Video - Final Statement Geert Wilders at his Trial, 23 Nov. 2016

Women's clothing ‘causing rivers to run dry’, says senior Iranian cleric.

Women's clothing ‘causing rivers to run dry’, says senior Iranian cleric. (ET).

Women’s choice of clothing has long been a topic of discussion with some clerics going as far as claiming it causes earthquakes. In another such bizarre assertion, a senior Iranian cleric has accused women’s liberal choice of clothing and ‘immorality’ as the cause for one of the country’s rivers drying up.

In a recent sermon, Seyyed Youssef Tabatabi-Nejad said, “My office has received photos of women next to the dry Zayandeh-rud River pictured as if they are in Europe. It is these sorts of acts that cause the river to dry up even further.”

The cleric urged the country’s morality police to crack down on ‘improper veiling’ and suggested women’s immodest clothing was having an adverse impact on the environment.

Tabatabi-nejad is a senior official on the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body of 88 senior clerics who appoint Iran’s Supreme Leader. He’s not the only cleric who claimed natural disasters can be caused by dressing immorally.

His comments come following an increase in the number of morality police in Iran and subsequent crackdown on women failing to veil ‘appropriately’, playing music too loudly in their cars or acting in a way that is perceived to be un-Islamic by the authorities.

The imam’s comments have been criticised by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, with one member commenting: “This reflects the typical mindset of the theocratic regime ruling Iran which is no different to the culture of the Islamic State (IS).

“Misogyny is a cornerstone of this mindset. The regime’s increasing isolation with each passing day results in more brutal methods of suppression being employed by the regime,” the member said.

The imam has previously made comments that women should only stay at home while men work, as well as previously condoning violence against women who do not adhere to the country’s dress code. Hmmm......I'm surprised Saudi Arabia and Iran are desert regions.....they should be flooded. 

Extreme Islam 'winning battle' while face veils spread 'ideological message' – French PM Manuel Valls.

Extreme Islam 'winning battle' while face veils spread 'ideological message' – French PM Manuel Valls. (RT).

France's prime minister has warned that extreme forms of Islam are winning the propaganda war, adding that the Muslim face veil is being used as a political symbol for the “enslavement of women.”

Speaking at a roundtable discussion on Islamism in Paris on Monday, Manuel Valls warned that Salafists are “winning the ideological and cultural battle” in France, home to Europe's largest Muslim population, AFP reported.

"The Salafists must represent one percent of the Muslims in our country today, but their message - their messages on social networks - is the only one we end up hearing," he said.

Switching the topic to Muslim face veils – which France has banned in public places – Valls said they do not “represent a fashion fad, no, it's not a color one wears, no, it is enslavement to women.”

The prime minister went on to warn of the “ideological message that can spread behind religious symbols.”

"We have to make a distinction between wearing the veil as a scarf for older women, and it as a political gesture confronting French society,” he said.

Valls' comments come less than one week after France's women's rights minister, Laurence Rossignol, came under fire for comparing Muslims in veils to “American negroes who supported slavery.” 

Switzerland - Male Muslim students at school will no longer have to shake hands with their female teachers.

Switzerland - Male Muslim students at school will no longer have to shake hands with their female teachers. (ET).

GENEVA: Male Muslim students at a school in northern Switzerland will no longer have to shake hands with their female teachers, following a ruling that was on Monday causing an uproar in the country.

A school in the northern municipality of Therwil, in the canton of Basel, reached the controversial decision after two male students, aged 14 and 15, complained that the Swiss custom of shaking hands with the teacher is counter to their religious beliefs if the teacher is a woman.

They argued that Islam does not permit physical contact with a person of the opposite sex, with the exception of certain immediate family members.

The local Therwil council did not support the school’s decision, “but will not intervene as (it) is the responsibility of the school to set the rules,” spokesperson Monika Wyss told AFP in a statement.

The decision triggered an outcry across Switzerland with Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga insisting on Swiss public television Monday that “shaking hands is part of our culture.”

Felix Mueri, who heads the parliamentary commission on science, education and culture, meanwhile described the custom to the 20Minuten news site as “a gesture of respect and good manners.”

Christoph Eymann, who heads the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education, agreed, insisting: “We cannot tolerate that women in the public service are treated differently from men.”

Basel-Country canton authorities, who have the power to overturn the Therwil decision, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But the canton’s education chief Monica Gschwind told media she viewed the school’s decision as “pragmatic” although “not a lasting solution”.


Muslim groups meanwhile decried the polemic around the issue.

“One would think that the continued existence of Switzerland’s core values was at stake, when this particular case in fact involves just two high school students who have said they wish to greet their teacher in a different way than with a handshake,” the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland said in a statement.

The group pointed out that “classical (Islamic) jurisprudence and the vast majority of contemporary legal scholars … assume a clear prohibition of this contact form (handshakes) between the sexes.”


The Federation of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland (FIOS) however maintained that handshakes between men and women were “theologically premissable” and were common in some Muslim countries, insisting the issue should not be problematic in Switzerland.

Pakistan Religious Body Denounces new law that criminalizes violence against women as un-Islamic.

Pakistan Religious Body Denounces new law that criminalizes violence against women as un-Islamic. (ET).

Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam on Thursday declared a new law that criminalises violence against women to be “un-Islamic.”

The Women’s Protection Act, passed in Punjab Assembly last week, gives unprecedented legal protection to women from domestic, psychological and sexual violence. It also calls for the creation of a toll-free abuse reporting hot line and the establishment of women’s shelters.

But since its passage in the assembly, many conservative clerics and religious leaders have denounced the new law as being in conflict with the Quran, as well as the constitution.

“The whole law is wrong,” Muhammad Khan Sherani, the head of CII said at a news conference, citing verses from the Quran to point out that the law was “un-Islamic.”

The 54-year-old council is known for its controversial decisions. In the past it has ruled that DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases, and it supported a law that requires women alleging rape to get four male witnesses to testify in court before a case is heard.

The council’s decision this January to block a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off girls as young as eight or nine has angered human rights activists.

The new law establishes district-level panels to investigate reports of abuse, and mandates the use of GPS bracelets to keep track of offenders.

It also sets punishments of up to a year in jail for violators of court orders related to domestic violence, with that period rising to two years for repeat offenders.

Fazlur Rehman, the chief of one of Pakistan’s largest religious parties, the Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam, said the law was in conflict with both Islam and the constitution of Pakistan.

“This law makes a man insecure,” he told journalists. “This law is an attempt to make Pakistan a Western colony again.” Hmmm.....Women human rights and Islam. Read the full story here.