Pakistan’s biggest religious political party Jamaat-e-Islami launched a campaign to make it compulsory for women to wear the Hijab in public.
The women’s wing of the party has already held demonstrations in several cities demanding that the wearing of Hijab be made a part of the constitution and compulsory in Pakistan, and tomorrow the party will observe ‘Hijab Day’.
“Our society has been invaded by western values and women who wear the Hijab or Burqa are targeted as extremists and that is totally unfair,” said Durdana Siddiqui, the Deputy General Secretary of the party’s women wing.
We want to send a clear message to the anti-Hijab elements by observing this day that Hijab is not only part of our religious obligation but also a fundamental right and protective shield for women,” she said.
The JI plans to distribute free head scarfs to working women in the markets and offices besides setting up stalls to sell Hijabs on subsidized rates and will also hold protests in different cities with the biggest one planned in Karachi.
Stupid slaves of men, masochist morons are having their bizarre propaganda on facebook.
International Hijab Day? Or International Ignorance Day, Humiliation of Women Day!
Interesting news is, there was no female speaker at Jamaat-e-Islami’s Hijab Day rally.
Apologists for Islam are growing like mushrooms. The anti-women forces have been honored everywhere as defenders of human rights.
Islamists are claiming Hijab is a choice. But my question is, ‘if Hijab is a choice, then why is it necessary to make it compulsory?’
.
Like Catholic birth control coverage, it is a choice. A choice the church makes for you.
‘Hijab is my pride, not compulsion’ and I’m proud to make my pride compulsary.
My brain hurts…
hijab is totaly your own choice. If they want it to b compulsary then they are wrong. Hijab is a good thing. I myself have frnds who practice hijab and also those who do not. Believe me i have never experienced it but those who wear hijab TOTALY BY THIER OWN CHOICE, feel much better and comfortable in hijab. Hijab is pride if u wear it as your own choice. I myself like those girls who cover thier heads by thier own choice. I strongly agree with this that a muslim girl should be introduced to hijab but should be given the choice whether to practice it or not. Hijab is only benifical if a woman decides it herself whether 2 wear it or not. 🙂
Those are all lies. In Iran and Saudi Arabia and certain other Islamic nations women are subjected to imprisonment and public lashing for failure to wear the hijab. And even in the western world women are subjected to pressure from male relatives to “protect the family honor” by wearing the hijab, and there is no shortage of reports of “honor killings” of women who have not bowed to such pressures. And we are supposed to believe in the dead of the summer women wear layer upon layer of clothing because it is comfortable? You Islamists never get enough of insulting our intelligence.
Hi,
Do you know any muslim women? Did you do any research at all for this article or do you enjoy spreading propaganda!!! I am a muslim woman and my husband did not want me to wear the hijab because of people like you who would be judging me. I wore it anyway because I have pride in myself and in humanity in general. Did you know that statistically speaking… (North American statistics), men think about “1 thing” every 7 sec. or 7 min. I cover myself out of respect for myself because I wasn’t created to please every Tom, Dick and Harry! It is by respect of myself and the other gender that I wear it. By the way, it is people like you who oppress women like me. Trust me when I say that for most of the women like me … you are the ones who deny us our freedom. Next time you decide to write or have an opinion about an article about something you have no knowledge of, please do some research first.
I’m a woman and I think about 1 thing about every 7 seconds as well. How come your husband doesn’t cover up for me? He doesn’t respect himself?
hey i am a muslim girl, 22 years of age and i want you to acknowledge that hijab is indeed a compulsion.Social conditioning, yours…mine and almost every muslim girl’s is such that they start thinking it is a matter of pride. If covering up is being proud, the idea of pride is very warped; showing our face and daring to challenge people who dare to treat us as an object to please is what should make us proud. Also, it is high time we start using non euphemistic terms, sex for example. Covering our face or our words will never help.
It’s the Muslim men you have to worry about, not western men. Muslim men will rape and disregard a woman at the drop of a hat. What woman wants to live in fear? This is rediculas! Stop being ashamed of yourself in the name of some belief system.
Yeah, but you miss the point. The group in this entry want to make hijab compulsory. So those women need to change their sign to read, “Hijab isn’t a choice. It’s a compulsion.”
INstread of pushing the hijab, why nopt do something constructive and discipline your male offspring so that they learn to respect women and to see them as equals?
The hijab symbolises the failure of muslim women to properly discipline their male offspring and to teach them self-control.
