We have previously discussed violence and legal measures targeting dogs by some Muslims who view canines as “unclean.” Even postcards with dogs and service dogs (and here) have raised the ire of some Muslim groups. Now this issue is getting some long-needed attention in Iran after a short film that showed stray dogs being tortured and killed by having acid injected into them.
The video was taken an industrial area of Shiraz, 900 kilometres south of Tehran. The animal activists claimed that those responsible paid $4 for each dog. As with environmentalists in China, I have always had overwhelming respect and admiration for secularists and animal (particularly dog) advocates in Muslim countries. This is more than an impressive commitment to principle but putting your actual life on the line for those principles.
The good news is that the Iranian government is acting on the video. While there was an effort to criminalize the ownership of dogs under Sharia law (and subject dog owners to up to 74 lashed last year), Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar has called for an investigation into the video. While she referred rather mildly to the practice as “an immediate end to unconventional population control method[] for stray dogs,” she did call upon the interior ministry to “deal with the criminals responsible”.
Some Iranian celebrities like Ali Karimi, once a star on Iran’s national football team, posted a picture with his two dogs on Instagram and the message “Dogs are the kindest domestic animals. I hope those who, under any excuse, did this to these animals get what they deserve.”
hahahaha bam
moving the goal posts now?
clerics of Islam? boy, you are so ignorant of islam yet want to talk about it so much?! if you want a lesson, ask Mullah karen…right now you re just showing your ignorance.
Also, was there ever a fatwa against Ayaan ALi? You say so? any proof?
Fianlly, when will you denounce your past affiliation and ongoing support of the klan? AM still waiting.
Again, po, do you denounce the fatwa against her life? Yes or no?
Thought you prided yourself on not dodging questions?
Where’s lim? Maybe I can get him to do it?
I must say though, bam bam, I respect the fact that you and pogo unabashedly embrace your bigotry. You make the case for it, support it with some form of argumentation and aren’t dodging the label under the cloak of victimhood. it take guts certainly, along with some measure of intellectual honesty.
Just hope karen and ayaan ali would be inspired by you.
now open, not NOT open
po
You, yourself, at 2:15 pm, mention Ms. Ali. You, as they say in the law, raised it and it is not open for exploration.
Once and for all denounce the Fatwa, issued against Ms. Ali.
Now, go tell it to your mosque, publicly, if you have no fear of retribution from the adherents to the religion of peace.
Call me what you like. Let’s see you do it, and live.
Obviously, bama bam, you don’t know me, hence these silly utterances…
Nice way to turn a comment about Ayaan into a full blown attack on me…by an avowed islamophobe no less!
According to your logic, your never having condemned the Klan’s threats on malcom X or Martin Luther King proves undoubtedly that you support them. You, bambam, failed to speak up against white people’ attacks on the black guys, therefore, you bambam fully agree with those threats and demeaning words, which makes you, bambam, a hypocrite, a racist and a klan’s lover.
Have you spoken up against the murder of abortionists, bambam? No? Then bam bam, you fully support the murder of the doctors trying to help women!
Don’t you, bam bam? Don’t you?
If you must know however, I ALWAYS and FULLY support everyone’s right to speak ill of Islam, whether Ayaan ALi, Charlie hebdo, Salman Rushdie, Pogo, you bam bam or karen. Go ahead, knock yourself out. You would neither the first nor the last be, there is nothing you can say about Islam that hasn’t been said before… You guys are actually quite tame compared to what I have seen.
Ayaan Ali has a fatwa, issued by those adhering to the religion of peace, against her life. She is denounced by po, yet he fails to mention that she is a prime example of what happens to those who dare to speak out about Islam. I thought that you valued and treasured free speech, po? I thought that only extremists threatened to kill others who voiced their opinions on Islam?
