Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts

Maryam Namaziespeaking in England and Germany, shared her views on the relationship between human rights in Islam.

8-July-2023

See Maryam’s opening remarks at Durham University Union: Islam is not compatible with human rights.



Watch Maryam’s opening remarks at WBZ Berlin Social Science Centre: There is no women’s rights in Islam.



Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist and Spokesperson of the
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All.

There Are No Rights In Islam 🔴 Maryam Namazie’s Remarks In Durham and Berlin

Maryam Namazie speaking on Blasphemous Women on 13 June 2022 at Brave Women for 2022 talk organised by Center for Civil Courage from Croatia and Women’s Solidarity from Serbia.


Brave Women for 2022 presents courageous women from all over the world whose thoughts and deeds encourage us every day in our struggle for women’s liberation.

In this talk, Maryam discusses the status of women in Islam, how being a free woman is an act of blasphemy and why blasphemy and apostasy are key to liberation. She also responds to questions regarding offence, #LadyofHeaven, the Left and Right debate, Islamophobia, conflation of criticism with harm, on the oxymoronic Islamic feminism, on who is provoking whom, the problem with the veil . . .  




Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist and Spokesperson 
of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All.

Brave Women For 2022 ✑ Maryam Namazie On Blasphemous Women

Maryam Namazietalks early life, Iran, human rights, sexuality, women and more.



Keep Up With Maryam Namazie


Why I'm Not A Muslim

Maryam NamazieWhen Women Leave Islam: With Maryam Namazie, Secular Jihadists, 27 April 2021.



Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist and Spokesperson 
of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All.

When Women Leave Islam

Maryam Namazie ✒ back in April not giving a Ramadam at Ramadam.



 Fast-defying persecuted in #Egypt, #Iran, #Turkey, #Pakistan, #SaudiArabia… 

In protest, dance, kiss, hug, sing, listen to music… – anything that is religiously prohibited – & share.

In protest, I dance. I don’t give a #Ramadamn at #Ramadan

Music by Shirin Mehrbod.  


Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist and Spokesperson 
of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All.

I Don’t Give A #Ramadamn At #Ramadan

Opindia ✒ Female cartoon characters on Iranian television must wear hijab, as per a new ruling by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
... Tasnim News Agency, a pro-regime news agency, had asked Khamenei if he believes it was essential for the female characters of animated films to observe hijab. He replied:

Although wearing hijab in such a hypothetical situation is not required per se, observing hijab in animation is required due to the consequences of not wearing hijab.

Khamenei did not explain what ‘consequences’ he was referring to. However, according to activists, he had earlier suggested he was fearful that the girls would grow up and not wear hijab.
 
The political activists have termed the ruling as toxic. They further added that those who are in power in Iran are obsessed with everything associated with women. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and activist, said on Twitter:

This isn’t a joke! The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has announced women even in animations, should wear hijab! Even female insects like bees have their hijabs on! Their obsession with the hair of female anything is toxic. These people are in power in Iran.

Continue reading @ Opindia.

Hijab Compulsory For Female Cartoon Characters On Iranian TV

UnHerd ✒ There is more at stake in the case of Batley Grammar than the fate of one teacher.

Andrew Doyle

Picture the scene: an idyllic summer landscape populated by those much-loved icons of goodwill, the Care Bears. These instantly recognisable figures, fluffy and colourful and surrounded by butterflies and tiny floating hearts, are indulging in a rare bout of mischief.

One is smashing up a laptop with a hobnailed club. One is dangling on a swing between two freshly hanged corpses. Another is idly reclining on a bed of skulls, while a pair are greeting each other by shaking the hands of two amputated arms. Nearby, one of their friends is having sex with a decapitated head. All are grinning in that cute little Care Bear way.

The Care Bears Movie was one of the first films I ever saw at the cinema, so you can imagine how traumatic it is for me to contemplate my childhood heroes engaged in such wanton depravity. Still, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo isn’t known for going easy on its targets, and if I’m offended by their Care Bears cartoon I can always choose not to subscribe.