Islam does not grant muslim women the right, the authority, to inculcate a sense discipline and self-restraint in their sons, and so these women, as we see in Pakistan, are forced, as a default position, to wear a “protective barrier” to fend off the lack of self-restaint and self-control displayed by those same males.
When young boys are not disciplined and properly “placed” by female authority figures very early on, then they grow up to be largely useless men.
Why do you not do that in your ‘civilized’ countries first and make it work!! The highest amount of rapes in the world are in the west! You look at women as a body to fulfill your sexual urges. Your men rape even girls as young as 2 year-old. So when your system of educating the male offspring gives positive results, only then come preach it to us. The hijab was not started by Muslims. Other faiths before were wearing hijab and till now the piouse people of the christian faith wear it! the Hijab is compulsory for any Muslim believer. It is not a choice. Ironically about 60% of converts to Islam are women!!
God has created the 2 sexes with an attraction between them so as to regenerate LAWFULLY, not to show all men your bodies and cause filth which is now in the west. If you read what the western scientists and doctors say about the side effects of looking at a woman who is not covered, is enough to give the hijab more power. Please leave us Muslims alone. Mind your own business!
The highest amount of rapes are in the west? By definition, in the Middle East, what the west calls rape – the forcing of a woman to submit to sex without her consent – is defined as a right. If murder was completely legal in Islam, then by definition there would be no murders in Muslim cultures.
Is that how you define peace? By pretending violence is a right, and therefore not illegal; if legal, therefore peaceful?
Shit on a stick, that’s sick, zaki.
What side effects of looking at a woman who is not covered?! What about the ‘side effects’ of looking at a man who is not covered, for fucks sake?
Calling nature filth is the fucking depths of ugly.
so, im not a muslim but i had live 17 years in muslimist country..
its proven that even if you wear a full coverin hijab, men still wonder and even more curios whats will look inside those veil and clothing..
so Zaki,
I think your argument is invalid
look at the tribes that uses minimal clothing
its not about the cloth
its all about the mind
The only support in the West for this attack on women’s rights, and for radical Islam generally, comes from the socialist left.
The socialist left in Sweeden, in France, in Germany and aggressively in the UK all unflinchingly support Shariah law implementations.
Socialist feminism is incapable of advocating for women on this issue.
Western feminism is more or less bankrupt and crippled by its socialist affectations.
I don’t usually comment but the ignorance and paranoia of your post deserved a response. If you think that those four countries are implementing Sharia law then you shouldn’t have any trouble citing one example from each of a law passed by their governments that is modelled on a Sharia law?
I suspect you will have a very hard time given that muslims represent a small minority of these countries. On top of that Sweeden and France have both introduced laws against muslim customs; see the French ban on wearing anything that covers the face (AKA the “Burqa Ban”) and the Sweedish ban on the construction of Minarets.
It is Sweden, not Sweeden. It is Swedish, not Sweedish. It was not Sweden, it was Switzerland that banned the construction of minarets.
Taslima, RyanB is a case in point. No matter what the source, any insult to Islam is automatically judged to see it an accusation of racism or religious persecution can be placed on it. Calling Islam misogynistic is simply telling the naked truth; millions of Muslim women agree. Ask the hundreds of articulate apostates who discuss this endlessly.
The left-wing has a nearly reflexive response to the slightest criticism of Islam: The West is an evil place, filled with racism and hatred. Islam is a religion of innocence and is simply misunderstood.
YOu, as an ex-Muslim woman, can say what you want – nobody can attack you because you’re not white and you’re an ex-Muslim. They just ignore you completely.
A white woman, say a feminist, could say the exact same words you do, and she would be drummed out of academia, verbally assaulted, and called racist (though Islam has nothing to do with race).
A man who was disgusted by the misogyny in Islam is a villain; a Muslim man who stands up and advocates for Shariah law is a quaint victim of persecution whose religion is simply misunderstood.
Read the Guardian if you want to see more of this almost uncritical, unthinking response. Islam is the religion of VIctims.
Only Muslims are victims. Copts in Egypt are evil tools of Western imperialism, not desperate minorities on the verge of genocide after a thousands years of vicious persecution.
This meme plays itself out endlessly. Western feminism in its socialist form is crippled. You will never hear left-leaning feminists in the west EVER speak out against practiced in Islam.
The silence about this essentially fascist political movement is deafening.
The truth is the enemy. Bury it. Pretend Islam is just a benign form of religion practiced by people oppressed by the West.
