Memo and him parted company.
Note to Ben, it really, really,really is not about us and our obsessions. The Mullahs were savagely breaking heads before either Jacko or Sanford. The rest of world could care less about Sanford and the maudlin nonsense following Jackson’s death would blow over in an instant if we have another Nadia Suliman moment. Besides the Iranian opposition is in it for the long haul as are the Mullahs. It is going to take more than a pop-culture reverse burp like the death of Michael Jackson to change the dynamics of Iranian Politics.

Freed Saberi thanks supporters

Roxana Saberi, the US-Iranian journalist released from jail in Iran on Monday, has thanked all those who helped to win her freedom.

She was freed after four months in prison when an eight-year term on charges of spying for the US was cut. She denied the charges.

Wearing a bright blue headscarf, Ms Saberi looked thin but in high spirits.

"I'm very happy to be free and to be with my parents again," Ms Saberi told reporters outside her flat in Tehran.

"I'm thanking all those people all over the world - which I'm just finding out about - who - whether they knew me or not - helped me and my family during this period," she said, smiling.

"I don't have any specific plans for the moment, I just want to be with my parents and friends, and to relax.

"Thank you very much - all of you,"
said, in her first public comments since her release.

Ms Saberi's imprisonment drew international attention and sparked protests calling for her release.

She is now able to leave Iran, but has been banned from working as a journalist there for five years.

Ms Saberi's parents live in the US city of Fargo, North Dakota, and made the journey to Iran to seek her freedom.

Her father, who is Iranian-born, said they were making plans to return home to the US in the coming days.

Spying charge

On Monday, the White House welcomed the release as a "humanitarian gesture".

Ms Saberi was held in Tehran's Evin prison following her arrest in January.

The journalist originally faced a less serious accusation of buying alcohol, and later of working as a reporter without a valid press card.

The spying charge was introduced later, and she was tried and sentenced behind closed doors by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.

Ms Saberi worked as a freelance journalist for news organisations, including the BBC and the US-based National Public Radio.

BBC News

Snip

This was the work of some very hard working Foreign Service professional. An impediment to the normalization of US- Iran relations has been removed. At the very least the hardliners in the Islamic Republic of Iran have been taken down a peg or two. One wonder if there is some kind of quid pro quo that had to happen for Ms. Saberi's release. Maybe after a "decent interval?"

Still there is a solid Islamic reason for the very top honcho in the Iranian Republic to do this. The detention of this female on trumped up charges must have caused the top mullah some concern. Islam is fairly clear about the treatment of non-combatants especially women and children. It is hard circle to square for a defender of Islamic virtue to hold such a young and obviously harmless female as a "spy." The circumstances of the trial were not very helpful to the claims of unbiased Islamic jurisprudence also. The whole affair was a PR disaster for the Iranian authorities and it was fairly wise to set the young woman free. There was very little upside even in domestic politics and considerable down side internationally for jailing Ms. Saberi. The Iranian leaders can now put this whole sorry episode behind them. Is not Allah most wise and merciful?

Iraqi woman had 80 women raped to recruit suicide bombers

February 04, 2009 09:15am

A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.

Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and confessed to recruiting the women and orchestrating dozens of attacks.

In a video confession, she explained how she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets.

"We arrested Samira Jassim, known as 'Um al-Mumenin', the mother of the believers, who was responsible for recruiting 80 women'', Major General Qassim Atta said.

"She confessed her responsibility for these actions, and she confirmed that 28 attempts had been made in one of the terrorists' strongholds,'' he said.

Samira Jassim was arrested on January 21. She is allegedly linked to the Ansar al-Sunnah insurgent group.

Two of the attacks for which Samira Jassim admitted responsibility in the video confession took place in Diyala province, in central Iraq, which is considered one of the most dangerous areas of the country.

The Associated Press reports US military figures indicate at least 36 female suicide bombers attempted or carried out 32 attacks last year. Women are often allowed through military checkpoints without being searched, making it easier for them to hide explosives under their traditional robes.

Source The Herald Sun Of Australia
H/T Pharyngula

He Who Is Without Sin, Oh Never Mind

Iran judiciary confirms men stoned to death for adultery

Iran's judiciary on Tuesday confirmed that two men had been stoned to death for adultery in the northeastern city of Mashhad while a third struggled from the stoning hole and escaped with his life.

"As you saw in reports, there were three stonings carried out in Mashhad. They were convicted of adultery, that is an affair with a married woman," judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters.

He said two of the men died in the executions carried out "about 20 days ago" while the third was spared after he managed to extricate himself from the stoning hole.

Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning, which involves the public hurling stones at the convict buried up to his waist. A woman is buried up to her shoulders.

The convict is spared if he can free himself.

Source: France 24

Senior Saudi cleric OK girls to marry

By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer - 28 mins ago

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia’s most senior cleric was quoted Wednesday as saying it is permissible for 10-year-old girls to marry and those who think they’re too young are doing the girls an injustice.

The mufti’s comments showed the conservative clergy’s opposition to a drive by Saudi rights groups, including government ones, to define the age of marriage and put an end to the phenomenon of child marriages.

“It is wrong to say it’s not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger,” Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, the country’s grand mufti, was quoted as saying.

“A female who is 10 or 12 is marriageable and those who think she’s too young are wrong and are being unfair to her,” he said during a Monday lecture, according to the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper.

Al Sheikh’s comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage. In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.

Though the mufti’s pronouncements are respected and provide guidance, the government is not legally bound by them.

On Sunday, the government-run Human Rights Commission condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an “inhumane violation” and rob children of their rights.

The commission’s statement followed a ruling by a court in Oneiza in central Saudi Arabia last month that dismissed a divorce petition by the mother of an eight-year-old girl whose father married her off to a man in his 50s.

Newspaper reports said the court argued that the mother did not have the right to file such a case on behalf of her daughter and said that the petition should be filed by the girl when she reaches puberty.

Responding to a question about parents who force their underage daughters to marry, the mufti said: “We hear a lot about the marriage of underage girls in the media, and we should know that Islamic law has not brought injustice to women.”

The mufti said a good upbringing will make a girl capable of carrying out her duties as a wife and that those who say women should not marry before the age of 25 are following a “bad path.”

“Our mothers and before them, our grandmothers, married when they were barely 12,” said Al Sheikh, according to Al-Hayat.

How About Pregnant and Chained to the Stove?

Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.

The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.

Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7651231.stm
Published: 2008/10/03 14:51:01 GMT
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