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

The New Inquisition Must Never Win

Anthony McIntyre has been watching the theocratic attempt in West Yorkshire to subvert the classroom.

This week, a cleric-led assemblage gathered outside Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire in a bid to dictate what might be used as a teaching prop in the classroom.

The protest had been sparked by a teacher who in the course of conducting his Religious Education class, showed pupils an image of the Muslim prophet, Mohammed. 

For two days siege was laid to the school, cops stood at every entrance and 980 pupils were told to stay at home on the second day.  There were demands for the teacher to be fired, and he was eventually suspended, with the school principal apologising "unequivocally". If the murder in France of school teacher Samuel Pepy figured in this decision to throw the teacher under the bus as an act of appeasement to the theocrats, nobody yet has said so. Pepy's fate most likely did figure in the teacher's decision to go into hiding.

The image shown was purportedly from  Charlie Hebdo. Seemingly,  
blasphemy was being discussed at the time.  The organisers behind a petition to have the teacher reinstated claimed he ‘was trying to educate students about racism and blasphemy’ and was ‘not racist and did not support the Islamophobic cartoons in any manner’. Although when the teacher talks about British values and free speech, it does raise questions about the appropriateness of such principles in a teaching environment. 

Whatever the motives of the teacher, often the opposition to such images is driven less by genuine feeling and more by theocratic manipulation. In the case of the Danish anti-theocratic cartoons in 2005 "some of the foulest images of Mohammed used to stir up outrage in the Middle East over the Danish cartoons were actually created by the imams themselves." The murder of  Samuel Paty came after a French teenager lied about what had occurred in a class she had never attended.   

So, the teacher aside, we are left with the sure knowledge that in the midst of the ranks of the offended stand those with a theocratic bent. 

One of the leaders of the Bately brigade, an imam, is reported to be a critic of Strictly Come Dancing, gay marriage and Covid-19 vaccines. In place of the vaccine he recommended that people pray three times a day. While a vaccine may not bring the type of success we might hope for, prayer has as much chance of combatting Covid as holy water. Logic and reason have never been known to be antidotes to religious lunacy. There is no reason to think that this particular imam will miss an opportunity to stand outside a school religiously ranting. 

The UK Department for Education has said it is "never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers" while the Communities Secretary, Robert Jenrick, commenting on the protest outside the school which has a 400 year vintage, said teachers in class should be able to:

appropriately show images of the prophet … In a free society we want religions to be taught to children and for children to be able to question and query them.

You think? When have the theocrats ever wanted anything remotely like that?

In a Religious Education class cartoons, no matter how controversial, which have have some educational value, should have as much right to be shown as the Koran. The purpose of the classroom is to educate not indoctrinate.

 ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

That Cartoon Offends Me ... Again

Council of Ex-Muslims of BritainWomen Leaving Islam, a new film by the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, premieres on 1 February at 6pm UK time as a challenge to #WorldHijabDay and religious modesty rules. You can watch the film here.



In this powerful film, six ex-Muslim women activists share their moving stories of growing up in Muslim families and Muslim-majority countries and the violence, loss and shunning they faced because of their apostasy.

The women talk about everything from tearing their hijab on door handles as a child, wearing a burkini on a beach in Italy, wanting to scream their atheism in Mecca during Hajj, losing custody of a child after a husband’s accusations of blasphemy, reporting a violent fundamentalist father, forging a male guardian’s signature in order to flee their country and being shunned for defending gay rights…

Despite the risks, the women: Fauzia Ilyas, Fay Rahman, Halima Salat, Mimzy Vidz, Rana Ahmad and Zara Kay, speak of hope, happiness and freedom from Islam and the hijab.

Join us to watch #WomenLeavingIslam. Also, draw a dove with a hijab in its beak as a symbol of women’s freedom from hijab. You can draw it anywhere – on a wall with chalk, on a piece of paper, your body or hand… CEMB’s resident artist, Victoria Gugenheim, explains how to draw a simple dove with a hijab in its beak.

