Gosh, where do I even start. Lots of fun stuff happened in the last few recent days and weeks. Work, while still enjoyable, has piled up, and updates have slowed down. But that aside though, let’s look at the real fun that took place recently.
1. Sudanese Women Flogged for So-Called Indecent Clothing
Oh, how wonderful. Let’s see...
Lubna Hussein, a journalist and a public information officer at the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) was one of nine girls taken by the Public Order Police (POP) on Sunday from a ballroom in an area east of Khartoum.
Poor Lubna. The POP idiots won’t leave her alone.
… The arrests took place under the Criminal Penal Code which states that anyone wearing “grossly clothing” shall be punished with no more than 40 lashes or a fine or both.
Grossly clothing? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? What qualifies as grossly? Because seriously, those POP boys can probably get erections merely by looking at goats! That Penal Code needs to get revised, yesterday.
The Sudanese journalist said that the application of this section of the criminal penal code is damaging to a girl’s reputation in the Sudanese society.
Maybe it’s about time we cut the bullshit obsession with honor, reputation, and gossip.
Unfortunately, it is mostly true. A lot of things about life in Sudan are centered around honor and reputation, as if they’re holier than Islam itself.
Anyways, moving on, before those medieval horny POP monkeys make my head pop.
2. Stabbed 18 Times for Being Muslim Inside… a Courtroom
I can’t believe I missed this one. I only found out about it from a Facebook Group invite.
Stabbed 18 times inside a damn courtroom, can you believe that?
CAIRO — Thousands of Egyptian mourners marched behind the coffin of the “martyr of the head scarf” on Monday _ a pregnant Muslim woman who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom as her young son watched.
… Her husband was critically wounded in the attack Wednesday in Dresden when he tried to intervene and was stabbed by the attacker and accidentally shot by court security.
Nice work, court security. Maybe you should all get fired. Incompetent retards.
… Al-Sherbini, who was about four months pregnant and wore the Islamic head scarf, was involved in a court case against her neighbor for calling her a terrorist and was set to testify against him when he stabbed her 18 times inside the courtroom in front of her 3-year-old son.
I hope that poor kid grows up to be normal and recovers from this deeply tragic event. Nobody should ever have to go through stuff like this.
Oh, and I think this part is spot on.
… Egyptian commentators said the incident was an example of how hate crimes against Muslims are overlooked in comparison to those committed by Muslims against Westerners. Many commentators pointed to the uproar that followed the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-born Islamic fundamentalist angry over one of his films criticizing the treatment of Muslim women.
Very true. Where on earth is the outrage over this on CNN? Where are the typical repeated reports with the big headlines?
This is beyond sickening.
But at least this part is positive:
Officials from a German Muslim group and the country’s main Jewish group made a joint visit Monday to the Dresden hospital where the victim’s husband is being treated.
“You don’t have to be a Muslim to act against anti-Muslim behavior, and you don’t have to be a Jew to act against anti-Semitism,” said Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews.
Oh well, RIP.
3. Jakarta Bombings
Here we go again. I thought Obama is president now and he’s pulling US troops out of Iraq? Right, like that’s going to work. Eh, this is probably about local Indonesian politics.
Guess it’s time for me to watch a comedy movie or something. Maybe a Reason Vs Faith YouTube debate.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
dremer,
im not sure if you know the whole story but, lubna hussien was not flogged. she demanded her lawyer and a trial to make a statement that when she along with the other girls were arrested by POP, it was unconstitutional or something along that line…
and its not about the girl’s reputation, its about the freedom to dress and go where you please. we are a republic after all?? anyways,wouldn’t it be grand if shar3a law was implemented on POP, the judicial branch of the government…hell why not every single member representing/of the government!!
The resurgence of far-right racism in Germany is interesting. IIRC, Nazis got about 20% of the vote in Saxony.
In general, the recent tectonic shifts happeninig in the European psyche are historically fascinating.
But wallah, Drima, what is the death of one woman compared to the Pygmies being hunted down, gang raped and eaten to extinction?.
People flogged? Bombings? Stabbings?
What is all of that compared to a proper genocide?
That is true.
But I can’t imagine that this is a problem for the Arab world. Those far-right racist parties are very fond of Arab imperialism and very, what shall we call it, “critical” of Israel. They “criticise” (i.e. scream Jews to the gas) primarily the fact that Jews are alive on “Arab land” (i.e. the entire middle east from Tamazgha to Kurdistan) and ultimately that Jews are alive at all.
Politically those far-right racist parties have the same ideological basis as the PLO (and have traditionally had the same friends).
AB…
Yeah…there is a weird connection between Nazis and a certain Arab group. During the Gaza thing…there were both Jewish and Arab protests in the USA. At one…the Nazi’s came out to support the Palestinians…I mean…I guess “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” but then how would the Nazi’s handle an Arab that ah…looks like Drima
Maybe start on him after they finish us off?
Funny world this one.
Abu…
Why do pigmies when you can do virgins?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443842931&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Walaha zaman
wakah zaman
the half men hit our women
walaha zaman ya Drima.
keep save and much respect.
You misunderstand the Nazi mind set. They don’t have anything against Arabs. They merely have something foreigners in general. The idea of an Arab Empire, somewhere outside America and Europe appeals to them, just like a Japanese Empire did.
In the Nazi world view there are certain leading “races”, certain “races” that must not exist, and other “races” which can or cannot exist. None of these “races” must mix up.
Hitler’s world view did allow for the Japanese to rule eastern Asia and the Arabs to rule “Palestine”. It was exactly what he wanted: clearly marked borders between those peoples (”races”) he deemed master or regular (and death to the lower races). He even tried to get the Turks into the game, but Ataturk’s influence pretty much made that impossible.
