Todd Akin's Comments Symptomatic of Bigger Problems For GOP

GOP officials are trying their hardest to try and contain the fallout from the reprehensible comments made by Missouri Congressman Todd Akin who is seeking a US Senate seat in a race against Claire McCaskill. Even Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his vice president nominee Paul Ryan called on Akin to quit the campaign. Akin has refused thus far, and he missed the deadline to withdraw without requiring court approval (or to pay the costs for redoing the ballots).

The problem for the GOP is that his comments weren't merely a misstatement or ill-conceived (as Akin himself put it on his own website - awkwardly at that). They are symptomatic of a much larger problem for the GOP. You've got Republicans who support restricting abortion to only those cases of forcible rape - or restricting federal funding for all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest.

Then, you've got social conservatives claiming that their claims that women can't get pregnant from rape and base it on research carried out by the Nazis during World War II (where they took prisoners and subjected them to gas chambers to see if stress affected ovulation).

The misogyny runs deep with Republicans. It's not just Akin. There's Kansas state Rep. Pete DeGraaf who suggested women should plan ahead for rape the way he keeps a spare tire. Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner said some women might fake being raped in order to get free abortions.

Then, there's the litany of attempts to impose onerous and invasive ultrasound procedures that would have the effect of reducing the number of abortions and abortion providers, including Virginia. Moreover, such requirements might constitute state-imposed rape on such women because the procedure isn't medically required or indicated.

Or the series of personhood amendments being propagated by Republicans across the nation that would give an embryo rights that would necessarily limit the rights of women to control their own bodies. Moreover, those same personhood amendments could seriously restrict access to in-vitro fertilization and other similar techniques, to say nothing of embroyonic stem cell research.

But perhaps the biggest sign that Akin isn't an isolated case is that Akin claims that the fallout from his comments has led to a big increase in campaign contributions although it should be noted that he bested his modest goal of $10,000:

“Donations are pouring in. Thank you for standing up against the liberal elite,” Mr. Akin wrote on Twitter last night.

A counted on Mr. Akin’s website said, as of this writing, Mr. Akin had raised $10,638 since beginning a “still standing” campaign following his remarks. On Twitter last night, Mr. Akin said his goal was hitting “$10k to fight the liberal elite.” He also posted a series of messages blaming the “liberal elite” for driving a “a lot of negativity” his way and for pushing around and otherwise intimidating those in the pro-life movement.

I'm not surprised by that.

The true tragedy is that the race for the Missouri Senate seat is as close as it is even with the furor about Akin's comments. Akin may still win the contest against McCaskill. That's troublesome in its own right and shows just how deep support for the belief system that Akin revealed in last Sunday's interview truly goes.

Nor am I surprised when Kirk Cameron comes out in support of Akin. Cameron went on CNN to defend Akin:

One defender? Kirk Cameron. The child-star-turned-evangelist was on CNN this morning discussing the remarks, and Cameron encouraged people to watch the whole video (which you can here) and then said, “[Akin] is clearly a pro-life advocate and I respect him. He said that he misspoke and that he misphrased something and that he apologized.”

Rep. Akin released a statement after the interview saying he “misspoke,” but hasn’t backed away from his remarks. Despite calls on Akin to get out of the Missouri Senate race, so far he’s staying in.

“I’m the kind of person that believes that I would like to be evaluated by my entire career and my entire life, not two words that I would misspeak and then later apologize for,” Cameron told CNN. “So he’s in a tough spot.”

The problem is that Akin didn't misspeak. He said exactly what he thought. He said precisely what his ultimate intentions are. He didn't misphrase anything. Akin said exactly what he thought. He believes that there is such a thing as legitimate rape - and his prior history about trying to impose restrictions for forcible rape are proof that this is part of what Akin actually believes. It goes to the belief that some women who are victims are rape deserved what they got - it's a combination of slut shaming, treating women as second class citizens who can't be trusted with control over their own bodies, and is misogynistic at its core.