 

 

 

 



Use the hashtags #WomenLeavingIslam #FromHijabToFreedom #NoForcedHijab #NoHijabDay #FreeFromHijab to challenge religious misogyny and sexism on #WorldHijabDay.

For more information on the film, see Rahila Gupta’s review.

Women Leaving Islam’s Producer: Gita Sahgal; Executive Producer: Maryam Namazie; and Producer, Director and Filmmaker: Reason4Freedom.

For more information, contact Maryam Namazie, m.namazie@ex-muslim.org.uk, www.ex-muslim.org.uk.

#FreeFromHijab 

Challenging World Hijab Day @ 1 February

Kenan Malik ✒ The French president’s response to Islam is shot through with hypocrisy and illiberalism.
 
Letters complaining about newspaper articles are unexceptional. Not so letters from the Élysée Palace. Last week, the Financial Times published, after the killing of teacher Samuel Paty in Paris and of churchgoers in Nice, an article by its Europe correspondent, Mehreen Khan, critical of French president Emmanuel Macron’s policies towards Islam. Macron’s desire to “use the state to prescribe a ‘correct’ religion”, she wrote, has “more in common with authoritarian Muslim leaders than enlightenment values of separating church and state”.

Macron responded with a letter-cum-article defending himself and his policies and accusing Khan of “misquoting” him – he insisted he had never talked of “Islamic separatism”, as Khan suggested, only of “Islamist separatism”. By the time the FT published Macron’s letter, however, it had removed Khan’s article for “factual inaccuracies”. One could read the criticism but not what was being criticised.

Newspapers do sometimes excise articles – I’m sure the Observer has done so. But they should do so only in truly exceptional circumstances, and then give a full account as to why. The removal of offending articles after criticism is, however, becoming a more acceptable part of our culture.

 Continue reading @ The Guardian.

Fanatics Have No Right To Censor Critics ➖ But Neither Does Emmanuel Macron

France 24 ✒ ‘Islam is being hyper-politicised in France, but Muslims are not in the debate'.

Benjamin Dodman

The resurgence in attacks by radical Islamists on French soil has rekindled fierce debates on Islam, secularism and discrimination in France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim population. But Muslim voices are largely kept out of the conversation. 

On October 2, the day President Emmanuel Macron unveiled his plan to fight “Islamist separatism” in France, the mayor of the Paris suburb of Trappes, 35-year-old Ali Rabeh, was invited by French broadcaster CNews to discuss Macron’s proposed measures to root out radical Islam from France’s most stricken banlieues.

Rabeh began by calling for more police officers and public services in his town of 32,000 inhabitants, a working-class and ethnically diverse municipality with the unwanted distinction of having seen more homegrown jihadists travel to Syria, per capita, than any other in France.

The conversation soon veered into acrimony when one of the channel’s regular commentators quizzed the mayor about the prevalence of political Islam in Trappes, “a territory lost to the Republic”. He asked Rabeh whether he was even aware that Sharia law was applied there.

“There is no Sharia law in Trappes, nor anywhere in France,” a flustered Rabeh hit back. 

Continue reading @ France 24.

Islam Is Being Hyper-Politicised In France

Maryam Namazie with a pithy expression on the dangers of religious violence. 

#Islam kills.
Like cigarettes, #religions should come with a health warning.
@MaryamNamazie


⏩Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist and Spokesperson of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All.

Islam Kills

The Guardian ➠ When China imposed trade sanctions on Norway in 2010 for honouring the imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo with the Nobel peace prize, it spat out a word we weren’t used to hearing from propagandists for an atheist communist regime, but should get used to today. “It’s a blasphemy,” a party mouthpiece said.
By Nick Cohen

Once, blasphemy was damning the faithful’s gods and sacred books. Now, criticism of the world’s largest dictatorship has become sacrilegious. You shouldn’t be surprised. As some of us tried to say in the 1990s and 2000s, the gap between the sacred and the profane was never as wide as religious sentimentalists and liberal multiculturalists believed.