This is the reaction you will get from Western feminism: A woman who says brave things. You will get next to no support from socialist Western feminists, whose socialist leanings make them silent or apologists for Islam.
“Taslima, RyanB is a case in point. No matter what the source, any insult to Islam is automatically judged to see it an accusation of racism or religious persecution can be placed on it.”
Again you seem to be displaying a huge amount of paranoia. I didn’t say any of that, I didn’t even express an opinion other than you will find it hard to justify your statement that the four countries mentioned are all extreme left countries that are currently implementing Sharia law. Which I note, you haven’t done.
Please respond to what ryanb actually objected to. You accuse socialists of promoting Islamic theocracy; you were challenged to provide an example. Yes, it is true that many socialists have objected to laws banning the wearing of such head coverings in public. What would these laws accomplish beyond isolating women who would be vulnerable to social pressures in their communities, makiing them less able to make the contacts necessary to safely move away from reactionary Islam? In practice, the anti-hijab laws proposed would result simply in Muslim women, especially immigrants, being further resricted by their abusive families and more thoroughly prevented from establishing contact with support networks in the secular community. Oh, and people who want to show off how anti-Muslim they are get to feel self-righteous about taking out their objections to patriarchal Islam on the women who are its most immediate victims.
Laws mandating the hijab are, of course, odious and should be opposed. Laws banning the wearing of religious headwear — even when that headwear symbolizes patriarchal subjugation of women — are, perversely, likely to make it more difficult for women to escape from that same subjugation.
(…and then there are the women who wear the head covering, though not the identity-erasing face covering, as a purely cultural marker and would kick the crap out of anyone who tried to make it mandatory. But they’re another matter.)
About me: I am not an ex-Muslim because I have never been a believer.
Not all socialists are apologists for Islam. I believe in socialism and I am very critical of Islam, and all other religions.
Thanks for the correction, my spelling has always been bad but I am suitably embarrassed about mixing up which country banned minarets.
Do you know that the same man who was spearheading the movement to ban the minarets and any building of mosques in Switzerland has now converted to Islam and now wants to build the biggest mosque in Europe?
I feel sorry for you Taslima. The miracles of Allah are so many and everyday even more come to knowledge, causing so many people to convert to Islam. If your decision to be anti Islam is because of your education, then your education has not benefited you. And if it is because of the way you or your people have been treated by Muslims, then you should not judge Islam by the black ship of its followers ( of which there are many now).
I feel sorry for you zaki. The beauties of reality are so many and everyday even more come to knowledge, causing so many people to convert to atheism. If your decision to be pro Islam is because of your indoctrination, then your education has not benefited you. And if it is because of the way you or your people have been treated by Taslima and atheists, then you should judge Islam by the black ship of its followers ( of which there are many now).
You’ve got all sorts of ‘issues’ there, buddy. In fact, your point seems to be to rail against a ghost.
Gorb, this ought to get you all stoked up.
Muslim indoctrination in public schools!
The Muslim Trojan Horse!
Interesting. The world is free to do what they want.
[Inset nation’s name – any nations] is a free land
Free without a doubt.
If you haven’t any money,
Then you’re free to go without.
Freedom in principle is one thing. Freedom in practice quite another.
Economic freedom, freedom to buy and decide what you buy is limited obviously by the amount of money one has available.
Freedom – or the extent to which one can actually excercise one’s freedoms – is also dependent on many other socio-cultural and political things.
Freedom of speech. Ideally for everyone with only basic limitations like libel, state secrets and yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
In practice, religious extremists and the politically powerful make it hard to speak Truth to Power and against ideologies and sometimes evil Traditions.
Freedom to move freely. Principle for all. Practice, well the rich and strong and powerful have it over most of us wherever we are. A single woman on low wages, with a child or more than one. Has less, finds it harder in practice to excercise her rights.
This ain’t rocket surgery.
We are legally equal. Economically, socially, politically, things just really are not.
For most of the world by huge margin.
Half of Humanity, a fraction more, is female.
A large percentage hard to tell given cultural norms, soietial pressure for secrecy and gender policing is non-heteronormative.
Most on this planet are relatively poor – the 99% not the 1%. Some of these, far too many, are desperately abysmally poor.
Far more are limited by their “mind forged manacles” of tradition, culture, expectation, lack of empathy, ignorance and lack of opportunities.