Cameron's comments are echoed by other religious leaders, including Bryan Fischer.

In other words, if we go by what Akin has said and done over his entire political career - these words that Akin claims was a misspeak aren't. Akin meant exactly what he said. He cowrote legislation that would create the nonsensical category of forcible rape along with Ryan (but which didn't get passed because of the furor it created).

Cameron is right in one respect though- Akin is in a tough spot, along with the rest of the GOP that has wholly subsumed the social conservative agenda.

UPDATE:
Lest anyone think that I'm not sourcing my materials, here's links to the following as referenced above:

The link showing Ryan and Akin's attempt to create a category of forcible rape (and there's a new report indicating a separate attempt by Ryan to include forcible rape in a second piece of legislation).

Bryan Fischer said that Akin's comments were right.

And here's where Akin and others got that trope about how rape victims can't get pregnant (Seattle Post going into the history).

Here's where Gawker recorded Akin's awkward website attempts to try and generate campaign contributions from this mess.

Misogyny Watch: UAE Court Rules Man Can Beat Wife So Long As No Marks Left

The highest court in the United Arab Emirates ruled that a man could beat his wife so long as he left no physical marks. He was also found to have beat his daughter, who was too old to be disciplined.

In the case debated by the Federal Supreme court, the daughter was bruised on the hand and knee, while the wife's lip and teeth were injured.

According to the court, the injuries showed that the man had over-stepped his rights under Shariah, or Islamic law, the newspaper reported. He had originally been fined 500 United Arab Emirates dirhams ($136), but appealed the case twice.

At 23, the daughter was deemed too old to have been disciplined, the newspaper said.

According to Shariah law, a man can beat his wife and children as long as he has first tries unsuccessfully to discipline them by admonishing and then abstaining from sexual relations with his wife.

Islamic scholars don't agree on the definition of "beating" but they do agree that it should not be too severe.

Sadists Run Iran; Rape Is Acceptable Means Of Extracting Information

Once again, the pure evil of the Iranian regime is on display for all the world to bear witness. Iran's mad mullahs hold court and provide guidance. One such mullah, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, has determined that rape is a perfectly acceptable means of securing confessions and is okay for interrogation. In fact, it's one of the best things that a Muslim can do - akin to going on Haj:

At the Jamkaran gathering, Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad answered questions about the rape and torture charges. The following text is from a transcript alleged by Iranian dissidents to be a series of questions and answers exchanged between the ayatollah and some of his supporters.

Asked if a confession obtained "by applying psychological, emotional and physical pressure" was "valid and considered credible according to Islam," Mesbah-Yazdi replied: "Getting a confession from any person who is against the Velayat-e Faqih ("Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists", or the regime of Iran's mullahs) is permissible under any condition." The ayatollah gave the identical answer when asked about confessions obtained through drugging the prisoner with opiates or addictive substances.

"Can an interrogator rape the prisoner in order to obtain a confession?" was the follow-up question posed to the Islamic cleric.

Mesbah-Yazdi answered: "The necessary precaution is for the interrogator to perform a ritual washing first and say prayers while raping the prisoner. If the prisoner is female, it is permissible to rape through the vagina or anus. It is better not to have a witness present. If it is a male prisoner, then it's acceptable for someone else to watch while the rape is committed."

Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's spiritual guide. He's the one who's telling Ahmadinejad what's acceptable conduct. He's apparently got no trouble with raping people in its custody.

Combine that with reports that the opposition has been assaulted and violated by the regime's thugs, and you get a systemic and entrenched system of violence to maintain power.

UPDATE:
Despite the illegitimacy of the regime and the fact that Ahmadinejad and Supreme Ali Khamenei are busy trampling on the rights of Iranians, President Obama is still trying to extend a lifejacket to the regime. He sent another letter to the regime, addressed to Khamenei, although the content of the letter is not known. This is a regime that engages in torture and rape. It's about torture - real torture, not the waterboarding and nitpicking over whether a few seconds of discomfort equals torture that the left faints over at here in the States, and yet the Administration has no problem holding its hand out to give the regime a pick-me-up when they engage in systemic and systematic rape of prisoners to fulfill political and religious goals.