They went along with the argument that it was bad taste at best and racism at worst to offend believers. You were “punching down” at largely poor and largely Muslim communities. We thought they were being wilfully blind. They did not understand how men with real power and malice were manipulating religious outrage to consolidate their rule over their wretched population.

Continue reading @ The Guardian.


Why Do Muslim States Stay Silent Over China’s Abuse Of The Uighurs?

Azar Majedi writes that This is an open letter to Oriana Fallaci which was written in 2006, but It is still relevant to our present situation.

Dear Oriana Fallaci,

As a veteran activist of women’s rights, for liberty and equality, as a first hand victim of political Islam, and a veteran fighter against it, as an atheist who is a staunch believer in a secular state and secular education system, as a woman who has fought against hejab in any form and shape, as a secularist who has defended the latest French secular law to ban bearing of any conspicuous religious symbols in public schools, as a campaigner for banning the veil for underage girls and banning religious schools, as a campaigner against honour killings, Sharia courts in Canada, against Islamism and Islamic terrorism, as a staunch defender of unconditional freedom of expression and criticism who defended the right of those who ridiculed Mohammad in the row over the caricatures, I share some of your beliefs and find some very offensive, and let me make it clear, not to Islam, but to human values, egalitarian and libertarian values which are also part of “European culture”.

When you came to Iran to interview Khomeini, I was fighting against him and Islamic regime for women’s rights, against the hejab, and for freedom. I knew you first and foremost for your interview with the Shah. I admired your courage and frankness then. I feel indignant now when I read some of your comments and your latest interview with Margaret Talbot in New Yorker. Your justified hatred against Islam and Islamism has been extended to all Moslems and everyone living under Islam. I am sure you do not need anyone to remind you that this is racism. I am bewildered when I read your comments against immigrants and immigration from countries under the rule of Islam, and find this in contrast with the justified pride you take in your history for fighting against Nazi-Fascism.

It seems to me that the hate against Islam has pushed you towards Christianity [See: New Yorker, Oriana Fallaci directs her fury toward Islam]. You have even visited the Pope asking him to take a stronger stance against Islamism. This I find puzzling. How does an atheist in hate of one religion take refuge in another? Your hate against Islamism and political Islam finds expression in Euro centrism. Your disapproval for multiculturalism and cultural relativism has led you to defend “western culture”, instead of universal rights and secular, humanitarian and libertarian values.

As a young girl growing in Iran, under the rule of Islam, I read western philosophers and writers to educate myself with enlightened principles and values regarding equality, freedom and women’s rights. I chose the libertarian and egalitarian side of Western culture, and I am bewildered why, you an atheist, a fighter against fascism, had to resort to Euro centrism and racism in order to defend Western culture.

Your defence of a superior culture goes as far as expressing more concern about the beheading of Buddha’s statue than murdered, maimed women and men in Afghanistan whose rights are violated daily, who are victims of political Islam and American militarism. This perplexes me. I found it offensive that a human being who enjoys a freedom fighter stature in the eyes of many, cares more about the cultural and physical ambiance of her native country than all those men, women and children who are killed, maimed and violated daily in Iraq.

It seems that in defence of “your culture” you, a self-professed atheist, in attacking mosques end up defending the church. As a staunch campaigner against terrorism, I feel indignant when I see our “Western” anti Islamist can only voice condemnation of terrorism taken place in the West. All terrorist acts which take place daily in countries under Islam are mentioned at best only in passing. Are people who have by draw of a lottery been born under the rule of Islam not worthy of your attention, passion and rage?

All these become so ironic when one looks deeply into the root of political Islam. When one remembers how the Western governments unleashed this monster on the people of the region, how they created the Mojahedin in Afghanistan in the cold war era, and then helped the Taliban, how in the fear of a leftist revolution in Iran dumped Khomeini on us and helped bring about an Islamic state, when one remembers these recent historical facts, one cannot help but discern a profound sense of hypocrisy and double standard.

