Egyptian girl strips to protest; western media censors her photos

[adoucette]

Read the fine print, Geronimo - the Iraqi constitution is based on sharia. Only sharia is not common for Sunnis, Shias and Kurds

I read the whole thing, but nothing in it says that the Shiite are in total control of Iraq.

And no, no one but his relatives and assorted thugs miss Saddam.

Just more of your lies SAM

 

[S.A.M.]

I read the whole thing, but nothing in it says that the Shiite are in total control of Iraq.

It was even in the NYT

BAGHDAD — The electoral coalitions of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the other major Shiite bloc in Iraq announced a postelection alliance on Tuesday night that cleared the way for a Shiite-dominated government for the next four years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/world/middleeast/05iraq.html

And since they are the majority of the population, you can bet your tukus they will keep it that way

And no, no one but his relatives and assorted thugs miss Saddam.

Just more of your lies SAM

Not mine. Its the consensus of people living under the Iraqi constitution. Check ANY local news source from any woman activist associated with Iraq

The Kurds, for example:

Polygamy in the Muslim world and new restrictions in Iraqi Kurdistan

Kurdish Herald Vol. 2 Issue 1, February 2010 - by Haje Keli


Anyway, why is this news? Under US intervention Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya have all gone into sharia states.

And in some places, worse than that

Say what you will about the Taliban. They're small-minded, repressive, religious zealots who exert their power through fear and intimidation. But certain aspects of Afghan society can make the black turbans look downright righteous. Consider the ancient tradition of Bacha Bazi, which means "boy play." Banned by the Taliban, this illicit activity is on the upswing across Afghanistan. The Guardian reported on it last fall, and on April 20, Frontline is airing a special report with the same title: The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/03/afghanistan-boy-sex-slaves-taliban

 

[James R]

Moderator note: Me-Ki-Gal has been banned for 1 month

This particular ban is for flaming and offensive language directed at another member.

Me-Ki-Gal was currently on 4 active infraction points. This could have been a permanent ban, but I have decided to be lenient.

Me-Ki-Gal: please get some psychiatric help. Your posts of late have been fragmentary, disconnected, rambling and unfocussed. It seems to me that you need help.

 

[madanthonywayne]

Indeed.
Hmm so you're saying, outside the Haredim and the Saudis it would be hard to find a man not rendered stupid by exposure to attractive women?

Just came across this and thought of this thread

 

[S.A.M.]

I was going to put up a pic of [enc]manboobman[/enc] but I resisted

 

[wynn]

oh
thats anti-man then
i am against it

Then don't be surprised that the world gets to be populated with more and more idiots.

 

[Cowboy]

But we get to watch people being burned alive on the news, shot in the head and tortured. Ironic isn't it?

Moderator warning: The following images may be disturbing to some readers. Click at your own risk!

http://files.myopera.com/gdare/blog/1968_Shot_in_Head.jpg

http://forthelovemagazine.net/images/stories/1monk.jpg

Yes, it is ironic. Aside from SciForums, I post on a gun-related forum. On that forum, you can post pictures of little old ladies being nuked by a B-52, but a picture of a woman in a bikini is only allowed in a special "babe" sub-forum. :shrug:

 

[Captain Kremmen]

What if the little old ladies are "Babes"?

 

[adoucette]

It was even in the NYT

Why no it wasn't.

The two Shiite blocs together won 159 seats, according to preliminary tabulations, only four seats short of a majority in the new Parliament. It is widely expected that the Kurds, who won 57 seats,

Why was 159 seats 4 short of a majority?

Because there are 325 seats.

Meaning Shiites have 159, Sunnis have 109 and Kurds have 57.

Indeed, the Speaker of the House is a Sunni.

Arthur

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Moderator note: Me-Ki-Gal has been banned for 1 month

This particular ban is for flaming and offensive language directed at another member.

Me-Ki-Gal was currently on 4 active infraction points. This could have been a permanent ban, but I have decided to be lenient.

Me-Ki-Gal: please get some psychiatric help. Your posts of late have been fragmentary, disconnected, rambling and unfocussed. It seems to me that you need help.