And even when the Administration engages in the "unclenched" foreign policy, the regime in Tehran shows its utter disdain for the Administration.

Misogyny Watch In Afghanistan

The Afghan government has passed a misogynistic law that allows husbands to withhold food and sustenance if their wives deny them sexual satisfaction.

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

In early April, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of condemnation when the Guardian revealed that the earlier version of the law legalised rape within marriage, according to the UN.

Hamid Karzai is on the hook for this, and there's no reason that he should have allowed this law to come to fruition.

Misogyny is one of the reasons that Afghanistan has been so backwards for so long and while the US liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban gave Afghan women a chance at seeing an improvement of their condition, this law shows that the tribal customs and Islamic law remain firmly entrenched. The systemic mistreatment of women means that half the population is subjugated and incapable of advancement. Women are cruelly treated, and this law institutionalizes that behavior.

Sudanese Islamists Want to Show Who Wears Pants

The Islamists are busy in Sudan, and once again are showing their misogynistic views for all those who care to comment:

Sudanese police fired tear gas and beat women protesting outside a Sudanese court Tuesday during the trial of a female journalist accused of violating the Islamic dress code by wearing trousers in public.

Police moved in swiftly and dispersed about 50 protesters, mostly women, who were supporting Lubna Hussein, a former U.N. worker facing 40 lashes on the charge of "indecent dressing." Some of the women demonstrators wore trousers in solidarity with Hussein while others wore more traditional dress.

Trousers are considered indecent under the strict interpretation of Islamic law, adopted by Sudan's Islamic regime which came to power after a coup led by President Omar al-Bashir in 1989. But activists and lawyers say the implementation of the law is arbitrary

Hussein, along with 12 other women, were charged with indecent dressing for wearing pants.

The punishment for such a "crime" is 40 lashes. For her part, she has gone on the record saying that she'd take 40,000 lashes to protest this Islamist nonsense. She's done nothing wrong, and exerting her rights puts her and her supporters in mortal peril.

The judge has delayed ruling on the case until September 7, 2009, to address the possibility that Hussein is immune from prosecution as a UN worker. That does nothing to help the other women who were arrested along with Hussein, but for her part, Hussein has said that she wants the prosecution to go forward to highlight the misogynistic attitudes of the Sudanese regime.

Barbarians Inside the Gates

The Taliban engage in barbaric practices, and the news coming out of the frontier provinces and nearby provinces fully inside Pakistan are truly horrific. The Taliban are misogynists, and they treat women worse than chattel. They slaughter people on a whim, and even those Muslims who initially welcomed these thugs with open arms are horrified at what has resulted.

When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.

"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."

Authorities in North-West Frontier Province said that with the conflict intensifying, they expect half a million people to flee the once-bucolic Swat region near the Afghan border, much of which is now occupied by heavily armed militants. Officials announced Tuesday that they plan to open six refugee camps in the safer nearby districts of Swabi and Mardan, but until then, many who leave home to escape the violence are facing the arduous task of finding their own shelter.

The reports also show just how reluctant the Zardari government is in engaging in a proper offensive against the Taliban. They're not sending the regular army against the Taliban, but rather the paramilitary forces, which have gotten bloodied on a regular basis and who have regularly lost ground against the Taliban, who are asserting dominion over Swat and nearby provinces outside the frontier.

The Pakistani government claims that they are busy killing Taliban as they find them in Swat, but the reports are grim. Taliban are patrolling large areas of Swat and have pushed deep inside Pakistan proper.

Reports from Swat are confused as the military claims that they've killed dozens of Taliban, including suicide bombers, while other reports suggest that they were civilians attempting to flee.