Sadly the saga of helping political Islam and Islamic terrorism by the Western governments is an ongoing effort. Just look at Iraq! The US and Britain, by invading Iraq, helped Islamists grow monstrously therein. Have you forgotten who the friend of Bin laden was? The tragedy is that as long as this monster was strangling the “native” people, our rage could stay under control, our passion not moved. Those people were not worthy of our passion and compassion!

The Western academia and journalists invented and nurtured the concept of cultural relativism, so that on its basis they could justify compulsory veiling, stoning, maiming and torturing of the people under the rule of Islam. That gave justification for turning one’s head while one’s government made deals with those Islamic states. This concept was invented so under the guise of “respect for other cultures” the brutal crimes and violation of human rights will be brushed aside “respectfully”. We have witnessed how European courts have resorted to cultural relativism in defending deportation of immigrants fleeing the rule of Islam. They have gone as far as stating that the prison conditions in those countries are suitable for those people.

I must state that these arrogant, hypocritical and racist attitudes and policies are an important tool to foster political Islam. If one does not distinguish between the Islamic movement, a reactionary and brutal political movement, and ordinary Moslems who are the first hand victims of this, if one does not distinguish between the oppressor and the oppressed, one becomes an accessory to Islamic brutality.
We must try and understand the root causes of Islamic recruitment among the so-called Moslem communities in the West. The dominant racism in state policies and attitude and systematic marginalization of these communities plus the aggression and militarism of the Western governments led by the US against the people in the Middle East, namely, Palestine and Iraq, have directed the youth in these communities to despair and frustration.

The revolt of the “suburb” in France is a vivid and sad example of such policies. By rejecting these communities as part of ”us” we leave them at the mercy of the “leaders of the community”, who foster traditionalism, Islamism, sexism, and glorification of the “home land”. These are poisonous brain washings. And I must say that your stance is aiding this process.

I find it so hard to understand that in despising the oppressor and oppressing ideology you come to despise the victims just as much. No sympathy, no compassion for the victims. No rage and passion provoked for these people who live under these inhumane and brutal conditions. It is amazing that in Mexico witnessing the brutal crushing of a student demonstration, and becoming a victim of it, you came to hate the sufferers just as much as the oppressors. So flippantly, you state you hate “Mexicans” and as a result despise the most impressive show of power and solidarity in the US for the rights of immigrants in recent months.

I was enraged by reading your racist comments. I was indignant by sensing your Euro centrism, by your lack of human compassion for millions who fled the rule of Islam and took refuge in the West in the hope of a better life. I share your despise and indignation for the Islamic movement. But I denounce categorically the racism that is openly expressed by you. And last but not least I must state that I defend the unconditional freedom of expression, and condemn the court which is to try you for what you have expressed in your books. One must be free to express any opinions. This is the pillar of a free society.

Asar Majedi is a  Member of Hekmatist Party leadership & Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation

Anti-Islamism Does Not Justify Racism

Valerie Tarico interviews a gay former Muslim. 


I want my American LGBTQ community to see that people like us exist.

OC, (not his real initials) was raised in Pakistan in a devout Muslim family. By the time he was eight or nine, he knew there was something “wrong” with him from a cultural and religious standpoint. At eighteen he came out, and his home life exploded.

He moved to another city, and some time later began corresponding with a man in the U.S. The correspondence evolved into a long-distance relationship, and after six visits together in Pakistan, OC immigrated to the U.S. — for love, he says laughing, and — more seriously — because Pakistan had become dangerous for him as a visible gay man. But living in the U.S. as a gay former Muslim has its own set of issues.

In this interview with psychologist and author Valerie Tarico, he talks about what it’s like to move between two worlds and not fit the orthodoxies of either.

VT: What was it like being gay and out in Pakistan?

OC: There are two very negative aspects of being gay in Pakistan. One is hypocrisy and the second is fear.

In Pakistan there is hypocrisy on every level because we need to pay lip service to Islamic values, and Islam does not permit certain aspects of sexuality. Homosexuality is taboo in Islam and sharia. The religion and law both don’t permit it. The story of Lot in the Bible is the same story that the Quran uses to justify that homosexuality is an unnatural act. There are specific sharia teachings that if you see a man indulging with another man, he is supposed to be killed.

