Despite the harsh conditions for women living under the Sharia laws, Iran has a long history of highly educated women. Indeed, women have been outnumbering men three to one in entrance exams — and outperformed men in many tests. Iranian clerics have mandated a new policy that will surely wipe out that deficiency among men: they are effectively barring women from dozens of degree programs and universities as a whole in some cases. It is a devastating blow for women’s rights and will lock millions of women into lives of subjugation.
Category: International
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly wants to attack Iran before the U.S. elections. If true, it is a demonstration of the predictability of U.S. politics. Netanyahu knows that both Romney and Obama are seeking the support of Jewish voters and would be less likely to denounce such a unilateral attack before November. Indeed, they might even help fund the war with additional U.S. loans and military support. What is equally bizarre is the scene of top Israeli officials going to the ranking Rabbi in Israel to get his approval for the attacks. We are accustomed to seeing such influence by religious figures in Iran, but officials have been shuttling back and forth to get the nod from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
There is an interesting ruling out of Australia where lawyer Michael Gerard Sullivan, 54, has succeeded in avoiding a conviction for theft. That would seem rather surprising since Sullivan previously pleaded guilty after being captured on CCTV taking the two paintings of the Katoomba Fine Art Gallery in December 2008. However, Sullivan claimed amnesia and Judge Jennifer English agreed with the diagnosis and declined to record the conviction.
Pakistan may have another opportunity to execute another blasphemer for insulting Islam. This time it is an 11-year-old Christian Pakistani girl Rifta Masih accused of burning Islamic texts. In the meantime, Christians have been persecuted in the area as a local mullah claimed a witness saw the girl burn pages from an Islamic text.
As I discussed today on NPR’s Here and Now, the standoff between England and Ecuador is likely to grow worse after the latter country granted asylum to Julian Assange. While the government has threatened to strip the embassy of diplomatic status and grab Assange, it is in my view an empty threat. However, is there a way for Ecuador to get Assange out of the country?
We previously saw how a Middle Eastern children programs cut off the paws of rabbit characters under Sharia law and feature murderous Mickey Mice. Now those fun-loving men at Hezbollah are creating a multi-million dollar theme park celebrating its military victories over Israel.
Prominent Saudi cleric Salman Al-Odeh is reportedly shown in this video not just questioning the scope of the Holocaust but repeating the ancient anti-Semitic “blood libel” claim that Jews drink the blood of children. This story is based on a translation supplied by a couple of sites and cannot be verified by this blog. Perhaps one of our readers can address its accuracy.
Ecuador granted asylum to Julian Assange today, an act that will further escalate the conflict between Britain and Ecuador. As I discussed on BBC last night, there are some common legal misunderstandings about the status of an embassy, but as a practical matter Assange should be beyond the reach of the English. While the government has threatened to strip the embassy of diplomatic status and grad Assange, it is in my view an empty threat. However, Assange is not likely to see Ecuador any time soon since he can be arrested trying to leave the country.
Continue reading “Assange Granted Asylum As Britain Threatens A Raid On Ecuadoran Embassy”
For those looking for proof of a divine Being, you might want to look this week in Budapest. The star of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party, Csanad Szegedi, 30, has been catapulted to national fame through anti-Semitic attacks and charging that Jews have been desecrating national symbols. He has particularly railed against the hidden influence of Jews in government — a message that resonated with a fraction of the electorate in Hungary. Szegedi is a founding member of the Hungarian Guard, which wears black uniforms and striped flags that closely resemble the pro-Nazi party that governed Hungary at the end of World War II and killed thousands of Jews. Szegedi’s career, however, came crashing down when it was learned that, under Jewish law, Szegedi is . . . you guessed it . . . Jewish.
Continue reading “Oy Vey: Anti-Semitic Hungarian Politician Discovers His Jewish Roots And Becomes Pariah In Far-Right Party”
It appears that ministers in Saudi Arabia have been watching Federico Fellini’s City of Women. The Saudi government has resolved the conflict of having women in the workforce but not allowing them to intermingle with men. No, they have not granted equal rights. They are building them their own city.