It's an absolute mess, and it shows no signs of improving. The cause for all this misery; years of doing nothing to stop the Taliban from laying the groundwork in the Frontier Provinces and inside Pakistan proper that would seek to usurp power from the Pakistani government and traditional power brokers. The government in Islamabad, including Musharraf and Zardari, regularly engaged in crackdowns and appeasement, which offered the Taliban the insight they needed to simply outlast any sustained effort to stop the Taliban.

Each deal that the Pakistani government cut was one deal more that the Taliban would break knowing that another deal would be forthcoming. Each successive deal would further erode Islamabad's position, and the refusal to send the military to crush the Taliban has repercussions throughout the region.

The Obama Administration is engaging in wishful thinking if it believes that the Pakistani government and the Afghan government are going to crack down and crush the Taliban, even with US assistance. The Pakistanis lack the political will to do so, which means that no matter how much the US or Afghan governments pledge to do so, the safe havens in the frontier provinces will be off limits. It will take the Pakistanis to do what must be done, and their reluctance has brought the region to the precipice.

Afghan President Karzai Vows to Change Marital Rape Law

It's a step in the right direction as Afghan President Hamid Karzai calls for a change in the marital rape law that his country adopted, which gives husbands the right to rape their wives if their wives do not submit to their husbands' sexual needs.

Yet, this particular report falls short by omitting a key piece of information about yesterday's demonstrations in Kabul. The women who demonstrated against the law were stoned by misogynistic thugs who want to see this law maintained and who see women as little more than chattel.

Misogyny Alert: Thugs Throw Stones At Women Protesting Afghan Marital Rape Law

The misogynists in Afghanistan are nothing if not persistent. They come in many flavors, but are usually Taliban and Islamist. They do not want to give women rights that men take for granted and they certainly do not have the same view on human rights in general - rights that people in the West take for granted.

So, while people in the US are debating the idea of gay marriage, Afghan women are getting stoned by Islamists who want to retain the right to rape their wives as a matter of law.

Women protesting in Kabul against a controversial new law were pelted with stones, jostled and spat on today as they held what is believed to be the first public demonstration calling for equal rights for women in recent Afghan history.

The protest by about 200 women called for amendment of the controversial Shia Family Law, passed last month by the Afghan Parliament, and enforcement of article 22 of the Afghan constitution, which gives equal rights to men and women.

It provoked a furious reaction from local men and a mob quickly surrounded the protesters amid violent scenes close to the Parliament building.

The new law, which applies to the 15 per cent of the population who are Shia Muslim, has drawn widespread international condemnation since it was passed in March. President Obama called it abhorrent after leaked drafts of the law showed it apparently legalised marital rape and child marriage and reintroduced restrictions on women that were notorious under the Taleban period of rule.

Stoning and interrupting the peaceful demonstrations are actually a sign of restraint by the Islamists. They usually resort to high explosives, acid, and torching those who resist their demands for the imposition of Sharia. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that such attacks came in short order.

Saudi Misogyny Watch

Once again, the Saudi religious police have decided that women in the presence of men who are not related to them are subject to criminal sanction, including dozens of lashes.

This time, it's a 75 year old woman who the Saudi religious police have decided was in the presence of two unrelated men. The woman will be punished with 40 lashes and deported.

A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.

According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, "Fahd" and "Hadian."

Fahd told the policeman he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman. The policeman then arrested both men.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism and punishes unrelated men and women who are caught mingling.

This is Sharia - the interpretation and implementation of Islamic law, and the Saudis prime export besides oil is this fundamentalist Islam. Their funding has sponsored extremists around the world.

For those wondering, the two men were also hit with harsh punishments; one was sentenced to 40 lashes, the other 60.

Update on Snuff Tape/Photos

I had previously written about Rahmatullah Naikzad, who apparently was in the right place at the right time to video and photograph the Taliban murdering two women. He claims that the Taliban sent out pressers to media outlets calling them to attend the execution and that he checked with the AP office, which approved.

