Remember, this is coming from a guy whose initial reaction to a rape case in the UAE was automatically that the woman must be lying. There are plenty more examples, but that is one that should be enough to understand where that guy stands when it comes to women's rights.
Sorry fo the confusion. This time I am being critical of Sarkozy/France. If it's really important to you and given the involvement of America in more than half the world, I'm sure I can find SOMETHING to tie the two together. :grin:
Dear all, please follow the link to find the entire thread and don't believe this BS. In case it is not clear: I never assumed and still do not believe that the woman was lying. My position was the same as any court would take: there is no evidence, we don't know who's guilty of what. I will not have BS spoken about me by a person who believes that veiled women should be forcefully banned from wearing it - allegedly in the name of freedom and getting rid of symbols of oppression.
I followed the thread and read all your BS again. Once again, you are lying. The woman claimed she was raped. As a response, she was put in jail by the government you work for. Your initial response was that she was lying. Now you claim your words were misconstrued. Well, then what about your later post in that thread, in which you were 99 % sure there was no rape (= the woman must have been lying) and you felt sorry for the guys (who must have felt raped). And if that wasn't clear enough: And now he is lying again and claiming that he never said she is lying. He just does not get it. Again, read that thread and you will know everything you need to know about Mathloom and his views on women's rights and gender equality. Sadly, he is far from alone with that attitude in that region.
Yeah, that was one of the more awful mathloom threads. Blaming the victim's jail time for not knowing **** laws is hardly a defense for your central case of whether she was raped. Laws and customs there as it is are totally skewed against women with the vindictive shroud of protecting women, but look over there... another tree!
Total BS. My prediction does not equate to an assumption of legal guilt. Simply put, if there is no evidence, then no one is legally guilty. If I had to predict based on a decade of following local news (as opposed to your tabloid style sensationalization), I would still say she is lying, but that's just a guess and does not diminish my concern for her well-being. Unfortunately, rape remains a chronic problem of this country. Way more often than not, accusations of rape are not taken seriously enough and the accuser suffers unimaginable consequences. I DO NOT believe women should be jailed for rape, obviously. I DO believe the legal system is flawed at the very least in these cases. I DO believe that it is stupid to complain about the laws after you have voluntarily moved somewhere. This is not only pertaining to cases of rape, but all legal issues. My sincere advice to people is: don't move somewhere where you're not protected and you are unlikely to get fair treatment. If the owners of the UAE want to ban fruitcakes, they can ban fruitcakes. It's their country. You don't have to go there. If Americans want to make it easy to buy guns, they can make it easy to buy guns. It's their country and I don't have to move there. In some countries, rape laws are more lax and in some more stringent. This case is an extreme example, where the person making the accusation gets jailed. It's ****ed up, but every single person moving here knows it. I don't let any female I know get into an elevator, get into a cab alone, or walk down the street unless they're accompanied by someone. Even if it's a 5-star hotel. That's how much faith I have in these laws. That's because I know what it's like. I take precautions to avoid these tragedies. Everyone here should. This is a chronic problem known to all, and it is idiotic to float around the country as if it's completely safe. It's not, and even if they didn't send her to jail and they sent the guy to jail for life, nothing is going to account for the trauma that a victim of rape goes through. Nothing would be more effective in reforming these outdated laws than a sharp decline in tourism and expetriate workforce linked to concerns over these laws. Nothing would make me more happy to see that, as much as I know this country needs both tourism and expatriate population to progress. No one suffers from this rape problem more than the local population, so what possible reason could I have to oppose a change in the legal procedures. What possible reason could anyone have to be sympathetic to rape?? For F's sake. Unfortunately, tourists and expatriates flock here for the money and so these reforms are not advancing as they should be.
A lot of words to cloud your lies: Mathloom: "I never said the woman was lying." Mathloom: "I think she was lying."
Whilst it has nothing to do with the topic, dude, I'm really confused by what you say here: Wut? Anyway, now that I see what the German poster was referring to, it makes a lot more sense.
What if they choose to wear it? There are many women that willingly choose to dress whichever way they like.
Maybe she doesn't have insecurities that society forces upon women in the "modern world". However I do agree that women are abused and oppressed in muslim countries but that does not mean that clothing is the problem.
What if men choose to wear it? Oh right - never happens, unless it's Bin Laden trying to escape or some guy hiding a bomb strap under the Burqa.