Best wishes to you and your family over Christmas, Mi Ke.
I'm sure they are worried about you at the moment.
Take Care. See you in the New Year.

 

[GeoffP]

You know, if you people keep banning my cult members, pretty soon there's going to be none left.

 

[Anti-Flag]

You know, if you people keep banning my cult members, pretty soon there's going to be none left.

Bells always said you were a cult. At least, I think she said cult....

 

[GeoffP]

Bells always said you were a cult. At least, I think she said cult....

It had most of those letters.

***

This thread seems to have about run its course.

Overall summary: the censoring of the Egyptian protestor's picture might be considered censorship, but not in comparison to standard hard thresholds for the publication of violence in Western media. On a scale of relative censorship in societies planet-wide (and which should almost certainly take into account historical standards of censorship in the progression to those exigent in Western media today), Western media certainly could not be called particularly censored. One could hardly even even call it very censored on an absolute scale, and there is little reason to think that Western media or Western society generally is becoming increasing censored, which I conclude since no contrary evidence was presented, although it's difficult to imagine much of a case set that would trump my supposition here.

Conclusion: It was either a mistaken premise or trolling. Conventional impressions lead to the latter. Case closed.

So who was really surprised by this outcome? Raise your hands for tagging and appropriate confinement from the breeding pool.

 

[S.A.M.]

Why no it wasn't.



Why was 159 seats 4 short of a majority?

Because there are 325 seats.

Meaning Shiites have 159, Sunnis have 109 and Kurds have 57.

Indeed, the Speaker of the House is a Sunni.

Arthur

Right so it is a Shia dominant government with a Sharia based constitution.

The changes they have made in Iraq:

Women no longer have many of the civil rights they were afforded under Saddam Hussein's regime. Sharia law has been written into Iraq's constitution, women have been barred from certain aspects of public life in many parts of the country, women's freedom of movement has been severely curtailed, sex trafficking, prostitution, abductions and assassinations of women have all risen and women in government no longer get a year of maternity leave - that has been cut to six months.



"During Saddam's regime if you were not political you could lead a normal life, but for the majority of us who opposed the dictatorship, it was hell," Mahmoud said. "You were either for the Ba'ath party under Saddam or you were subjected to torture, persecution and abuse. There was no freedom of speech, no freedom of association, women did not have the right to establish women's organizations and he also started to bring socially conservative norms into the constitution. So I don't really like arguments that imply that Saddam Hussein's regime was great."

"Now America has invited the most tribalist, misogynist, Islamist extremist groups to join the government," she continued. "Warlords, ex-Ba'athists, you name it. It's a government of corrupt pullets that has nothing to do with people's aspirations for freedom or welfare and which hasn't brought any normalcy."

"As a result, there is a lot of gender-based violence at all levels," Mahmoud concluded. "We have one or two million women who have been widowed and have no access to social benefits. There is widespread violence and the majority of people live under the poverty line, particularly women. There is trafficking of women and young girls for prostitution both internally and externally. Sharia law has been implemented through the constitution and the enforcement of social conservatism has been brought back into the society."


http://houzanmahmoud.blogspot.com/2010/04/do-iraqs-women-miss-saddam.html

The practical consequences of these changes to women:

“Now, more than before the war, men are marrying more than one wife because they have freedom,” Rafid told me, dragging on one of his many Gauloises. Under Saddam Hussein, many Shiite men were so poor and locked into their lives as Iraqi Army conscripts that they could not marry at all, let alone marry in multiples. Before the war, Rafid estimated, he considered fewer than 10 marriage proposals per week. Now that number runs between 25 and 45.

This crowds Rafid’s schedule, and should complicate the optimistic thinking of those Americans-not all of them Kool-Aid-drinking Bushies-who are confident about the future of Iraq because of its comparatively secular, progressive, well-educated Arab society. That’s because many of those well-educated, secularized Iraqis bitterly resent the war and all that has come with it, and hope to use their money and education not to rebuild Iraq, but to leave Iraq as soon as possible. As for ultra-oppressed Iraqis-those who are indeed grateful to be liberated from the shackles of enforced poverty and ignorance that they wore under Saddam Hussein-the first right that many of them wish to exercise is the right to cast the new Iraq in very old shades of Islam.

