We have yet another outrage by a devout Muslim who believes that she should not only require others to follow her views of morality but is willing to punish children deemed immoral. In Southern Egypt, a teacher in Luxor forced two 12-year-old girls to hold their hands above their heads for two hours and then cut off some of their hair in front of the class to punish them for not wearing Muslim headscarves or hijab.
There has been an upsurge in religious orthodoxy after the “Arab Spring” led to the new Islamic government in the country.
This outrage occurred in the village of Qurna in Luxor province and the parents objected to the public humiliation and punishment. The school agreed that it was wrong, but the teacher was simply transferred to another school. So a teacher physically abuses two young girls in front of a class and then verbally abuses them. She then cuts off their hair to force conformity with the teacher’s religious views. The result? The teacher is allowed to teach children in another school rather than be fired and charged with criminal assault. The fact that she only cut off a few inches of hair does not matter. It was a humiliating and potential criminal act of child abuse.
What is equally disconcerting is that the teacher repeatedly stated that she expected all children to comply with her views of moral dress without any apparent action from the school. Equally chilling is that, according to reports, a student handed her the scissors and demanded that she carry out her threat against the girls — adding a type of group participation in the punishment of these children.
It is astonishing that an adult believes such disgraceful conduct against children constitutes a moral act.
Source: Guardian
nick,
I do not remember any of the girls having to wear pants at St. Lambert’s.
Malisha, I dont know that any culture approves of cruelty and that was what this woman showed. I do think that we tend to tell the world our way is better then yours and evaluate them based on our standards.
Frankly – by what right do we demand others change their standards? That was my point. cruel behavior yes I think everyone has a pretty clear idea of what is cruel, such as this woman;s behavior and as Malisha points out Mitt’s as well. About that all should speak out, cultural behavior that is specific to a culture and no one is hurt is another issue entirely.
(Interesting to me that we complain about the theocracies in Iraq, Iran etc but too many ‘christians ‘ in thiscountry want to make the US a theocracy, reliant upon their interpretation of bilbical principles and belief in their version of G-d
I attended 2nd thru 8th grade at blessed sacrament. The sisters of St Joseph. Three of my nun teachers were wonderful. Err, uhh, I better stop there. The back of my knuckles are starting to tingle. 🙂
Dear Living god, do you just think your words and they show up on Professor Turleys site,.. or do you have to type them.?
I have posted on various websites over the years and your news stations know of MY presence. that means that your politicians follow the antichrists on sunday morning. just ask joe biden. ryan does the same church. THE BIBLE says that nothing is sacred to ME except the truth. christianty is dead! follow GOD! is what MY SON said!
what makes you free? I will make the whole world bite the proverbial bullet by doing nothing.
do you know anybody that says that MY SON was not in the store in traverse city michigan over four years ago? there were customers in that store and, I was their showing the crew how THE HOLY SPIRIT worked. some people work with HER. SHE is JESUS MOTHER. has any body told the muslims and other religions that MY SON is here? I did! they ignored ME.
did your parents ever tell you not to do something and you did it any way, and you got hurt? did you listen afterwards to your parents?
I did tell the president what to do, and both candidates go to the antichrist churches on sunday.
do you know that the mormons do promise that every one goes to HEAVEN. that means that osama bin laden is waiting for christians, and the pope according to what the churches tell people. the muslims talk about hell for christians. do you think that would be close? picking up your body parts for ever makes every day FOREVER IN HEAVEN SOUNDS LIKE HELL. there are no hospitals!
do you ever notice that you can buy cd’s that tell you what MY plans are for the u.s. and prophecy tells you that I will have MY own way of writing. pat robertson tells the country that he knows MY way. pat also sells MY name illegally, just like christian mingle says that I endorsed their website. I do not endorse any antichrist website.
there are people who want to know the truth!
there are also those who would rather bite a bigger proverbial bullet than stop preaching from every religion.
to find any religion go to any seminary school. some are at your govenrment funded universities.
to find GOD is easy.
to listen to the truth and understand it, takes intellect on a very broad scale.
congress can not think that far ahead. they would lose the election and I would not have to worry about a bunch of BIBLE bashers telling you how to vote or support them. they are as varied as the antichrists that tell them what to do. the only thing that all clerics have in common is that GOD exists only in their minds. just ask them all! in fact, put that on a ballot!