Women in Islam who violate the tabboos, go outside without hijab or burka, go out alone or with women or men they choose not ones foisted upon them by others. Well, their freedoms are often extremely brutally curtailed and their lives sometimes even ended for excercising their freedom.
That they should have.
But, in effective practice, do not have.
Hope that changes one day.
We need to work towards changing it.
Great question, Taslima.
Do they ever give you any sort of answer at all to that let alone a satisfactory one to that?
If a choice is compelled by pressure of brute force or social or patriachal religious demands is it a really a free choice? If someone puts a gun to somebodies head and says “wear this or else?” are they choosing to wear it of their own free will?
Of Course not!
Upto this level humans can be brainwashed by someone and more important humans can let themselves brainwashed, i never ever had imagined.
and my dear sister hijab doesnt mean burqa to be precise and the picture that you have posted. Hahaha im laughing at it. Gloves on hands! Really? And face covered toooooooo much!
Sister see this:
Modesty in the Qur’an concerns both men’s and women’s
gaze, gait, garments, and genitalia. Clothing
for women involves khumūr over the
necklines and jilbab (cloaks) in public so that
they may be identified and not harmed.
Guidelines for covering of the entire body except for the hands, the feet and the face,
are found in texts of fiqh and hadith that are developed later. For men, hijab includes the
wearing of modest clothing (not very attractive)
hijab isnt specificaly for women. Hope u get it. And i hope jamiat e islami also gets it. They aslo need a bit change in they way they are forcing it and forcing only 4 women.
Why are you Islamists so condescending “my dear sister”? And sure, the Koran is a book for control freaks obsessed with having possession of both men and women. It is a book for those treating human beings like property. So yeah,it has rules for men too. But the obsession is nowhere nearly as overwhelming as it is for women. Because women are seen a the source of temptation that men need protection from. It is about as disgustingly antiwoman as it gets. The fact that it treats men also like property doesn’t make it at all better.
Just one question for you. Being a critic is completely acceptable and fine! But before being a critic, have you actually STUDIED(refers not just to reading some English translation but understanding the ideas behind the verses) the book you criticize so much about? The question is just to confirm, if you aren’t shooting arrows in the air aimlessly. 🙂
Wanna bet? I was raised muslim. How many islamic education exams have you sat for? I had to take them from age 8 until the end of high school and even in college even though my field of study had nothing to do with theology.
Oh really? That is impressive. Probably, I was never forced to take up so many educational exams for Islam, so cannot answer on HOW many Islam related exams. 🙂 Now since you say, you are well versed with the book, I think we can have a fair discussion. As per my opinion, the Quran (Not sure why would you spell it ‘Koran’) has defined the way of life. Since the topic talks about Hijab – True! The Quran mentions women to follow hijab and the men to lower their gaze. What could be possibly wrong in both of these? If by any medium, someone has instilled in your mind that by following any of the two, a muslim Man/Woman is pulled back in society and the freedom of Women gets curbed! Then trust me, you are absolutely wrong. Reason I can be so affirmative of this is, I am a muslim woman, practicing hijab and at the same time a working professional. Neither has my freedom been curbed, nor I have ever been disrespected for following the same.
So I fail to see, why could this particular rule be picked on and disliked so much! If you talk about the extremists and people who pitch in with their ideologies on Islam, that do not suit to you, I am with you on that. But any concerns with the book? I am not sure why. Would like to hear your opinion on the same.
Fuck you Uzma. I was a muslim girl, from BIRTH and I know how effing crazy this religion can get. Obviously not everyone follows a nasty version of islam, but my parents did and they beat me as a child (YES A CHILD) and forced me to wear the hijab. My dad always accused me of trying to entice men because a part of my hair accidentally showed while i was bending over or something. And i was 13 then; a 13 year old trying to entice men with a strand of her hair.
Stop acting like your religion and beliefs are the best thing ever. if you think that way, fucking fabulous for your ignorant self. but just know that SO many girls were forced to wea a hijab. But of course we have to say the typical, “no i wanted to wear it myself it was my decision”. Well it wasn’t the decision for thousands and thousands of girls but no one gives a damn about them huh.
I completely disagree with generalisations about Western Leftist feminists. There are writers in imperialist opinion forming magazines that masquerade as ‘Leftist Feminists’, but then they want to start banning things.
I think it’s important in a free society to allow women to cover their faces in public places but not places like banks and suchlike where men are required to remove crash-helmets.
It did not surprise me that the French used their ‘anti-burqa law’ to arrest some Pussy Riot supporters at a demonstration in Marseille.