Arab nationalism was very compatible with Hitler’s nationalism. Nazis do not believe in small countries run by individual peoples or minorities. They want a simple world with a few big empires run by and specifically for certain pure peoples.
I don’t know? How do Arab Nazis currently handle those in Darfur who look black? I don’t see how German or American Nazis would be any different.
Indeed!
I cannot understand that these things happen. How can you be stabbed in a full courtroom? It’s outrageous that Germany isn’t investigating its courtroom security. It’s outrageous that this murder should have happened. And it’s even more shocking that this doesn’t get any attention in Europe.
My roommate was stabbed to death two weeks ago in a busy night market in Indonesia. He was stabbed 12 times in his stumach, back, neck and legs. Why? Because he refused to give the guy money for cigarettes.
This is our world aparently. I still can’t believe it.
in eastern Germany the male population is confronted to unemployment, and they tend to focus on “foreigners” to whom they attribuate the cause, while girls fly away towards western Germany, UK, France…
Cinnamon…
Yup..the same world that produces Peace Corp workers, charity volunteers, good neighbors etc.
If it were all just the mean, cruel and evil and the insane..I would have thrown in the towel long ago.
Some folks focus on going about trying to be good
Some focus on bad
Many just kind of go about their busy without giving it all a whole lot of thought.
Nobody can pull off being good all the time…but I love and admire those that try…
It is a dark and lonely job…but somebody’s gotta do it>
the world is a great place huh
Cinnamon -
My condolences. Learn martial arts and train yourself to react correctly to danger. With our lifespans and the probability of random violence, it’s likely to save your life or at least dignity.
I am just wondering, why so much fuss is being kicked over Lubna’s case? It certainly did not start with her. Girls from south Sudan in Khartoum , despite the CPA and all that, have been subject to flogging and other kinds of maltreatment by the POP for God knows how long. My point is that the deeply-ingrained racial discrimination of the Sudanese society is remarkably present in this case. Why no newspaper or media outlet in the north has ever tried to spotlight what southern Sudanese are suffering from by the POP in Khartoum. Only when a northern woman, Lubna, gets her share, they start making a public case. I guess we need to be a bit fair here. This law should either apply to all or to none at all.
My second issue is with Lubna’s defense. She maintains that her dress was not in violation of the public dress code. In an interview with one of the Khartoum-based newspapers, Lubna was shown in a photo wearing the same trouser for which she was arrested, she asked he interviewer “does this violate Shar’ia law or public dress code?”. So apparently Lubna is not against the principle that women should be punished for violating the state-defined public dress code. She simply thinks her dress did not violate that code. This, ladies and gentlemen, is where the real problem lies. Our minds, weighed down by years of strict and anti-women teachings of the Sunni version of Islam, cannot even begin to imagine that it is within our fundamental rights to dress the way we like. Bottom-line is that Lubna has a case but no cause. I’d be sympathetic if she says “well I believe women should be free to dress the way they like and no one has the right to punish them for that. Even if my dress was in violation of their so-called dress code, it was my choice to wear it”.
Peace
Muhammad Osman,
The only reason Lubna got all this attention is because she insisted that her right for a lawyer and trial be implemented. so many Sudanese don’t know there rights. they just get lifted in to a pick up, thrown in a cell (god knows what happens in there) then they are flogged for whatever reason.
About the girls from southern Sudan, they have been mistreated and discriminated in so many ways. it’s despicable. not to mention, that sharia’a law is implemented on them and many of them are not even Muslim! not to mention that they do have their own courts, i think its called “mahakim almillook” (courts of kings), if im not mistaken.
I agree with you though, the same laws should be implemented on every single Sudanese citizen (if when can call ourselves citizens of this so called republic) but it should not be based on sharia’a.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/facing-40-lashes-for-wearing-trousers-20090730-e1xc.html update on point 1
good on her for resisting the humiliation..
CuriousToo, shukran for your comment.
I am aware that what drew public attention to Lubna’s case was the fact that she refused to be trialed and asked for a lawyer. However I was not talking about the attention but rather the condemnation expressed by the public in Khartoum. Riverian northern “Arab” in Khartoum tends to show no condemnation against human rights violations unless it’s one of their own who gets subjected to them.
One more thing, I find it absurd that Lubna is purporting to be a martyr on the altar of defending women freedom. I don’t recall she wrote, while she was a columnist in Al-Sahafah, anything on the violations committed by the POP against women.
“Many Sudanese don’t know there rights”, I could not agree more. I myself was once arrested by the public order police, jailed over night and faced a trail that lasted for precisely three minutes. I was sentenced to flogging. I had no clue I was entitled to a lawyer, nor was I told so. I thought this must be what they refer to as العدالة الناجزة” where the defendant gets no right to ask for a lawyer and the sentence is handed down immediately.
Peace
What do you mean you were sentenced to flogging? They flogged you???
Yes they did. God bless them. I took 40 lashes and I could not sleep on my back for three days afterward.
MO
Tough shit!!!
Lubna’s trial has been adjourned until Sept amid protests at the court house!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8182658.stm
The government is obvioulsy trying to buy time to make the issue die away.
MO
mohamed,
happen to read and learn more of lubna’s background. what fascinated me though is the positive publicity she has despite her well…lets say “grey past”. anyways, isn’t she the same women who married abdel-rahaman mu’7tar (founder of alsahafa) or am i mistaken?
out of curiosity though, what did lubna write about in her column fil sahafa ya mo?
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