He also claims that he tried to intervene with the Taliban but was rebuffed. The women were brutally murdered.

The next morning, he said, he consulted with the AP, because he wanted to return to the village and photograph the women’s bodies. He said the AP agreed and he rode back to the scene of the executions.

Villagers stood nearby as he filmed and photographed the corpses. A stream of dried blood trailed from one body. The other woman’s shopping bag remained near her, its contents scattered.

“There was a beige handbag and a comb … a mirror and some cosmetics in it,” Naikzad said.

Naikzad said he was detained for two days after his video appeared on the Internet, but that he was released for three days following the death of a relative. He said he was treated well in custody, and that he is cooperating with the National Directorate of Security, the agency that interrogated him.

“Around 60 pages of investigative material were produced from my interrogation,” he said.

“I am willingly going back into custody once the bail period ends,” he said, adding, “I have nothing to fear.”

Some bloggers who have seen the video of the executions have expressed concerns that Naikzad may be connected with the Taliban, and that the Associated Press was used as a propaganda tool.

The fact is that the AP was used as a propaganda tool. The Taliban purposefully sought out the AP and other media outlets, and they allowed a stringer to be sent along to photograph the event.

It wasn't what the Taliban claimed it would be, which shouldn't surprise anyone either. (HT: Jorline at LGF)

The Cycle of Harassment

Misogyny rears its ugly head again. This is just repugnant. Two thirds of Egyptian men admit to harassing women, and a majority blame women for the situation.

The survey of more than 2,000 Egyptian men and women and 109 foreign women said the vast majority of Egyptians believed that sexual harassment in Egypt was on the rise, citing a worsening economic situation and a lack of awareness or religious values.

It said 62 percent of Egyptian men reported perpetrating harassment, while 83 percent of Egyptian women reported having been sexually harassed. Nearly half of women said the abuse occurred daily.

Only 2.4 percent of Egyptian women reported it to the police, with most saying they did not believe anyone would help. Some feared reporting harassment would hurt their reputations.

"The vast majority of women did nothing when confronted with sexual harassment," the survey said, adding that most Egyptian women believed the victim should "remain silent".

Some 53 percent of men blamed women for bringing on sexual harassment, saying they enjoyed it or were dressed in a way deemed indecent. Some women agreed.

They had it coming? Where are the womens' rights groups to complain about this odious attitude towards women?

Snuffed Out

Via The Jawa Report comes this reprehensible reporting and photo montage from the Associated Press. One of their photographers, Rahmatullah Naikzad, embedded with the Taliban and stood by as they captured two women and brutally murdered them by daylight.

It's one thing to come upon this scene independently and film/photograph it. It's quite another to be along for the ride as the whole scene unfolds and to willingly provide a propaganda outlet for what is nothing more than a snuff film.

It's instructive because we see the barbarism of the Taliban and their fellow travelers - al Qaeda.

It's also instructive because we see that there are depths of depravity that AP will not avoid plumbing. Their stringers and reporters and photographers will go with anyone, anywhere, and document anything in pursuit of a Pulitzer. They will embed with terrorists, and provide an outlet for their propaganda.

True, this provides insight into the workings of a terrorist group and reprehensible group, but the costs are simply too high - and AP should bear the burden for their transgressions. They have aligned with the enemies of humanity and look the other way as they repeatedly have their people working closely with terrorists, insurgents, jihadis, Taliban, and al Qaeda - all of whom are intent upon doing harm to others.

Rahmatullah Naikzad had to know he was going to see bad stuff when he decided to embed with the Taliban. It's not like they were going to pass out candy and flowers and build roads or schools. They were going to kill people. And he should have seen the writing on the wall as those two women were held - to await execution by daylight.

Inexcusable.

However, the fact that he embedded gave him little choice once this situation developed because I'm also sure that the Taliban would have made it three bodies instead of two if he didn't participate. Yes, I know that the Taliban need to get their propaganda out, but if this photographer really had qualms about what was unfolding, he could have refused to take the photos/video. It would have been a principled stand and could have meant his own death. And instead of seeing this footage, we'd learn that the terrorists have killed yet another reporter.

