Author: Ophelia Benson

‘Ayesha’ (not her real name) – get out of there. Get out, and don’t come back. Ever. Get out right now.

Her father died when she was six, and her mother married his very conservative cousin, who hit her hard in the face the first time they met, and went on from there. She was beaten up throughout her childhood. At fifteen she was forcibly engaged to a cousin. She ran away but was tricked into going home for another beating. She told a doctor; he told the social services, who questioned her mother, who denied it all, and Ayesha got the worst beating of her life.

Her stepfather spied on her and one day saw her without the hijab. That evening, she was thrown into the bath and beaten. “My mother told me that if I didn’t start listening to her then my stepfather was going to rape me.” Ayesha confided in a female teacher, but her story was not believed. As preparations for the marriage moved forward, the bride-to-be was locked in a house whose outside walls were now topped with studded nails and barbed wire. Her stepfather spelt it out bluntly. If she tried to run away again, he would find her and kill her.

She phoned Jasvinder Sanghera; she got out of the house and ran; she phoned the police, who almost took her back home, but Sanghera managed to convince them not to. She was safe; she moved to another city, she was about to start a degree course. But then she phoned a relative.

Promises were made. She could come back. All would be forgiven. Four months ago, Ayesha went home. And so resumed her role as victim in an escalating cycle of threats and violence. The family is still insisting that she marry her cousin. She still refuses. A happy ending is not in sight.

Get out, Ayesha. Run, and don’t look back.

Nice.

The country’s powerful Islamic parties and leaders are resisting reform of a law that sanctions lenient punishments for those found guilty of so-called honour killings. Article 111 of the Iraqi penal code – passed in 1969 – allows a lesser punishment for the killing of women if the male defendants are found to have had “honourable motives”…Acting minister of state for women’s affairs Narmin Othman is leading a campaign to change the Ba’ath-era law. She is pushing for parliament to ditch the honour killings statute, so that men accused of such crimes are prosecuted for murder…United Iraqi Alliance MP Qais al-Ameri argued that honour crimes are permitted under sharia, or Islamic law. “Illicit sex is the most dangerous thing in a society, and there should be severe punishments against those who practice it.”…Iraqi Accord Front MP Hashim al-Taee said that he also supported the current honour crimes law because it is based on sharia.

Oh well if it’s allowed under sharia, there’s nothing more to be said. Archbishop of Canterbury please note.

The UN’s human rights resolution has passed.

The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it…The document, which was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, “expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations.” Although the text refers frequently to protecting all religions, the only religion specified as being attacked is Islam, to which eight paragraphs refer…”It is regrettable that there are false translations and interpretations of the freedom of expression,” the Saudi delegation told the council, adding that no culture should incite to religious hatred by attacking sacred teachings…The resolution expresses “grave concern at the serious recent instances of deliberate stereotyping of religions, their adherents and sacred persons in the media.”

No culture should incite to religious hatred by attacking sacred teachings – so therefore all cultures and everyone in them should simply accept ‘sacred teachings’ and that’s that. ‘Sacred teachings’ should be treated as special and inviolable and immune from criticism and disagreement – in spite of the fact that they are based on nothing but long tradition and determined belief. (Or rather, because of that fact.) Well, I just have ‘attacked sacred teachings,’ because I think they are wrong, harmful, and malicious, so I naturally don’t think the UN Human Rights Commission’s new resolution is a good idea. I also don’t think the Organization of the Islamic Conference really gets it about rights. The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam illustrates why.

All human beings form one family whose members are united by their subordination to Allah and descent from Adam…Life is a God-given gift…and it is prohibited to take away life except for a shari’ah prescribed reason…Men and women have the right to marriage, and no restrictions stemming from race, colour or nationality shall prevent them from exercising this right…Woman is equal to man in human dignity, and has her own rights to enjoy as well as duties to perform…It is prohibited to exercise any form of pressure on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to force him to change his religion to another religion or to atheism…Every man shall have the right, within the framework of the Shari’ah, to free movement…Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah…Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical Values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.

And so on, and so on. All the rights are qualified by ‘as long as the Shariah doesn’t mind.’ It is prohibited to force people to change religion, but it is not prohibited to force people not to change religion. Restrictions on marriage stemming from religion are quite all right. Woman has her own rights to enjoy, but she doesn’t have just plain rights – and anyway they’re always qualified by having to get the Shariah’s permission. And so on, and so on. Not what people who are not united by their subordination to Allah recognize as rights at all – more like non-rights. So it’s unfortunate that the OIC has so much clout at the UN Human Rights Council.

Ban Ki-moon is chiming in on the anti-rights talk.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday joined Muslim nations in expressing outrage over the film. Ban called Wilders’ film offensive while Iran and Bangladesh warned it could have grave consequences and Pakistan protested to the Dutch ambassador. “I condemn in the strongest terms the airing of Geert Wilders’ offensively anti-Islamic film,” Ban said in a statement. “There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free speech is not at stake here.”

Oh really.