Sick puppies

Clashes Around Muslim Brotherhood’s Main Headquarters in Cairo (Photo credit: Jonathan Rashad)

I was truly horrified when I read a report today that members of the Muslim Brotherhood were setting puppies alight and using them as gas bombs, during the current protests against the ousting of Egyptian President Morsi. These reports were carried by a number of online news sources, even reasonably reputable one’s.

Not surprisingly, there was an instant outcry from many gullible people who accepted the story without giving it a second thought it seems.

My suspicions about the veracity of these reports were immediately raised because this act is no ordinary thing. It takes a special kind of monster to do something so heinous. After a bit of checking, and when the story disappeared from the source where I had originally read it, I came to the conclusion that there was some mischief afoot.

My skepticism was confirmed by The Guardian’s Egypt correspondent Patrick Kingsley, and reported here in the Huffington Post:

I think it’s really, really unlikely that Muslim Brotherhood protesters could have turned puppies into firebombs during clashes in Tahrir Square. Aside from a couple of brief instances, Brotherhood demonstrators have not been able to enter the square all summer. Most importantly, the logistics of this seem barely feasible. Gathering 20 puppies, transporting them to a protest, dousing them in petrol, and then throwing them at soldiers while being teargassed strikes me as not just impractical, but nigh-on impossible.

Why would anyone spread such vicious lies? I hold no brief for the Muslim Brotherhood, or any Brotherhood for that matter. They’re all mostly crass ideologues. But there’s absolutely no need to slander a person or organization by spreading false rumours or blatant lies about them, especially when they do such a great job of discrediting themselves.

Whoever spread this hoax are really sick puppies.

The year of dressing dangerously

Over the years there were probably many isolated incidences around the world where a person’s dress, appearance and style of living attracted unwanted attention from a few loons, mostly from one type of religious persuasion or the other. But in 2013, these incidences started making the news.

In January, the same religious extremists who had earlier banned women from wearing jeans and tight trousers, inspired the mayor of Aceh, Indonesia, to propose a ban on women straddling bicycles and motorcycles when riding pillion. Then in February a Saudi cleric raged about forcing babies and young woman to wear burkas, which he claimed would prevent rape.

In March Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood opposed a UN Declaration on Woman’s Rights saying that granting them any basic rights would destroy society. They  proposed among other more absurd things that woman should not be allowed to travel freely, work, use contraception and control the household finances.

Earlier this month Hamas, the ultra-conservative government of Gaza passed an education bill mandating separate classrooms for boys and girls. This week in another act of pure madness Hamas lap-dogs who pass for Policemen were reported pulling young men off the streets, loading them into jeeps, insulting them and then cutting off or shaving their long or gel-styled spiky hair.

Now lest you think I’m singling out a particular religion by exposing this insanity, let me assure you that I’m not. If an adherent of [place your religion or political organization of choice here] compels me to dress or behave in a certain way, or inhibits me from exercising certain basic human rights, because it infringes some stupid law from their archaic religious texts, then I’m most certainly going to tell them to kiss my ass.

It’s not so much the religion that concerns me, as the jackasses that try to impose their understanding of it.

No religionist (or political organization) will ever prescribe to me how to dress, what to eat, how to live or what to believe.

*****

This just in…

Seems the madness has spread to Uganda too. Simon Lokodo an ex-Catholic priest, a misogynist and homophobe who is now masquerading as the Ethics Minister [fancy that?] is proposing legislation that will govern what women wear in public, including on television.

This same government-appointed keeper of the public’s morals was at the forefront of persecution and discriminatory laws against Uganda’s homosexual community not so long ago.

The Brotherhood of Misogynists

The use of religion and culture to violate women’s rights is a vile and cowardly pursuit, but is distressingly prevalent throughout the world.

The U.N. Commission on the Status of Woman which has been lobbying since 1946 for the advancement of women, is at the moment pushing for acceptance of the declaration on woman’s rights. However Egypt, Iran and Russia together with the Vatican (no surprises there!) are “threatening to derail the women’s rights declaration by objecting to language on sexual, reproductive and gay rights.” Egypt in opposition, has unashamedly proposed an amendment which will allow men to once again hide behind religious and cultural values.

In a disturbing parallel move, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood posted a statement on its website which claims that the declaration will among other things, destroy society by allowing women to travel freely, work, use contraception and control the household finances. That kind of thinking would be hysterical if it was not so shockingly infantile and backward. Even more worrying is that according to the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies, this is a position favoured by many Arab governments.

You will no doubt laugh hysterically, but these are the ten objections to the declaration contained in the statement on the Muslim Brotherhood’s website, that they believe will lead to decadence:

1. Granting girls full sexual freedom, as well as the freedom to decide their own gender and the gender of their partners (ie, choose to have normal or homo- sexual relationships), while raising the age of marriage.
2. Providing contraceptives for adolescent girls and training them to use those, while legalizing abortion to get rid of unwanted pregnancies, in the name of sexual and reproductive rights.
3. Granting equal rights to adulterous wives and illegitimate sons resulting from adulterous relationships.
4. Granting equal rights to homosexuals, and providing protection and respect for prostitutes.
5. Giving wives full rights to file legal complaints against husbands accusing them of rape or sexual harassment, obliging competent authorities to deal husbands punishments similar to those prescribed for raping or sexually harassing a stranger.
6. Equal inheritance (between men and women).
7. Replacing guardianship with partnership, and full sharing of roles within the family between men and women such as: spending, child care and home chores.
8. Full equality in marriage legislation such as: allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, and abolition of polygamy, dowry, men taking charge of family spending, etc.
9. Removing the authority of divorce from husbands and placing it in the hands of judges, and sharing all property after divorce.
10. Cancelling the need for a husband’s consent in matters like: travel, work, or use of contraception.

This retarded mentality roughly translates into “Woe be unto men if we can’t have multiple wives, but heaven help us if we allow them to travel freely, use contraception, file for divorce, accuse us of rape, decide how to spend money… and fuck other women.”

Why are these men so afraid of women?