The fateful decision was to embed with these thugs in the first place. Every decision thereafter only compounded the error.

The other possibility is that Naikzad is Taliban, and he was simply offering up his services as a photographer to further the cause. If that is the case, then the AP's problems are no less troubling as it lacks the ability to weed out terrorists from its midst even after troubling issues arose in the past.

UPDATE:
In reference to the Pulitzer Prize, there still remain serious questions around how AP photographers managed to get this photo of al Qaeda/insurgents murdering Iraqis on Haifa Street in Baghdad in December 2004. That photo was part of a series of photographs that helped the AP win a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. The AP never identified the stringer.

Proving the Point?

This New York Times piece shows the lengths to which Saudi men will go to come into contact with that most rare creature - women.

The men fear the religious police, and with good reason. What they are doing could get them arrested or worse.

And NY Times reporter Kathrine Zoepf went undercover to report on the escapades, complete with putting on a disguise over her abaya.

I hadn’t met the boys before, but it was easy to pick them out: a half-dozen Saudi 18- and 19-year-olds shifting uncomfortably on two brocade sofas in the lobby of one of Riyadh’s grandest hotels, Al Faisaliah. The boys looked ill at ease among the marble pillars and elaborate flower arrangements, yet they’d insisted on meeting here. The Saudi religious police were unlikely to raid a luxury hotel, the boys felt, and since the evening activity we’d planned was illegal, it seemed best to take precautions.

Saudi society is strictly segregated along gender lines, and after several weeks spent interviewing Saudi teenage girls, I’d become very curious about life on the other side of the gender divide. I’d seen groups of young Saudi men out “numbering” - chasing cars containing young girls and trying to give the girls their phone numbers via Bluetooth, or by holding written phone numbers up to their car windows. When a Saudi girl I knew told me that her friend’s older brother would be willing to take me out numbering with his friends, I leaped at the chance.

The boys had brought clothes for me to wear over my abaya, and in a secluded corner of the hotel parking lot, we experimented with my disguise. Thamer, a 19-year-old political science student, handed me a knitted cap, and I stuffed my ponytail up underneath it. I zipped a hooded sweatshirt belonging to Mohamed, another of the boys, up over my billowing black cloak, and peered at my reflection in the tinted glass of Thamer’s S.U.V.

They go on to troll areas of Riyahd for the chance to meet girls.

Mostly, they end up driving around and palling around with friends.

In some respects, this isn't all that different than what kids did growing up in Brooklyn - driving around Bay Ridge and other parts of Brooklyn looking for an opportunity to chat up with girls their age. But kids in Brooklyn also knew that they could talk to girls at school without worrying about being arrested for that all too ordinary occurrence. So, the pressure to chase after cars with girls in them wasn't one that would result in police charges unless they were caught speeding or drag racing on major thoroughfares or other craziness.

In Saudi Arabia, those are mere slaps on the wrist compared to what could happen if the religious police caught these boys in action, to say nothing of a reporter engaging in such activities. She was putting her life in harm's way to get this story.

I don't quite think that readers in the US quite understand those risks involved since they don't live in a society where misogyny and forced separation of the sexes is not only mandatory but rigorously enforced.

The reporter could have found her in the clutches of the religious police and faced serious charges as a result of being found in the presence of men who were unrelated to her.

A Brutally Expensive Cup of Coffee

As I reported back in February, fraternization between the sexes at a Starbucks in Saudi Arabia can have dire consequences.

Just how dire?

Try on 150 lashes for size:

A Saudi Arabian man has been sentenced to eight months in prison and 150 lashes after he was caught meeting a woman without a chaperone in a coffee shop.

Muhammad Ali Abu Raziza, a psychology professor in Mecca, was arrested by the Kingdom’s feared religious police, the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. He was accused of breaking the Islamic injunctions under the Khilwa code, which restricts the independence of women. It stipulates that women must not meet men alone, other than relatives.

