An open letter from Dylan Farrow

Nicholas Kristof publishes it on his blog.

What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.

For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I didn’t like. I didn’t like how often he would take me away from my mom, siblings and friends to be alone with him. I didn’t like it when he would stick his thumb in my mouth. I didn’t like it when I had to get in bed with him under the sheets when he was in his underwear. [Read more…]

A dud advice bureau

In another piece of news that will surprise no one, it is revealed that Swedish mosques tell women to put up with whatever shit their husbands feel like dealing out. Well of course they do. What would be the point of mosques if they didn’t?!

Using hidden cameras and telephone recording equipment, two women posing as abused spouses visited ten of Sweden’s largest mosques as part of a report put together by Sveriges Television (SVT) investigative news programme “Uppdrag granskning”.

The women then asked leaders at the mosques for advice about how to address issues such as polygamy, assault and non-consensual sex.

Six out of the ten mosques visited by the women, who had also claimed that their husbands had multiple wives, told them that they should nevertheless agree to have sex with their husbands even if they didn’t want to. [Read more…]

Next up: Vatican conference on secularism

Good news, the Saudis are hosting a meeting of a human rights commission.

No really. They are. Why are you laughing?

It’s the OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission, the OIC being the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. That’s the outfit that issued its own special “declaration of human rights” that added to every right the stipulation “as long as this complies with Islam” thus making nonsense of the whole idea. The meeting is in Jeddah, as is only right, because you can’t get much more Islamic than that, unless you hold it in Mecca, but then you might get trampled by people doing the haj.

The Fourth Session of the OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) will be held from 02 to 06 February 2014 in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The inaugural session will be held in the afternoon of 02 February 2014, which will be addressed by the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation H.E Mr. Iyad Ameen Madani and Chairman of the OIC IPHRC Ambassador Muhammad Kawu Ibrahim. The meeting will be attended by all OIC Member and Observer States as well as Senior officials of the OIC General Secretariat and media.  [Read more…]

Fighting for something we thought we had won

Thousands of people got together in Madrid today to voice their opposition to government plans to take away abortion rights.

Under pressure from the Catholic Church, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government announced on December 20 it would roll back a 2010 law that allows women to opt freely for abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

The new law — yet to pass parliament, where the ruling People’s Party enjoys an absolute majority — would allow abortion only in cases of rape or a threat to the physical or psychological health of the mother.

Other than that, laydeez, tough shit – you’re stuck with it unless god sends you a miscarriage. No whining. It doesn’t matter if you’re poor and can’t afford it, if you’re in school and don’t feel ready to be a mother, if your husband or boyfriend just left you, if you just have absolutely no desire at all to have a child – you are stuck with it. If you don’t like it you should have plugged that sinful thing up with cement. [Read more…]

Showing her hair

This is from three years ago, but all the same…it has its implications for the festive World Hijab Day.

The Telegraph, January 19 2011.

A British Muslim man threatened to kill his cousin if she continued to refuse to wear a headscarf, a court heard.

Not very festive.

Mohamed Al-Hakim is said to have telephoned Alya Al-Safar, 21, at her home in Hammersmith, west London, giving her a deadline to start wearing a head covering, Isleworth Crown Court was told.

Mr Al-Hakim, of Fulham, west London, is also said to have labelled his cousin’s immediate family “whores” because of her decision to a adopt western style. [Read more…]

Guest post by mirax: The official Friday sermon

Originally a comment on Alex Aan is out of prison.

Christians are helping Alex Aan because Christians in Malaysia and Indonesia are increasingly aware that they are in the cross sights of Islam. Islam as defined by the majority of muslims who practise it, the laws which prop up its status as state religion affirming its supremacism over all other faiths and the political and civic figures who step out as the defenders of the religion of ”peace”. In Malaysia there is constant brainwashing and incitement of muslims at the Friday sermons (the official one delivered by a government department to all mosques in the country) and the results are frightening. Polls of ordinary malaysian muslims’ views on recent issues point to the overwhelming majority – 80% or more – taking a very hardline stance.

You want a taste of how Islam is practiced in this part of the world, you read this from the Malay Mail Online:

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 31 — Christians and Jews are responsible for turning Muslims against each other and tricking them into losing their rights, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) said in its Friday sermon today.

Singling out Christians and Jews as the “enemies of Islam”, Jakim claimed that Muslims in Malaysia will always be under siege as long as this threat is not addressed. [Read more…]

Just say no

I guess the Alabama legislature took a look at what happened to Savita Halappanavar at University Hospital Galway, and liked what they saw. They want that to happen to Alabama women too. From the ACLU blog:

All miscarriages can be devastating. But, for women in Alabama, this nightmare could soon get a lot worse. This week, the Alabama Senate is set to consider a cruel bill (HB 31) that would permit the hospital staff, including any doctor, nurse, counselor, or lab technician, to refuse to participate in any phase of patient medical care related to ending a pregnancy, even if that is what a patient like this woman needs to protect her own health and future fertility.

Yes, you heard that right. Under this law, if you or a loved one is pregnant and go to an emergency room in Alabama because of serious complications, every medical professional in that emergency room could refuse to help you if the care you needed to protect you from serious harm to your health required ending the pregnancy. [Read more…]