“I check on the woman more than the man,” said Rafid, who wore an ivory dishdasha , gold-rimmed glasses and an Omega wristwatch. “I ask about her age, I ask, ‘Are you a virgin or no?’ If I feel she is not a virgin, I make her swear on the Koran.”

Some of the brides that Rafid green-lights for marriage are as young as 12 years old. The average age, he estimated, is about 15. The men are often 18-although lately, as never-married men try to make up for lost time, he is also seeing a lot of teenage brides with grooms in their mid-40′s. Sometimes the woman who comes to vouch for the bride’s virginity is not really her mother. If in doubt about their relationship, Rafid puts one in a room above the office while keeping the other in the office, and questions the mother closely about the information on the girl’s identity card. If, for instance, the older woman is not entirely certain of the name of the younger woman’s father, Rafid knows that the pair of them are frauds, and out they go. The man, too, faces issues of suitability, but these tend to be financial.

“Sometimes they come and he offers 100,000 dinars [$70] for now, 100,000 for later,” he said. “I ask her, ‘What do you think? For 100,000, he can’t buy even the ring.’ I am not happy from that.”

Even more accelerated than the rise in conventional marriage among the Shia has been the rise in a form of limited marriage called mutah . Such marriages can be as short as the couple likes.

“The girl says, ‘I marry myself to you for one month,’” explained Rafid. “He says, ‘I agree.’”

No real contract is executed, and the fact of the mutah is often kept secret from anyone other than the couple.

“They get married in the mosque, in the street,” said Rafid. “He invites her for lunch or dinner.”

The word mutah comes from the verb meaning “to enjoy.”

You get the idea.

These marriages, which Sunni Muslims reject as haram , or forbidden, were illegal under Saddam and punishable by seven years in jail. (Shia accept them on the grounds that the Prophet Muhammad, in the context of constant warring, allowed them.) Likewise, under Saddam, a man could only take a second wife if the first wife agreed. If she did not agree, she had grounds for divorce. These days, for many people, a decree from a civil court carries far less weight than a word from the likes of Rafid. Thus, a first wife who is not happy at the appearance of a second wife has grounds only for displeasure. And no matter what the Prophet Muhammad said on the subject, even Rafid has to admit: First wives are almost never happy to countenance a second wife.

http://www.observer.com/2004/07/are-you-a-virgin-or-no-marriage-in-liberated-iraq/

So, Americans bringing mullah laws to Iraq equals democracy

How hard was that?

 

[quadraphonics]

Here's an article on a similar incident of nude publications (along with similar hair-pulling over puritanical reactions to nudity juxtaposed with blasiety towards graphic violence):

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/02/nude_veena_malik_cover_stuns_pakistani_twitterverse

Warning - suggestive FHM cover (no actual nudity, but probably not what you want your boss at work noticing on your computer).

Also note that the same FHM cover advertizes an article on how nude protests are simply amateur porn.

 

[Emil]

So, Americans bringing mullah laws to Iraq equals democracy

How hard was that?

If this is true then it is disappointing.

 

[adoucette]

So, Americans bringing mullah laws to Iraq equals democracy

How hard was that?

The Iraqis wrote their own Constitution.

That's kind of the meaning of Democracy SAM.

 

[adoucette]

If this is true then it is disappointing.

What would have been disappointing is if we forced OUR laws upon them.

Democracy is about what the PEOPLE want.

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

[S.A.M.]

The Iraqis wrote their own Constitution.

That's kind of the meaning of Democracy SAM.

You must be kidding!!! If you selectively empower the most backward groups and they enforce it on the rest of the people you have what is now called the Taliban. So it looks as if Americans like the Taliban. Hence now we have Taliban II in Iraq, Taliban III in Libya and don't look now, but also Taliban IV in Israel!

 

[adoucette]

We didn't selectively empower any group.
Shiites are a majority of Iraq.
And NO, the Constitution of Iraq is nothing like the Fundamentalist Taliban.
More of your lies.
Seems at the core you just don't like Democracy.