Those Pakistani women are brushing aside Koranic Verse 2:256.
There is no compulsion in Religion.
“No compulsion in religion” is a lie apologists love. But it ignores the context:what immediately follows is “as right has been distinguished from worng”. In other words it is telling you that since “it is obvious “I that Islam is true there is no more need for compulsion; of course if it is not clear to you, the rules (like death penalty for apostasy) still apply to you. And those rules of compulsion are all based on the Koran and the Hadith.
“No compulsion in religion”is just a smokescreen.
I asked them to bring back public stoning as well. I told another woman that if a man forces her to have sex, then it is her fault, and that she should get stoned. I then asked how they were allowed into politics in the first place.
This was on their facebook page, and I, of course, was being sarcastic in the most insulting way. They are being repressed in the most insulting way for women in general – they willingly participate, and criticize those that don’t.
It reminds me of the teabaggers in the States that willingly want to give their meager monies to the 1 percenters. Fucked up.
I take it that these morons have never read 1984 by George Orwell. or maybe the ruling elite has and it has given them inspiration. In typical religious fashion, black is white, evil is good, oppression is freedom. Everything is the very opposite of what they say it is, and you better not point out that the emperor has no clothes, because benevolent Big Brother watches over you.
In these stupid ‘hijab solidarity’ marches, why is it only women who have to wear the hijab? Why don’t men wear the hijab too, to show their support for it? Go on, hijab-enforcing men, please wear the hijab yourselves and report to us how it is your ‘pride’.
Maybe it would help if you thought of this campaign as part of a democratic process. You know, Pakistan, regardless of how poor, backward and corrupt it is, is still a democratic country, and every democracy allows its citizens to stage peaceful protests and demand changes peacefully. The government of Pakistan has not (yet) made it into a law; it is merely some citizens demanding some changes in the country. Exercising their rights. You know, something that is cherished highly in the West, is called one’s basic right, and all.
muslim-women are forced to say against their wish by muslim-men that they take so-called ‘hijab’ as their pride. those who can’t face the society need heeeejab to hide their innocent faces like criminals. hahaha. funny.
Another new slant on religious oppression:
1) I want to wear something really stupid.
2) People treat me badly when I wear it.
3) Everyone else must be forced to wear it as well, otherwise my religious rights have been infringed.
Two words: Stockholm Syndrome
You are a prize. Since when does freedom, which you already have to dress the way you, since when does your freedom depend upon forcing your standards on everyone?
You are the problem. A crybaby that thinks your freedoms are threatened by giving freedom to others.
I have no problem with women covering their heads, but they need to show their face like that rest of us. Things like the Afghan burqa should be banned.
Hijab day? This is deeply disturbing. Making something that marks out women completely normal. If its such a free choice why don’t they just get on with it. The naturists are not trying to get them to go out without their clothes for the day. It seems like tolerance is only one way.
just a propaganda against muslim women… islam is the most modest religion… hijab is protection… thats the only reason why women in western society is entering islam
Continuate così, bravi!
I find it extremely disturbing that women feel the need of a peice of cloth on their heads to feel free. I see arguments in this very forum that men only think of one thing every 7 seconds or whatever and women need to be protected from that. Thats the most fucked up shit ive ever read. If i as a woman say i think of sex every seven seconds too i will be called a whore. But a man? Well, hes just being a man. Muslims try to portray women as hormoneless beings or something of that type. Such blasphemy is being propogated and women are selling stuff like hijab is my diamond, its my crown its my oride. Fuck that. Its a conspicuous sign of your brainwashed-ness! Islam is a religion where the steering wheel is in the hands of the men, and this has been said so many times over that it is ingrained in the women that it is ok to be seocndary. Its like theyre in this make- believe fantasy delusion 24/7. ‘Oh were free as fucking birds, we dont have to bend to what the wests interpretation of beauty is’ and yet, i find most hijabis wearing western clothing, the latest designs mind you and only difference is theres a fucking hijab on their head. All for fucking freedom.
I would just like to say as a hijabi muslim female that I completely agree. I have been forced to wear a ahijab since i was a child and just like most forced hijabi girls, i ALWAYS have to say “no i wanted to do this by myself. no one forced me”. I don’t care if anyone doesn’t believe this but just know, what happens behind closed doors is SO much more different.
Those who don’t believe in hijab are moron..
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This is good intiative for all girls & woman
Agreed, if its a choice, then why make it mandatory