VT: That’s serious pressure to remain silent.

OC: Yes. A lot of men indulge in homosexual acts. They aren’t necessarily gay, but access to women is not allowed. There are realms that are devoted to men and realms that are devoted to women—women in the house and men as breadwinners. That segregation is applied to sexual issues as well. So, with no access to the opposite sex, some people are situational homosexuals. But they would never admit it or talk about it because that would lead to being ostracized.

VT: Tell me a bit more about what happened when you came out.

OC: I made the mistake of coming out to my parents at age 18. I was very naïve and got a severe backlash. My father had such a big problem with my sexuality that I moved to another city. My family is ok with it now, except my father. My mother is a very strict Muslim and she doesn’t talk about it. My brothers and sister are okay with me.

VT: Your home now is NYC. What is that like for you?

OC: Being an exMuslim in NY is more or less accepted. But I was in academia, and in academia, if you critique Islam, then people start distancing from you. For example, during a class one of my professors said, “I don’t care if 4000 people died in the 911 attacks because the attacks were a direct result of America’s bad foreign policies; so they were justified.” I spoke up, disagreeing. I said that there are roots of terrorism in Islamic doctrine itself. But in academia, terrorism stems from bad foreign policy on the part of the West. After that I was called Mr. Fox News, as if I thought people from Islamic countries caused terrorism.

More recently, I used to teach at a college, and I was talking about Raif Badawi, a Saudi Canadian who is a political prisoner in Saudi Arabia because of his secular critique of the government. I was discussing hegemony and government. A Muslim girl in my class complained that I was being Islamophobic. Afterwards, my supervisor talked to me and suggested that I talk about hegemony in an American context. He offered examples and asked, Why don’t you talk about those? I said I would like to talk about the experience that I had and that other exMuslims like me have in Muslim countries. Is that not permitted? The supervisor said, You are permitted to do it, but it’s better if you don’t. Soon afterwards I left the job.

VT: You have said that you bump up against this attitude, this refusal to interrogate Islam even in the LGBTQ community.

OC: I think there is a lack of independence of political thought and opinion in the LGBTQ community. People align across issues with the positions of the far left. That is because the left has supported us, but it leads to odd blind spots. For example, one of the worst mass shootings on American soil was by a Muslim against the LGBT community, but I have never heard members of the American gay community discussing that incident in terms of what Islam may have contributed, what Islam says about homosexuality.

VT: As a former Evangelical I criticize Evangelicalism in strong terms in left-leaning publications—for some of the very same attitudes and teachings you are talking about.

OC: Yeah. It’s not okay on the left to examine Islam like it’s okay to examine Evangelical Christianity.

I do understand that to safeguard minorities on the basis of color and religion is very important. But to critique an ideology is totally different from being bigoted against a group. I critique my ex-religion, but I don’t stop loving my mother and sister, and they don’t stop loving me. Many people say it’s a hopeless situation for gay people in Pakistan, but some Muslims are extremely loving and understanding toward sexual minorities. Not all Muslims are a single stereotype. Critiquing the ideology is totally different from bigotry against people.

VT: You lead ExMuslims of North America in the New York Pride parade on June 30. What do you hope to accomplish?

OC: This march is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, and I hope to see more Stonewalls happening around the Muslim world. I hope to see the same spirit of fighting for freedom and justice in the Muslim world, that people who are Muslim minorities should achieve the freedom to love whoever one wants to love. As well, I want my American LGBTQ community to see that people like us exist. We exMuslims in the West are nowhere. We can’t be part of the progressive community because we don’t support Islam, and we can’t be part of the conservative community because of discrimination. I would like people to acknowledge us.

Valerie Tarico
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington.  

She writes about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society.

ExMuslim And Gay ⬌ We Don’t Fit Anywhere

From Atheist Republic Scott Jacobsen interviews Armin Navabi, Founder of Atheist Republic.

Islam Versus Nazism