This sorta continues with the can of worms opened with this blog:
http://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/shariayou-know-rhymes-with-pariah.html
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Well, kids, it would seem that in my hiatus away from blogging that the Mutaween, and other Islamic Morality Police groups, have been busy relieving people of the tremendous burden of human rights.
Where to begin?
A university professor allegedly caught in a Saudi-style honey trap has been sentenced to 180 lashes and eight months in jail for having coffee with a girl. The man, a prominent and well-respected teacher of psychology at Umm al-Qra University in the holy city of Mecca, was framed by the religious police after he angered some of their members at a training course, his lawyer said.
The professor has not been named by the local media, which have given his case wide coverage, but one senior Saudi journalist told The Times of London that he was Dr. Abu Ruzaiz, a married man in his late 50s with children.
“He is highly respected and above-board. Nobody believes the religious police’s version of what happened. The whole of Jeddah (the main city near Mecca) is in uproar about this. Everyone believes he is innocent and was set up,” the journalist said.
Abdullah Al-Sanousi, the man’s lawyer, told local newspapers that his client had drawn the ire of some of the Mutaween’s staffers for speaking at length during a training session about how important it was for them to be polite to the public. Some of the trainees also wanted revenge because they had failed the course while others were not happy with their examination results.
Ruzaiz is said to have received a call from a girl purporting to be one of his students who asked to meet to discuss a problem that she did not want to talk about over the phone. The professor agreed to meet at a family cafe, provided she brought her brother along as a chaperone. When he arrived, he was surprised to find the girl alone, and was promptly surrounded by the ubiquitous robe-wearing, beared, cane-weilding religious policemen who handcuffed him and hauled him into custody. He was accused of being in a state of khulwa — seclusion — with an unrelated woman.
The lawyer insisted that because the two met in a public place frequented by hundreds of families, the question of khulwa never arose. However, the commission insists that the family sections at coffee shops and restaurants are meant only for families and close relatives. The professor is said to have taped a later conversation with the girl in which she admitted that she had been sent to the cafe by the religious police. The professor is relying on an appeals court to overturn the verdict. His lawyer has urged local human rights associations to back his plea for reviewing the case.
A spokesman for the commission in Mecca denied that his officials had conspired against the professor. “They are honorable people and would not create such a trap for any kind of personal revenge,” Ahmad Kasim Al-Ghamdi, told Arab News, a local paper.
Sounds like crap to me, Ahmad.
In other news, an illiterate Saudi woman is hoping that King Abdullah will spare her life after she was condemned to death for “witchcraft.” Her accusers included a man who claimed that the woman, Fawzi Falih, had made him impotent with her sorcery.
An international human rights group said Falih, who faces being publicly beheaded was allegedly beaten by religious police and forced into fingerprinting a false confession.
Another excellent example of progressive Islam…a man can’t get it up and a woman gets her head cut off because of it.
However, all is not lost
Women in Saudi Arabia can now stay in a hotel or a furnished apartment without a male guardian according to decision by the Ministry of Trade, according to a local Saudi press report. The daily paper Al-Watan, which is deemed close to the Saudi government, said the ministry issued a circular to the hotels asking them to accept women in their rooms even if they were alone, provided that all their information immediately is sent to a police station in the area.
The decision was adopted after a study conducted by the Interior Ministry, the Supreme Commission of Tourism, and or friends the Mutaween.
The paper interviewed some Saudi women who complained that they had been severely inconvenienced by the rules banning them from staying in the hotels alone. It quoted a woman identified as saying that she once arrived late at night at King Fahd airport on a flight and was denied a hotel room because she was alone. Another woman, Fatima Ibrahim, said her son-in-law quarreled with his wife and daughters and threw them out of the house. When they tried to get a hotel room, they were asked to get a permission from the police.
So, progress is being made. Soon we’ll see Islam reach the Dark Ages. And just think, back in August the Mutaween had insisted that authorities of Medina, one of Islam’s holiest cities, should build separate sidewalks for women, stating men and women should not be allowed to mix on the streets of the Islam’s second holiest place, where the Prophet Mohammed is buried.
And for the sake of equality, a man is being persecuted for a change, and this time in Iran instead of Saudi Arabia. (Oh, wait…an Iranian is being persecuted? This is news?)
A 70-year-old Iranian man was arrested and sentenced to four months in jail and 30 lashes for walking his dog. Police caught the man on the street with his dog in Shahr Rey, a suburb of Tehran. Owners of domestic animals are forbidden from taking them on the streets of the city because Islam considers dogs to be impure. An Islamic judge later charged the man for "disturbing the public order,” it was reported.
Despite repeated warnings by the police, dog owners continue to defy authorities by taking their dogs outside their homes. Typical punishment for people caught with dogs outside is a fine or the "detention" of their animals in a pound. So instead of just outlawing dogs, they claim to be tolerant of your right to own one, provided you keep it locked inside and let it crap on the floor.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently provoked debate in Iran about dog ownership when he took possession of four guard dogs, bought in Germany for approximately $161,040 each. Wow, you mean to tell me that Uncle Mahmoud can own dogs but the average Iranian can’t? No surprise there. Oh, wait, those are for security reasons. They aren’t really dogs, per se, but guard weapons. And who the bloody hell pays $644,160 for four dogs? They better be some pretty damned talented dogs.
So, as usual, the Islamic world once again leaves me scratching my head and wondering why everyone is pushing so hard for acceptance of Sharia Law and strict Wahhabism. I think I’ll go walk my dog now.
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