Magic Statistics

Many Muslim women in the West are living in isolation and constant fear of violence from the men who control their lives.  In families that live according to fundamentalist Islam, men and brothers have free rein to beat and kill women and girls who do not conform to their standards.  Mona Eltahawy writes and lectures about these issues.

“In the so-called ‘clash of civilizations,’ Muslim girls and women are the biggest losers. In fact, Eltahawy says, Muslim girls and women are paradoxically being murdered by their relatives for integrating too well.

A recent case in point: Canadian teenager Aqsa Pervez was murdered by her father after she refused to wear the hijab.  A statement from the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations called it “result of domestic violence, a problem that cuts across Canadian society and is blind to color or creed”.

Canadian Muslim writers Tarek Fattah and Farzana Hassan provide an example: A Montreal mosque recently posted on its Web site a warning to the effect that if young girls took off their hijab they could be raped and have illegitimate children. The same site caution ed that not wearing hijab might lead to stress, insecurity and “suspicion in the minds of husbands,” not to mention the fact that it might instigate “young people to deviate towards the path of lust.”
. . .
“I am waiting,” Eltahawy writes, “for the removal of clerics and imams, who incite hate and violence with their messages about hijab.

Hope she doesn’t have to wait much longer.

Also this week, American National Public Radio (NPR) has posted two articles featuring Turkish-born German activist Seyran Ates, a lawyer who was forced to quit her practice after Islamic radicals threatened to kill her.

The status of Muslim women is the litmus test, Ates says, for integration of their communities into European societies.

But she believes the situation is getting worse in Germany, with more and more Muslim girls as young as six years old wearing headscarves, and more and more girls being kept away by their parents from sports and biology classes in school.

Her most recent book, The Multicultural Mistake, criticises Europe’s condescending and excessively tolerant attitude toward repressive sub-cultures in European societies.  Without effective integration policies, she fears that Islam will only gain more influence in Germany.

The NPR stories featuring Seyran Ates are the first two in a six-part series on Islam in Europe.

Previous related posts:

• Canadian Muslim father strangles daughter for not wearing hijab
• A German prophet without honour
• German legislator urges Muslim women to remove head scarves, receives death threats
• Turkish child brides in Germany

Canadian Immigration officials did not believe Chinese refugee Pin Xian Xin was a Christian because she was confused by questions about biblical “parabolas”.

"What is your favourite parabola?" Ms. Xin was asked by Ms. [Lily] Oddie, the IRB [Immigration Review Board] adjudicator, according to the certified transcript of her refugee admission hearing.

"I beg your pardon?" Ms. Xin replied, through a Cantonese interpreter.

"What is your favourite parabola?" Ms. Oddie repeated. "There are parabolas in the Bible. Have you read about them?"

For that reason, Ms Oddie ordered her returned to China despite credible fears of persecution.  Fortunately, a federal appeals court judge, who knows the difference between “parabola” and “parable”, sided with Ms Xin.

"I find the board's reasons for finding that the applicant was not credible and concluding that she had not been a member of the underground church nor was a Christian to be patently unreasonable," Judge [Leonard] Mandamin wrote in his recent decision.

The IRB adjudicator’s lack of knowledge about Christianity is laughable; however, it also endangered the welfare of an apparently legitimate claimant.

Previous related posts:

• UK orders Christian convert returned to Iran despite death warrant
• China expels over 100 foreign Christians

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that French authorities were wrong to deny a lesbian woman’s application to adopt a child.  The court agreed with the woman that she had been the victim of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, even though two French courts had previously ruled against her.

The plaintiff, who is protected with anonymity under the initials E.B., is 45 years old and has been living since 1990 with a woman psychologist in the eastern Jura region.

In 1998, her adoption application was turned down by authorities on the grounds the child would suffer from the absence of a paternal figure and that the role of her partner was unclear.

She took her case to the European rights court in 2002 after France's high court of appeal ruled she had been turned down because of her "lifestyle choice," not her homosexuality.

The 10-7 majority flatly contradicted the French high court of appeal, stating that the lesbian’s sexuality was “a decisive factor” in the rejection of her adoption application.

h/t: Brussels Journal

Previous related posts:

• Unelected “experts” destroying credibility of human rights
• French High Court confirms rejection of gay “marriage”
• Scientific studies speak against same-sex parenting
• Children do best when raised by married parents