Excellent article here: Ban unAustralian Burka I 've seen it elsewhere around the world, but I didn't expect to see it here. Certainly not on a hot summer's afternoon at the Canberra Centre. But there it was. A ghostly figure walking towards me, clad from head to toe in a heavy black niqab, black gloves and dark shoes. She was trailing along behind her husband and four little children. The sight of this hideously shrouded figure in an Australian shopping mall is confronting and offensive. And it makes me angry, very angry. I wanted to stop and ask why she had such disrespect for herself and our culture that she would hide her face and body under all that black cloth, designed to render her shapeless and inhuman. But her husband shot me a glance, and I was silenced. Dumbfounded. I abhor the burka, and the niqab. I hate what it does to women. I am appalled that women are separated from the world in this way. And I am furious that some women will continue to choose to wear it. But then, throughout history, feeble women who are afraid of modernity have always been complicit in their own oppression. The burka, with its tiny window of mesh over the eyes, and the niqab, with its letter-slit opening, are tools of patriarchy used to subjugate women. This shroud of cloth thrown over women defies freedom. It is a symbol of control. Wearing it signifies an acceptance of segregation of the sexes. The cultures which demand such segregation are societies in which men are considered the natural superiors to women. The fact that Western, democratic governments allow this garb to be worn in secular societies is evidence that "gender equality" and the "liberation of women" are still just vague aspirations, mouthed with weak intent. Unless of course you're French. In an historic address on Monday the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, called for an outright ban on this hideous instrument of control. "The burka is not a sign of religion," he said, "it is a sign of enslavement. It is a sign of subservience." His rally cry has been brewing for years, as the French parliament has watched with alarm the growing number of burkas and niqabs appearing in French cities. The Urban Affairs Minister, Fadela Amara, who is also a passionate advocate for Muslim women's rights, says the ugly shroud is akin to putting a woman in a "tomb". She's called on France to "stop burkas from spreading". It's a tough call, given there are around five million Muslims in France. The 2004 ban on wearing hijabs at school, or in public offices, was met with furious protests around the country. A ban on the burka has the potential to ignite riots. Sarkozy knows that. And yet he is still determined to push ahead. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd must do the same. The burka is not yet common here, but it's only a matter of time. Australia is positioned in a region being transformed by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Radical Islam's plan for domination is utterly incompatible with women's equality. Put bluntly, Islamic fundamentalists view Australia, and all Western democracies, as immoral and decadent - because the women are free. Australia must not allow that radical and overt tool of fundamentalism - the burka - to be worn here. It defies our cherished values of equality and freedom. Wearing the burka - or niqab - in Australia is an aggressive way of saying "I will not integrate into your society, and I care nothing for the cultural mores and social traditions of this country". Instead, the woman wearing it is demonstrating that she would rather submit to gender apartheid than embrace the social norms of this place. The burka is an arrogant display of disrespect to Australia and the Australian way of life. Covering women like this, and rendering them sexless and shapeless, is apparently to stop men looking at them. It is to ensure the sexual urges of men are not stirred or tempted. It is also a fierce display of proving a man's power over his woman, and his ownership of her. The Koran calls on both men and women to display modesty. Why then don't men wear burkas? Women too are sexual beings, who may also have their urges stirred and tempted by the sight of a man. But of course that doesn't register in societies that view females only as sexual objects and temptresses. By covering herself in a burka, a woman is relinquishing the right to express herself as a female. She is agreeing to suppress her own sexuality. For a woman to argue she feels more comfortable hidden beneath her burka, away from the gaze of men, is unacceptable in modern society. Such a claim represents total submission to sexual subordination. That sort of thing might have been understandable - perhaps even forgivable - when women were uneducated and utterly dependent on men for food, shelter and protection. But women must no longer agree to such secondary status. And most certainly, not when they are in Australia. There is no place here for the burka. Australians must rally to have the burka banned. http://virginiahaussegger.blogspot.de/2009/06/ban-burka-27-june-2009.html
horrible article and you should feel ashamed that you agree with the highlighted portions. thousands of women have stated they wear it because they feel more comfortable with it on. i guess freedom of expression is only OK if it is not being expressed by a Muslim women. why do you hate freedom of expression? why do you hate women? why do you hate Muslims?
You can make that argument for anything. Some things are cultural or societal, we all do things because we are "brainwashed". I can provide you with examples of women that with their own free will choose to adopt a certain lifestyle after previously not being brought up in it. What would you say to that? The argument of them being brainwashed is not valid. The problem is not what people choose to wear, it might something else: education, abuse, lack of resources, etc.
It's an excellent article. I understand that Islamist radicals like you, Hydhypedplaya, would rather force women into mobile jails and that this excellent article therefore angers you.
It's an opinion piece on some blog. You agree with it because it assuages your Nazi thoughts on government controlling all aspects of expression. If a woman wants to wear a burqa, she should be given the choice to. You believe they should not have that choice. You are just as radical as the fundamentalists. The scariest thing is you are more of a thread to Western freedoms than they are.
Tell that to the thousands of Muslim women converts who choose to wear a hijab or burqa because they do not feel comfortable with others ogling their bodies.