Now is your chance, po. Defend Ayaan Ali and say that she has a right to voice her opinions, even those critical of Islam, without the call for her death by the clerics of Islam. Go ahead, I double dare you. You mention her, yet you fail to defend her right to speak up against what she experienced as a Muslim. In doing so, you imply that you agree with the fatwa against her.
I have a feeling that we are, instead, going to get a diatribe about more caged pigs, imperialists, the Kennedy assassination and Honey Boo Boo.
And then you prove my point by, in the guise o wondering how we got to CAIR and the white house, attack CAIR. Fascinating!
Poor Karen. I agree with you completely!
All that you and Turley did was take a topic that was about the inhumane treatment of stray dogs by a locality, something that all localities everywhere struggle with and that most localities across the world (including here in the US) handle the same exact way, and make it fully about religion, specifically about the one religion you tend to comment on every chance you get.
That you also made it about shariah law specifically, which ya do every time, while claiming as usual to separate between the majority of extremists muslims and the minority of moderates should NOT, I say, earn you any dissent.
Like your idol Ayaan Ali, you should blame everything on a religion and people should accept that your intent is merely to help reform a faith that is neither yours and that you deem a danger. Pretty normal right?
Like her too, you must answer every dissent with wringing hands and laments that you are being victimized…poor you…how hard of a life… and offer that you have friends who are Muslims…which echoes the racists’ claims of “hey, am no racist, I have friends who are black! Take it back!) Totally air!
When someone responds that what people (pogo, bam bam) say is islamophobic, close your eyes so you can’t see what they wrote…instead just double down on the denial, take your cane out and amble around yelling ” why are these persons so offended…I don’t see anything wrong with what people said?…who turned the lights off? …Woe me, what life am i living where everything is caused by islam and the world refuses to see…woe me…why do you hate me so… extremists…shariah law…moo…am allen adn I can’t get up…who flipped the word upside down?”
I think that’s pretty alright!
Finally, why shouldn’t you be praised for accusing everyone who dissents of supporting extremism? I think it is fair tactic.
I think you are doing exactly what your personal makeup demand you do, it is unavoidable, you can’t but embrace untruths and hypocrisy and then claim victimization. That is all part of being passive aggressive and a bit of bully.
BUT, I’ll support your right to the death to keep doing that. We cannot avoid being whom we are. Keep being yourself!
How did we get on CAIR and the White House? I don’t know anything about office space for CAIR actually in the WH, but it’s really easy to see when CAIR attends meetings there:
https://search.whitehouse.gov/search?affiliate=wh&form_id=usasearch_box&query=CAIR
CAIR has a complicated history, and has had the political connections to get heard at the White House for more than 10 years.
You know, I remember when the religious freedoms act was created years ago so that Native Americans could partake in religious peyote ceremonies, which is against the federal drug laws.
No one has been able to calmly discuss religious freedom ever since.
Professor Turley himself indicated that we should debate about where the line should be drawn about business owner’s rights, and that too many would not allow that debate to take place and resort to personal attacks.
Exhibit A – this blog and every mention of cabbies.
It’s like people can’t even talk about a problem anymore.
Wadewilliams:
“And so far as I can ascertain, no one here knows how many dogs were killed, by how many people, under what circumstances. Karen ‘sees’ dogs ripped from their owner’s arms – in an industrial area. Is it possible the dogs were a pack of feral strays?”
Actually, your question was answered in one of my earlier links. The article stated that the 30 dogs who died of thirst and starvation in impound had owners. It had information on the police policy of confiscating dogs from their owners for being in a public space, which is not allowed. Stings outside of vet officers to capture dogs. In addition, strays are shot on sight. The outcry by the Iranian government officials is not that the dogs in the above article were killed, it’s that they were killed by acid. Shooting every stray they see on the street is fine. Taking dogs away from their owners and euthanizing them by some unknown means is fine.
The salient point of the article is not only the abuse; it’s also about the plight of dogs in general in a country that views them as vermin, and the struggles of dog lovers to keep them.