However the professor has alleged police entrapment. He claimed a history of personality disputes with the arresting officers, who were once his students. In his defence, Abu Raziza had said he had called the woman to ensure she had a chaperone but despite her assurances, she was alone when he arrived. No information has emerged about the fate of the woman since the incident.

Saudi Arabia Criminalizes Fraternization Between Sexes At Starbucks

Yara, a petite 40-year-old woman, was in tears yesterday after she narrated to Arab News her encounter with a commission member that ended in high drama.

Yara, who has been married for 27 years, said she spent several hours in the women’s section of Riyadh’s Malaz Prison, was strip-searched, ordered to sign a confession that she was in a state of “khulwa” (a state of seclusion with an unrelated man) and for hours prevented from contacting her husband in Jeddah.

Her crime? Having a cup of coffee with a colleague in a Starbucks.

Yara said she arrived in the capital yesterday morning from Jeddah to check on the company’s new office.

“The minute I came into the office my colleagues told me that we have an issue with the electricity company and that we do not have power but that it would be back on in half an hour,” she said.

As they were waiting, they decided to go to the ground floor of the building to have a cup of coffee in the family section of Starbucks. Family sections are the only places where men and women can sit together in establishments in Saudi Arabia. Officially, these sections are for families only, but in practical terms these sections — usually in international chains like Starbucks — become the only places where unrelated men and women can be comfortable that they won’t be harassed by commission members.

But yesterday Yara and her colleague found themselves in trouble with the commission. One moment they were sitting together discussing brand equity and sovereign wealth funds; the next moment she found herself in commission custody.

Shortly after they took their coffee and Yara opened her laptop, a member of the commission approached the two and demanded the man step outside.

“Then (the commission member) came to me and said: ‘You need to come with us. This man is not a relative,’” she said.

When she told the commission member that she wanted to contact her husband by phone, he refused.

Where is the outcry from womens rights groups over the misogynistic Saudi and Islamist regimes around the world who routinely treat women as second class citizens and criminalize conduct that we in the West take for granted.

If you're a woman, you can be arrested and thrown in prison for simply being seen with a male who is unrelated to you. How insane is that? The insanity is even worse when you consider that Iran and Saudi Arabia consider stoning an appropriate sentence for such conduct - they'll often trump up charges claiming that the woman is committing adultery, which is punishable by death under Islamic law.

Iran Threatens Stoning of Two Women Accused of Adultery

The barbarism continues in Iran. The misogynists that dominate Iran once again threaten to stone women to death for commiting the crime of adultery. The kangeroo courts convicted them and even tried them twice on the same charges to come away with this horrible result.

Two Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them, the Etemad newspaper Monday quoted their lawyer as saying.

The two were found guilty of adultery -- a capital crime in Islamic Iran -- after the husband of one sister presented video evidence showing them in the company of other men while he was away.

"Branch 23 of the supreme court has confirmed the stoning sentence," said their lawyer, Jabbar Solati.

The penal court of Tehran province had already sentenced the sisters identified only as Zohreh, 27, and Azar (no age given) to stoning, the daily said.

Solati explained that the two sisters had initially been tried for "illegal relations" and received 99 lashes. However in a second trial they were convicted of "adultery."

The pair admitted they were in the video presented by the husband but argued that there was no adultery as none of the footage showed them engaged in a sexual act with other men.

"There is no legal evidence whereby the judge could have the knowledge for issuing a stoning sentence," Solati said, adding that he had appealed to the state prosecutor.

"The two sisters have been tried twice for one crime," Solati protested.

This case goes to the heart of the misognistic view of Islam. Women are seen as the possession of men, particularly the husband. To be seen in public with someone who is not a blood relations is grounds for execution by stoning or lashes.

Barbaric doesn't begin to cover the treatment of women in Iran.

