muslim

Saudi ’emo’ girls busted by religious cops

Saudi ’emo’ girls busted by religious cops

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have arrested 10 “emo” women for allegedly causing a disturbance in a coffee shop, Al-Yaum newspaper has reported.

The coffee shop owner in the eastern city of Dammam called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to complain after the young women, dressed and made up in the “emo” fashion, apparently began disturbing other clients.

The religious police then called their parents to come and collect the women, and to sign pledges that the girls would not repeat their ostensibly offensive un-Islamic behaviour and dress.

According to recent reports, growing numbers of urban young Saudi women are latching on to the emo fashion popular from Japan to Europe and the Americas.

The trend is characterised by wearing skinny black jeans, tennis shoes, colourful T-shirts bearing the names of emo bands, heavy make up and sharply chopped and sometimes radically coloured hairdos.

While Saudi women normally must appear in public shrouded by all-black abayas and headscarves, some daringly open their abayas in places such as malls and coffee shops to reveal more trendy outfits underneath.

Pakistani court orders Facebook blocked in prophet row

Pakistani court orders Facebook blocked in prophet row

A court in Pakistan has ordered the authorities temporarily to block the Facebook social networking site.

The order came when a petition was filed after the site held a competition featuring caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

The petition, filed by a lawyers’ group called the Islamic Lawyers’ Movement, said the contest was “blasphemous”.

A message on the competition’s information page said it was not “trying to slander the average Muslim”.

“We simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of their Muhammad depictions that we’re not afraid of them,” a statement on the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” said.

“They can’t take away our right to freedom of speech by trying to scare us into silence.”

The information section of the page said that it was set up by a Seattle-based cartoonist, Molly Norris.

It contains caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and characters from other religions, including Hinduism and Christianity, as well as comments both critical and supportive of Islam.

‘Blasphemous’

Publications of similar cartoons in Danish newspapers in 2005 sparked angry protests in Muslim countries – five people were killed in Pakistan.

Already the Pakistani press has reported protests against Facebook on Wednesday by journalists outside parliament in Islamabad, while various Islamic parties are also reported to be organising demonstrations.

Correspondents say that the internet is uncensored in Pakistan but the government monitors content by routing all traffic through a central exchange.

Justice Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court ordered the department of communications to block the website until 31 May, and to submit a written reply to the petition by that date.

An official told the court that parts of the website that were holding the competition had been blocked, reports the BBC Urdu service’s Abdul Haq in Lahore.

But the petitioner said a partial blockade of a website was not possible and that the entire link had to be blocked.

The lawyers’ group says Pakistan is an Islamic country and its laws do not allow activities that are “un-Islamic” or “blasphemous”.

The judge also directed Pakistan’s foreign ministry to raise the issue at international level.

In the past, Pakistan has often blocked access to pornographic sites and sites with anti-Islamic content.

It has deemed such material as offensive to the political and security establishment of the country, says the BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad.

In 2007, the government banned the YouTube site, allegedly to block material offensive to the government of Pervez Musharraf.

The action led to widespread disruption of access to the site for several hours. The ban was later lifted.

Iranian cleric blames quakes on promiscuous women

Iranian cleric blames quakes on promiscuous women

Women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, an Iranian cleric says.

Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, the acting Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said women should stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves.

“Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes,” he explained.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Iran earthquakes in the last decade.

Mr Sediqi was delivering a televised sermon at the Tehran University campus mosque last Friday on the need for a “general repentance” by Iranians when he warned of a “prevalence of degeneracy”.

“What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes,” he said.

‘Disappoint God’

Correspondents say many young Iranians sometimes push the boundaries of how they can dress, showing hair under their headscarves or wearing tight-fitting clothes.

Mr Sediqi also described the violence following last year’s disputed presidential election – the result of which prompted thousands of people to hold mass protests – as a “political earthquake”.

“Now if a natural earthquake hits Tehran, no one will be able to confront such a calamity but God’s power, only God’s power. So lets not disappoint God.”

More than 25,000 people died when a powerful earthquake hit the ancient city of Bam in 2003.

Seismologists have warned that the capital, Tehran, is situated on a large number of tectonic fault lines and could be hit by a devastating earthquake soon.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said many of Tehran’s 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

There are plans to build a purpose built new capital near Qom.

Thanks to Ben A. for this one.

Mohammed Cartoon Protester – Defends The Murder of Homosexuals

Mohammed Cartoon Protester – Defends The Murder of Homosexuals – Translated:

Mohyeldeen Mohammad, who held the main speech in the muslim demonstration against Dagbladet (the newspaper that recently reprinted one of the Mohammed cartoons) last friday, tells Klassekampen (a left-wing newspaper) that gays must be killed.

Mohammad explains that he supports the islamistic al-Shabaab rebels in Somalia, who recently stoned a man to death.

– To my knowledge, that person was a homosexual, and that’s the punishment he deserves. That’s the point of view every muslim is forced to have through his religion, says the 24-year old from Larvik (a town about 2 hours south of Oslo) to Klassekampen.

Mohyeldeen Mohammad has a his roots in Iraq, and currently studies in Medina, Saudi-Arabia.

When asked about why he demonstrated against Dagbladet after saying that muslims don’t have to participate in the Norwegian democracy, he replies:

– The demonstration was a legal way to respond to the attack. In other countries we would have used other methods. Democracy has no place in Islam, because Islam forbids man-made laws. The only one who can create laws is Allah.

He then goes on to reject that a society based on sharia is a dictatorship.

– Sharia is not a dictatorship. It’s the best and most just laws. But today, no countries are ruled by God’s laws. Those who claim to rule according to sharia don’t.