Continue reading “City of Women: Saudi Arabia Turns To Fellini To Deal With Female Unemployment”
We have been following anti-blasphemy laws around the world, including the increase in prosecutions in the West and the support of the Obama Administration for the prosecution of some anti-religious speech under the controversial Brandenburg standard. Now, journalist named Sofiene Chourabi has been arrested for simply criticizing a proposed new blasphemy law in Tunisia, which he rightfully condemned as a threat to free speech. We previously discussed the case. Chourabi was a leading voice in opposition to the prior ruler — part of the country’s “Arab Spring” movement. However, that government has been replaced, like so many other such countries, with an Islamic government that proceeded to crackdown on free speech and religious freedom.
Continue reading “Critic of Proposed Anti-Blasphemy Law In Tunisia Arrested”
Tang Hui (a pseudonym) is a mother who attracted international support after she was arrested by Chinese authorities for protesting the lack of action after her 11-year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and forced into prostitution in 2006. Her story is horrific but not unique. The mother reported the kidnapping to police who did nothing even after she discovered her daughter at a strip club. She took her home and continued to protest the failure to punish her rapists who were still walking the streets. The authorities cracked down in response: the mother was convicted and sent to a prison camp.
There is an interesting story below about airlines that force men to switch seats when they are seated next to an unaccompanied child out of fear that they could be child molesters. A firefighter recounts how he was forced to move on a Virgin Australia flight because there was a child next to him. Qantas has actually defended the discriminatory policy.
Continue reading “Qantas Defends Policy To Bar Males From Sitting Next To Unaccompanied Minors”
Here is my column today in USA Today calling on the Olympic committee to consider an overhaul of Olympic rules to update procedures and remove archaic and discriminatory rules. While some may treat this as a call for a new Olympic legal team, it is merely an effort to get the Olympic to guarantee greater fairness with a systemic review of the rules for various sports. What bothers me is to see avoidable mistakes treated like just part of the games, even though they do great injustice to athletes who sacrificed so much to get to these cameras.
Submitted by: Michael Spindell, guest blogger
“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes – not that you won or lost –
But how you played the Game.”
by Grantland Rice
How many of us grew up with the paraphrase of these words ringing in our ears as we participated in all of the competitions that humans partake in. These sentiments represented the epitome of humans engaging in fair contests, the object of which was defining dominance in a particular field and/or activity. We were all supposed to be “fair”, “play by the rules”, honor our opponents and most of all treat them with respect. Much of this was first defined in Western Culture by the Code of Chivalry which not only defined how men hacked each other to death on the battlefield, but also how they were to treat the “fairer” (weaker) sex. As the merchant class rose and nobility declined, Chivalry was subsumed in Western Culture by the notion of “fair play”. That all of these concepts have been but hypocritical touchstones meant to add the veneer of human nobility, to human competition, is rarely admitted by those who promote competition for financial and/or political gain.
Thoughts of this came to me as I watched the Olympics this year, listening to the portentous palaver of the announcers, discussing the contests and the purported values behind them. Yes I felt tears of patriotic pride as Gabby Douglas won the gymnastics Gold Medal, but I also saw the pain on the face of Viktoria Komova, who “only” won the Silver Medal. Implicit was that the Russian gymnast had failed in her quest and that she would forever be marked by this failure. This is the hypocritical dichotomy that is pursued in all avenues of competitive human endeavor when reported upon by the media.
Humanity reached the top of the “food chain” by defeating the competition over eons of strife with other fierce predators. While there are still valid arguments on each side of the question as to how human society developed, whether in a spirit of cooperation, or as a rigid imposition of the will of the “leader”, we cannot question that we attained our status because of our predatory talents. Once the “order” of society was imposed humanity began to learn to sublimate battles to the death for proof of supremacy, into “contests” of talent. We learned to sort out our “hierarchy” through these contests and indeed they have developed into a wide range of competitions that most of us use to determine our places in the world. This is not a controversial idea, but even so I would like to take a step back from it and look at the obvious background of human competition that is missed as we “crown” our champions and pity those who could not measure up. The Olympic Movement is a very problematic one. I could go into its mixed history of bigotry, commercialism, deception and tragedy, but that is perhaps for another time. Continue reading “How You Play the Game”