I’ve just been skimming, but from what I’ve seen, Pogo has not listed any Muslims who were moderate, falsely accused, or just got up in the morning to buy groceries. Unless I’ve missed something, he’s listed acts of extremist violence, as well as the anti-Semitic harassment of an Israeli reporter, for no other reason than that she was a Jew.
Has he listed anything that was incorrect? Are these acts of extremist violence OK? He is trying to show the global and expanding nature of the threat.
Don’t shoot the messenger for reporting on factual events. I focus my ire on those who make that list – the terrorists, murderers, and otherwise extremists, not for those who talk about it.
I would have had a similar opposition if a Muslim reporter was harassed for no other reason than simply being Muslim. Or if a Muslim school girl was ridiculed for wearing a hijab, or not being allowed to wear shorts. Yes, those things happen.
What is so odd to me, is that more than 8 people on Earth subscribe to the philosophy that it is somehow rude or morally wrong to report on crimes or atrocities committed by extremist Muslims. There is this pushback at all critics like clockwork. They are called “Islamophobes” to shut down the discussion instead of actually talking about the problem.
We do not need to list every single motivation for murder before we can be permitted to speak about this particular motivation. A topic of spousal murder is not required and directed to also list terrorist murder before it may be broached. We can talk about human sex trafficking crossing our border without being required to discuss the plight of women’s rights around the world. I can talk about bullying of LBGT kids bullying without being required to spend equal time on all the other targets of bullying. I can speak about pit fighting without having to also cover cock fighting in the same article.
Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban for speaking out for the education of girls in Pakistan. She is still a Muslim, still speaking out for women’s rights. I think she’s a hero. I admire the Muslim clerics who issued a fatwa against her would-be killers. The animal rights activists in Iran fighting for the right to keep their dogs are Muslim heroes. These are all Muslim moderates on some or many issues, trying to reform from within. Anyone brave enough to speak for positive change and kindness when it means your life is in danger is a hero in my eyes.
Is it Islamophobic to admire moderate Muslim reformers over extremists and those who subjugate women?
Wadewilliams:
“And if she dismisses the cruelty of the crating of pregnant sows, she is also a hypocrite.”
What’s the obsession with pregnant sows? I raise my own eggs so that they come from healthy, happy, pampered hens rather than factory battery cages. I’ve found free range pork that does not use gestational crates. I retired one of my horses, which is very expensive, rather than just putting him down when he could no longer be ridden. But I’m accused of not caring about animals.
Seriously. No rational person would think I support torturing animals. These red herrings are absurd. Is debate in certain circles based on Lewis Carroll?
“Karen, because commenters here challenge you, doesn’t mean they are trying to silence you.”
Karen, don’t try to summarize what I say, like Paul, you ALWAYS get it wrong.
I. Annie – you know that I know you better than you do. And it scares you. Hence all the attempts to denigrate me.
Paul – well, it is weird that she jumps in whenever anyone calls for reform. It’s like people are prohibited from pointing out that there is a global problem with extremism, unless we also list every other problem with humanity, lest we think that this is the only source of violence. Who would think that? It would make nightly news stories very lengthy. They wouldn’t get through until 3:00 in the morning, and we’d all want to commit suicide, if they had to list every ill done in the world to justify daring to criticize a problem.
Very strange.
Karen – there is a group that hangs out at FFS that come over here from time to time. She more than most. They have a list that you have to agree to to be part of their group. It is like the Mean Girls in high school. 🙂 Or it would be if anyone took them seriously.
Cliff Notes Summation:
I agree with Professor Turley that it is awful that dogs are considered unclean under Islam, are tortured and abused in Iran, and are getting seized off the streets from the arms of their owners to be starved to death in impound. I pray for the success of moderate reformers, animal activists, and the very rare animal shelters.
Po thinks that makes me a liar, stupid, and he should put me in a harem.
Inga/Annie et al thinks that is just Po’s way of challenging me in a debate.
You would think that the plight of animals would be a unifier but . . . nope.