Pardon Spares Saudi Rape Victim 200 Lashes

The backlash from knowing that the Saudi justice system was going to subject a female rape victim to 200 lashes because she was initially found to be in the presence of a male not related to her, and then had the penalty increased because she had the audacity to question the initial verdict, will have her crimes pardoned by the Saudi king.

Still, the misogyny shines through:

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pardoned a female rape victim who had been sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being alone with a man who was not related to her, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday.

Saudi Justice Minister Abdullah bin Muhammed al-Sheik told al-Jazirah newspaper that the pardon does not mean the king doubted the country's judges, but instead acted in the "interests of the people."

"The king always looks into alleviating the suffering of the citizens when he becomes sure that these verdicts will leave psychological effects on the convicted people, though he is convinced and sure that the verdicts were fair," al-Jazirah quoted al-Sheik as saying.

The verdict was no where near fair, and the only interests of the people the king took into account was the bad public relations that the Saudis faced because this woman challenged an inane verdict that punished the rape victim for being raped and then further punished her for questioning the verdict.

The fact is that the Saudi king continues to condone the misogyny that led to the verdict in the first place. No where does he repudiate the need to try the woman for being in the presence of a man not related to her even as she was gang raped.

The king refuses to question the justice system that more than doubled her sentence because she questioned the verdict and went to the media.

All this does is bring more attention to the Islamic law that allows this kind of gross violation of human rights and womens' rights.

Islam's Silent Moderates

Ayaan Hirsi Ali in all her glory - and on the op-ed page of the New York Times:

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.

But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?

Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents 57 Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from Parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that by Western standards some of the Prophet Muhammad’s behavior would be unconscionable. A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted.

But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.

I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.

Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.

Indeed, where are the moderates? Ayaan has found herself to be on the receiving end of the Islamists who seek her death because she dares to question the treatment of women in the Islamic world. She's in need of constant security to protect her against jihadis who wish to murder her because of her apostasy (anyone who doesn't strictly adhere to the precepts of Sharia are considered apostate and subject to death). Highlighting the misogyny that is institutionalized in Islam is a crime worthy of a fatwa - death.

The silence remains deafening.

Moment of Clarity on Islamic Law

Has the NYT had a moment of clarity on the treatment of women in Islamic society?

The answer is maybe. Just maybe.

Muslims who wonder why non-Muslims are often baffled, angered, even frightened by some governments’ interpretation of Islamic law need only look to the cases of two women in Saudi Arabia and Sudan threatened with barbaric lashings.

They're starting down the path, but don't quite go far enough in outing the misogynistic nature of Islam, and the treatment of non Muslims in Islamic-dominated lands around the world.

The Islamists treat non Muslims as second class citizens, and treat women even worse. Those who "insult" Islam are greeted with calls for execution. Women who are raped at greeted with lashes for being in the presence of men who are not blood relatives - and then get their sentences doubled when questioning the sentence or seeking publicity to show the injustice and inhumanity of the decision.

The Times has been largely silent on the subject of Islamic law and sharia as it relates to the mistreatment of women and non Muslims around the world. While the world (and the Times) focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is far from the only place where Islamists seek to spread Islam at the sword. Thailand. Pakistan. India. Philippines. Indonesia. Sudan. Somalia. Iran.

Not content with living peacefully with their neighbors, the Islamists seek to spread Islam throughout their dominion and subjugate those who do not comply.

Tiny Violins

The Saudis can't quite understand why their propaganda blitz in anticipation of the annual OPEC cartel meetings hasn't made uncomfortable facts disappear.

The most recent of the uncomfortable facts?

Well, it is that their justice system just sentenced a a female rape victim to receive 200 lashes because she spoke out against the brutality of the earlier imposed sentence of 90 lashes for being a rape victim who happened to be caught in a vehicle with someone who was not a male relative.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the more people become aware of the misogyny, hatred, venom, and anti Semitism in the Saudi kingdom (and the rest of the Islamist world) the better.