Well I have a right to be appalled at someone’s behavior even if their culture permits it. I was appalled that this teacher in Egypt cut the girls’ hair and I was appalled that right here in our own culture Mitt Romney failed to deny a story that he had ganged up on, pinned down and cut the hair of a fellow student and gone without punishment or rehabilitation. This stuff is bad no matter what cruelty your particular culture approves. Ugh.
Elsie, it’s not just abortion that’s in danger; it’s birth control too. It’s prenatal care and even passably decent healthcare for mothers and children and…we may end up in competition with women in certain “culture-challenged” countries (for horror stories) before too long.
lee – by what right do we demand others change their standards?
Civilized people might agree that this whole mess is obscene but time and again the West has stepped into a world of hurt simply to “save the noble savages from themselves”. It has never worked well if at all.
As for the root of this – I think some number of people enter the teaching profession because they love the power. Its not the majority but it is too many & when that power is left unchecked (particularly when the Great Hairy Thunderer ‘approves’) these sorts of abuses will always happen. See the recent stories about the Boys prison in FLA or other ‘reform’ schools or the countless cases in private schools around the world.
It is terrible but what if the tables were turned? We look at these, and the professor has posted a lot of these kind of stories, through the lenses of our culture. Maybe if America was willing to see the Arab culture as different then ours we would be able to have more of an effect in trying to change their mores so that this kind of behavior is not necessary. There will always be extremists, the news after all is for the uncommon, not the common. Is this woman emblematic of the behavior of teachers or the way they are punished (using the analogy of the catholic church maybe the answer is yes)?
I had to stand on the ‘marble’ at my Catholic school for public humiliation. A friend of mine whose hair was a bit too unruly for the principal got it jerked so hard she fell to the floor. Conformity trough intimidation and threats sound familiar to me. What is most troubling is that so many women keep doing the bidding of religious men, no matter what religion. Vote for the GOP and you are in effect putting a heavier burden on women in this country as you will help undermine their constitutional right to abortion, perpetuate the unequal pay for the same work women still receive. Those are just two issues on which the religious inspired GOP leaders will forge ahead if they are elected.
just to clarify – the shoe comment related to your over/under.
I was not subjected to the terror of Catholic school but the story one GF told me was that they had to kneel each day & the hem of the skirt had to touch the floor. The girls would sometimes roll up the waistband after inspection to shorten the skirt. If caught it was practice in this school to bend the girl over the desk in front of the room, lift her skirt & apply a ruler to her backside a few times. When the immodesty of exposing the girl this way before classmates was brought up the nuns claimed the girls should be OK with it since they were already exposing themselves in short skirts!
Nick – if the shoe fits . . .
rafflaw, But they would have made them put on pants if their skirts were too short. Our nuns had ugly pants in stock if the skirts were too short. If boys didn’t have a jacket and tie, the same. I just kept a backup in my locker @ all times.
It is one test if individuals act illegally, it is another to see what the authorities do when afterward.
Another example of it being better for keep their religious beliefs to themselves.
AY,
Even the good Benedictine sisters would not have stooped to this level!
Empathy and the ability to see the world though the lens of another person seems to be a foreign concept of many–if not most–religious fundamentalists. Let’s hypothetically place this teacher in the midst of some religious group that demands another form of dress code and forces her kids, and her, to conform.
Some folks seem to be charging headlong into the ninth century. Some of our legislators would like to return to the heady days before 1861.
The over/under was 10 before someone compared this type of travesty to American conservatives. At least it’s not as insane as the white haired, red lipped fool of a woman a couple days ago being compared to the Taliban.
Justice Holmes, there are members of Congress whose views of women border on the medieval. AND THAT IS AN UNGUARDED BORDER!
Wrong? Yes. Astonishing? No. In The US legislatures have passed laws to force women to have vaginal ultrasounds to enforce their view that women should not be allowed to control their own bodies. We have members of Congress and presidential candidates whose views of women border on the medieval. The Arab Spring has not improved the status of women.
Abuse children … get transferred. Sounds familiar.
Was her training from the same nunnery that the nuns I know went to?….